Monday-Wednesday, September 12-15, 2004
Today's statistics:
Total Distance: 000.0 KM
Average Speed: 00.0 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 0 Hours 00 Minutes
We have been in Olching, Germany for these three days while the bikes were being serviced at Sherb Motoradtechnik - Tuning - Zubehür, Ilzweg 3, 82140, Ochling, Germany. They have a web site at www.scherb-s.de. These folks are BMW enthusiasts and the shop shows it. They are not a Factory BMW dealer but they have lots of experience with air heads and the newer model BMW motorcycles.
We were supposed to be back on the road on Wednesday but the weather was terrible (lots of rain) so we decided to stay one more day and go into Munich and attend the opening day of Intermot, the largest motorcycle show on earth. Jim attended this biannual event when we were in this area two years ago with our friend Nancy Haynes. The show this year was a bit larger occupying more of the convention center buildings. There is a little something for everyone at this fair as can be see in our Intermot slide show pictures.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Total Distance: 267.4 KM
Average Speed: 79.8 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 6 Hours 57 Minutes
A boring drone on the autobahn so we could get to a store where Verna could order a new pair of riding pants. She wants the pants that match here Rukka Air Power jacket that have a removable Gore-Tex® liner. We wanted to try to do this in the same store where she purchased the jacket two years ago because the woman who owns the store was so nice to us.
We found the location of the store to learn that it had moved and now a Helm (helmet) Center. So, why not look at the new Schuberth C2 helmet. We managed to bargain for a very good price and purchased two helmets which we had shipped to Spain.
The man who owns the Helm Center gave us the address of the new location of the store for the Rukka clothing and we decided that we would go there on Friday morning.
Friday - Saturday, September 17 - 18, 2004
Total Distance: 252.3 KM
Average Speed: 36.2 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 3 Hours 20 Minutes
After mailing the new helmets to Spain we rode to Motorrad-Ecke, Karlsruher Straß 50, 76327 KA-Berghausen (+49 721 462 436) www.mot-ecke.de and ordered Verna’s new pants. We will return next Wednesday to pick them up.
 We then headed east in search of Huttlingen, Germany, and the Marienburg Niederfingen to attend this year’s Aldstadt Wander Treffen, a Left Lane and Abteilung Deutschland/Schweiz event. We first learned of the Left Lane Motorcycle Club in 1998 when we were working in Ireland. We have tried for six years to attend one of their events. We almost made our first event in 2001 but an exhaust valve in Verna’s bike broke when we were about 100 kilometers from the meeting. This year, we are happy to report, we made the event.
For more information see the Left Lane and Abteilung Deutschland/Schweiz Altstadt Wander Treffen page in the MC Events section.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Total Distance: 257.3 KM
Average Speed: 59.6 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 4 Hours 19 Minutes
We were the last ones out of the Castle along with our hosts, Cheryl and Helmut Bernshausen and their two sons, Christopher and Sascha. We rode south to their new home which they have been building for the past year. Simply beautiful. Cheryl gave us each Left Lane Motorcycle Club sticker for our bikes.
We then pointed ourselves east. We need to be at Motorrad-Ecke on Wednesday morning so Verna can get her new riding pants.
Monday - Tuesday, September 20 - 21, 2004
Total Distance: 000.0 KM
Average Speed: 00.0 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 0 Hours 00 Minutes
Two days of rest and relaxation while we work on the web site and Verna gets caught up with the processing of all of her pictures.
Wednesday - Friday, September 22 - 24, 2004
Total Distance: 26.0 KM
Average Speed: 27.9 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 0 Hours 55 Minutes
Verna is now the proud owner of new motorcycling pants. We hope these will keep the water out when it rains.
We then rode to Sascha Leitz house in Karlsruhe, Germany where we will be spending the night. Thanks to Sascha’s new DSL internet connection we have been able to get lots of little things done including a complete update of Verna’s recipes, among other things.
Tomorrow we will head north in search of Horst Ulirch’s shop in Wenings, Germany to see his enduro sidecars.
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Total Distance: 251.0 KM
Average Speed: 43.7 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 5 Hours 44 Minutes
After three lovely days at “Chez Sascha” we are back on the road. We stayed longer than planed because the weather was absolutely terrible. Lots of wind and rain. This was definitely one of those times when we were very happy to not be constrained by time.
A big THANK YOU to Sascha for putting up with us. He now has a full time DSL connection to the Internet and that was very handy in getting lots of things on the computer and web site up to date.
We rode north thinking that we would ride half of the distance to Wenings today but as the day went on we just kept going. We arrived at Horst Ulirch’s shop in Wenings and spent about an hour and a half in his work shop looking at pictures and bikes in the shop. We have decided that he is the man to make an and enduro type sidecar for us.
We then rode to Altenstadt where we found a small hotel to spend the night. Luckily we had very little rain today - only as we were leaving Karlsruhe.
Sunday - Monday, September 26 - October 4, 2004
Total Distance: 74.5 KM
Average Speed: 48.1 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 1 Hours 33 Minutes
A very wet and rainy morning as started our ride in the direction of Idstein where we will spend the next week. Fortunately the rain stopped as we entered Bad Homburg and by the time we reached Idstein we were almost dry.
Now we will set up house keeping and wait for the second new bag for Verna’s bike to arrive later this week.
Which it did on Friday. A big THANK YOU to Bob Wilkins, the European Distributor for Jessie Luggage, for helping us get the bag made that will fit with our exhaust system.
On Monday Jim rode in the sidecar of Erdman’s R1100S EML sidecar to Wenings to visit with Horst Ullrich. A beautiful day for a ride with cool crisp fall air and lots of sunshine and blue skies.
