MEET CHRIS
This is who I am

I grew up in Waldhilsbach near Neckargemünd (which in turn is just a few miles up the Neckar river from Heidelberg). I attended the Gymnasium in Neckargemünd, but I spent two years of my youth in Texas: In 1988/89, I was a YFU-exchange student in Kingwood (near Houston) and graduated from High School there. In the fall of 1990 I spent another month in Bedzin and Sosnowiec, Poland, as part of a group trying to establish contacts for Youth for Understanding to start a long-term exchange program between Poland and Germany. Another six years later, I was able to attend the University of Texas at Austin (probably the only liveable city in Texas) through a university exchange program. I still believe that the year abroad was one of the best things that could have happened to me, and I try to see my host family whenever posible. The two children in the pictures are my oldest host brother's son and daughter.

I studied Political Science, Math and English. I now live and work in Freiburg in the south-west of Germany. I am currently a teacher-in-training (Studienreferendar) at a private High School (Gymnasium), the Montessori-Zentrum Angell. From 1999 until 2002, I taught at the Political Science department of the "Albert-Ludwigs-Universität" in Freiburg.

Freiburg is beautiful and the cycling is wonderful (there's got to be a reason why pros like Jan Ullrich or Mike Kluge moved here a few years ago). You've got the Rhine valley for flat rides, the Black Forest for climbing, and the Vosges Mountains across the Rhine in France for epic rides with tons of climbing. And if I want to impress American visitors I can even include Switzerland to take them on a three-country tour...

I am always looking for tandem partners or willing to take tandem teams from abroad on a tour of the area. Email me if you plan to ride through South-Western Germany on your tandem.