19th September 2013 Brodski Stupnik, Croatia to Nis, Serbia

19th September 2013 Brodski Stupnik, Croatia to Nis, Serbia

Raining when I departed, rained the whole journey, raining when I arrived.
I got wet. 300 mile ride in rain that was... heaven weeping. Relentless driving rain got through my overboots and overgloves. Difficult to pick out the positives from the days ride. Maybe fuel consumption was slightly better because I had to ride slowly. The rain washed all the squshed and dried bugs of my screen. I didnt get any punctures during Noahs flood.

At every toll both I produced a ticket that was inevitably sodden. The machine wouldnt read the tickets. There was no plan B. On every occaision staff had to dry my ticket before I could proceed.

I am staying in a place that I stayed in last year... "The only one studios" Nis.
This is an amazing place for 15 Euros. Penny for penny the best accommodation I have ever stayed in.

I will drink Serbian beer tonight...... As it turned out the bar i liked the look of didnt take Euros or VISA. MacDonalds were much more accommodating. A BigMac is always a BigMac.



I'm loving it

My evening in Nis ended nicely. I met up with Deian and Sharron. Deian runs the Vespa Bar, Nis... http://www.vespabar.com/  and has just completed his own epic  6000km ride Nis, Serbia to York, England and back on a Vespa scooter! http://byvespa.vespabar.com/about/



Nis mileometer 17573 (281 miles ridden)

18th September 2013 Admont, Austria to Brodski Stupnik, Croatia

September 18th 2013 Admont, Austria to Brodski Stupnik, Croatia       

A day of contrasts and of enlightenment.

I really enjoyed my stay at Schloss Rothelstein until I opened the curtains…. Heavy rain.

 I had a great breakfast and then went out to my bike. The castle had lent me a garage for the night, so my bike was dry. I changed into all my gear and set out. My instinct was to return to the motorway via the route I had followed yesterday to arrive at Admont. I decided to follow the sat nav! Sat nav led me up and along a steep, tightly winding road through the mountains. At points the temperature fell to 4 degrees in pouring rain. I realised that my left over glove was splitting at the seam. Not the most auspicious start to my days ride. When I finally entered the motorway, riding, although wet seemed like light relief. Soon I arrived at the border with Slovenia and the skies began to clear. I purchased my Slovenian vignette and after a further 30 minutes entered Croatia…. Slovenia is not a large country.

 

Slowly temperatures rose and I sped along Croatia’s motorways. At some point I decided to duck a little lower behind my screen, it was then that I realised why I have neck ache after riding. It was also at that moment that I rued the hasty sale of my tall 1200gs adventure screen.  I purchased my bike from a seller in Northern Ireland, it came with lots of fancy extras… a titanium exhaust, bmw panniers and an “adventure screen” I gleefully stripped these from the bike and sold them on eBay (other online auction sites are available).  In recent times I have covered close to 10,000 miles on various bikes and it has taken me until today to understand the true value of a good tall screen. When I ducked behind my screen today all the buffeting disappeared, all the strain associated with keeping my head upright in the turbulence was gone and the wind rush silenced. OMG what a wanker for selling that screen!

With a little effort I found my destination, Brodski Stupnik. Sat Nav let me down again and ultimately I made my way to my night’s hotel using common sense and old fashioned navigation. I am staying in Vinarija Zdjelarevic….. easy for me to say… not!  Anyway it’s a vineyard. Nice place, the vines are being harvested and grapes pressed as I write.

 

 



Banana Palm and vineyards ?? !!

I attach the following photos as evidence of my complete immersion in Croatian culture....

Brodski mileometer 17292  (309 miles ridden)

17th September 2013 Reichenberg, Germany to Admont, Austria

17^th September 2013

Reichenberg, Germany to Admont, Austria        

A day of rain and showers. I managed to stay dry and now realise that if there is any possibility of rain then it is best to suit up with all of your weather gear. There is a strong temptation not to bother and to chance it because the gear is cumbersome and restrictive. The over gloves are 3 fingered… and not perfect for riding. The over boots are fragile, I am very aware that if I let my feet drag on the road they will hole. The over trousers have their own challenges, in particular of the toilet type….Finally if it looks like rain wear it all, after all just 5 minutes in heavy rain and you will be soaking.

My destination for the day was Admont in the Austrian Alps. As I entered Austria I needed to buy a Vignette, effectively motorway tax.  I am now building up a collection of these on my panniers. Austria is truly the land of tunnels. I judge Austria to be the masters of tunnel digging… they seem to choose tunnels over any other possible solution. Today I travelled through 30 or so tunnels and I was quickly reminded how terrifying they are. Austrians will laugh! The roar of trucks, the wind blast from on-coming vehicles, the low light, the claustrophobia….

