C90 Euro Trip 2023

[Capitano]

Excellent, George.

My neck hurts!

I know... it's really annoying. Can you give me edit access to this thread? I can go into it and attempt to change the images with ones saved in Photoshop. I think I need a software to override the phone's orientation settings.

Nah, it’s brilliant as it is!

Tech folks can keep their AI generated, robotic, perfect presentations. We’re old school here. If there’s an issue we’ll get around it.

[George]

IMGBOX was down again...

After we got fuel, we were a little more relaxed. But it was very late, unlike the Google Street View images, and it was getting cold. This was the first time we'd experienced a long day and night riding. We were so far away from Nürburgring, and it didn't seem like we would get any closer to our destination:



The first big town in our path was Brilon. We decided to stop there and look for accommodation. Here is where we stopped:



Again, imagine it's past midnight on a cold November night. We parked the C90s close to where that scooter is, on Station Road, and I was so cold that I did a few push-ups on the stairs.

I don't remember the place in Brilon where we went, but it was hilarious. On Booking.com it said that there's a 24h check-in. So we went there and knocked on the door and rang the bell for 5 minutes straight until someone, obviously woken up by us, opened the door. He didn't have a friendly facial expression, and I started by apologising before we asked for a room. He denied us a room, telling us that we couldn't have one at stupid o'clock. We did tell him that the website said they were open, but that didn't help us feel any less guilty for waking up the man... and he sure made it obvious that we were knobheads for doing so.

I found a bush across the street as I had to mark my territory before I left defeated, and we continued towards Nürburgring:



We were quite discouraged since it was so late, and it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. Big towns were more friendly when it came to finding accommodation after midnight. But that region of Germany, in November, it seemed very... abandoned.

Somewhere between Brilon and Bilstein, I spotted a hotel sign on the right side of the road and told Mr. M. via our intercom that we should try that place and see if it was open. Now, the Brilon and this particular hotel I couldn't find on the map. What I do remember of the hotel was that it had a parking lot before the reception. And it was going around quite a bit. Mr M. now leading, decided that going round the parking lot wasn't energy efficient, so he took the sidewalk/pavement straight "into" the reception.

The place seemed abandoned, and even though there were many cars in the parking lot, there was no one to be seen anywhere around there. There were 2 garden chairs outside the reception, and I remember collapsing in one of them while we both worked up our courage to wake up yet again a poor German from his November sleep. I was inclined not to knock on the door or ring the doorbell while Mr M really wanted to take his chances. While we had that conversation, much like two drunken people deciding which way was home, we started laughing uncontrollably. We were that tired and cold. A simple joke like "Aaah... this chair is so comfortable, I can just sleep here" was enough for us both to go on a laughing spree.

We did find enough courage at the end and rang the bell. After a few minutes of considering if it was worth waiting a few more minutes or bailing out and getting out of there, someone answered the door. This person was more polite, probably because this particular hotel didn't look cheap at all (something that was on the top of our list throughout the trip), but after a short conversation in sign language more than English, he made himself understood that having a room at that time wasn't possible. We got onto our bikes and rode into the night... we were morally destroyed at this point as it was around 2 A.M.

As we were riding, I led the way with Nürburgring as our destination on the SatNav; we passed this sign saying 24-hour check-in. I was so tired and slow that it took me a few hundred meters to process what I saw. Mr M was even worse; he didn't even see the sign. We did a U-Turn and got to this place:



It was called Hotel zur Freiheit, in Bilstein.

Here is the sign I saw at 3 A.M. (Street View for illustration purposes only):



We called the number, and after 5 calls, a man answered the phone. It was super obvious that he woke up because of us, but since it wasn't a website indicating a 24-hour check-in and an actual physical sign, he didn't have any excuse. So we asked for a room... he was perplexed as to why anyone would call at 3 A.M. to book a room. We solved that mystery for him when we told him that we were in front of the hotel. He asked, which hotel... He couldn't believe it. After a long conversation back and forth for him to come to terms with the reality of our situation, we asked again if we could have a room for that night. He said, "Aaaaah... it's possible, "... and after a long dramatic pause, we asked again if we could sleep there that night. He sighed again and asked if we had cash. We did have some, but not enough for the €65 double room. He said he couldn't come to the hotel as he was hundreds of km away from us. We had €50... he said it was fine and gave us the combination at the front door. Then, with him on the phone, he told me to head to the stairs and remove a wooden frame from the wall. Behind, there was a slot in the wall, and he asked me to push the €50 through into the wall. Opposite to that slot, there was a camera with which he could observe me. He then gave me the combination for the room and told us to pay the €15 left in the morning. He said there was an ATM across the road. I took notes for all the combinations and went to Mr M. to park the bikes and get our stuff.

