The Pirate Bike Crew returned and everything was like it always has been?? ……… no - because after our last visit and the renovations of our accommodations that commenced after it, the eyes nearly fell out of the old Pirates head,…………
team quarters al la carte!!!

After a primary briefing our quarters made up and the bikes were assembled under the rays of the sun.

Stedebecker and Mallorca Paule took care of the necessary shopping at the pharmacy, in order to ensure our primary health care.

Everyone apent the first day getting acclimated, doing medical performance tests and playing volleyball (VO Karsten: "monkey tennis"). Here, a closer look at the professional positioning of Captain Ron during the serve is offered to the inclined reader.
Ron declared that he played in the Premier Volleyball Division Hamburg for the VSV Klatsche Barmbek from 1969 to 1989. as a block consultant.

Wednesday morning our bohemian lifestyle came to an end and the first miles of training were completed in the north of Fuerteventura.After "Supercat" Frank took the first ground samples, Karsten explained to him that the scrapes came from the igneous rock and that the imprint on his calf was from the "Undertaker" Stedebecker, who really wanted to test what the braking distance for his tires would be at medium level braking, if he rides up on the immobile obstacle.

Somehow it seemed like Frank had was addicted to falling for the rest of the week, anyway, he seemed to take advantage of every possible situation to fall in places where others would stay up and ride on if they were drunkenly riding freehanded with a nosewheely and a wheat beer.But respect, he fought his way through.
Some areas were trekked across on foot while bellowing well-known folksongs from the Sauerland.

Karsten had put together some tours that made demands on man and material.
The boys went into regions of Fuerte that no human being had seen before and that probably no human wanted to see………. - except for the Pirates, who battled every volcano that stood in the way of the beach bodega in Cotillo and them.

On the long downhills from the volcanoes "Cat" Frank banged his shoes against the handball sized rocks so hard that his clip on cleats are now a thing of the past.
If you break you lose, or at least you lose your cleats,………………… so they say and so it is written in the 4th book of Stedebeker, kitchen catalog 0815!

In the middle of the week Ron and Karsten decided to do a little time trial without telling the rest of the gang. The motto was, let's see who makes it through 11m/18km at a 23mph/37km/h average on a mountain bike in the morning after a long night in the Rock Café. At the end of this "warm up" only Captain Aalbörner, Captain Ron and our Pirate intern Carsten stood erect and grinning for the picture at the intersection by the Parque Hollandaise.

The rest of the group was defibrillated, reanimated and delivered to Mallorca Paule in the Catholic Mission of the Last Virgin of Olivia, where he didn't get asylum for long.

Then Ron and Karsten remembered the old tandem that was welded together some time in the last century by the legendary Sunride Bike Station under Hawaii-Frank "Conti tires fit on an earth pipe too". There had to be something we could do with it.
Short and sweet, the thing was reactivated and we had a tandem race with a slalom section in the club compound.

Stedebecker fully concentrated with pace setter "The Beastmaster Ron".

For the finally, the special discipline, tandem with three per team! Mallorca Paule secretly snuck the private part-time interpreter out of Carsten and Ingo's room, dressed her (yup, he can do that too!) and tied her to his back with an extra hose. To the horror of the present team of animators, the race now went into its most crucial phase.

After two hours of signing autographs for the Spanish seniors' club, the time had come for Mallorca Paule to bring a little calm to the afternoon.

The animator team did not take their defeat lightly and challenged the Pirates through obvious gestures and a threat of a Dutch animator to talk about soccer, to a fight …………….. umm, to an animator keelhaul.
The following scenes of the hunt on the club compound were a different kind of attraction for the all inclusive tourists.
The first victim, and here a 9.9 for the mark for entering into the spread step a la "Anne from the Erz Mountains", was the water aerobics lady, that was subjected to her own element by Ingo, by way of an awesome Plettenberg-Tomahawk-Toss.

The boss animator somehow didn't have a chance either, He threw a few futile hooks from between the bushes and then everything went black for our buddy.
Ron and Karsten came from the left and the right like a football defensive team in a v formation in dike reeve Joost's way and a massive impact followed. Stedebeker took care of the rest, who decimated the budding hope of the two with a frontal attack.

The rest of the flying Dutchman landed in the pool and Stedebeker made a blazing speech to the guests that were present in the compound, to the battle and the effectiveness of wheat beer under the Spanish sun.

There's still much to tell from on the slopes, next to the slopes and under the slopes…………………..
but those who want to experience it, hasd to have been there or should be there in 2007.

At this point, let us not forget the phrases of the week:
"Money isn't important, a budget is what you need."
"I may not be the fastest, but I have the most stamina."
"I'm not the best biker, but I'm the last one at the bar."
"The pixels aren't important, it's the resolution that counts."
"If she keeps lookin' at me like that, she's going to end up on her back tonight."
"no, no, not Diesel.....Super-Ingo"
"Thanks a lot, I could lick you across the face for that."
e.t.c.

And here is Mallorca Paule's gel combination creation that he designed due to the negative effect the distance of the rides had on his lungs, named after him, the "Marlboro-Gel".

After its application!!

Lastly, the most important: ………..
the island still exists, but only for one reason, because we're coming back with the crew in 2007. The Fuerte Bike Marathon 2007 is definitely planned with the cooperation of the Atlantis Hotel in Corralejo, TUI Germany and everything with the Pirate event week.
And so the organizer won't reschedule the marathon at short notice again, just because his back's appendage froze up and he was scared for his trophies.

Chain to the right,

Käpt`n Aalbörner