Bike Trip 2004 - Part 2
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From Part 1..
Friday 17th September - 211 miles.
Switzerland at last! The Great Escape!
Got up at 10am. Breakfast - luxury. Sweated around Strasbourg in the traffic, for a classic Faff stop. Johnny raced off on his cafe racer through the traffic to a garage, whilst I lost 2 kilos in sweat, waiting. After all, my bike is far far fatter.
He went into a garage for some oil, and another biker took pity on his indecision, and helped him purchase the right stuff. Nice lot, bikers, International language of "hey, lets help out the novice".. You dont get this with cars.
Then the Swiss Border at around 2pm. They werent interested in Passports - just us paying the motorway toll charge - €30. I had cash, and Johnny didnt. So it was a whole hour faff stop, in a very nice swiss border control car-park.
€30 Euros for a years Swiss Road Tax. And I'll be
there for three days..
Even the Swiss car park at the border crossing was perfect.
"Oh - is that the time ? Where is Johnny..?"
Ahh. Swiss roads. After Basel, they improved from the corrugated pothole quality of the German Autobahns, to perfectly smooth, sweeping bends. Fantastic. And it must be said that the Swiss just dont mess around. We must have went through a total of 50km of tunnels, and probably the same again on huge bridges. Very little inclines on the road, which is surprising as we were going across the Alps.
Scenery - fantastic. At one point, we looked down over a huge valley, and saw five hot-air balloons below us. If only there were parking places on the motorway.
We hit the outskirts of Lusanne at about 4pm. JVS roared by me and cut into the last service station. "Odd", I thought. I didnt know what was going on, as I was on the phone to the wife at the time (Handsfree on the bike. Bliss). I followed him up, and found him hopping around the car-park, clutching his ass. Cramp had set in. Ouch. So another 30 minute faff-stop, calling the guys at the Swiss Alpine Villian HQ.
John's infamous Arse
Above lausaunne. Pretty, innit?
Then. We. Got. Lost.
And Lusanne is *big* - a town of 110,000 folks. The Radio batteries died, just as JVS's bike started cutting out, and ultimately dying on a bus lane. I had to move on.. When I got back to him, he had disappeared. Another stop, phone call. He had rolled the bike down the hill.
Now. Microsoft Map-point. It had joined our hotel road onto the Place de Geneve road. Which is cool. Aside from the 25m+ height difference. Lausanne is built on a hill. Mappoint didnt reflect this, arbitrarily joining roads via escalators. Seriously. So we spent an hour, in sweltering heat (28 degrees!), figuring out where we should go. My chain started making alarming rattling noises - not a good sound when trying hill starts.
Finally found the hotel, hidden in a shopping arcade. So we drove the bikes up the street, scattering the pedestrians. Lugged the kit off the bikes, and checked in around 7pm. 3 hours to get into Lausanne and find the bloody hotel. Next time - a talking GPS system! Or a decent map of the town!
Phew. We'd arrived. 860km, excluding getting lost.
We met up with the guys, and took off round the bars. During the pubcrawl, PaulR went up to my bike, hugged it, and talked nicely to it. Started at Les Philosopher. And landed up at Les Brassiers... Some Occupational Therapy students tried to get JVS to pay for their drinks.. Messy..
Saturday 18th September
Struggled out of bed at 10am, all sore from the ride. Breakfast was three hard croissants, jam, and a wander down to the bike to make sure she was still there. Thank god. We then took off to the Ferry for the "public transport" ride to Montreax. The lads walked down there, whereas I enjoyed an extra hour in Bed, and took a taxi. Lazy, moi ?
On the ferry - the equivalient of public transport -
between Lausanne and Montreaux. Lovely.
The morning mist just starting to clear.
Coming up to Montreaux. PaulR's mountain hideaway is "up that hill and across a bit".
Of course, some folk find a 20-knot ferry a tad slow.
More prettyness.
No. Really, it was really that blue and that clear and that hot.
We ate at the British Pub in Montreaux. Good old fashioned British stodge. First food since Thursday. And admired the pretty ladies. Then the lads went pen, knife
and watch shopping. I window-licked with the best of them, but abstained from splashing out $100 on a swiss army knife. Even if it did have a lighter (like Roys) or
a Pharmaceutical Spatula (like Coatsies). Walked by PaulR's office - very very nice.