We parked the Cubs next to the building where that skip is:



We went into the room, washed up, and went straight to bed. It was so late, we were knackered.

I'll continue the next day in the next episode.

[125erCrazy]

Nice one George.
We had the same issues in France in November & it seems that since COVID hotels just don't have reception staff anymore & unless you're pre booked your stuffed & even then it can go wrong with me unable to find the air BnB then my mate eventually arriving finding it and unable to get in with the host also miles away sending a friend to let us in thinking we where stupid only for her mate unable to gain access either.
Problem is I/We don't like riding to a time schedule as you can miss things you'd like to see more of
Keep the story coming

[George]

The next day (2nd of November 2023), Mr. M crossed the road, got some cash out from the Sparkasse ATM:



Got the outstanding amount into the wall, and left Bilstein towards our 1st destination of the day (Nürburgring). This is how it looked on the map:



We stopped at a great bakery where we had some pastries and coffee/tea. I remember wanting to take pictures there, but my phones were on charge. And even though I tried to search the place, I can't find it to save my life. I also remember it was a sunny day and quite windy. But the wind was warm. We passed the place and decided to turn back. I'll keep looking for it. It wasn't fancy or anything, but it was one of the greatest bakeries I've seen. Quite busy, loads of people getting doughnuts, amongst them, Mr. M. He did offer me one to try, and I didn't. I was on a diet.

We crossed the Rhine River in Bonn, and carried on towards Nürburgring. Nothing happened along the way. It was a smooth 100-mile ride, and as we were getting really close to where Mr M's friend lives, the rain started. So, I took these pictures:



Mr M's friend was very kind to serve us tea, something to eat, and provide the means to change the oil on both bikes in his garage.

From there, it was a few mile ride to Nürburgring, where we stopped to take some pictures:



We didn't have much time to hang around there, let alone do a lap around the track. And since we wanted to get as close to Paris as possible on this day. Which, considering where we started (Bilstein), it was a bit optimistic. This is how it looked on the map:



As usual, we didn't give it much thought when we set off from Nürburgring... obviously... and we rode into the distance. And what a distance it was.

We did not stop for anything other than fuel up until Luxemburg. Mr M has a lady friend in Luxemburg, and they decided we meet up and have a late dinner together. We left the bikes in yet another bicycle parking area just outside the pedestrian area in the town center and had Italian food. We were all very inspired when we all ordered Spaghetti Carbonara. Here are two pictures from the Luxemburg town center:

(it was obvious that they were standing with Ukraine).

After our encounter with Miss E. and boring her with our travel stories to the point where Mr. M contacted me the other week, telling me that Miss E. wants a C90 to use in Luxemburg, we once again got to our bikes. Happy that all the luggage was still on them after we were away for more than an hour, we got on and started our slow progress towards Paris. I think it was around 21:00-21:30 when we set off.

We did get fuel before Luxemburg to make sure that we took advantage of the cheap fuel prices, but we soon realised that the difference at 3.5l is completely negligible.

We crossed into Belgium for a few miles around the borders with France and Luxemburg. A strange and hilly border town that looked as if it was abandoned and left to decay.

This is the area:



Soon, we were in France. It was late, quite windy, and the temperature surely dropped significantly. Most towns in that area of eastern France were in quite bad shape. You could see how poor this area is.

If I wasn't clear enough till now, it was just shy of 22:00 o'clock when we left Luxemburg, and we were aiming for Paris or as close as possible. This was the extent of the problem:



We were immune to ETAs on Google Maps by now and completely ignored all of the red flags. Even though the ETA on Google is quite accurate, it wasn't the case for us. The C90s are a bit slower than Google's average calculated speed, so we learned to ignore that part of the SatNav. We did get a reality check a little later in the trip.

