My summer holiday

Hi Guys

Just a short picture story from my summer holiday. Took the SD for a trip together with two friends. One of the guys and I have been touring the last couple of years, and the other guy was one we'd been chatting with on IRC for a while.. we had never met IRL!


Kriega bags and KTM Tank bag. Airhawk pad on the seat. 1 of the Kriegas was full of rain-clothes! so I had 30l for clothes and every thing else.

The "new" guy lives in Sweden (but is Danish) and the other one in Århus in Denmark.. and I live in the middle of those two! There's about 2-300km in each direction from me, to their places

So anyway, we met up at the Danish/German border:

Brand new Ducati Multistrada, brand new BMW F800R (I think) and my Superduke. It's a real Tesla Coil in the bagground, we installed it in Denmark, so that it will slow the Germans down, if they try to invade.. more pics can be posted of the tesla coil

The Superduke have to be filled with fuel all the damn time.. irritating as fook btw.. The other guys waited to refill, so I had to put in fuel twice as much as them.. damn hehe


At the Auto-zug (car train) in Hamburg. We would take the train from Hamburg to Villach in Austria, stay there for three days and then drive back home, taking our sweet time enjoying all other roads than the autobahn!

Look at how much lugage the others have! I have the same bag as the Ducati guy, but it can't be fitted on the SD because the Akra's will melt it..


For all of you that haven't seen an auto-zug before:

You have to STAY THE F*CK DOWN! otherwise your head will hit the metal-roof.. After driving all the way down I took of my helmet - and hit my head on the roof.. holy shit that hurt.. luckily no blood


A week before we had to go, the weatherforecast's started looking like shit.. I was so depressed by that.. I Hate rain, I really hate to be on a motorcycle in rain.. really really hate it.. SO I told the other guys, that for every day we had a dry day without rain, I would give them a beer!

First day was dry... I'm the goofy looking guy at the left

We stayed in Villach at a place called Friedel's Garage . Highly recommended, best place I've stayed yet, very very nice, and the hosts' was really friendly and service-minded.
Nice rooms too btw, and not that expensive!

Because we didn't know the "new guy" we had ordered 3 single-rooms... The above picture shows one of them..

We could have used only one room, even before bording the auto-zug (car-train) it felt like we'd known each other for many years, we were happy and made fun of each other etc.. but we didnt know our friendship would be this good IRL, before going



On top of GrossGlockner where you can see the glacier. Not muh left.. but it's an AWESOME drive up there.. btw. most roads in Austria are soo fun to drive on.. I love driving in the mountains, it's most fun going up, don't like it as much when going down.

yihaah



Even though KTM is from Austria I only saw one Superduke down there.. saw more of the Ducati Multistrada!
But I saw this KTM bycycle, felt a need to photograph it, even though we can get them in Denmark




the roads are kept in great condition.. and ooh man I would love bendy roads like this back home.. wish Denmark had mountains



On top of Maltaberg.. would not recommend driving up there, the roads are too small and it's not such a good driving experience as many other trips in that area



One of the days they held a barbecue at Friedel's garage (Btw: http://www.kuchler-wirt.at/index.php/our-hotel . If you are at that place in Austria, try to book a room at their place, it's a great place!) . Nice food.. We had payed about €7 for half-board (morning and dinner) and that did not include what you wanted to drink at dinner.. At the barbecue we emptied 9 Heinekens and before we left we thanked for the nice meal and asked to pay for the beers... But they refused, on barbecue night beers was free! And we also had to drink a appel-snaps (liqour), also for free

Saved me some money, since we'd had a nice dry day! Thanks Friedhelm and Heidi

Btw again, we are comming back to that place some time. It just felt like they loved doing what they do, that was awesome

Then we had a rainy day.. We decided to go sight-seeing, and to drive from Austria into Slovakia(not sure it's correct in english?) and then into Italy, and return into Austria at evening time.

We drove in really bad weather, but my Held Collins rain-suit kept me dry. Nice! Sometimes, on mountain tops, it was so foggy, that you could only see 5 to 10 meters ahead. I'm not excaterating, 10 meters was tops some places, and that was with brake lights, when people realesed the brake, they "disappeared".. Weird experience!


It didn't go that well that day.

On our way from Italy down into Austria, some idiot had spilled diesel/oil on the road. The first guy on the BMW drove straight through it, didn't notice anything. The second guy on the Multistrada (with traction control!) lost his grip and the machine fell out from under him. He jumped off.
He have tried falling from a VFR800 because he accelerated on a white line in rainy-weather. He said this experince on the Multistrada was comletely diferent. It was a lot faster, every thing just went by really fast, be couldnt do anything.

The british people in this car didn't see anything either! And they were struck by the bike!



I was in the back and didnt notice anything on the road!

