The long snake of the annual Berlin bike ride wound its way through the city streets today to celebrate world environment day.
The ride starts at advertised points around the city and over several hours different streams of riders converge to form one large river flowing towards the Branderburger Tor. Actually, the road was already flowing like a large river when I joined the ride near our house at midday. Frequent bursts of torrential rain, thunder and lighting kept many people at home (including one half of our household) and this meant only a fraction of the expected 250,000 riders turned out.
The police escort closed traffic on all roads, including two autobahns for the ride. However, I still experienced all the usual autobahn problems including: lengthy delays as traffic jammed around the entry ramps (top photo above), no speed limits are the exception rather than the rule (e.g. there was a 60 km/h limit in the tunnel, above photo), and irrational behaviour caused traffic jams (e.g. people stopping inside the tunnel exit as they didn’t want to go back out into the rain.)
I managed to dry out cycling through Charlottenburg (above photo) but copped a drenching in the final stretch past the Siegesaule to Brandenburger Tor.
Love from,
Brendan