We were riding on very scenic country roads that, for some reason, were always on top of hills, and since it was cold and very windy, together with the fact that it was a frontal wind, we struggled to make good progress. We kept riding and kept getting closer and closer to Verdun. I asked Mr M. if he knew why Verdun is quite renowned nowadays, and he said he doesn't know. And in true fashion, there I went again. Starting telling him about the failed German offensive at Verdun during WW1, and by the time I depleted my knowledge about the battle, he asked if it would be good to go see it. I would never say no in such circumstances, and even though it was stupid o'clock, we decided on the detour:



When we got to the actual location of the battlefield at Verdun, it was 12 min past midnight. We saw f-all, of course... the only thing our bikes were capable of illuminating with their candle-like headlights at idle speed was the signpost. We read about it and left. We saw deer, and Mr M got serious about us riding slower to avoid a possible accident with the deer. We passed by an abandoned town close to the battlefield, which we decided not to visit since we couldn't see much. But we did make our way to Verdun proper, where we were both extremely surprised!



After going through so many derelict towns in that area of France, Verdun was a different animal. It looked great, as you can see, and the contrast was really surprising. I was also surprised that Verdun is on the River Meuse. I did not know that until I got there, and it was written on a bridge. Quite a cool way to find out. We rode around Verdun till we arrived at the Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Verdun). We stopped there for Mr M to set up the SatNav as he was going to lead going forward, and I took my time to take some pictures of WW1 bullet holes this time:



It was 1 am now, and we were still very far from Paris. So far that "the Google" told us we would arrive in the morning. And since this was unacceptable for us, we decided to do the unorthodox thing and join the A4 motorway from Verdun to Paris. Now... we were also low on fuel, tired from the high wind, cold and sleep-deprived as the previous night was not enough for such an undertaking. We got the A4 toll ticket, got on the carriageway, and Mr. M seemed like he completely forgot what he had told me only a few days before. He wanted to take it easy on his rebuilt engine, and he didn't want to go over 70 km/h. He was leading, and I was reading 57 MPH on my speedo while he was pulling away from me... I'm sure he got his to 100 (62MPH) at some point, but these events were very rare with the frontal winds and hills. I was glad it was stupid o'clock since the motorway was quite empty. And I'm saying that because on some of the uphills, we were going as low as 20 MPH, even less. Mr. M's Fly was quite slow on these sections, and we were lucky that the French used these toll charges to create a 3rd lane for slow vehicles on all the uphills. That meant the lorries could maintain their lane while we were using the right slow lanes. It seemed safer for all of us.

As mentioned previously, we were quite desperate for fuel when we hit the A4, and these high speeds and hills didn't help with the situation at all. First services were out of hours, so we pushed for the next petrol station. We were counting the km, and once we arrived and filled up, Mr. M's Fly had 200 ml left (filled 3.8), and I had 300 ml left in the Red (filled 3.7). We were set for fuel to get to Paris now, but since it was this late, we were eager to get some rest. The motorway was funny as we were trying to get behind lorries and try and maintain their 57 MPH. Most lorries seem to do more than that nowadays, but the slower ones were always a target for us. I did get behind one, and the Red managed to maintain that speed, but Mr M lost the draft, and I had to pull out. Which I was happy as my Red was screaming. But I was also surprised by how good that engine is! RED ONES ARE FASTER...!

We came off the A4 in the most unique possible way, and for different reasons, I won't go into these details, but we were getting closer to our B&B Hotel outside of Paris:



This one had a self-service booking booth outside, much like the one in Hamburg, and it did not have it. We could only book for the next day, which, basically, was that day, but after check-out. And we were not happy with that, considering it was around 6 AM after a sleepless night out in the open.