We drove about 50-60km/h, and the limit was 100!

The bike was totaled!
just a short list of broken things: rim, frame, rear-arm-swinger, front suspension, almost all plastics, handlebar, mirror, numberplate, taillight, display for RPM / KM/H etc. exhaust...


We had to look in the forrest to find the numberplate. The police wanted to see he had one

The rescue service in Austria is really good btw. I have a good feeling about them, professionel and fast and effective..
But not that good at english, any of them.
Luckily a british guy had stopped, and his wife was an Italian doctor.. so my friend was helped.





The bike is being sold as scrap, and they are taking the frame number and are putting it on another completely new bike.
The Multistrada costs €46666 in Denmark, due to crazy taxes!! (my used 2005 SD costs €16666, a new one is €31000)







Slippery as fook.
One of the "firemen" walked up to see where the diesel-trail started. On his way down he slipped and fell twice, and then he decided to walk in the grass...




Friend broke his ass (or a bone in the ass) and was in quite some pains.
We visited the hospital and brought him his toothbrush and personal stuff, phone charger etc.
Day after his wife (she's a doctor) arrived and two days after the incident he was out of the hospital. He's still on pain meds, and still can't sit down.


I'll tell the rest of the story tomorrow.. this takes way longer than I imagined.. my english sucks and I'm so slow at writing in this language

Thanks if you have seen and read all this way hehe.. please ask if you have any questions

Good read ,,Ander,, your english is good too want to read some more so get to it

Great ride report buddy and thanks for taking the time to do it in English, hope things got better for you and your mates..

wow thanks guys, for the nice replies!

The Ducati guy is allright, he'd had it worse hehe.
He gets a completely new bike and he's happy.


As for me and Martin, the BMW guy, we left Villach in Austria, and drove up through Germany.. The normal roads just ruled! Just as bendy and fun as the Austrian mountain roads.. We did not expect it to be that fun!

We didnt have a plan, we just drove north.. After driving the whole day, we stopped at about 19:00 and started looking for a place to sleep. We found a small "gasthaus" somewhere in a city called "Schönau".... with a city name like that, which I think can be translated into something like "Wonderful-ville" we arrived in a small city that was slowly dieing! Business closed down etc.
The Gasthaus was not used to having people sleeping over!

Before we could see the room, they just had to clean up, change sheets and clean the sink.. yeah our room had a sink, and not a bathroom..


The place is called www.gasthausoberwirt.de

in front of the gasthaus, 10 old german men were drinking beers.. after unpacking we ordered beers while we waited for our food... we had just asked if they could make us some dinner, and they said yes.
We had a fun time while drinking the local brew.. and MAN what a great beer, was wonderful
None of the guys spoke english.. and the area was a part of the former east germany.. but the guys were friendly.. The guy sitting next to me spoke a lot, and he'd had 6 beers.
Every of the old men jumped in their cars and drove home, when they left...

Our dinner was some german sausages, swartzbrot, potota salad and some green lettuce-salat thing.. quite good. We were happy it was not stew or something like that

We felt very welcome at that place. The owner told us about the town in English.. he had lived in Copenhagen (Denmark) when he was young, and he knew about the place I live etc.. The world is small!
The bill, for 2 persons sleeping over, getting a couple of beers and soda-pops, dinner and breakfast: €56 !
We were a bit chocked, quite cheap! You cant get that in Denmark for less than €175 heh


From Germany we drove straight up, through that .CZ country, don't know the english name hehe


Again, the roads were BEAUTIFUL, holy shit, we did not expect that.. Made such a good day!
Stay away from the big cities, they are shit to navigate in IMHO.. I was almost hit by an electric city-train.. and I took a red light etc.
A guy in a Porsche was driving towards us on the open road (highway?) and he had all of his upper body out of the car, and made movements with his hand toward the ground.. We took it easy. Next turn, 2 coppers are standing with a radar gun. Hehe. Thank's a lot Porsche guy!

Btw regarding fines. I was radared in Austria (well it was actually Martin, just look at the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9oImOMpG8c ) and fined €100 for driving 125km/h in an 80km/h zone..
Cheap fine btw, back in DK, it would have been €200 and a mark on my license.
Other than that, Martin was waved at by the police, but he just kept on going.. he's not recieved any fines yet.

We was also photographed by an automated system a couple of times in German cities.. haven't recieved anything yet.


At evening time we drove into Germany again, and via my Garmin we found a nice hotel..

