It’s been one week since I got my new walking pad, a King Smith WalkingPad Z1. I bought it refurbished on eBay with a couple of coupons, which brought the cost down to about 194 €, saving me about 100 € from the new price. In just the first week, I’ve already averaged more than 10,000 steps a day, all without even going for a walk outside. I think that’s pretty great.

In the mornings, I walk for an hour while I work, and then again for another hour in the early afternoon. Sometimes I wear shoes, sometimes I’m barefoot. By the end of the day, I can really feel it with a little muscle soreness.

While a walking pad won’t replace a real workout, I recently realized I wasn’t moving enough. I have a standing desk, but neither sitting nor standing all day is good. But moving is. So far, I feel like I have a bit more energy and can focus better.

I also bought two new small upgrades for my bike. I got a new bell because my old one was pretty quiet and people often didn’t hear me, which wasn’t very safe. I also replaced my grips with Ergon GP3-L Evo BioKork ones. The grips are more ergonomic, and the bar ends give me an alternative hand position on longer rides.

Yesterday, while my fiancée was attending a work event, I decided to explore a cycling route around Braunschweig. It was approximately 53 km through relatively quiet areas, including many forests and fields. The paths were often bumpy and not suitable for high speeds, but I prefer enjoying nature anyway.

The bike handled the task well. No squeaking, no other problems. However, I apparently didn’t drink enough or eat anything during the ride, so I was really exhausted afterwards. Unfortunately, I sometimes make this mistake, but hopefully I’ve learned my lesson this time.

The navigation wasn’t ideal this time either. Because the route was based on a published route on Komoot, I made my adjustments on Komoot, downloaded the GPX file, and imported it into Osmand. However, something messed up the directions. Osmand kept telling me to turn left when I should have turned right. This caused a lot of confusion and a few wrong turns.

Nevertheless, it was a nice ride and I enjoyed doing some exercise outdoors again!

It was the first birthday of my favorite bike, my Cube Hyde Race! So, I used this Saturday, home alone, to do another long bike ride – 58 km this time. I took the Weser-Harz-Heide-Radweg (I’ve written about other parts of it before) towards the Harz low mountain range and the city of Goslar. The sun was shining, and it got up to 32°C, but I managed to finish without problems. For the way back, I took the train, which I just managed to catch in time.

I really love this bike! It’s not one I can casually ride at 30 km/h, but I can easily use it on paths with a bit more gravel, which is great. And it also works great for riding through the city! I’m really happy I decided on this bike instead of a racing bike. I don’t like riding next to roads (unless there’s a bike path in excellent condition), but I love exploring nature.

P.S.: It was also a good decision to choose a bike with a belt drive. There have been no issues so far. 👌 And in case there should be any issues, I have an insurance with a service, where they will come and fix my bike or pick me up and bring me home.

Today, I did my longest bike tour this year so far. I went north to a lake in a neighboring district, mostly following the Weser-Harz-Heide route, which I already partly followed on my journey from Kassel to Braunschweig last year. There I sat down on a bench for half an hour and then returned. I had plenty of headwinds on the way there and a bit of tailwind on the way back, although the wind was mostly from the side. This time, I luckily did not mess up the OsmAnd tracking. Despite the wind, it was a lot of fun!

Yesterday, I watched some cycling videos and that somehow gave me some motivation to do at least one more short bike tour this year. Today, I did a short round around the city and saw some new places. With 5° Celsius and some sun, the temperature wasn’t the best, but at least it didn’t rain. To keep the motivation high, I listened to some music with my new headphones.

Just in time before it gets cold and rainy again next week, I took advantage of today to go for a short bike ride. Upstream along the Fulda, over to the Eder and then to where the Eder flows into the Fulda. This was the short (49 km) of the two versions I had planned for this. The longer version is almost 90 kilometers long. Let’s see if I can still do it this year…

This time, I just took my “Komoot phone” (the Galaxy XCover7) with me, and that worked fine. I don’t always need to have two phones on my tours! 😅