We looked on the map once more and found another B&B Hotel closer to Paris, so we set it up as our destination and, defeated, we made our way towards it:



We arrived, and the reception was manned. By this time, it was daylight outside and people were leaving the hotel when we were going into the reception. We parked the bikes right outside over here:



We weren't successful in getting a room due to the unusual time we were trying to check in. Extremely discouraged now and quite tired, we thought about what we could do... and with no destination on our SatNav, we got out of the B&B car park to realise that there was another hotel right next to it. We didn't even check the prices like we did up until now and headed towards the reception. This is how close it was:



And here is the reception:



We got to the reception and asked for a room till 12 PM. They told us it was not possible to check in at this time and leave in a few hours. I tried to explain our situation in the limited sleep-deprived French that I could muster, and the young lady at the reception called the Manager. I'm sure it wasn't the Night Manager... They made an exception and said we could crash for the morning. I promised we would check out at 12 PM, and she told us not to worry and that nobody would disturb us. We were ecstatic! Parked the Cubs in a smaller car park bay right across the reception and went straight inside to catch some well-deserved sleep. It took ages to unload the bikes, secure them with the chains, and get to the room. We had to use the curtains as the street view pictures reflect the weather and daylight quite accurately this time round.

We fell asleep instantly, and that was it for the long day and night we had from Bilstein to Paris, with an oil change along the way and a few longer stops to have breakfast and late dinner. We also visited Verdun on the same "day," so quite a day.

The next day in the next episode. Need to get into the garage and work on some Cubs... Getting them ready for yet another French trip in May

[George]

Still the same day, but only a handful of hours later, my and Mr M's phones were trying to wake us up... I must admit, I did hit snooze a few times before I had the courage to get out of bed. The alarms were set at 11:30 to give us the most amount of sleep and the least amount of checking out time. By the time we managed to get out of the room, it was 12:30, and the cleaners had passed our room without disturbing us. We made our way down to reception, and I went to apologise for the 30 minutes extra and thank them for their kindness.

I remember I had my overtrousers on as it got really cold in the afternoon. If it was a very bright and sunny day when we were faffing about trying to get a room ( ), by midday, the situation changed dramatically. We had a few drops of rain and a very cold breeze. I thought it would be a sunny afternoon in Paris and didn't get my underlayer on. By the time we packed the bikes, I had warmed up and got a little damp. I didn't have time for a shower, which made things worse.

The only picture I have from the hotel is this...:



Where I captured the slogan I chose for Mr. M's REG.

On our way to the town center, we noticed the traffic getting worse and worse. And the closer we got to our first destination of the day, the worse it got. At some point, it seemed like all drivers were out on a vehicular manslaughter spree... We had vans cutting us off at 45 MPH on a 30, buses driving on red, and all sorts of vehicles going for impossible gaps. Both Mr. M. and I decided to come out at the same time and express our concerns about that barely organised chaos. We were in awe and couldn't believe how bad it was. Soon, we decided to adapt as it seemed like we were an easy target for the French in their rat race to get their favourite bakery's baguette. We were not slowing down on ambers; we were forcing red lights for fear of getting rear-ended by the French. It was clear that they wouldn't mind doing that, as all of their vehicles looked like they were looted from a scrapyard.

We got the hang of it at some point, and we made sure we were first at the traffic lights, pulling off using everything a Cub could give and still struggling not to get run over. At some point, and I remember laughing out loud about it, I was doing 30 MPH on a wide boulevard, and I heard someone screaming... I thought it was someone I passed by, but the second scream had the same exact intensity. Looked in the mirrors, and there was this guy on a road pushbike wanting me to get out of his way... Made him some room, and he went for it...

Somehow, we managed to get to our destination and first attraction for the day:



We parked in front of Notre-Dame (de Paris) and took a few pictures.

Soon, we left to go to our next point of interest. We rode around it for a bit before stopping here:



Oh... and looking behind, I asked Mr M if he knew who (famous person) has a famous picture from this place:



He said he didn't know... so I said... CENSORED CENSORED

After a brief history talk on my part, I went back to Red, and I saw its ODO... took a picture:



It read 25k there! At that spot. I couldn't time it any better.

We soon started moving again towards the Arch de Triumph. Mr M fell behind at a traffic light, so I took my phone out and took a few pictures at Place de la Concorde:



From there, we took the Champ-Elysees Boulevard towards the Arc de Triomphe:



The "in-flight" pictures are inverted, as I always fly inverted.

