Elefantentreffen 2011

[privatebill]

Well I've been round the block on it and....................... the handling is "interesting".

at slow speeds it feels like the front wheel is buckled but once its get up there its OK, also because of the tank bag its got he turning circle of a bus.

I dont think I'll be getting above 50 unless its downhill all the way there

[Fuzz]

I would ( if you havent already ) take some spare bungee straps , incase the cargo net elastics go saggy !!!!

Good luck Bill....

You coming to Rhayader in July...
Just down the road after this trip !!!!

[privatebill]

Home, so far neither dead or alive, when I've managed to get some sleep I'll post more but for now I have to raise my core body temperature back to the point where I can find my testicles again.

[aliengravy]

Well done that man

You must be very pleased!!

[CeeGee]

Top work, Bill!

[Newtsalad]

Respect! 'Balls of Steel!'

Been looking forward to hearing from you Bill, very glad you are home safe.

[privatebill]

Day 1, 24th Jan (Monday)

Start Mileage: 4,410.7



Up nice and early but luckily everything was ready to go the night before. First time riding the bike fully loaded and for the first mile I seriously thought the front wheel was buckled but this was cured by a dose of throttle.

Nice tootle to the ferry and a calm sailing brought me to Heysham where I got to have my first crack at motorway, this turned out to be a piece of piss and the Jehovah was popping along at 60ish easily keeping up with (and in some cases overtaking) trucks and slow cars. In less than two hours I was in Hull where I wandered into a bike shop that had just opened called IntoGear. Unfortunately they didn’t have anything electrical to cure my cold toes so I bought a set of antifreeze socks and hung around chatting to some bikers for an hour before popping up the road to the ferry.

After the motorway stint it had become obvious that I was going to have to stop every hour as the fuel gauge would be down to 2-3 bars and I was a bit paranoid about running out (I wasn’t using the extra fuel can in the front basket at this point as it’s a no no to carry it on the ferry even if its empty!)

On ferry, dumped stuff in cabin, had drink in bar and sandwich from shop (restaurant was bloody expensive!) and off to sleep.


Day 2, 25th Jan (Tuesday)

Ferry got in about 7am is (our time) so shower dressed and then down to check the bike. Off ferry and a short hop though Rotterdam before the autobahn to Frankfurt, weather was a good 4 degrees and fairly overcast but no actual rain. Again no problems on autobahns and the only time I dropped to below 55mph was when It simply wasn’t worth this risk overtaking slower tucks in heavy traffic, stopping to top up every hour(ish) the first problem was which bloody fuel to use as there seems to be about 4 grades of unleaded, I just went from memory and used anything with 95 on the nametag as I’m fairly sure that’s the octane rating of our unleaded.

The mobile phone GPS was working very well, as it was a sim free mobile it was only using GPS and no network assistance so it would take about 10-15 mins to get a lock but once it had it it wouldn’t loose it, on the downside I only had about 3 functions that I could use while wearing gloves but they were current location and zoom in and out, so rather than following it like a tomtom I just used it as a map.

Got to Frankfurt hotel about 4pm and checked in, had a long hot shower (video to be attached later unless funds are deposited in my account) then went for a wander into the city centre. Wasn’t much of a wander as the first cash machine I came to rejected my card and so did the second, so I wandered into the train station and had to ring my bank who advised that it had been stopped due to possible fraudulent usage,
“What fraudulent usage is that” I asked
“Well it seems that someone tried to take out a sum of cash in Frankfurt” replied the bank,
“Yes that’s me and I told you I was going to Europe and gave you the dates so this shouldn’t happed” replied I while trying not to loose it in front of armed police officers
“Oh yes replied the bank we have a note of that right here” said the bank
“Then why the hell did you stop my card” replied I
“Because it was a suspicious movement” answered the bank “but done worry we’ve re-activated it now”

The upshot of this was I was able to get some cash out but by this time I couldn’t be arsed so I went back to have a couple of drinks and have a decent meal in the hotel.



Day 3, 26th Jan (Wednesday)

Got up and went to find the local Honda dealer to change my tyres to the knobbly ones as the weather forecast had my next destination as heavy snow, after an hour of cocking around in Frankfurt I found the dealer who promptly advised me that it would be an hour and a half and €120. I pointed at the bike and said that it wasn’t a Moto GP bike and that his quote was a trifle expensive, he then pointed me down a back road where I found a local tyre shop that did the job for €30. The result of this was that I didn’t leave Frankfurt until gone mid-day and so including a lunch stop and regular re-fuelling the sun went down and the last hour into Regensburg was in driving snow (which wasn’t sticking thank god) and pitch black.

