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OtP Traveler reports

jimp

jimp

Sport Tourer
Phil, OtP Traveler #2 is in Germany. Traveler #1, Dave Owen will be joining him in a couple of days. Here's Phils first comminque... "From Phil "I got safely here to Birkenau and got a good night's sleep and rode 200+ miles with Sean today. Lots to see and it was great! I am going to use the motorways tomorrow to get somewhere in the vicinity of Chartres, then visit Normandy to see the Beach where my father-in-law landed 45 years ago. Then I'll meet Dave and Gie on Wednesday evening and we'll ride the good stuff." Keep watching this thread for updates. Jim P.
 
Jim, Good to hear from you! Please keep us on toip of your travels with Dave and Phil! AKA "2linby" That's 2-lin-by folks! Northwest Area Director COG #5539 AMA #927779 IBA #15034 Team Oregon MC Instructor http://community.webshots.com/user/2linby http://tinyurl.com/njas8 (IBA BunBurner Gold Trip) http://tinyurl.com/lwelx (Alaska trip)
 
Phil, sounds like you are having a great time. Jim, thanks for posting; keep them coming! Greg H from Mass, Connie Droppers Anonymous Awards Dude COG# 7010,a Tracey CDA 120 99 Connie "Herrin Christabelle", 05 Ninja 250
 
Latest update from Phil, currently in Brussels... "Hello All, I am now (a bit after midnight on Wednesday) in Belgium, not far from Brussels (the home of the sprouts). I rode nearly to Paris on Monday, through Paris to Chartres where I saw the cathedral and then on to Caen (near the sight of the Allied landings on D-Day, 1944) last night. Today, I went to Omaha Beach, visited the American military cemetary there, and rode back across France to Brussels, then a bit farther, and met my host for tonight. Gie fixed me a great meal and shared a couple of wonderful Belgian beer. I've talked to Dave and he thinks *he's* having a great time and he hasn't even ridden any yet. Tomorrow we'll join Good Ol' Dave, the *real* Over the Pond Traveler and his Dutch host, and ride back to Germany, where we'll meet a few more of our hosts, then to Chur, Switzerland, for the Rally. I'm doing well, Sean's bike is running great and I've decided that European drivers are easy compared to crazy Americans. I'm having an incredible time, but I'm about to pass out. Good night!" Phil Tarman, OTP Tag-a-long Keep watching this thread for updates.
 