It was funny when I got to the Arc as I parked next to the curb where many pedestrians were taking pictures with the Arc. I got in all of their frames, got off the Cub, went amongst them, took my picture, and then all of the other tourists had to take their pictures with me while I was waiting for Mr M, who fell behind due to being cut off by the Motorcycle (Scooter) French Police.

After having my picture taken with the Red and the Arc de Triomphe by a million tourists, Mr. M decided not to stop there, and we carried on to Av de Wagram as per the SatNav instructions towards Brussels.

Since it was 5 PM, we both concluded that we should have our morning coffee. So we started looking for a place where to stop and reflect upon our experience in Paris. After agreeing that you need to be suicidal to ride there on a daily basis before we even stopped for coffee, we saw this place, "Boulanger Patissier Chocolatier":



I got a Pain au Chocolat or something similar, a hot chocolate and Mr M some pastries and a coffee.

I was now suffering really badly from damp feet. To the point where I was very uncomfortable. So, in true Romanian fashion, I exposed my feet to the Parisiens:



A gesture in the form of non-verbal communication, expressing my regards and respect for their way of driving.

Even though it was really cold by now, even though I expected it to be warm since we were riding in a big city, I did manage to dry up my feet and socks, warm up with the chocolate, hide my feet from the public, and we got on our bikes ready to set off into the great distance. It was late afternoon, and we were not planning to spend the night riding in the open again.

What happened next? Stay tuned for the next episode.

[George]

Getting to Brussels implied a 300 km ride, which we knew we couldn't cover in one afternoon. But we were on schedule since we pushed hard to get to Paris. It was the 3rd of November (2023), and the plan was to get to Brussels no later than midday on Saturday the 4th. That plan was part of our return trip in which we had to prepare the bikes on Saturday and get back to the UK and Sweden respectively by Sunday, as on Monday, we were both back at work.

This is how it looked on the map:



Paris was still cloudy and damp, and the temperature was quite low. But there wasn't much time to think about it, and we started tackling the traffic once again. And since we weren't out of the danger of the heavy Paris traffic, we were discussing over the intercom if we'd get out of Paris without any incidents. It took a lot of energy and concentration, and as we were breaking through, this lad on a maxi scooter hit Mr M's leg while filtering and carried on without even noticing. After making sure that Mr. M was fine, we carried on forcing red lights, filling any gap we could find to deny others from forcing us off the road, and so on till we got on D301 and the traffic eased off.

We were low on fuel by now, so we stopped at an ESSO Express on D301:



Which was 22 km in our trip:



We left that petrol station, and the daylight was already fading away. Nothing else happened for the better part of that late afternoon besides us getting colder and colder as it was getting late. It became quite unbearable at some point, and Mr M and I started expressing our discontent. It was the coldest day we'd had during the entire trip, and if the previous day was borderline acceptable, this day was brutal. I was leading the way using my 2nd phone as SatNav, and it was losing charge fast with only a few % battery left. We decided to stop to warm up and get things on charge while doing so, thus starting to look for restaurants.

There was nothing open. And on these Routes Nationales, everything seemed abandoned. Loads of points of interest as we approached the 1914-1918 frontlines. At some point, halfway through our journey, we spotted a place that had a dimmed light and stopped to check it out. I went to the door, and no one seemed to be there.





We got back on the C90s and continued following my dying phone.

2km down the road, my phone turned off, and we stopped at a crossroads:





The circle marks the spot where we stopped the Cubs on the side of the road. I got off the bike and started walking in circles to warm up. I was suffering now and was upset that I didn't have my underlayer on. But with all the luggage being tucked away in Mr M's rollbag, I didn't want to think of getting it all out and strip to my underwear to get the underlayer on. It wasn't an option.

Mr. M got his phone out and started looking for restaurants, and the closest one was "L'Auberge du Vermandois." The same place we stopped to check 2 km before. We both thought it was closed, but Google stated the contrary. As tired and cold as we were, for some reason, it seemed fair to go and check it again. Maybe because the 2nd closest restaurant wasn't too close? Not sure... I contemplated doing some push-ups to get warm, so I didn't pay much attention to what Mr M was doing. I followed him back to that place, but this time, I pushed the door, and it opened...