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Total Distance: 369.4 KM
Average Speed: 53.8 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 6 Hours 51 Minutes
Eight days in the same bed. Wow!
We now have a complete set of new luggage to replace the damaged luggage. We also have a slot in the production cycle of Horst Ullrich for our next “go anywhere” vehicle.
We left Idstein with blue skies and sunshine and that is the way it was all day. It is definitely fall as we rode through wooded areas where the trees were all turning colors and the leaves were beginning to fall. Luckily the roads were dry and the fallen leaves fluttered in our path instead of making a wet slippery mess.
We finished the day in a town we have been wanting to visit for six years in honor of our friend Nancy Haynes. Yes, Nancy, France. We had the honor of spending more money for gasoline today than we ever have before. For 58.98 liters (15.58 gallons)of 95 octane gasoline we got to pay €70.13 ($86.25 US). That’s a mere $5.53 US a gallon. Thank you George Bush for making the dollar virtually worthless and also for the war in Iraq which has destabilized the oil market such that the price of oil is higher than it has ever been before. This was in Germany and the price we paid was about 6 cents lower per liter than in Idstein when we left in the morning. The price even dropped a cent while we were in the station (unfortunately it was after we paid). Now that we are in France we can get it for another 10 cents cheaper per liter (if we go to the supermarche to buy it).
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
Total Distance: 256.2 KM
Average Speed: 57.9 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 4 Hours 25 Minutes
Unlike yesterday we started our day in the rain. Not at all unusual for our trip to Spain. Every year that we have made the journey to Spain we have found ourselves in some of the worst rain storms we have every ridden in. Fortunately, today the rain stopped shortly after we got on the road. About three in the afternoon we found some blue skies and sunshine. We stopped for the night in Saint-Florentin after a great ride on some of the best motorcycle roads we have encountered.
We decided that we chose to travel on the loneliest roads in France today. At one point late in the afternoon we actually had a car behind us. We would see about three cars an hour going in the opposite direction. Lovely. This is why we like to travel on the smaller roads - not so much traffic and lovely scenery - there is no place on earth like the French country side.
The smell of freshly crushed grapes was in the air as we rode through the Champagne area of France. In many communities the workers were in the vineyards picking the big purple grapes, though many of the areas had already been harvested. We were a bit surprised that they were picking so late - these must be the grapes for the sweeter champagnes.
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Total Distance: 318.6 KM
Average Speed: 60.3 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 5 Hours 17 Minutes
We headed west in the fog when we left the hotel this morning. Fortunately, at 11:00 this morning, the fog lifted and we had blue skies and sunshine until 1:30 in  the afternoon when we encountered our first bit of rain. We managed to stay just west of the rain for the remainder of the afternoon until we stopped for the day in Angles Sur L’Anglin. Although only a small village, it did have a small hotel converted from an old farmhouse (photo, left). A very quiet, picturesque village, but unfortunately the weather was not conducive to picture taking.
More great roads for motorcycling today. We have been of mostly D (district) roads for the last three days. While many of these carry lots of traffic we have chosen to find the ones that are very small (most do not have a line dividing left from right). Very nice riding when there is virtually no traffic on the highway you are traveling. The down side of this is that we tend to travel in a somewhat less than straight line. And, we do not gobble up the kilometers that you can when on the Auto Route. The only other negative is that places for food and lodging are more difficult to find, but so far we haven’t gone without either.
Friday, October 8, 2004
Total Distance: 298.5 KM
Average Speed: 51.1 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 5 Hours 50 Minutes
Yet another rainy start. The good news is that the hard rain did not last for more than an hour and a half. By 11:00 the rain had stopped and we got sporadic rain drops for the rest of the day. We ended our day on the south side of Bordeaux. We may find ourselves in Spain tomorrow.
Saturday, October 9, 2004
Total Distance: 563.5 KM
Average Speed: 52.5 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 10 Hours 44 Minutes
We headed in the direction of Pamploma this morning and as we neared the city we pointed ourselves south on lots of small roads. We continued our journey through the Sierra de Andia heading south and then turned west toward Logrono. The plan was to get a room for a few days in Logrono and spend some time visiting some of the many Rioja wineries in this part of Spain. After traveling through the Champagne, Conac and Bordeaux regions of France where the harvest was in full swing we decided that we would visit the Rioja region of Spain.
Unfortunately lots of other people had the same idea and they had booked all of the hotels. We started our search for a place to stay at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was painfully clear to us that we would not find a place at 7:00 PM - every place we stopped at was full.
What to do? Why ride about 35 kilometers to the north and get a room there. When the hotels in Haro were also found to be full we decided that we were not going to spend the night in the Rioja region.
At 10:00 in the evening we finally found a room in Burgos. This is only the second time this has happened to us but it sure makes for a long tiring day. We had been riding in and out of rain all evening and the temperature really dropped when the sun went down. After we arrived at our hotel but before we got our things off the bike it started to rain really hard.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Total Distance: 512.1 KM
Average Speed: 80.6 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 6 Hours 21 Minutes
We woke to wet streets with lots of wind and cold temperatures. Fortunately the rain had stopped but the wind was really blowing hard from the west. We headed south toward Madrid as the wind pushed us all over the highway. We were very happy to be riding around Madird on a Sunday. The traffic was not bad at all.
By 4:00 PM we were exhausted from fighting the wind all day and stoped along the highway at a motel. Yes, a motel!
Monday, October 11, 2004
Total Distance: 336.9 KM
Average Speed: 99.5 KM/H
Total Time on Bikes: 3 Hours 23 Minutes
We woke to blue skies and sunshine and no wind. It was a nice ride for the remainder of our journey to Benalmadina Pueblo. We arrived in time for lunch with Bob and Kathy Richards, whose house we are renting for the winter.
This concludes this portion of the adventure.
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