Germany to Switzerland

I spent a good 10 days in Germany at my parent’s place. It’s the last time we were going to see each other for a fair while, and it was great to see them again. It’s the longest time I’ve spent with my parents since I moved to England – most visits in the past few years were only very brief, due to holiday constraints.

Weather was absolutely beautiful, with not a single cloud on the sky & lots of time spent in my parents’ allotment nearby their apartment. I also checked another few trip-preparation bits, including bank accounts, shipping off-road rear tires to Iran, and the Iranian Visa (which proved to be an absolutely nerve-wrecking nightmare – though I got there in the end).

Day 12 of the trip, but only day 2 on the bike, I set off from Bochum around mid-day on the 15th of May & arrived early evening near Stuttgart.

Stuttgart is what I’ve referred to as my home-town over the past few years – just so I wouldn’t have to explain the exact geography every time someone asks me where I’m from. (Strictly speaking, my “home village” Brettach is some 70km away from Stuttgart). I stayed the night with a friend of mine. Last year we had gone for two small trips in the black forest. This year we wanted to go for a rideout in Switzerland or Austria.

But first, I had to sort out some further paperwork at the ADAC headquarters in Munich – some 150 miles away: the Carnet de Passage for the motorcycle. (For further travellers' information on the carnet, please see the Carnet-posting on this blog).

From Munich, I backtracked to Zurich and Bern in order to visit an ex-housemate of mine whom I hadn’t seen in a while. Although I had had a very long day on the bike (including torrential rain between Zurich and Bern) and he had to work the next day, we kept on chatting until long after midnight.

The next day my friend from Stuttgart was supposed to meet me near the Swiss Alps, but unfortunately the weather had us change our plans. The ride-out we had planned wouldn’t have been of much fun anyway: like I had feared the day before when I was caught in the rain near Bern, pretty much all the passes in Switzerland were closed due to snow.

So the only way out of Switzerland was to get on to the motorways & through the Gotthard Tunnel into Italy. By then I’d had enough of motorways anyway – but filtering through the queue up before the Gotthard Tunnel made things even worse. (Still better than being stuck in a traffic jam for hours though…)

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GPS screw leftovers

A quick summary on the bike gear after this first downpour: boots (Altberg Hogg) are 100% waterproof all the way; GoreTex/Thinsulate gloves got completely soaked; jacket & trousers are waterproof linings are OK – though the outer ‘waterproof’ pockets are useless and, after 1-2 hours had little puddles inside them; tank bag: reasonably waterproof; tank bag side panniers: complete waste of time – though they do help to keep rain off the legs.
Although waterproof, the GPS (Garmin Quest) is not designed to be used on a single cylinder motorcycle. Over the course of about a year, vibration from the bike had damaged the screw threads and loosened the rubber gasket, so the unit wasn’t waterproof any more.
(I wasn’t aware of that until I took the damaged GPS apart, at which point half of the screws nearly fell out on their own, and one had gone missing completely.)

Lesson learnt I guess. I just hope the camera will hold up to the constant hammering from the engine. The vibration from the single cylinder even makes my hands feel like rubberised (still the next morning!).
Whatever electronic gear survives this trip is going to be worth getting – I’ll have the summary ready in a year’s time.

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Carnet de Passage

Went to the ADAC headquarters in Munich today to pick up my Carnet de Passage for the motorcycle. The Carnet is kind of like a 'visa for vehicles' and is mandatory for a number of countries, including Iran, Pakistan and Australia. (I can't recall the complete list of countries where the carnet is needed – if you're preparing a similar trip, check with your local vehicle association – or better: try the forums on Horizons Unlimited).

After pre-arranging a meeting time at the ADAC, the whole process was very straight-forward and only took about 45 minutes, with a bond of €3000 paid in cash. I'm lucky to have German nationality/residency (and a German bank-account, so the bond can be paid back once I finished my travels): because the bond for the ADAC is relatively cheap compared to the UK RAC's equivalent, the ADAC was very popular for UK-based motorcycle travellers for quite a while. In the UK, the deposit/bank-guarantee for a carnet can be up to 8x the value of your vehicle, depending on what countries you'd like to travel through. However, the ADAC recently stopped issuing carnets for non-German residents – rumours say the RAC wasn't too happy about losing business.