We walked in, and only when we were halfway in the restaurant, the owners came to greet us. We met Mr and Mrs Debreux. We sat down at the table that had an electric radiator next to it and asked if we could turn it on. Mr Debreux brought us a menu board and explained what he had on offer as specialties. We were so frozen that we couldn't think much, and given that Mr Debreux didn't speak English, we were struggling. I asked him if we could have some tea to begin with, to get warm. He got us different varieties, and after choosing one, I asked if he had any soups that we could start with. I don't remember what the soup of the day was, but we both wanted to start with it.

And then I was experiencing something quite strange. I started to warm up, and at some point, I cooled down again drastically. To the point where I felt I needed to take everything off of me. So I took my overtrousers off, my boots, socks, and motorcycle jacket. Started to warm up again and again, I felt I cooled off instantly with shivers and the lot. And I kept feeling that again and again. I was warming up in stages, having to start from a cold point at every stage. Thinking of it, I realised that's how I felt cooling down when riding the bike. I would get used to a temperature, and then I would feel cold again and get used to it, and cold again etc. I'm pretty sure I had more cooling cycles from riding than I had warming cycles during our entire stay at the restaurant. But I've never felt that before... those stages were so strange, yet so obvious.

After the soup, we both had the local steak with vegetables. It was such an amazing steak! We devoured it. We asked for another tea; this time, Mr. M had what I had in the first round and vice versa. As we were relaxing and warming up slowly, as that radiator was the only source of heat in the entire place it seemed, both Mr and Mrs Debreux joined us, and we started conversing with them. My French was quite broken, but we did manage to tell them about our trip, about the bikes, (Mr Debreux had never seen a C90 before), the long previous day, the A4 experience at 30-40 km/h (" c'est tres dangereux ca!") and all sorts. They told us about their place, what they do, the area, which is quite a tourist area due to many WW1 cemeteries, etc. It was a great time spent with them, which sadly had to come to an end. We got their business card:



Said our goodbyes with sadness as they were so great. Amazing people. But we had to carry on and push towards Belgium and get as close as possible to Brussels so that the next day we could arrive at noon. They also provided loads of newspapers. They got us a stack of them, and we used half of that stack to pack ourselves till we couldn't fit any more paper in our gear. It was comical... took a lot of time to pack ourselves with all that paper, but we knew how bad it was out there, and Mr Debreux understood how much we needed it just by observing us for the first half hour of being there; let alone my sock-removal habit that he had to witness.

The incentive was to get to the border with Belgium and sleep somewhere around there, leaving us only 30-35 miles to cover on Saturday the 4th. Mr M found a B&B Hotel close to the border, so we aimed for that:







It was quite late, so the street view images are optimistic again. We found the reception manned and got a room for the night. Unpacked the bikes, got them both parked in one car park bay and went straight into the room to get ready for an "early" night this time. I didn't miss the chance of taking a shower and after doing so, I was in bed and in dreamland in an instant.

More during the next episode.

[George]

We woke up the next day and packed all of our stuff away one last time. It was funny that the entire floor of our room was covered in newspapers. We pilled it all up in an empty corner of the room waist-high and imagined what the cleaning person would think of it.

We went down into the lobby and found out that we were allowed to have breakfast, so I made myself a cup of tea while Mr. M made himself a coffee he could enjoy at a decent time this time round. We had some pastries (croissants and pain au chocolat). As soon as we were done with that, we got ourselves geared up to head outside to pack the bikes. It was raining and we didn't want to get too wet while at it.

This is how the map looked like for the last part of our trip:



We had 62 miles to go. It was raining, and I was happy as it's usually warm when it rains. And this time, I had my underlayer on. I had them on for the entire trip but the coldest day.

We were riding on the small country and scenic roads, and I only realised that we were in Belgium as the road signs were different, and I know them quite well. There was no border to be seen on them farm roads, but it was a great part of the world to ride in. At some point, we joined a main artery, either the Route Nationale 6 after Mons or 563-27. It got quite busy as it was a Saturday morning, and many were out and about.

As we got closer to Brussels, the rain had eased a bit and it was more enjoyable. Not cold as the previous day so it was going smoothly. We weren't in a hurry for the first time in a long time as we had plenty of time to cover the short distance to my friend's house.

