I think Danny and Steve were getting worried about Tony and myself, I was waiting for a cable for my radio so my bike was in pieces until Wednesday evening, and Tony didn’t get his exhaust fixed until Thursday. Nevertheless I was packed and ready when Danny arrived at mine on Thursday evening…until we noticed that my tax disk had expired at the end of March. Good thing you can tax online now. I was like an excited school kid on Christmas eve, took me ages to get to sleep and then I woke up at about 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Steve met us at my place and we left in drizzle for the 100 mile run down to Folkestone where we met Tony basking in the sunshine and saying what a lovely sunny ride down he'd had.
An impressively speedy service on Eurotunnel saw us on a French motorway at about 11:00 local time. Motorways are boring so we put in fairly regular rest stops, the first of which saw me pull out of a junction straight on to the wrong side of the road. D'Oh. The most exciting part of the run was comparing fuel economy, I was getting over 60 mpg, Danny was getting mid 60's and interestingly Steves 900 wasn’t doing as well as the 850’s, though he did have throw-over luggage giving a bit more drag.
The route we’d plotted took us off the motorway for the last 20 miles or so and immediately we saw how good the local roads were. A mix of narrow twisties and wide sweeping bends on grippy tarmac saw us arrive at the hotel with big grins to be met by the sight of several dozen TDMs in the car park, including some nice modifications such as single sided VFR swingarms and one with a belt drive conversion.
Having checked in at the hotel we met Jochen (Heide) and sat down to a huge 4 course buffet.
We dropped the bikes off at the hut...
...and over the course of several Krombachers we had a good chat with Hanno and Heide…
…plus others others, and realised there was another car park full of TDM’s at the back, plus the dozen or so more we’d found parked at the hut when we transferred our bikes up there, in all around 130 of them, plus some other bikes. Quite a few people had come by car and trailered their bikes, allowing them to bring their families as well. Our 700ish km trip wasn’t even the furthest, one of the Swiss guys had come around 1000km.
In the morning it was back to the hotel for breakfast and then the group photo.
Jochen introduced us to Jörg who he’d arranged to take us on a run. The whole thing was very well organised with routes already plotted out and run leaders given a GPS file of the route, with about 8 or so bikes per group. With Jörg on a 900 and Susanne on a lovely looking blue Mk2 we set of in to the mountains with Highlander as backmarker on a TRX (after market wide bars and he reckons it’s a very comfortable tourer, he’s even been round Scotland on it). Mile after mile of twisty mountain roads, varying from some with fairly poor road surfaces to some of the best tarmac I’ve ever seen, long open curves, tight steep hairpins and stunning scenery. At a rest stop in a layby we saw another group pass, and then Heide’s group pulled up in the same layby.
By this time us English were needing essential supplies so after a short run back down in to the valley we had a coffee and cake stop then back in to the twisties again.
One benefit of using radios that I’d not foreseen was the ability of the person in front to tell those following about oncoming traffic enabling them to overtake in places where an overtake would normally be very dangerous. When we first started doing this I think Steve, who didn’t have a radio, thought we’d gone mad.
After a lunch stop at a café overlooking a lovely lake and dam it was back on to the twisties again.
Back at the hotel there was time for a quiet Krombacher in the sun...
...for Tony to check in on e-bay...
...and some route planning for the following day. With the Germans all heading home on the Sunday our original plan had been to spend an extra day at the hotel and then head home Monday, but with the thought of 8 hours sat on a motorway we decided to take 2 days and travel cross country instead. Guinness kindly offered to put us for the night in Belgium, about half way to Calais. Uwe, who was sharing a room with us, pulled out a set of Lidl maps (we need to start collecting the things for the whole of Europe) and pointed out some good twisties, and with Tony playing join the dots on his tomtom helped us plan an interesting looking route to Belgium, over some more Krombacher’s obviously.
Then it was time for the BBQ. Well they call it a BBQ… pork, chicken, bratwurst, various other really tasty things that I can’t identify, and several more Krombachers and lots of chatting to friendly TDM riders. I seem to remember some Schnapps and tiny bottles of something slightly aniseed being involved at some point too(edit by Tony : t'was Jagermeister
). We also discovered that loud pipes not only save lives, but make friends. Tony’s insanely loud cans were a great conversation starter and by the end of the evening he was he crowds around the back of his bike peering down the cans as he shone a torch in to show them there really was nothing in inside. Tony dished out a pile of Carpe calling cards so anyone heading in this direction can get in touch. I can only hope that if any of them visit England we can treat them as well as they did us, especially as we didn’t speak any German. 
After another large supply of meat and cheese for breakfast we said to goodbye to our new friends, and to Steve who has the rest of the week off and had arranged with Hanno to follow him down towards Switzerland.
Having rained heavily overnight the roads were wet so it was a nice gentle start straight in to pine forest that somehow looked even more beautiful in the wet than the dry.
The rain held off though and a hilltop stop turned in to a calendar shoot (we’re determined to get a shot in to next years calendar.
After a currywurst stop for lunch...
...and a slight suprise when I turned a corner to find a river and my tomtom saying "board the ferry"
The roads began to dry out and by mid afternoon we had to stop and change to summer gear.
I honestly think that is the best days riding I’ve ever had, with Jorg’s run the previous day coming a close second. Every time we stopped the grins on everyone’s faces told it all.
We arrived at Guinness and Edith’s in time for dinner and consumption of plenty of Chimay, Duval, and a range of Guinness’ whisky collection while setting the world to rights until the wee small hours of the morning.
Thanks for your hospitality Guinness & Edith, sorry about the chemical waste
The plan for the following day was a few hours on the twisties then hit the motorway for a couple of hours to get to Calais. After a breakfast of cheese, croissants, and gorgeous vanilla pain-au-chocolat, G joined us for a few hours for the twisty bit. 
Unfortunately some navigation issues left us a bit behind schedule so after a couple of hours we said goodbye to G and hit the fast roads a bit earlier than originally planned. The rain held off until we got to the Eurotunnel terminal but then it absolutely sheeted it down, and a big delay at check in meant we got a bit damp. Back on British soil we split up on the M20 and headed home on a wet busy motorway, bit of a shock to the system after so many miles of sunshine and so little traffic.
Well this has ended up being more wordy than I thought, so if you’ve made it to the end well done. If you’ve skipped to the end I’ll try and summarise in one sentence. We had a fantastic weekend on stunning roads, met a lot of really nice people, drank plenty of Krombacher, took a load of photos, and I want to go back!
In all I took over 120 photos, if I haven't bored you to tears already the whole lot can be viewed here:
Album 1
Album 2
Edited by TonyDevil, 28 May 2008 - 08:48 am.
