Euro Tour Part 6

The following day (Saturday) was a little awkward, we were to travel back to Europoort in Rotterdam but without KG. When we met in the morning KG told us that his day was planned out, he was to spend the day with our hosts until his flight was sorted out, this took the pressure off the rest of us, it would have been bad to just pack up and go and leave KG to his own devices. With the bikes fully luggage up again we headed off into town for a bit of breakfast, there is a great little restaurant in Adenau which does a traditional German breakfast for a few Euros.
Suitably fuelled up we headed off through the fantastic Eifel Mountains to pick up the autobahn near Bonn. We settled into a steady rhythm and devoured the miles, before long it was time for a coffee and fuel in a service station near Munchengladbach. As we were relaxing a group of bikers riding enormous Boss Hoss choppers pulled in, these things are immense, V8 engines, twin fuel tanks, car rear tyres, twice the size of a normal chopper.
We set off again and this time managed to pick up the road we missed at the start of our adventure, this brought us to the old Germany/ Holland border which still had some of its old booths, a few pictures were taken and we headed off into Holland. A final lunch stop was made before we attacked the long stretch of motorway to the ferry terminal, this passed fairly uneventful and it wasn’t long before we were securing our bikes in the vehicle deck of the ferry, there were far more bikes on board this time with a few heading off to the Isle of Man TT.
A few pints made the return crossing a breeze, and a quick call to KG revealed that he had been to a footy game and was, that afternoon , going to be given a fast lap of the Nurburgring in our hosts Porsche race car. (lucky git).
The next morning we rode our bikes off the ferry and onto British roads once again, we split up (unintentionally) and headed off home.
All in all I’m sure all involved would agree that our first trip abroad was a fantastic success, the KG incident just went to prove that proper insurance is a must because you never can tell what is going to happen when abroad. Without the correct cover it would have cost a fortune to get KG and his bike home.
Thanks guys I really enjoyed myself, here’s to next years trip
Bungle

Euro Tour Part 5

The day after our Nurburgring lap we made a decision to “pop” across to Luxembourg, just to put another country under our belts. But first we were determined to pick up some souvenirs of our ‘ring experience. We had noticed that there was a dedicated fan shop in the town of Adenau, the town where we had done all our eating and drinking, so we dropped in to have a peek. We all picked up souvenirs of various descriptions (polo shirts, key lanyards etc.) that is except for KG, he wasn’t too convinced they had what he wanted, so we agreed that on the way back from Luxembourg we would call in to the main shop at the Nordschlieffe entrance that we had visited the day before.
I had studied the map meticulously and was convinced I had the trip covered, nope, one little turn to bring us on to the “r257” proved elusive to us, a good 45 minutes was spent to-ing and fro-ing trying to find the little bastard. “Enough” said KG “ Sod it, we’ll hit the Autobahn and just do it in a oner”. The Autobahn was despatched with ease (our plan to hit a ton in each country was going well), we dropped of into a town called Kenn (appropriate?) and found a little bakery to have lunch (once again thanks to Grifter who used his linguistic skills to order our food, you old fox). Back on to the Autobahn and past Trier which is the last major town before the border, the scenery was already starting to change, not so much Gothic influence around here buildings had a definite French feel to them.
We finally crossed the border and pulled into a huge service station to fill up (Luxembourg had the cheapest fuel of the whole trip), after a bit of a break we decided that it was getting late and still had a date with the souvenir shop to fulfil, we agreed to turn around and head back on the back roads through Bitburg. The roads were much better, smooth fast and flowing, although H-Boss was getting pissed off at been left behind all the time, he said that we were riding too fast but we weren’t its just that we (me, KG and Zippy) were getting the breaks when it came to overtakes. As the roads got more rural we had less problems and things settled into a nice rhythm again, the rural roads were fantastic, best roads of the trip for me.
It was a lovely sunny day and this showed us just how fortunate we were the day before because when we arrived back at the ‘ring the place was absolutely jam packed, all the car parks and surrounding roads were full of cars and bikes, our lap would have been far more scary if we had chosen to do it on this day.
KG picked his souvenirs and walked back to his bike, it was a hot sweaty day and we had spent 3 and a half long days in the saddle, we were all a little achy, this goes someway to explaining what happened next. As KG threw his leg over his bike, there was a loud snap noise and a scream, KG and his bike toppled over onto the floor. KG felt his leg go as he stretched over the bike, and his now knackered leg could do nothing to stop his bike from hitting the deck with him on board. It looked bad, he couldn’t move his leg at all, luckily for us all an English guy in a Mini saw what went on and gave KG a lift back to the digs, Zippy got his bike back to the digs.
KG phoned the owner of our digs who kindly volunteered to take him to the local A+E. We all got ready and went into town for a meal where we agreed to meet KG later. We found a real nice Pizza restaurant in town called Pinocchio’s (really cheap and fantastic huge pizza’s) . KG turned up shortly after us, the docs told him that he had a 1 inch tear in the muscle at the back of his thigh, it was a bad one and he was told not to ride his bike for a couple of weeks at least (KG has since been told that more like a year would be required to fully recover). He had phoned the insurance company and they had agreed to fly him home and ship his bike back, it was a blow, none of us thought our trip would turn out like this but at least he was ok and well covered by insurance.
Bungle

