Manuel von Stuckrad

Basement - Wired

2026-05-04T00:00:00Z

Just pre-ordered "Wired" by Basement. I really like all the singles they've released so far, and I'm looking forward to hearing the full album in a few days.

The Saddest Landscape - Alone With Heaven

2026-04-27T00:00:00Z

Love the latest The Saddest Landscape release Alone With Heaven. So many great memories of their old releases and listening to them. And now, in addition to a feature with Julien Baker, there’s one with Jeremy Bolm too. A must-listen for all screamo fans.

Postpartum period

2026-02-11T00:00:00Z

What a crazy time this postpartum period is. Our midwife shared a wonderful short film with us. The film shows very well the highs and lows that new parents go through. The ones we are going through right now. Great.

2025 Year in review

2025-12-31T00:00:00Z

Recap: A lot has happened this year.

Arriving in Berlin, kinda.

We regularly spent time with my family in Upper Franconia.
We visited Hamburg regularly.
Had a wonderful time in Berlin (with old and new friends).

Speaking of friends: Tobi and I visited Philipp in Mannheim.
We listened to Soap & Skin at Volksbühne.
Preparing for my first ultracycling event.

We were on holiday in Berlin. Enjoyed an evening at FREA (unfortunately permanently closed now) and visited Bad Saarow Therme.

Enjoyed a PUP concert at Hole44.
We spent time on Borkum with Linnea's family, and on the way to the island we enjoyed two days in Groningen (what a beautiful and livable city!).

We missed Hamburg too much and decided to say goodbye to Berlin again.
A trip to Paris happened, including watching the Tour de France finale. 💛
Linnea and I got married on a whim. 💕

I rode my first ultracycling event in September: Sneak Peaks.

Picture from Saskia Martin

Two fantastic weeks of doing nothing in Portugal.
The search for an apartment in Hamburg was successful.
The last quarter consisted mainly of preparations for the move, moving back to Hamburg, and settling into the new apartment.

It was a really good year. Deliberately exhausting, especially due to another move back to Hamburg. But also wonderful, as Linnea and I are returning as a married couple. Neither of us could have imagined that two or three years ago. We are currently preparing for our next adventure, as we are expecting a baby soon. It couldn't be better. I'm looking forward to the new year.

Top 3 albums

Turnstile - Never enough
Deftones - Private music
Wet Leg - Moisturizr
~~Baxter Dury - Allbarone~~

And, as always, we listened a lot to Mac DeMarco. Also, I enjoyed the new Kraftklub album. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Time on the bike

119 rides
238 hours (~ 10 days)
4.838 km (total distance)
39.244 moe (meters of climbing)

Sneak Peaks

2025-12-30T00:00:00Z

At the beginning of September, I took part in my first ultracycling adventure. I had registered for the entry-level (Entree) version of Sneak Peaks. 500 km through the Dolomites and around 15.000 moe (meters of elevation).

Matze came along too. Looking forward to another adventure with you!

It was extremely exhausting and challenging, but at the same time I had the most wonderful moments on my bike during that event. And I met some great new people. Can't and won't say much more about it. It was epic. Thanks for organizing, Rapha.

I probably won't be able to take part again next year, as I already have another adventure lined up. But I'm already looking forward to the next ultra event.

Here are some not-so-difficult moments that I filmed with my iPhone during the event:

Event coverage at DotWatcher.

All my routes on Komoot:

Berlin

2025-12-28T00:00:00Z

TLDR: I want to read about Berlin.

I can't remember exactly, but it must have been just before I turned 30. So sometime around the end of 2015, beginning of 2016. I needed a change. Hamburg had become boring, hadn't it? Not exciting enough anymore. I also didn't feel comfortable in the neighborhood where I had been living. At the time, I was living in my first apartment in Eimsbüttel, Lutterothstraße. I had left my shared apartment life behind and was enjoying living alone. But that also left me with more space to worry about everything. All the young and presumably happy families with their strollers, whom I had to pass on my way to work or to visit my friends, reminded me too much of a traditional life. Which felt far too conservative to me. After all, I was at a completely different point in my life. And that was fine. I had wonderful friends. I enjoyed being out and about, going to as many concerts as possible, and living in the here and now when I wasn't busy with work.

Every now and then, I also thought about just dropping everything and moving to Berlin.

So I looked for a more suitable environment in Hamburg. After a short time, I got lucky and found a new apartment in Altona-Altstadt. Near the Holstenstraße S-Bahn station. The apartment was more affordable than the previous one, and my best friends were close by again. Perfect!