Day 4, 27th Jan (Thursday)



Woke up to a cold morning with snow on the ground but with typical German efficiency the roads were spotless so took off to the site. About 45 mins away from site I saw my first bikers on the trip who promptly overtook me with some good natured leg waggling, 5 mins later I pass a parked police car who is giving one of them a ticking off for something. Then off the autobahn onto the side roads which despite the previous nights snow were absolutely clear, a bit of very pleasant and scenic riding later I leave the what we would class as an A road to the B road to the site which was a little steep (1st gear steep!) but again clear and with another 10 mins riding I get to my first Elefantentreffen road block and anther 5 mins I’m at the site entrance (about 11am) where upon I first get my chance to drive on snow, I was a bit panicky as the road to the entrance is littered with parked bikes but I couldn’t understand why as the road was clear so I parked carefully and registered at the front office remounted my steed and just went for it.

Riding on snow with knobbly tyres is a piece of piss ( it was loose and only slight compacted) so I went down the hill and staying on the main “driveway” I went up the other side where I saw a Union Jack, Unfortunately despite the flag it seemed they were all German so I rode around for another minute or two then spotted a patch of level-ish and virgin snow so I rode down to it and parked up, I checked with the Bavarians in the tent next door and started to unload the bike.

I borrowed a snow shove and cleared an area and pitched the tent in about 20 mins after which another Bavarian cam along and asked if it was ok if they pitched up and setup a fire to which I replied no problem ( actually “Ja Ja Ja” as my German isn’t that good) within an hour there were 3 big tents and about 20 Bavarians pitching up and After explaining that I was most certainly not English but from the Isle of Man they explained that they were mostly all from same town and one of them was the local brewery owner which explained the many kegs they had brought (Score!).

Once I was setup I sat down and started cooking up a ration pack and some coffee while laughing at the GS owners struggling to get up the hill that I just rode up.

A Brit called Simon who had been there since Wednesday came up after seeing the small Manx flag draped on my tent, he’d come up on a Ural (might have been a Dnepr) outfit and had managed about 45ish on the autobahn and now had more oil on the outside of his engine than on the inside (good rust prevention I advised) Had a chat and then I went for a wander to find the two most important thing on site.

1) where to get food and drink
2) where to deposit it when I had finished with it

Luckily both were about 50 meters away from where I pitched.

Then it was wandering around looking at bikes and conversing with the Bavarians in my schoolboy English and their schoolboy German.







Day 5, 28th Jan (Friday)

Not a good nights sleep, the Icemat self inflating mattress is comfy but my arse was like a block of ice so I had to get dressed up a bit before I could drop off.

More people are turning up and I think from the noises outside my tent during the night I may have pitched my tent in the middle of a Battle re-enactment society ( seriously these guys don’t f*** around there were military grade flash bangs going off! and some sort of mortar , not to mention the almost constant air raid sirens)

Had another wander around the site with Simon a trying to find some Brits but we could only see a small tent with a union jack and half way down to the racetrack an English plated bike but no owner. We were pointed in the direction of some Lithuanians on a pair of MT350’s with UK plates (I think they just bought then as they still have auction tags on) but other than that just Germans, French and Italians.

I was laughing out loud at some of the bike lined up on the road by the main gate, some Harleys , GS’s and other assorted “Touring” bikes, all absolutely spotless I mean come on if your going to fake it then you cant be vain, go and get it dirty first!
While at the main gate I picked up a bale of hay some of which I used to make a sleep mat.

Some more booze and Wurst from the hut down the road but by 10pm I was shattered so I went to bed (a much better experience due to the hay)











Day 6, 29th Jan (Satuday)

During the night I needed to (repeatedly) piss after drinking so I used one of my cooking pots which I kept by the entrance to the tent, in the morning I had a pan of frozen solid recycled beer which then had to be heated up just so I could empty it. I don’t know how cold it actually was but I sure a hell knew I wasn’t getting up and getting dressed just to wander down the road for a piss.

Saturday was Glorious, not a could in the sky and brilliant sunshine, I wandered up to say goodbye to Simon who was setting off for blighty and then I found the single most important building on the site The Heated Toilets! For the princely sum of one euro I could spend my morning absolutions in a toasty warm porta-cabin crapper, worth every cent.

Rest of day was spent mostly lounging around in the sun and chatting, Saturdays is obviously tourist day as a lot of people just come up to wander around and take in the atmosphere, also a lot of film crews wandering around interviewing folk.