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List of Spare Parts

A final list of spares I will be taking with me:

• airfilter
• oilfilter
• clutch-, front brake- and gear-levers
• spare inner tubes (1 front, 1 rear)
• clutch- and throttle-cables (already put in place next to the original ones)
• spokes; water pump repair kit + all necessary gaskets (this is one of the F650's weak points)
• fork seals (tucked away in the bike's boot, next to the 12v pump)
• brake pads (3x front, 2x rear)
• spare bulbs (head light, dashboard, rear light)
• various nuts & bolts (incl. subframe bolts)
• various fuses
• electric cable
• spark plugs

In addition to that, I've got an airfilter & a knobbly rear tire sent to Iran (via DHL), so I can swap them over for the pot-holed bits from Turkmenistan through Tajikistan.

I might consider getting front & rear sprockets in Italy and then cable-tie them to the bash plate (low weight & out of the way). Chains should be easy to get hold of in Central Asia, so no need for that.

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Chain Oiler (Loobman)

Finding the right place for the Loobman Chain Oiler took a little while. In the end I decided to put it next to the rear brake cylinder, where it doesn't get into the way & it's easy to reach without getting off the bike. The Loobman works with gravity: I usually run the bike for a few miles, then squeeze the bottle to fill up the feeder system & continue riding. In this respect, it's pretty fool-proof and never starts to give out too much or too little oil.

Somewhere I read that Automatic Transmition Fluid (ATF) for cars is good for greasing the chain so I'll give it a try for a while. After that, it'll probably be engine oil, or olive oil. (Which is one of the reasons why I prefer the Loobman system to the Scott-Oilers).

Because the Loobman uses cable ties to deliver the oil onto the sprocket: If you're thinking about getting the one of these, make sure you take some spare cable ties with you to replace the old ones when they're worn out. (Thanks to my mate Pete for the advice ;)

As for the engine oil: I just tied a bottle of 10W40 to the pannier frame (bungee strap and a ball bungee).

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Leaving the UK

My last day in England began in true British biker fashion with a Full English Breakfast in the Ace Café. As it was ‘Italian Day’ at the Ace, I normally wouldn’t have got onto the main parking area. But thanks to my friend Charles, who had arrived a bit earlier and told the parking marshalls that I was about to set off on a ‘Round The World’ trip, I was waved through in front of the cafe – with the only BMW amongst hundreds of Moto Guzzis, Ducatis and MV Augustas.

The Full English Breakfast got rid of the hangover I had from the night before (I was staying at a friend’s place & we had a few beers next to the bonfire – Thanks for a good evening, Paolo!). Shorty after 11 o’clock, I set off from the North Circular onto the M20 to Dover. This was the moment I had been dreaming of for quite a while now – but strangely enough, it didn’t feel very special at all. Maybe it was because I had travelled alongst the London – Dover route a few times before? Or maybe it was because I was too busy trying to get used to the fully laden travel bike – or I was simply too much in thoughts about various things: Are there any unfamiliar or strange noises on the bike? Have I got everything I need – or did I maybe take too much with me? How will the heavy bike cope with the offroad-stretches? And why on earth did I quit my job to go on an ‘extended holiday’, with all my belongings cramped into 2 aluminium panniers and a tank-bag. Was this really the right thing to do?

Once in Dover, I felt a bit more at ease. The bike had been running very smooth for the past few hours on the motorway. I got off the bike & onto the ferry deck, and shortly after I watched the white cliffs of Dover drift away in the distance. I guess it’s quite a beautiful way to leave a country in such a slow manner as it gives you time to reflect. During the sunny channel crossing to Dunquerque, the last 7 ½ years of living in England passed in front of my eyes – the good times, the bad times and the fond memories of the friends I had made during that time – some of which I will visit during my journey.

1 ½ hours later I’m on the continent. “The continent”. “Europe”. I remember when I first came to England & heard British people say to their friends “I’m going to Europe next week for a holiday”, and I was thinking to myself “well… actually… you ARE in Europe already”. A few years later I would say the exact same words to my friends. “I’m going to Europe”. Not that my political views or had changed, no. But subconsciously it now made a difference to me, having to cross waters to get from one country to the next.

Initially I wanted to visit a friend in Antwerp on the way through Belgium, but unfortunately we got the timing wrong – and some other friends in Holland had already made different arrangements. Traffic was really dense. At first I thought it was good fun to practice a bit of filtering between the cars, but after the 4th traffic jam in 100 miles I frankly had enough of filtering. After a quick stop for ‘frities & bockwurst’ I decided to leave the motorway for a campsite in Antwerp before I would continue on to Germany the next day, to visit my parents.

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12V air pump

No need to buy an expensive "bike pump" when you can get one from most DIY shops around the corner. I picked mine up for £12. Simply take off the plastic encasing to save some space. I guess one could even shorten the cable, but I didn't bother for now.

The dismantled pump, wrapped in some bubble-wrap, fits into the boot. (In fact, I even managed to put the fork seals, some cable ties and brake pads into the boot as well).

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