WOW! Where do I start... I'm just going to give my side of it and let Dave and Phil give theirs. What an amazing trip. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. At first, I approached my trip as just another trip and a chance to see some friends, but it turned into quite an adventure. The adventure started upon my arrival in Frankfurt. Sean was supposed to pick me up at the airport and run me down to Heidelberg to pick up my rental bike. As it turned out, we missed each other. We eventually figured out he was coming in the side door to the terminal as I was going out the front door. After waiting for him for almost two hours in the passenger pick up/drop off area, I decided I needed to strike out on my own. I vaguely remembered I needed to take the long distance train to Mannheim where I would transfer to a local train to Heidelberg. What should have taken an hour at best turned into a 2 1/2 hour adventure what with delays, missing connections and locals that don't run on Sunday. I tell ya, between missing Sean and the stress with the trains, I wasn't having much fun. Oh, did I mention I was supposed to meet Stefan Knopf of Knopf Motorcycle Tours between noon and 1PM? I didn't get there till almost 2:30 and wasn't even sure if he was going to be there. But, when I got to his place, Stefan was there and the first thing he said to me was Sean had been there and had just left. It was then that I started laughing, partly from the irony of the situation, but mostly from relief. And the laughing didn't stop until I got home again. The bike I was picking up is the BMW R1200GS and looking back I have to say it was absolutely brilliant on the roads in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Some of the roads in the Santa Cruz Mtns and Diablo Mtns surrounding where I live in Silicon Valley are very similar to the roads in the part of Europe I would be visiting, and I know from experience that a bike like the C10 or C14 can be a lot of work on those roads. The 12GS on the other hand was an absolute hoot - good low end torque, perfectly balanced, and easy to ride, but more on this later. Sunday evening Sean, his wife Sabine, and I went out to dinner and caught up on what has been happening in our lives. I met Sean and Sabine a couple of years ago when they came over for vacation and borrowed Linda Swarts bike to tour California. A great couple who love life and whom I'm honored to know. Monday morn Sean and I took off for the rally site in Tiefencastel, Switzerland. I had plotted a route that kept us off the motorways (Autobahn) and should take us about 8 hours including stops. Sean suggested a couple of changes to get us out of town a little faster, from his place in Birkenau north of Heidelberg to just south of Heidelberg where we picked up my route. We were doing good for the first half of the route, but then the construction detours started. Lets just say that we spent a lot of time feeling like we were going in circles and not making progress, but we were riding some fun roads. But the detours were eating up a lot of time which would come back to bite us. About three quarters of the way to Tiefencastel, when we reached Bregenz, we got caught in a downpour. In the 3 minutes from the time it started, to when I was able to find us a place to take shelter, we got completely soaked. I mean, we had no opportunity to even think about getting rain gear on. So after riding all day without a break, we decided the pizza place next door looked like a good place to wait out the rain and dry off. But this just meant that between the detours and the hour we spent in Bregenz, we wouldn't get to Tiefencastel before dark. Truth is, we didn't make it in till 10:30PM. Over 12 hours to go 450 km's, what should have only taken 8 hours max. Oh well. Did I mention Sean was riding his '95 Triumph Daytona 900? The long day had taken its toll, he was hurting, but not as much as he was about to. When we rolled into the rally site at the Hotel Albula, the parking lot bs session was in full swing, much like our rally's. Just about everyone there already knew Sean. Dave and Phil had arrived a little earlier in the evening, so at this point all the rally participants were there. After being introduced to everyone, we settled in for what was to come. This is when Sean's day went from bad to really bad. Sean had loaned Phil his Concours for this trip, and Phil had dropped it. Not once, but twice - once on each side. Now this Concours has a special place in Sean's heart. It was the show bike Kawi had used for the roll out in Europe and had come to Sean in pieces. He put it back together and was quite proud of it. Now it was busted up. Broken off peg bracket on one side, body damage on both sides, but the biggest problem was the alternator had crapped out. No way to know if it was related to the drops, or was just its time, but the bike was going nowhere. Now at one of our rally's 12 guys would swarm the bike and find a way to get it going again. Things don't work the same way over the pond. All of the German GCE members where standing around saying what a shame and making comments about how Americans don't know how to ride. It was up to Sean to figure out what to do so Phil's trip wouldn't be over. Sean and I decided to get drunk and deal with it in the morning. Actually, he decided to sleep in so I went riding. Tuesday and Wednesday I joined one of the organized tour groups while Sean dealt with his bike - more on this later. With 42 rally particpants, the riders were split into 4 groups to keep things manageable. Now these guys are serious about leading rides. Ride leaders and sweeps wear orange safety vests with the rally logo and either lead rider or last rider printed on them. Now I'm not going to say these guys don't know how to ride, they do. But they are somewhat more safety conscious then we tend to be. If my following distance got too close, the rider would wave me by. I mean, these guys leave 6 to 10 car lengths between them. Often I would would start mid pack and before we reached our destination I would be right behind the leader. And I wasn't really pushing that hard. Tuesday we went up to Arosa, a small town/ski resort high in the mountains above Chur, Switzerland. It was 18 miles one way, about 350 twists and