At some point after the tourists left the battle re-enactment seemed to turn into all out warfare with sirens and explosions going off all over the place. Then as the sun went down the hill up the side of the food hut became an impromptu hill climb and the temptation was strong to have a go myself but I couldn’t take myself away from the beer and fire. At some point wandered up to the beerhall met some UK chaps had a drink then I went on the torchlight procession in memory of a mate who passed away last year, just for reference I thought it was going to be around the site but it turned out to be about a 2 mile hike to a church in the next village. Came back and crashed for the night.








Day 7, 30th Jan (Sunday)

Up bloody early this morning don’t know why but I spent about 2 hours sat by the fire just chatting with one of the Bavarians (had to be at least -10c), then after the sun came up I started to pack-up camp which is not as easy at pitching up especially as the tent is damp and frozen solid but I got there in the end. Eventually I got the bike loaded and after saying good bye to the Bavarians (and trading my Manx flag for a Stein mug) I gingerly made my way down the icy path and out of the site.

Now unlike my ride to the site which remained above freezing, the thermometer was resolutely stuck at -6c, which had me bricking myself on the roads, completely un-necessary though as there was no ice anywhere and I was getting overtaken by loads of bikes so I thought screw it and gunned the throttle.

Now came the bad bit of the trip, I hadn’t noticed it on the way out but on the return it was very noticeable that the knobby tyres had a massive rolling resistance, to the point where I was regularly in 3rd doing 45-50 on level road and on some uphill’s down to 35 in second, this was also slaughtering my fuel consumption and oil consumption (before tyre change it hadn’t used a drop). Add to this the now biting cold and the long distance and I was seriously loosing my rag with the bike, but eventually I got to Frankfurt (about 5pm) and had my first shower in 3+ days and a warm bed.







Day 8, 31th Jan (Monday)

Long drag to Rotterdam, seriously considered going back the tyre fitters and getting them swapped but I couldn’t face having to take the wheels off in the freezing weather so I just pushed on. Arrived in Rotterdam with hours to spare so went to a McDonalds and had a pig-out and a couple of their wraps to take on the boat.

Day 9 1st Feb (Tuesday)

Another slow drag though quite frankly the dirtiest pace on my entire trip (Yorkshire) where my bike managed to end up looking like I’d been trails riding after only 5 miles of motorway, visited some relations for tea before heading up to Heysham for the early morning ferry.

Day 10 2nd Feb (Wednesday)

Home at last, my luck didn’t hold out with the Irish Sea ferry though but I managed to nap though gale force waves.

Final Mileage: 6,071.3



I haven't written this much in 15 years so I take no responsibility for the legibility or accuracy of my writings

[privatebill]

[privatebill]

If/when I go again some notes:

1) Heated insoles - I was wearing special socks and big thermal socks inside bloody great goretex lined army boots yet my toes were freezing
2) Handlebar muffs - overmits do the job but the hassle of getting them on and off again is just too much of a ball ache (zero grip to do up zips and whatnot - heated grips simply not needed)
3) When arriving on site, before checking in, strap at least 3 bales of hay to the bike, it really make all the difference
4) Either I'll get a catalytic tent heater or I'll just get one of the tipi style tents (these buggers were everywhere usually with small stove inside http://www.getgeared.co.uk/NORDKAP_Tipi ... uring_Tent) and a stove. Screw cold winter camping i'm not a bloody teenager!
5) I wont get knobbly tyres again, a decent all weather profile and some small snowchains will do the trick (http://www.mv-motorrad.de/cgi-bin/cosmo ... uche--snow)
6) The Bavarians requested that next time I come I bring women
7) A bigger bike, I've done it on a small one , but I cant be arsed doing that again, oddly enough I know a local, guy selling a Dnepr outfit ......
8) Go with a group, can be daunting on you're todd
9) Ibis hotels if booked far enough in advance are fantastic and cheap ( except Ibis in Offenabch which was a bit shit) and all the ones I stayed in had secure underground car parks so i didn't have to take everything off the bike every day
10) If I really am mad enough to take a small bike again then it needs to have a secondary fuel tank as having to stop and refill all the time is such a chore
11) Take some bottles of some local spirits, always a good way to meet people!

[privatebill]

Some figures:

On road tyres fuel consumption was well over 100mpg (I think about 110ish) and that was flat out 55-65mph in forth, Oil used - Nil, over about 5-600 miles
Off Road tyres - I dont want to know but it was under 100mpg, Oil used 1/2 litre, over about 1000 miles