Fast forward to 2019

Life has changed completely.

I discovered cycling for myself in 2019. Gradually, I swapped long nights in bars for going to bed as early as possible so that I could spend as much time as possible on my bike at the weekends. I got to know Hamburg and the surrounding area in a completely different way.

Then everything changed again with COVID-19. For many, this was a negative change, especially in terms of health. I was lucky to be able to work from home a lot. At that time, I noticed more and more often that the unfairness of life in our capitalist system was weighing heavily on me. As a result, I spent even more time on my bike to distract myself from all the negative developments in our society.

The biggest highlight of 2020: at the last concert before the coronavirus lockdowns, I met up again with Linnea, a friend who is now my better half. 💕 And a special thanks to Kathi for the guest list back then.

My job at a so-called green FinTech company felt pretty good at first. But at some point, I realized that green capitalism won't save us. And that the climate crisis won't be solved by individual sacrifice. A system change is needed. But who cares about climate change these days, right? I'm digressing too much.

After a brief trip to Hamm in eastern Hamburg, Linnea and I moved back to Altona into a larger apartment. It was less than five minutes from Altona train station. It was beautiful. We had some wonderful moments in the area. We had many friends around us. And we went on some great trips. I am very grateful for that.

What's next?

As wonderful as life in Hamburg and everything else was, familiar thoughts began to surface again: Was that it? Why are we still living in the city? Would I prefer to live in the countryside? Would I prefer to live in a larger city? Would I prefer to live abroad? In the mountains? Back in Franconia (Oberfranken maybe)?

Professionally, I hadn't been able to find a job that really suited me after my time at Tomorrow. It didn't feel right and seemed more like a big step backwards. So, after two short stints at larger companies, I finally found something exciting again: working on user-centered digitization projects in Germany. When I started at DigitalService, the possibility of a change in our lives was no longer far off. I had been thinking about moving to Berlin for quite some time. The first time was shortly before I turned 30, as I mentioned at the beginning. Linnea felt the same way. So we took my job change to Berlin as an opportunity to cross Berlin off our list of things we would like to do in our lives.

Living in Berlin

The start in Berlin was difficult. The apartment search was a disaster and, after several failed attempts, we decided to give up and move into the next available expensive new apartment in Europacity. The main thing was to stop looking for an apartment in Berlin for the time being. If we like it, we'll look for something else suitable later in the year.

Berlin was really beautiful. Meeting old friends again. Making new friends. Developing new routines. Getting to know the city from a whole new perspective. Constantly thinking: How big is this city? I had totally underestimated it. Exploring the area by bike. For example, on my longest day trip from Rostock to Berlin (Komoot / Strava). The job was fun, challenged me in new ways, and allowed me to soak up lots of new perspectives. We ate out a lot. Incredibly good food. Favorite spots:

Jones ice cream (Sicilian Pistachio)
19grams (Basque Cheesecake)
Magic John’s Pizza (Spicy Vodka)
Standard Serious Pizza (Vegetarian Calzone)
Maroush (Makali Sandwich)
DASHI (Szechuan Fries)
Saveur de Bánh Mì (vegan Bánh Mì)
Cô Chu (Red Curry with Tofu)
Bonvivant (Brunch)
Cookies Cream (Our all-time favorite for special vegetarian or vegan food)

However, Berlin became quite exhausting. Too many aggressive people. On foot and especially in cars. Another level of exhausting. A completely broken housing market. No good cycling infrastructure. Many good infrastructure things are being dismantled to make more room for cars again. Thank you, CDU. 🤦 Overcrowded and constantly delayed public transport. In my opinion, everything that is necessary for a pleasant city life for everyone simply did not work well. The closer the first year in Berlin came, the more we missed our familiar surroundings in Hamburg. I found myself wondering more and more how I could have come up with the idea of trading the relaxed and far better functioning cycling and public transport infrastructure in Hamburg for Berlin.

I realized: I couldn't eat enough delicious slices of deep dish pizza to make Berlin bearable for me in the long run.

After six months in Berlin, Linnea and I began searching again for an affordable apartment in Berlin and Hamburg. A few weeks later, we gave up looking for a new place in Berlin. Our longing for our old home in Hamburg became too strong. In addition, our great network of friends in Hamburg kept sending us good apartment offers. It still seems absolutely absurd to me how it is possible to destroy the Berlin apartment market in such a short time. During our apartment search in Berlin, we couldn't find a 3-room apartment for less than 2000 euros (cold) that we could seriously consider moving into. Every now and then there were offers around 1600 euros from a Genossenschaft. Crazy.

