Euro Ramble 2004

Monday - A windy ride back

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I don't think anybody woke much before nine, I didn't have a hangover as such, but I didn't feel great ether, then we went down and had the worse breakfast of the whole trip. Tea, coffee, bread, butter, jam, honey... and little boxes of sprinkles!!! Such is the fair of in inner city hotel. It certainly didn't make us feel any better.

Breakfast anybody?

Just 170 miles to Zeebrugge, and the ferry home.

And boy, was it a windy ride!, the wind was blowing off the sea, miles away, and with the Netherlands being as flat as a pancake, there's nothing to stop it. I was glad when we arrived in Zeebrugge. As it was only half passed one so we decided  to visit the local Hein Gericke shop in Blankenburge 3 miles away. I had the waypoint in the GPS so we let it lead us there. When we arrived we found it a Honda dealers as well, but closed on Mondays! And then it started to rain...

We shot back to Zeebrugge ferry terminal and took shelter under the canopy while it poured down.

Here we are standing in our very own puddle,  just an hour to wait for the check in to open.

Ebbo, David & Ian

After checking in we were allowed further in to the port, were we were joined by members of the Vincent HRD Club.

You've no excuse for not going to the continent when you meet guys like these, especially when you find they've been all around the Eastern Bloc!

Everyone we meet on bikes had had good weather for the past two weeks, The only breakdown I heard of was a Vincent magneto failure, and they had a spare!

So it was onto the boat, tie the bikes down, dump the bags and head for the bar.

Ian relaxing.

We stuffed ourselves during the evening meal as usual, that's the first time I've had rice pudding with real clotted cream! Mmmmm :-)

The last map for the last day, so I'll end the story here. We had a great trip with near perfect weather, my thanks to Ian, David & Patto for their good company.

Trip statistics from the Streetpilot GPS & receipts kept.

My maximum speed:      105mph   (Autobahn)

Average speed:              51.9 mph (83.5kph)

Riding time:                     34.51hrs  (average 4.3hrs per day)

Miles travelled                 1793.6     (average 224.2 miles per day)

Fuel consumed;              181.42L   (47.92g)

Average MPG                 37            

Fuel cost:                         £128        ($236/€183)

Awards

Best Hotel:                      Gasthof Waldheim, Austria.

Worst Hotel:                    Casa 400, Amsterdam

Most welcoming host:    Günter Mittermeier, The Gasthof Bezold               

Best tourist Information: Zell Am Ziller

Best day:                         Friday, the Grossglockner Pass

Worst moment:               The Austrian Highwaymen

Garmin Mapsource downloads

All waypoints and track I have for the trip 280kb

Garmin waypoints for Hein Gerike shops Southern Germany and Austria 4kb

Packing

For this trip I tried packing directly in to the panniers to maximise space, never again! the panniers loaded weigh a ton, carrying them up 4 flights of stairs is a bad idea, its back to using inner bags for me.

I've been working on a packing list for a fairly typical Euro bike trip for some while now, it seems to be pretty infallible now, You can down load a copy here in MS Word format (53kb)

Last word

Within two days of returning to the UK, Ian surprised us all by trading in his Fireblade for a Pan European. It's the first tourer he has had, so far he likes it very much.

I hope you enjoyed reading this travelogue, if you have any questions, just send me a mail!

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