At this point, it has to be mentioned that something in the Swiss Air makes you all relaxed and laid back. Everything is chilled. Even the "young folks bar" was quiet and reserved. So when we shouted out "180!", we got hard looks from the crowd there. Amazing.Never been so relaxed.
JVS and I rented a "podule" (or "pustule") - a round wee motorboat with a strange fig-leaf over the top. Not very fast, but a bit of a laugh.
This old puffers's been going since 1910, and is a paddle steamer. It took me over 15 shots to get one with the piston head (on the right) coming out of the top of the engine..
the view of Montreaux from the Ferry
Even the railway station is perfect.
Reservoir Bloggers. Roy, JVS, Coatsie (with his Hannibal Lecter Hat) and PaulR.
Le Podule aux Cretains
The L-Bonian Diet of Beer
The other end of the station. Still perfect.
As we poodled up and down the lake in front of Montreax, the rest of the lads wandered up the lakeside on foot. An elegant lady in her 30's walked along, spotted me+JVS in the "pustule", and shook her head indignantly, cursing "Cretain!".. We made her day..
"Ug. Admin". Anytime us programmers tried to say anything remotely programming-like, Coatsie said "Ug, Admin". PaulR pitched in with "U Admin" as he's half an Admin.
We then made it back to Lusanne to meet up with Normunds.
This is Coatsie's knife. All 50+ functions.Amazing.
Normunds and Roy showing how happy they can be.
JVS. Tart. Says it all.
After a beer or three with Normunds, we then had a McDonalds (way-hey!) and headed to the hotel, then the pub. Les Brassiers again. Where we made a starting discovery. Instead of serving people faster, as we wanted the bar staff to do, we could order a 10-liter (approx 20-pint) TOWER of beer, with a wee tap at the bottom. Okay, it cost the same as a national debt, but it did make life a lot less strenuous. So we got one of those. There were attempts at photos of this glorious artifact, but mobile-phone cameras are really crap at indoor badly-lit shots.
And faffed, and talked bollocks, and faffed, and letched at the pretty girls. Around the end of that 10-liter tower, we decided it was best not to order another, but to get a smaller 5-liter tower. As the beer on the 10-liter one was flat at the end. As clearly we werent drinking fast enough..
Sunday 19th September - 340 miles
<0>Ahh. Got up even later.. Another two hard croissants and jam. Then a quick change of travel plans (heading back tonight instead of staying in Switzerland for another day).
So what did we do for "International Talk like a Pirate" day ?
"We bought Swiss Army Knives too"
"Look. Hook. Piss off"
"JUST PICK SOMETHING!"
Le Pirate. Bet you thought I was kidding?
"Oh. Oh. Helicopter Ride"
Okay. My trousers are too tight for me.
Left at 4pm. The lads crowded round, admiring my patience whilst Johnny took 20 minutes plus to get his jacket on and get started. Coatsie, by this point, looked like HE wanted to slap the lad for faffing. PaulR, who's dad was an ex-motorcycle cop (and therefore certifiably insane) said "My dad would have killed him by now". Another wry smile. See the faffing section at the end.
And then I started faffing. What the hell. Stopping in four separate filling stations, looking for chain oil. Using up an hour. Sigh. Finally decided to use the "light" (WD-40 like) stuff that I took with me. Problem - no center-stand. So I rolled the bike back and forth, and Johnny kindly sprayed away. Chain restored to health, we took a quick burn to the Swiss border - in ONE single hop! The longest the Johnny ever had (and possible ever will) do in a single hop.
The rain came on, so we had an extended faff-stop, eating sandwiches, and calling the folks. When the rain cleared, so did we.
Unusual fact. The German autobahns are out of bounds to trucks during the weekend. So we made the most of the truck free space, and jostled lanes with cars doing in excess of 300km/h. We even overtook a lethargic and possibly ill Porche 911 at one stage. Ace. My bike costs the same as one of his wheels. Hur hur.
Stop. Faff. Start. Faff. Stop. Faff. Then at 11pm, the inside lane (of the mostly two lane autobahn) was a wall of trucks. Seriously. No space. And the mercs, audis, porches, all flashing and trying to get by.
Lots of folks, especially in the biking community, rave about the autobahns. I can say that I've never seen a nicer, more well-behaved bunch in the world. However, the road surface was corrugated. A German collegue (Hi, Michael!) stated that they were spending far less on maintenance these days. And I have to agree. 80mph on these roads, on an old badly-setup overloaded bike was a nightmare. More than once I thought I'd get into a "weave of death" as the front forks rose. Not nice. Anymore.