Back to Hamburg

Ten weeks ago, in mid-October, we signed the lease for an apartment in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. It was anything but easy, but it worked out. Thanks a lot to all our friends and family that supported us. And a special thank you to Ben, you know why. ❤️ We have been living in Hamburg again for six weeks now. It feels very good.

Change takes a lot of courage and strength. Our time in Berlin was wonderful, but also exhausting. I am glad that I (we) gave Berlin a chance. And I am even happier that I can now enjoy Hamburg to the fullest again.

What will it look like in 10 years? I'm excited to find out.

Learned lessons for life:

Never terminate the current lease agreement before a new lease agreement has been signed by all parties.
Be sure to try new things if your current life doesn't feel right.
Good friendships can last even over long distances if both parties take the time now and then to keep each other up to date.
Many things in life are much easier when you have someone by your side.
If you can afford it right now: go to that new fancy restaurant, take a trip to the sun or the mountains for as long as you can.
Cycling not only keeps you fit, it also slows you down and gives you great new perspectives.

Babymoon in Portugal

2025-11-01T00:00:00Z

The last vacation together as a couple. Crazy! The first time we were in Portugal together. We had a great time in Porto. Many thanks to all our dear friends who shared their favorite places with us. 🍨 🍕

After a few days in Porto, we drove on to the Algarve. We stopped off in Nazaré, but unfortunately it was very cloudy that day and there wasn't much swell for big waves, still impressive. And it was crazy how many people this place attracts. Then we spent a night in Porto Covo, which is also a nice place for a stopover. The rest of our time we enjoyed in Budens and the surrounding area. Was so good to be back in this region and to share places we enjoyed earlier in our lives. If you're ever in the area, be sure to try a scoop of gelato at Corso in Burgau.

A long weekend in paris

2025-10-31T00:00:00Z

Paris had been on our list of places we wanted to visit for far too long. The excitement surrounding the Tour de France prompted us to take a spontaneous long weekend in Paris.

This city is beautiful. We quickly fell in love with it. We particularly enjoyed the easy-to-use public transport system, the wide selection of vegan and vegetarian food hot spots, and seeing Pogi live for the first time.

Germany slips back into fascism

2025-10-21T00:00:00Z

It's almost unbearable.

Last week, Friedrich Merz did it again. In a press conference^[1] he said loosely translated “but of course we still have this problem in the cityscape” when talking about asylum seekers. Another deliberate racist remark.

How can a German Chancellor in 2025 speak and act like this? Even the AfD doesn’t say such things this openly when talking with the press. Since the collapse of the “Ampel” (traffic light) coalition, Merz and his colleagues have been increasingly resorting to the rhetoric of the extreme right, regardless of the consequences.

In my opinion, our current government has no interest in real change because the system works for them and their supporters. Strategically, everything that is happening is already preparing for the next federal election and possible cooperation with the increasingly powerful AfD.

Every public statement, every change in the law, every decision, the steady increase in police violence and racist border controls: everything is deliberately intended.

Our government is failing.

CDU/CSU and SPD are neglecting their duties and harming our democracy. Instead of solving real issues like the housing crisis or social inequality, they fuel resentment against vulnerable people. Climate change has vanished from the agenda. I mean, what the fuck?

Scientists and social researchers have been talking themselves hoarse for years. A quick search on the topic of “democratic backsliding how it happens and how it can be countered” offers many good opportunities to turn things around.

Conservatives and fascists sound the same these days. We’re in deep trouble and I think it's already too late in some areas to turn things around before the next election.

We must stop targeting the powerless and focus on real solutions, such as a wealth tax.

We must show much more kindness, love, and solidarity toward all our fellow human beings and speak out loudly against racism and antisemitism.

A year ago, people across Germany stood up against extremism. It’s time to do it again.

See you at the next demonstration.

Edit: Listened to the latest podcast episode from Gilda Sahebi and Arne Semsrott this weekend, they covered the whole topic very well.

English coverage from The Guardian. ↩︎

Let's start publishing things on the internet today

2025-10-20T00:00:00Z

I want to fill this place of the internet more often in the future. With random thoughts, with photos, with beautiful trips I took on my bike. Perhaps I will also share challenges in my daily life as a software engineer. We'll see how it goes.

Social media sucks often these days and who knows for how long it will still be a thing, right?

Here we go.

A big thank you to Tom MacWright for his great article “How to blog”. His post prompted me to switch the tech stack here to Eleventy for simplicity's sake. And to start blogging today.