Achilles Rupture Recovery

Just over 18 months ago, my employer, threw a ‘Sommerfest‘ (German for ‘summer party’). A local bike company had a few e-bikes on display, was advertising for a german state-sponsored drive to promote bikes for employees. I had a look (I was cycling approx. 25km each way to work and back and was therefore interested in this ‘new-fangled’ idea “e-bikes”) but was not really taken due to the 25km/h limit; a short while later, however, I tried an e-bike of a friend, ‘adapted’ to ‘avoid’ the 25km/h limit… within about 90 seconds, I thought, holy shit, gotta have one!

It turned out my route to work literally took me past the front door of M1 Sporttechnik, a manufacturer of top-class e-bikes, it was just hard to recognise them, being attached to a very large glass fibre manufacturer factory, Fritzmeier.

Now, these bikes are not cheap, let’s get that clear straight off. However, I was, after all, looking for a bike (to replace a company car) which would let me ride about 50 km per day, at least 4 days a week, for the next 5 years (i.e. 30-45k km)… and not just on tarmac roads, but over fields, through forests, and, if possible, up and down mountains too (freetime, not commute!) – I was not looking to have 5 bikes in my cellar, one for each kind of ride… just one bike… for everything!

So I went to M1 and tried all their bikes. Starting with the cheapest… and even the ‘cheapest’ was great, but I fell in love with the M1 Spitzing Plus inside the first few hundred metres. I booked a proper ‘test drive’ to see what I could get out of one battery charge, ‘cos at the end of the day, it wouldn’t really matter how great the bike was: if I couldn’t get back from work with plenty to spare (to allow for battery degradation with the years, depending on the route, between 20 to 25km, 200m ascent, mostly with a headwind), it would be no use to me.

Result: on one charge, I cycled from home to work and back again, which was more than good enough – I could charge both at work and home (with 2 chargers to avoid carrying in my already-heavy rucksack). So, at the end of February 2019, after some negotiations with both management (I was the first to go for a ‘company bike’ as an alternative to a company car, so it took a few conversations to convince everyone it was a win-win idea) and a top local distributor of M1 (super-ebike), I took delivery of the best e-bike I could imagine.

As I have never been a ‘nice weather’ cyclist, one of the next things I did was to get myself some really decent clothing – properly waterproof at 45km/h cycling speed with 60-90km/h headwinds turns out to be not that easy; add to that a good helmet, plenty of lights (people at work sometimes call me a ‘mobile xmas tree’ :)!), a great rucksack and various other ‘accessories’, and cycling at any time of day, during pretty much any weather, becomes no problem… and the mileage starts mounting up pretty fast!

BTW, ‘techie’ note: the term ‘e-bike’ is not correct in Germany; it’s actually an ‘S-Pedelec’ (sport e-bike), i.e. the motor doesn’t cut out at 25 km/h, but powers on up to 45 km/h. For that, you need a license plate, mirror, a bike helmet (I was NOT used to this!), and insurance. In the meantime, I say, no big deal, it’s all absolutely justified, especially the helmet: despite a whole bunch of lights on me and the bike, I am consistently mis-judged by car drivers (and truck drivers too!).

At any rate, commuting to work is a part of the day I generally look forward to; when it rains or snows (as was the case in the first few months of 2019 in Bavaria), it is not such a ‘walk in the park’, so occasionally, I still travel by train (like if there’s a storm), but those days are the exception… plus there is the ‘added bonus’ of the freetime ‘stuff’:

On the more practical side of things, bikes need maintenance: every 2.000km it has a service; with M1, the manufacturer, being so close to hand, it makes sense to get the bike serviced by the guys ‘n’ gals who have the most experience with it – they’re a great team, always friendly, professional and very helpful.

Since the first chain was changed at 2.000km and the ‘missing link’ joint literally fell apart as it was opened, I’ve gotten into a rhythmn of changing the chain and the 11-tooth cog every 1.000km at home (do NOT fancy the idea of a chain breaking under load just for the sake of trying to coax every last km out of a 27€ component!); the rest, more or less, I leave to the experts (ok, I’ve changed a broken mirror – crash damage – and a few other things, but really, nothing worth mentioning).

Obviously not a built-for-speed road bike, on a steep stretch, I hit 81.8km/h (51mph) without any instability/wobble. I reckon 90+km/h is attainable… but, the stretch I was on ends with a field and barbed wire, so max speed testing waits for a safer test run :)!

In any case, it’s not all about getting from A to B as fast as possible, even when I’m on the daily run… like on this great sunny spring day, I practised a little Coronavirus ‘social distancing’ of my own:

A few days later, as I cycled to see my son Ben, the impact the Coronavirus is/was having on our society is brutally evident, with the A8 (Munich-Salzburg) so empty I could, theoretically, have walked from one side to the other blindfolded without any worries.

The other way of looking at things: the best time to do a land-speed record in Germany on the A8 :)!