As we approached Brussels, I started recognising the places. One in particular got me super nostalgic. We were on the outskirts of Brussels, and we went through Overijse. There were buses, cars, and many people everywhere, so the traffic was slow. Too slow for me to tackle the succession of bends like in a distant memory I was nostalgic about. My mother had lived in Belgium for years, and she had my NTG there for some time before we swapped bikes (she got the Cross Cub, and I took the NTG back to England). It was back in 2015-16 when I took the NTG to Belgium for her to use. I took my EBF as well that time on the trailer, and we rode around Belgium. On that particular day, we went to Han-Sur-Lesse, and on the way back, her 35/35W bulb went (classic issue). So I took the EBF one and gave it to her while I continued riding back to Brussels on the 5W parking light. I was a little faster than her, trying to keep up with traffic to see the road, and as soon as I got into Overijse, I was ecstatic. It was the first place on our way back with street lights, and I was so happy to stop relying on the moon for a change. It was late, so I went around the bends at a higher speed than what I was doing with Mr M.





I remembered how enthusiastic I was around these bends that night back in 2015-16, and I was reliving that memory for some time.

After my nostalgic episode had faded away, we were ploughing through yet more cross-country roads. And by a pure miracle, I had checked my SatNav right when I was about to miss a turn:



I took Mr. M by surprise as that side road was through a gate. There's no street view of that junction, but there is an area available further up the road. That's how the entrance looked like when looking back at it:



That car is on the main road. The one I would've taken if I had missed the turn.

And I was so happy I didn't miss that turn as the Tervuren park looked so pretty!



All of this area was great:



Only a few km later, we arrived back at my friend's place in Brussels. We rolled the Cubs in his garage and took this picture:



It was 13:38 when I took that picture, so we did arrive around noon-ish...

After getting out of my motorcycle gear and changing to casual clothes for the first time in a long time, we got into my car and drove to Mr. M's friend to get his car to where the bikes were. We needed to load his Fly into his car. Here are the cars at his friend's place on the other side of Brussels:



We got both cars back to the garage and started partially stripping the Fly to have it fit in the car:



After we finished with Mr. M's stuff, he helped me get my Red settled on the trailer:



We had so many stories to tell my friend and his family, and since we were so pumped up from the adventure, we were so excited about it all.

After sitting at the table all together, Mr M had to leave and spend the night at his friend's place. We said our goodbyes, and off he went.

It was an early night for both of us; at least for me, it certainly was. The next day, I had a ferry to catch, and I was on my way.

These are the last two photos from the trip:



And this concludes this adventure series. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. We saw 5 countries and 5 capital cities in 6 days, per the original plan. It was one of the greatest adventures I've had and one that I'll keep mentioning for years to come. We've experienced everything during this trip but breakdowns, which I can't complain about. We've fallen in love with these small and quite capable little bikes, and it's incredible how well they performed. It's obvious that they could easily out-ride us.

It took me a while to write this up, with much detective work required to retrace our route. If you liked reading this, let me know and I'll make sure to better document my future adventures. It would save so much time as it took hours to search Google Maps, use street view as a reference, and take screen grabs. Mostly because I relied upon my memory more than anything else. If there's interest, I could get things done better and avoid the inverted pictures that are quite annoying.

And since this adventure was so epic, we've decided to go on the Loire River Valley in May this year on the 90s. Mr M will bring his Fly on a trailer this time. I'll ride down to France from the Midlands with Alex on his C90CM7 and Dan on his C90MT. My parents would love to come if all is well till then on the Cross Cub and the Innova. It'll be a less hardcore ride this time around, but I'm sure we'll have another great story to tell. Till then, I'll go get more work done, as my Red is getting some well-deserved attention. I'll document most of it in its dedicated thread. And I'll see you in the next one!

[125erCrazy]

George fantastic write up and thank you for taking the time to share.

Always love hearing about other folks Big Adventures Small Engines

[George]

George fantastic write up and thank you for taking the time to share.

Always love hearing about other folks Big Adventures Small Engines

Thank you for taking the time to read it.

[wightegi]

Great stuff George , can you stand on your head when taking photos though
Have they introduced the low emission rules for motorbikes yet ? both my cars have Crit air stickers. I will be in the Payes de Loire in June for some motor race.. LM24