The “Phönix” is the Ottobrunn public indoor swimming pool where I go swimming during the eight long non-summer months of each year.
Once in a while, something that really moves me happens there. For example, a short time ago, I had to share the sink while shaving with another (even) older gentleman. He was rather nice. However, he never switched off the hot water during the entire time-consuming process of shaving.
Whenever I switched it off, he looked at me with mild reproach and switched it back on. Until I explained to him that one-lever mixing faucets were actually invented in order to make it easy to switch off the water which, incidentally, is a good thing for the environment. In the end, we went our separate ways as on friendly terms.
I also find it funny to watch as some people first take a look into the urinal, then flush water (the toilets in the lower part of the swimming pool can still be worked mechanically), then do their business and then flush again. However, I did not yet go so far as to tell anyone what a stupid waste of the resource water that is.
The emotions I felt last week (this was still during the Christmas vacation) when I saw a young father with the corresponding nice mother and two really sweet children were on a different level. Even from far away and “upwind”, you could see on his face that he did not wish to go to the public indoor swimming pool with his family at all. I would bet that, twenty years from now, he will nostalgically wish he could re-live the present.
But basically, I wanted to report on something totally different: being a biker, I feel more and more discriminated against. This is also true for the swimming pool!
Because in the Phönix, you will find small and big lockers. You can see the big ones on the picture. Of course, there are only a few big ones and many small ones. It goes without saying that the big ones are those everybody wants. At times when the pools are crowded, they are all occupied.
A biker on his way to work cannot leave his luggage on the bike (which, incidentally, is one of the few disadvantages of being a biker. Car drivers often have half their inventories on them). The small locker, however, is too small for my luggage (laptop bag with documents, rain coat,…) and suit. The (rare) big one is just barely big enough.
If you have a coin-regulated system like at the outdoor swimming pool at Haching (either a one-Euro coin or a two–Euro coin will do as a deposit), you can use two lockers, maybe even three if necessary. And since I only stay in the swimming pool for one short hour, you can rest assured that I will not be doing any harm to anybody.
Of course, at the Phönix everybody comes and takes the biggest available locker. If all the big ones are occupied, I – thanks to the great electronic coin system – have to stuff everything into a small locker. If you have a bike bag, suit, winter outer clothes and warm shoes, this is not always possible without doing some damage to the clothes. But, of course, I only have one coin. A second one would cost a second entry fee, which, even with the thrifty morning rates, is four Euros.
Basically, what bikers need is a place to store their luggage. But if I ask the nice lady at the cashier’s desk to have a watchful eye on my biker bag, she looks rather perplexed.
All public places have been converted to be “handicapped accessible” with an enormous effort. But why does nobody realize that there are not just handicapped and car-driving people, but also bikers in this world? Or are bikers not a section of the population that should be treated equally?
So far, I have always been rather in the minority as a biker who goes for a swim on his way to work, but why should there not be changes in the future? After all the “seriously handicapped ones” drive to the swimming pool with their Daimler and then return home or go mountaineering … (see my article).
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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