Around 12pm, on another faff-stop, we decided to keep going to the next hotel. Well. That took another 160km. When I saw "Autohof", (just north of Manneheim) and a sign for a bed, I screamed off the Autobahn, and basically screamed around the countryside till we found this place:
"You can check out, but you can never leave"
Of course, no-one at reception. The pretty-but-surly girl downstairs in the 24-hour slot-machine casino basically told us to go across the road to the filling station. Curiously, they gave out room keys - very strange. But beyond complaining. Filled up, bought some beers at the truck stop (huge filling station, but NO chain oil! Aaargh!)
Cleaned the inside of the fabric trousers and jacket - an increasingly tedious and smelly job (tip: get BREATHABLE fabric stuff!), watched 30 seconds of TV, drank the beers, and collapsed into (separate!) beds.
For a €40 euro flop house, it was incredibly clean, comfortable, nice. Bliss. Better than most €100 hotels in Town.
Slept the sleep of a dead person....
Monday 20th September - 240 miles.
The burn to Eindhoven
Phone alarm went off in my hand. I'd not let go of it. Couldnt believe it was still dark. Didnt believe the time. Thought I hadnt slept. Texted Johnny, and limped like a dead thing into the shower. Buffed my bronzed, hard, lean body, and got dressed. (Okay, okay, let me dream okay?)
Batteries all dead. The MP3 player had one left. The new set for the camera I purchased (with some hilarity) in Strasbourgh - using my stock french phrase of "Pardonnez moi mon francaise - il est tres merde. Je suis Eccosaise" - turned out to be dud. So the last picture I have is completely black, of the sun rising outside our hotel in Germany.
Up at 5:45... Quick 120km burns to the Dutch/German border at Venlo.
My radio died at 9am - just after we got lost for an hour around the A1/A61 autobahn junction. Seriously. Two autobahns merge for 10km, and our one slipped off to the right without us noticiing. 50km and an hour later, we were back on the road to Venlo.
Crossing the border, the drivers got immediately worse. The German "We shall pull in to allow overtaking" rule which worked so well, lasted a mere 5k over the border. All these bloody caravans appeared, and so did the cross winds. 120/140km/h was hard going.
One last faff stop (and for a quick pee!) 20km from Eindhoven. John had decided NOT to come into the office (cos he looked distinctly road-worn by now, and not "customer facing"). He would go to the Bin (our spiritual home!) and then go home (to Amsterdam - another 120k) from then. He Actually hid in a service station for two hours for the rain and the wind to die down. He was seriously tired, pissed off at the Dutch drivers, and the side-gusts had him rattled - unsurprising.
Parked up at the Phirrips SFH bikeshed. As I clumped to the office, dragging helmet, tank-bag, pannier bags, and my jacket, I rather expected the dutch guys sitting in the chairs opposite to break into cheers at my achievement.
Well. That didnt happen. Who the hell did I think I was ? The Pope ?
I just cricked my back ("Bill - the human xylophone!") to get it straight, gurned to myself, enjoyed the internal flashback of the trip, and limped to the office. With a huge grin in my face.... Till next year!
After a long pause for a fairly hectic week at work, t'was time to go home..
Friday 24th September. 90 Miles
Rock and Roll
A quick blast up the A2 to Amsterdam, and then a jump to the left along the A9. Piece of piss. Well, it would be if Holland wasnt so dammed flat, and it wasnt raining quite so hard. The flatness just encouraged the cross-winds. The rain came down in buckets. Made it up there for the prescribed time of 3pm, just to wait for an hour and a half in the car park, chatting to other bikers. And a couple who went on a cycling holiday of Holland (in the rain!) on a Tandem. Quite mad.
Three lads from Newcastle turned up from their Cross Germany Autobahn blast. One guy on his R1 got it cranked up to "190" but I'm still not sure if it was K/ph or M/ph. Looking at them and the bikes, Isuspect the latter. Loonies.
The ferry crossing was even bumpier than the last time (woopee!) so just sat in the bar, reading "Angels and Demons". Good book. Watching the waiters cope with a good 10 degree rock and roll, whilst the passengers all nagivated the corridors by clinging onto the grab rails. Amateurs..