Euro Tour Part 4

After the mornings tomfoolery we realised it was still too early to head off to the Nurburgring, so we had ourselves a little blast around the local roads and passed through some lovely little villages in the mountains around Nurburg and Dumpelfeld, the tarmac surface varied from smooth and flowing to bumpy and rutted but none of this mattered because the scenery was just breath taking.
All roads lead to Rome as they say and it wasn’t long before we once again found road signs pointing to the Nurburgring, so we figured while we were already here and since there was no signs of any rain or drizzle in this part of the mountains, then we should head to the Nordschlieffe and prepare ourselves for our lap.
It was really our intention to buy tickets for the following day due to the unpredictability of that days weather, but when we arrived at the circuit it seemed that everyone else had the same idea, the place was not busy at all and the track was dry, so, bugger it, we thought, we will do it today.
Tickets purchased, we headed for the café (ahem..) to wait for the Porsche owners club to finish on the track. Talk was of how we were going to approach our lap, cautious and touristy or just go for it. The sensible approach was to take it easy as we didn’t want any daft accidents ruining what was so far a superb trip. Reputation is one of the big factors that makes the ‘ring what it is and consequently a few nerves were starting to show but excitement was felt in equal measure.
Finally our time had arrived, the Porsches buggered off and the track was cleared of debris (erk..) and a steady queue started to form around the entrance gate. We hung back for a few minutes to let the fast riders and drivers on first. As we started to gear up we noticed an old couple in the queue in a Smart car, “We’ve got to at least beat that” said KG.
With the queue now cleared we trundled up to the start gate, waited for the marshall to signal and set off up the coned acceleration lane. “Take it steady” I was saying to myself but red mist was already starting to creep in, I gunned the bike and shot off toward the first corner, “This is awesome” I was shouting in my helmet, I overtook a GSXR750 but that didn’t last long, he soon took me back, oh well. Car upon car I overtook, the track was just corner after corner and hill after hill, it was fantastic, I got into a bit of a race with a Citroen ZX race car, I was leaving him for dead on the straights but he was closing on the corners, on one corner a Porsche came flying past and I shit myself but there was no way I was going to try and keep up. Around the next bend I caught up with the Smart car tootling along. 17 miles didn’t take long and I rounded the last bend onto the main finish straight, I gunned the bike, looked down at my speedo, 145mph, but when I looked back up I saw the cones for the deceleration lane fast approaching, I pulled off the track and parked up, took off my helmet and took a deep breath, then I noticed Zippy pulling in, a huge grin on his face, we compared stories, he too had hit 145mph and passed the Smart car. KG now pulled into the car park and said he had passed the Smart car. We waited another few minutes and then we were shocked to see the Smart car pulling off track. “Bloody hell where are Grifter and H-Boss” I said, and at that they both pulled into the car park “behind” the Smart car (tut tut the shame of it).
The track is fantastic but I think it would be truly scary on a busy day. We got back to our digs, cleaned up, and headed into town for a well earned steak at the fantastic Blau Ecke (blue corner), we chatted with a few other Brit bikers and swapped ‘ring tales.
A great end to a superb day.
Sorry about the lack of piccies for this section but cameras and such are banned on the circuit

Bungle

Euro Tour Part 3

The following morning brought an overcast outlook and an occasional spot of drizzle, we decided to pop along to the Nurburgring to check out availability of Nordschlieffe tickets, we had decided before we went that we would have a crack at doing a lap of the famous circuit. We followed signs for the circuit but these brought us to the GP part of the track, so we popped into the cafe (a bit of a theme that) and chatted to the waitress who directed us to the Nordschlieffe entrance, we called into the ticket office and they told us that tourist tickets were not available until after 5pm, so, what to do until then.

On our way to our digs the day before, we noticed a kids adventure park with restaurant, so we decided to give that a try, the food was spot on and while stuffing our faces we watched people coming and going to a kids tobbogan run, we popped across to have a look, it looked cool but was obviously for kids. "It would be cool" i said "if we went down that in our bike gear, helmets and all" everyone agreed.

So we paid our money, donned our gear and set off with warnings about it being really fast when wet still ringing in our ears. "It'll be right" said KG, and it was, it was a proper laugh out loud experience, and a few people gathered on one of the bridges to watch these daft Brits go down the run in bike gear. By time we got to run number 3, we were getting confident, i was in front and on one long 180 degree bend the little cart flipped from under me and i continued for a bit on my arse, "oh shit" KG was right behind me and just managed to come to a stop before crashing in to me, he realised Grifter was behind him and done a perfect SAS roll off his cart onto the grass bank (Klingon would be so proud) Grifter rounded the bend and slammed straight into me, it was carnage, until we realised that Zippy was next down, we couldn't warn him in time but we were all off track so he slammed into all our carts and went sliding down the track. The people watching loved it (sicko's).

Another 2 or 3 runs followed, this time with H-Boss joining in the fun, but alas we had to leave, we had an appointment with a certain race track

Bungle

sorry sorry sorry

Really sorry guys,

due to computer access problems the poor blog has been left to rot,

but happy days, i have a new lappy so the blog will go turbo from now on.