When you buy a motorbike, then the dealers usually replace the number plate holder with one displaying an advertising slogan for their dealership. Turning my motorbike into an advertising platform without my consent and without being paid for it is simply not on - I'll have that my way or no way. So for decades I have replaced the advert with my own slogans which I usually replace every few weeks. This journey is no exception and below my plate where once the dealers ad was showing, this text now appears:
Having that sorted out I am off on this bank holiday Thursday at 9 am, heading north into Germany.
The weather forecast said something about 20 degrees Celsius, but at 3000 ft. up in the
Swabian Jura the mercury
struggles to get up to 10 degrees.
I have just put on an extra jumper, warm underpants and my heated gloves when the biting easterly wind
veers to the south and the temperature rapidly climbs to 21 degrees - that's sods law for motorbikers.
By the way, here is the usual first-day picture of my bike in full battlegear:
The Odenwald is a good start after the Jura to get me into biking mood, but the Spessart is certainly something I could get addicted to; winding roads, no traffic and dense forests.
The first day ends after very enjoyable 500 km in the town of
Schlüchtern at the
northern perimeter of the Spessart.
I wouldn't normally look for accommodation in a town this size, but as today is a bank holiday in Germany and
many people have bridged tomorrow (Friday) for a long weekend most country inns are full - so my preferred
method of finding suitable digs is to look for an industrial place that lives of business travellers.
I am so successful that the hotel "Stadt Schlüchtern" which I call at about 1730 hours is closing the reception desk at 1800 hours today because of a lack of patrons. The receptionist offers to give me a key code for the front door and the room they want to rent out. I tell them to go ahead with that - no need to give a credit card number or any other details. Try that at your next motel stop in Hackensack, New Jersey...
Having found accommodation in a sizeable town also means that I am spoilt for choice for dinner. I
select the local Greek place, and the food is quite good.
All in all a very satisfying start of this journey.
I am off at 9 am again, though today it is easily five degrees warmer than yesterday at the same time.
Next on the horizon appears the
Rhön Mountain range. Soon afterwards the
Hainich National Park is under my wheels.
I am approaching the former East Germany, and immediately the roads are lined with trees:
In the West those trees were cut down in the 1960's to increase road safety, but out here in the East
they are everywhere.
I can't remember how often I have passed the former
Iron Curtain today. The Germans
have placed a road sign at even the most insignificant roads to commemorate the event of its fall,
even giving the
exact time the border opened at each location:
Next on my route is the Harz
mountain range.
Once again I traverse the former border into the East near the town of
Klötze. Just a few hundred yards beyond
that town a roe deer jumps out of the forest from the left and into the road. What makes the dumb animal to
jump into the road when a motorbike with twin high intensity headlights is roaring along that very road
is entirely beyond me. I'm doing exactly 81 kph (according to my GPS log) at that moment. I try my best to
avoid the animal, and I nearly succeed. But, alas, only nearly. The deer catches the front of Tigger with its
behind. Then it rips my right leg of the footpeg. The front mudguard turns into a shower of plastic splinters.
I suppose the deer weighs about 20 kg, but somehow I manage not to crash the bike in spite of the
collision.
I stop about fifty yards down the road. There is no trace of the deer, it has disappeared into the
forest. I have a closer look at the damage:
I stop again in the next village. An old man sits outside his house enjoying the sun. Yes, he knows the
local gamekeeper and is happy to give him a call about the incident.
I take the opportunity to call my Triumph dealer and order the spares required to fix the damage - just 15
minutes
after the collision. They will have the spares in by the middle of next week. The one thing I don't order is
the left fork; the collision has ripped the pressure-cast front mudguard holder off the fork. I'll have
to repair instead of replacing this highly expensive item.
The collision has at least sorted one problem; for the past two days I have racked my brain about how to
avoid the horrible weather that is about to engulf all of Europe by Tuesday next week at the latest. Now I know
what I will do during that bad weather spell: fixing the damage in my garage back home in Switzerland.
This journey northwards was definitely much shorter than anticipated. I call a hotel a few miles westwards
at Ehra-Lessien
and call it a day at about 1730 hours.
The hotel is directly next to a busy crossroads, but having been given a room away from the road I went to
bed at 9.30 pm last night and slept like a rock until 7 am this morning.
