Sorry folks, even though you showed up plenty on Wednesday, but how can this be
the real Joyriders' ride, when the Queen has been riding elsewhere???
And even Thursday must be changed accordingly, because the same ride covered
both days ... we will come to that later.

So when her Majesty arrived in Mainz, the capitol of Rheinland-Pfalz
(Rhineland-Palatinate), a state of Germany, we first were celebrating our shared
memory of good old times a couple of years ago, when Sengkang Joe-rg ... that's
myself ... was still leading the attendance list ... brag brag brag ...

The next morning though, even with the worst weather forecast since weeks, we
jumped on our horses ... her Majesty on a mixed breed of a mountain and a market
bike, myself on my reliable commuter, a real mutt.

Our destination was dialed in as Heidelberg, the romantic city on the Neckar
river with one of the best universities. (Her Majesty waited until arrival to
reveal, that she already has been there many years ago). So we started to follow
part of my daily trail through the vineyards, which was steep enough to make her
hang on to the horse for her dear life. I usually ride the opposite direction,
which is less dangerous, but rather tiring. But we managed to get into the river
valley safely and soon crossed over on a little ferry boat. Just as we arrived,
we saw the first of many downpours and decided to have a little break at a
bikers' hangout with hot drinks and strawberry cake.

This did not save us from having to use our rain coats about every hour and then
sticking them back into the backpack as wet and dirty as they were.

Being in adventurous mode, I did not even check about the real distance on the
trails, so we ended up arriving full 9 hrs after our departure. (100 km
estimated at 25 kmh would be 4 hrs, but the real 124 km at 20 kmh plus stops
...).
We developed some good excuses for the slow speed: stopping for putting on rain
coats, circling around the puddles on the wet trails, riding on gravel and even
her Majesty's favorite cobble stones, stopping for food and drinks, reading the
signs and still losing the trail ...

Overall it seemed, that our Queen was quite tired out with this different riding
style, but noticed, it was a very good muscle workout without having to breathe
too strongly. Another finding was, that if you are totally cooled out by being
wet, it is not such a good idea to eat ice cream, even if it is the best Italian
one. The cold beers do the same trick.
After a little stop in Heidelberg with not so good "original" German food in the
tourist quarter, we went to the train station in anticipation of being home by
11 p.m., a little over 12 hrs after departing.
Wrong! ... A derailed train on the way made us late by another 2 hrs, so we got
home right after the 5 a.m. Thursday ride in Singapore was over. Just to wake us
back up, we had to climb a nice hill from the train station home. But a sudden
"faster ... faster" clearly showed (1) her Majesty was awake again, (2) the
incline was over ...
What a day ... and half the night!!!

You will find some pics in my usual
http://picasaweb.google.com/sengkangjoe

Today, we took it easy and just did the tourist walk through town, had some more
ice cream and cold drinks without the shivers and enjoyed the sunshine ...
finally!

Hard to believe, that I left Singapore almost exactly 2 years ago ... July 16
...

Missing you all!! My sincerest regards,
Sengkang Joe-rg