Day 4: Rain, flat tyres, but still reaching the destination

The day began with us quickly packing our things and loading everything onto the bicycles. That went well – only one bicycle was missing. Mr Bock's bicycle was already in the workshop, and his luggage was taken by the car group.

We set off at 10 a.m. and tried to ride through the city in a convoy. This worked surprisingly well – we only had to put up with one or two annoyed taxi drivers. Heavy showers kept passing over us, so we were almost soaked when we arrived at our first drink and snack break. We had covered nine kilometres by then, even though it felt more like three. As we continued, we noticed that some of us had small punctures or a figure eight in our tyres. But first, we had to keep going.

At 12:15 pm, Mr Bock finally caught up with us. Our first destination: a DIY store – and urgently a toilet. We found both there, including some welcome warmth. However, we did not find any spare parts for the bikes. It turned out that the tyre on Tom Yo's bike was broken and the inner tube was already bulging through the holes. So we set off in search of a bicycle shop. On the short way there, Tom Yo's bike went bang – the tyre was finally flat.

So we spent an hour and a half break in the Lidl car park: repairing, eating, pumping up tyres. After that, we wanted to cover the last 33 kilometres in one go.

But after a short time, Cedrik's spokes had to be tightened – so another long break. At one point, there was even talk of some of us continuing by train. In the end, however, everyone made it to the hostel. The flat tyres would be a problem for the next day.

Everyone was longing for a shower and fresh clothes. Once we had recovered, we split into groups: some went to the art class, others did laundry, and others went out to eat or to a bar.

A group of eight (Trixie, Theresa, Finn, Tom Yo, Saliha, Jonas, Liam and Johanna) couldn't muster the energy for a long walk to a restaurant that was still open late enough. So we ordered pasta and ate it in our room. Three portions were much spicier than we expected – resulting in burning mouths. Nevertheless, it was a cosy and enjoyable dinner.

Some went to bed early, while others took a walk through the city. And so the day ended – with everyone trying to recharge their batteries for the upcoming city tour in Amsterdam.