turns of great pavement. Backtracking, we then ran down to Lago di Lei, a lake on the border of Switzerland and Italy that can only be reached through a half mile long tunnel. Even in the middle of summer, this tunnel can have ice on the road surface because of the water dripping from the roof and the altitude. Normally you can't drive through this tunnel, but our rally host had arranged special permission for us. On the way back we ran up to the end of the highest driveable road in this part of Europe. All in all a great day with countless turns and switchbacks. Wednesday we rode up to Passo del Stelvio in Italy. Whle most of the other riders blasted out early, the English speakers decided to do our own run, so this American got together with a Canuck and two Brits for the day. The road up to Stelvio is 48 switchbacks, one after the other. Just amazing. And when you get to the top, it's something surreal. Surrounded by all this incredible scenery is this flea market type atmosphere - little shops selling all sorts of souvenirs and kitschy crap. From the top we ran down through Umbria Pass, another road with switchback after switchback, and a couple of kilometers were hard pack dirt/gravel. It was on the these mountain roads where the BMW was absolutely brilliant. While the guys on the Connie's, Pan Europeans, FJR's and other bikes were "balancing" their bikes around the tight switchbacks (as I was continuously warned by the Germans that was how one negotiated the switchbacks), I was bombing the curves. Pick a turn in point, snap your head around like you're doing a fast parking lot u-turn and let the bike go where you're looking. Being above tree line, you had great sight lines all the way to the next switchback. I passed a few guys on the inside of left hand switchbacks doing this. A couple of times I had to dial it back because I drove off the pavement and through the dirt at the apex of the switchback. Tons of fun! On Thusrsday Dave wanted to go to St. Moritz to get something for his wife, Cheryl. After riding around the lower part of town and Bad St. Moritz, Dave and I headed uphill for the old part of town. Think typical centuries old European town with Rodeo Drive plopped down in the middle of it. Cartier, Prada, Gucci - you name a designer and it was there. Dave just had to go in one of these shops so he picked Prada. The reaction of the woman running the shop to this biker coming in off the street was just hilarious. When Dave left she closed the door. But I'll let Dave tell ya more about it because it made his day. There was one tourist type souvenir shop though, so we went in to get a t-shirt for Cheryl. $29 bucks later for one lousy t-shirt we made our way back out of town. Heading back to the rally hotel, Dave finally seemed to relax and start riding like the Dave I know. We were smoking down the mountain roads. Friday, Sean and I had to head back to Heidelberg so I could return the bike. Speaking of Sean, he had spent his time at the rally dealing with his broken bike. At this point, no one wanted to loan Phil a bike, they had zero confidence in his ability to safely ride. And Sean had decided that he really didn't want Phil to continue riding his pride and joy. Worse, the Kawi shop in Chur wanted $1000 for an alternator! So fixing it wasn't going to happen. But here's where it got interesting. Sean found a guy a couple towns over who had an 86 Connie for sale. Turns out to be pristine with only 43,000kms on it. So Sean bought it for Phil to ride. But there was a couple of problems with this plan. First, it was one of those neutered Swiss bikes that makes only like 79hp. The bike required a lot of throttle to get out of it's own way, and Phil rides pretty easy, he'd probably fall over before it got rolling. And the steering was real heavy. Taking the tires up to max helped, but didn't fix it - most likely an overtightened steering crown bearing, but by now Sean had another plan in mind. Since the bike was a non-EU model, he couldn't register it in Germany, so his plan was to part it out, keeping parts he needed and recoup his money selling others. In the meantime, he'd talked Marc into loaning Phil his bike because it has tip over bars on it, and Marc would ride the new bike back home. BTW, this makes 5 Connies in Sean's garage. I kept telling Sabine psychologists have a name for this. So in the end, Marc headed for home on Sean's new bike and Phil got Marc's bike for the rest of his trip. I haven't heard anything and hope all is well. I have to tip my hat to Hans-Peter and his wife Ria, our rally hosts, who did an amazing job putting on this rally. They picked a wonderful location and a really nice hotel. Board was included in the room rate, so each evening at 7:30 we sat down to a nice 4 course supper, and in the morning there was the usual German breakfast buffet - meats, cheese, breads, yogurt, cereal and soft boiled eggs. Hans-Peter also made sure the ride leaders sat down each evening and went over the next days ride. Along with the Kawi marketing posters in the hotel lobby were the usual Kawi banners like we have, but Hans-Peter went one further. He made a 4 times life size ZX10 out of chicken wire and paper mache. It was wild. He had it sitting on a trailer in the overflow parking lot across the street from the hotel, and bikers riding by would see it and stop just to take pics of it. Some would climb up on it and pretend they were trying to ride it. This was my second trip to that part of Europe, and I'm already starting to make plans for my next one - gotta start dumping money into my slush fund. If you've never done a trip like this, you really should consider it, you would not be disappointed. If you want to pick my brain for ideas, just let me know, I'd be glad to share what I've learned. So that was my trip. I've got over 500 pics to wade through and I'll probably get to them over the weekend. Look for an update. :-D Breakdown of costs: Airfare - $800 R/T from San Francisco Bike rental - $960/wk Lodging - $254 Out of pocket - $200
 
Jim, It's good to see that you are back from the other side of the pond. Looks like you had a great time. I sure wish I could have found a way to go too. Let us know when you get the pics posted.
 
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