China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

I went to Erlangen again to meet my physicist friend Martin. It was a nice day again so we went to a beer garden. He told me that the current rule that was set up by King Ludwig the 1st of Bavaria around 1800 states that an outdoor place selling beer need to allow people to bring their own “Brotzeit” (food) to be allowed to call themselves a beer garden. That means that nowadays many places that have a sign „Biergarten“ are not really beer gardens, because in most places it is forbidden to bring food or drinks, even for children.

Then I went to Gustl’s house to see some of the interesting bikes he has built in the last 50 years. I have known Gustl since 1989 and it was always fun to listen to his witty comments. He has been working with young athletes for over 42 years. One of the strange bikes he built is a unicycle with a tiny wheel and a huge gear ratio. This is like riding a tiny wheeled fixed gear bike in a wheely (on the back wheel only).

He has half a bike with 2 tiny front wheels that he had built about 30 years ago. It seems to be a unicycle with 2 support wheels  and therefore looks like it is easy to ride, but it actually is not! Gustl challenged me for a race on 2 of those bikes. With his 69 years he is still very agile and has great balance but he also had some issues getting started. It is so fun to ride.

His father used to have a bike shop and he learned as a car mechanic so he was always playing around making interesting kinds of bikes. He made a tall bike tandem, that he does not have anymore. He also made a bike for 2 people that only had 2 wheels, but 3 frames and the person on the left had to use his right hand to steer the left side of the handlebar and the person on the right had to use his left hand to steer the right side of the handlebar which made it really hard to ride. The parts of that bike are in this pile.

He also has some really old trick bikes like this almost complete original one, just the front wheel is missing.

It is too bad that he had thrown away so many of these valuable vintage bikes. He gave me wooden rims for my bamboo bike, some really old leather saddles and one of the medium old trick bikes so that I can start teaching some children in China the sport of artistic cycling.

Then I drove to meet my good friend Alex to go to a small little beer garden. I passed by the center of Nuernberg that looks really nice on such a beautiful day with the historic castle and medieval city wall and towers.