Day 2: Off We Ride to the Hugo Junkers Technikmuseum and the Bauhaus School 

(But Not Before Learning the All-Important Rules of the Road)  

Day 2, the Countryside Outside of Dessau, Germany ... and Then Into Dessau

Pals Leah Hayes (back) and Sylvia Mabe.

  A critical part of a group bicycle ride is fitting in; not so much off the bikes as on. That's why Group Leader Dirk Broeren spent nearly two hours diagramming our group riding pattern: single file, with one rider stopping at each corner to see others didn't miss it, spaced 30 feet apart on roads (less on bike paths) and with one rider designated as the day's sweep (riding at the end of the group all day long to ensure nobody got left behind). In Germany, and throughout much of Europe, bicycle riders are treated like automobiles and must follow the same rules as autos. It is 180 degrees the opposite of the way bicycle messengers might ride in, say, New York City; which is to say at a breakneck speed, making up the rules as they go.

   After Dirk's lesson plan on safety, he fitted us to our seven-speed "cruising" bikes and sent us off on a test loop in the parking lot of our hotel. Suffice to say, not a single one of us fell off and flunked. And so we were off ...


Group Leader Dirk Broeren is all business as he prepares 18 Road Scholar adventurers for a safety check.

Dirk Broeren has an open-door policy at the renowned Bauhaus School.

  We rode about six miles into city traffic in Dessau, stopping first at the Bauhaus Foundation to explore a German  art school that combined crafts and the fine arts. The German term "Bauhaus" meant "house of construction" and was famous for its influence on Modernist art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography. Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, its director was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930-33, when it was closed by the Nazis, who claimed it was a center of communist intellectualism. It was reopened in 1986.
   If you ask several of the cyclists, the lunch at the Bauhaus school that followed the exploration was appetitlich (delicious). Several of them chose the potato-and-sausage soup.



Elliot Kaufman is a lean machine in the Bauhaus theater. 



A look at the Bauhaus Masters Houses.



Dick Morasch (left) has a keen interest in a Junkers airplane.

  After lunch, we were off to the Hugo Junkers Technikmuseum to learn about this pioneering German engineer and aircraft designer who built everything from hot water systems to washing machines, a metal fabricated house and a variety of aeroplanes. Hugo Junkers is credited with pioneering the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. A mainstay of the German aircraft industry between WWI and WW2, he was forced out of his own company by the Nazi government in 1934 and died in 1935.

Nancy Embree explores the interior of an all-metal airplane designed by aviation pioneer Hugo Junkers.

  
  A ride to Dessau's Market Square and its lovely fountain capped our first day on the bikes. Before

Carl's van (see orange stripe) parked in Dessau's Market square.

riding six miles back to our hotel, we had an hour to walk the streets of this city that was almost completely destroyed by Allied air raids in WWII on March 7, 1945, six weeks before American troops occupied the town. Afterward it was rebuilt with typical GDR concrete slab architecture and became a major industrial center of East Germany. Since German reunification in 1990, many historic buildings have been restored.



Day's Biking Total (as measured by Elliot Kaufman): 12 miles.