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Ore Mountain Explorations

328 kilometers | 5 days

Getting ready for a marathon race

Settling down in Chemnitz for a couple of days was a welcome break to four long days on our bikes. I grew up in this mid-sized town in Saxony and had a lot to show to Tara (who never visited Germany, or Europe, before!). The apartment we booked was on the same road on which I spent most of my childhood and teenage years. We spent a lot of time visiting family, strolling around the neighborhoods, and exploring all the bakeries and local grocery stores.

The first two days we mainly let our days recover for them to be at least somewhat ready for the marathon running race on Sunday.  That event was the actual trigger for this trip in the first place – when I learned a year ago that Chemnitz would host its first marathon in many years, I just had to register; over the following months we developed our plan of integrating the running race into our bike packing journey, and here we were. Now all we had to do was a bit of a shake-out run, visiting the marathon expo and picking up our race bib, as well as exercising some carbo-loading. The race went surprisingly well for the both of us, given that we hadn’t specifically trained running that much. You’ll find a full race report here.

Exploring the area by bike

After the marathon we stayed a couple more days in Chemnitz and enjoyed being able to bike around without any luggage. We visited my dad’s place in Lichtenwalde, spent a day on the bikes with my brother, who guided us 80km around town from one castle to another. I also got the chance to attend a high school reunion and see old friends for the first time in many years; and of course, also took my bike to get there.

When I lived in Chemnitz, I never really appreciated the town itself too much; it got destroyed during WWII quite a bit, and the post-war East-European architecture never appealed to me. The beautifully restored parts of town I never noticed to much, and the city’s surrounding area with all its hills, rivers, forests, fields, and countless castles I just took for granted. Now that I visited after quite a while being away, with my North-American perspective, Chemnitz suddenly looked so much more attractive: such a walkable town with a great public transit network; a lot of green, parks, places to chill and relax. Bakeries on every corner, and grocery stores wherever you go. It is very affordable to live here, and very easy to get around. Cycling in the Ore Mountains can be a lot of fun, too.

Tara and I got very comfortable spending a week in our temporary apartment. Getting back onto the road wasn’t too easy; especially not given the rainy weather on the day we were set to leave. Fortunately, we only had a 70km ride ahead of us: from Chemnitz to Zwickau, where we were to visit my mom for another two days.

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