The closet was almost bigger than the room we had the day before



They had a nice bar too. started out with drinking two beers quite fast, and then we ordered two more beers, and because we have a common friend that loves(!) Mojitos, we had to order one of those too. This is in the first 10 minutes we are there..
The bartenders wasn't used to that, asked if we had some friends comming or if it was for ourselfs


Prost!
Slept good that night

The next day we just drove by the bigger roads, but they were becomming more and more boring.. 10km from Hamburg we split up, because Martin could take a ferry to Sealland (Sjælland) and that was a lot faster, since he needed to go to sweden.
I took the autobahn all the way home.. Just wanted to get home fast. Kept the Superduke at 150+ km/h all the way home.. No problems with the bike, other than that the tank lid gives off this "SWUSH" sound when I open it.. I guess something is stuck in the .. hmm not sure what it's called in english, but it has to let some air into the tank when the fueled is getting used heh..

The bike didnt even use any oil at all! Impressed with that, judging from the forum, I thought all Superdukes had to burn oil
We drove about 3666 km in 6 days, and also drove ~1111 km on the train.

Had a blast. Would do it all again tomorrow, and then we would take another road with no diesel oil

Thaks for reading and commenting!
Anders

Nice one Anders, looks like you had a great time (Multistrada excepted). Sure are lucky having roads like that around.
I get lots of this

Very interesting topic - thanks. It makes you think about what can go wrong. Also useful to know the practical side of touring on the SD. Once again, thanks. I wondered how it would manage luggage with the exhausts so close to the seat.

Please tell me we're still allowed to make even remotely humorous disparaging remarks about Harley bikes on this forum?

Harleys could be the one thing that can unite all religions against the common evil. Paris Hilton on a Harley should do it, almost certainly. Invading aliens from another planet should do it, but some idiots will side with them anyway, because their skin tone is similar.



this is NOT to say that we should be allowed the same of religions - it's sad I'd feel I need to qualify this, but yeah, there are sensitive people out there who will miss the humour (bad as it is...)

Bout time you guys got yer bumms over here to lighten this up.

My mum calls me and always wants to discuss religion, for me personally that topic sucks so now when I speak to her I will say, woops got to go mow the lawn or work on a car if she brings it up, is there not an old saying about politics and religion, like NOT to discuss them? As far as joe being politically correct, I am a rebel without any cause- that does not see eye to eye with the mega establishment and has no use for that sort of thing, grass roots and small three legged horses is what I focus on, I find that people that believe in those large establishments are part of them if not in a monetary sense, to believe in a system is to endorse that system. I am disturbed about people who worry about the thoughts and action of their fellow man. .... humm, sounds like that would be politics and religion, those are the only organizations that come knocking on my door without invitation. imo they are rude to do so, force their beliefs on others.

Thing is Joe, religion should never have cropped up in this thread, it was merely an observation from someone keen to share an adventure with us in an unfamiliar language and I for one thought it was well written and abhor these ridiculous assertions that the author was being racist in any way shape or form. Were I foreign to the English language and considering posting my adventure of SD thrashing and slutty babe riding I might be thinking twice just in case I was going to have some dickhead comment on how I was using the wrong dildo on the wrong slut or whether I was allowed to call her a slut in the first place....

would this be horribly inappropriate?




woops...

All,

I'm not one to want to over-moderate the site as I believe very strongly in free speech.

I accept AnderH didn't mean any insult by his comment. Having read the whole thread it appears to me that the description of the man in question was intended as an innocent, but maybe misguided, analogy not as an insult.

I can also see thew other point of view of anyone who is a member of a long time persecuted group who probably sees the comment as another put-down.

What I want with this site (I hope I'm not alone) is to unite bikers from all walks of life not make some feel alienated.

That said we all like to take the piss and that must not change on this site. I certainly do not want to stop this place being fun or we might as well all join one of the stuck up boring forums that everyone moans about being over moderated.

What I will ask for though is for people to recognise that certain religious, racial and political groups who have a recent history of persecution may take offense at something that the rest of us think is no more than a bit of a laugh. Words on a website can be read in many ways so please, when posting, always consider the other guy who may take your words the wrong way.

Obviously the above doesn't apply to tight-arse northerners, sheep shagging taffs/kiwis/aussies etc.

No wars on SD.net PLEASE................

Tis people like myself whose remarks and intentions are to be their own self appointed moderator, I moderate joe cos no one else wants to....

if all we spoke of was motorcycles really I would just go, go anywhere else that invites me to speak of what ever I want to speak about and if I piss someone off then so be it, people on the internet I find to be rude and insulting to say the least. joe comes here, he laughs and is laughed at and loves SD.net.

I have gone so far as to post up my full name and phone # with my address, and what I found out is no one must have wanted any of it. All bark and no bite is what most of the world is about, I assure you anyone that needs to meet up with me, is well invited at their own expense. Offer has not and will not change.

A foot note: hey Plipton, why is it I can delete my thread in the banter section and not any where else?

You're all a bunch of tossers...howzat?