Finally I reached my hotel, Schloss Rothelstein. Nestled amongst trees on a steep valley side, this is an ancient castle. Very impressive stuff. I am sharing it with about 40 Austrian school kids… they are as noisy as any school kids but I have to say far better behaved than their British counterparts.



Schloss Rothelstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

view from my window

 

Admont mileometer 16983  ( 325 miles ridden)

 

16th September 2013 Brussels, Belgium to Reichenberg, Germany

16^th September 2013

Brussels, Belgium to Reichenberg, Germany.  It rained I stayed dry!

I woke up to blue skies and fair weather. Brussels was waking up and was busy. It took 30 minutes to get out of the city. My jouney was again chilly but none the less pleasant. I crossed the German border and realised that the cloud cover was denser and more likely to yield rain. My preparations for wet weather riding have been typically minimal. I purchased a new Decathlon rain jacket and a pair of over trousers. My purchases came to something like £16.99….. You have a sense of my investment … I have never worn them in the rain, let alone whilst riding a motorcycle… you have a sense of my preparartion.

I stopped and put on my over trousers and jacket before it rained. They are surprisingly good at keeping you warm… cutting the wind chill. The first raindrops fell and I knew that quite quickly my boots (more boutique than biker) and gloves would soon be sodden. I pulled over again and put my overboots and overgloves on.

It began to rain very heavily and I stayed dry! And I mean it rained heavily….. I will now take great care of my rain gear... I know that I am only a small snag, tear, rip or puncture away from a drenching.

I now realise how lucky I was during 2012’s ride, with consistent fair weather.

I arrived in Reichenberg, a small Bavarian village. My accommodation…. Pension Schlossberg is a lovely place, right in the heart of the old centre of the village. I have a garage to park my bike in and there is a Pizza takeaway near by……



Pension Schlossberg
 

 

Pension

Reichenberg school house

Reichenberg mileometer 16658  ( 314 miles ridden)

 

 

 

 

15th September 2013 Loughborough England to Brussels Belgium

15^th September 2013

Loughborough to Brussels              Loughborough mileometer 16030

First things first. Did I make good use of all the important lessons learnt from last years trip? Absolutely not. I fitted my panniers on the morning of departure, I didn’t test ride my bike fully laden, I didn’t scrub in my brand new tyres. This is the way of the idiot!

Weather forecasts for the day were worrying! I set out early hoping to miss the worst of the Autumn gales heading into Britain from the Atlantic. My journey down to the channel tunnel was almost perfect. Chilly, but otherwise lovely. The 189 miles took me about 2 1/12 hours. On the train I chatted to other bikers and very quickly found myself in France. The ride to Brussels was dry and painless. My 1200gs is running well and is returning 52 MPG. I have to say, given my earlier unkind words, she is a very easy ride. On motorways she is less tiring than my 800gs. This is probably why the 1200gs is the favoured ride of the worn out, past his prime middle aged biker.

I met up with my friends Francis and Lola and we had a lovely meal in De Hoef one of Brussels oldest restaurants.

Brussels mileometer 16344 (314 miles ridden)

David Edgell's 2013 bike ride blog. Riding a BMW 1200 gs motorcycle overland to India

Very soon I will depart on another overland bike ride.
I will follow last years route.

I will be riding a BMW 1200gs. I didn't choose this bike.... it was more or less forced upon me. When you leave Europe you require a Carnet de Passage. This document allows you to temporarily import a motor vehicle into countries like Iran, India and Australia. It is a way of avoiding the cost and complication of paying import taxes for every country you enter. In the UK the RAC are the only provider of "Carnets". The RAC require 4-6 weeks to a prepare a Carnet..... I had hoped sell my now well travelled 800 gs to buy a younger, low mileage BMW 800gs. These bikes are light and nimble, run on the sniff of an oily rag and are a joy to ride. Sadly I ran out of time and with less than 4 weeks before my likely departure date and since I had no other motorcycle to hand, for which to apply for my carnet and my 1200gs was chosen. She is a fullsome beast and without wishing to offend, if my 800 gs were Cinderella she would be........ So I will depart on a bike some would describe as effete, as ugly, as the choice of a man in mid life crisis.

Why am I doing another ride again? Why the same route? .....I can't adequately explain. There are lots of fairly obvious reasons why I will ride... challenge, joy of motorcycles, adventure.. which in part are all true. There is also something deeper, something from within, something that almost compels me to ride. I cannot name or describe this thing. It is what it is.

How do I feel? A few weeks ago I had fairly much decided not to ride. I felt very anxious about the thought of leaving. I felt unprepared to ride and unprepared to leave. 

My route is France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulagria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India.