I am in the heart of the north German flatlands near
Wolfsburg (where the Volkswagen company
representatives are trying to
downplay their criminal activities revolving around the infamous
Dieselgate).
Instead of "accidentally"
discovering the cheat software they could have saved a lot of time and money by simply asking any
motorbiker about what kind of emissions are belching out of any non-catalysed diesel engine
and we'd told them right away...
Talking about criminal activities ongoing in Germany; the colossal neglect of the German road system, especially on municipal level, has now led to councils imposing speed limits on bad stretches that border on ridiculousness. What, you don't believe it? Here is the proof:
If I put Tigger into first gear and let go of the clutch, the road speed at idle revs is about 12 to 13 kph. This means that driving at ten kph would only be possible by having the clutch slipping constantly, i. e. risking severe damage to my bike. Or, to phrase it more directly, the town fathers have imposed a traffic restriction that a modern vehicle can't technically obey unless that vehicle is used in a manner causing component destruction. I suppose that possibly constitutes an act of terrorism, or at least a breach of oath of office. Hi there, upright citizens of Nordstemmen, do your civil duty and send that ratpack responsible for this nonsense into political oblivion.
Once I reach
Hesse the hills are back, making progress
slower but biking much more fun. I can't resist
the temptation to bike the western slopes of the Spessart again and end the day after another 500 km at
Miltenberg in
Lower Franconia,
Bavaria.
The weather has been splendid all day, though with 26 degrees in the afternoon it was already a bit on the warm
side - and tomorrow it's supposed to get even hotter.
The German weather forecast predicts a brilliant day with sunshine throughout the entire country.
My own weather
data indicates that the German weather service has obviously used yesterdays data to make up its
prediction for today. Towards the South the airmass is getting unstable and humid with a decent
chance of showers and/or thunderstorms.
I set off at 9.30 am along the eastern edges of the Odenwald.
Once I am south of the Kocher river I can see fat cumulonimbus clouds rising skywards on my route ahead. Near Ravensburg a torrential downpour engulfs me. It only lasts a few minutes - just long enough to get myself and Tigger exceedingly filthy. The missing front mudguard also ensures that I am sprayed with copious amounts of water from the front wheel. The temperature drops from 23 degrees to 15 degrees in under a minute. But I manage the remainder of my trip without further showers and by 5.30 pm I am back home. Over 1800 kilometres of country roads in four days is not bad, but the unplanned return is mildly annoying.
The task in hand is simple: get the damage fixed as quickly as possible. I start this morning by cleaning the muck from yesterdays deluge off the bike, then I dismantle the front fork assembly. The light alloy carrier to which the front mudguard is bolted has cleanly snapped off on the left fork:
Further disassembly reveals that the aluminium bracket holding the mudguard on the casting has also snapped - that was invisible before disassembly, so I did not order a spare unit last Friday when calling my bike dealership after the collision:
I take the left fork to the machine shop I have opposite my home (I suppose every biker needs one of those over the road...) and in no time Roman, their alloy welding genius is at work to the highest possible engineering standard in the world - Swiss standard:
Quickly the damage is fixed and after I put some black paint over the welding seam you need to look very closely to see that the bracket has been welded on:
Of course I had a look at what the broken slide pipe assembly would have cost to replace: about 400
Euros. So I buy the guys a box of
Swiss premium beer for a job very well done.
My bike kit that got rather dirty in yesterdays shower is also already in the washing machine, so
the task of getting back on the road is well under way.
My spare parts have not yet arrived, they should arrive tomorrow afternoon. This gave me ample time to add a new gizmo to Tigger which might enliven my web-blog with some moving images again:
My parts arrived this morning, so I spent most of the day in my workshop fixing Tigger. The damage is repaired and the bike is ready to roll again. Needless to say that in the very moment when the bike is ready the weather gods get rather grumpy. Here is the precipitation forecast for tomorrow for Europe:
The weather is behaving as one would expect when my Tigger is sitting in my garage fully repaired and ready to go out on the road again - it hasn't stopped raining for a second during the last 24 hours.
Floods all over the country...
It has rained for 72 hours without stopping for even one second. And it looks like from the middle of next week Western and Central
Europe are in for another sequence of severe deluges - I should have bought an ark instead of a motorbike to see Europe in spring
of 2016.
However, I have the chance to escape this soggy part of the world and head somewhere drier tomorrow morning.
Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog.