Date: 28/09/2013
City: Monaco, Monaco
Kilometres ridden: 349
Cumulative kilometre: 60739
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

The broken rear break hose was fixed during the morning and after some thorough testing we went back to our accommodation, packed up and said good bye to our nice hosts.

Then we took off, direction Monaco. We arrived in the evening and started to search for an affordable hotel. Some of the hotels started at 400$ per night, which was far too expensive for us.

After asking some people we finally found some affordable accommodation, not far from the centre and in a nice neighbourhood.


In the evening we strolled to the casino

and Sigrid started to select cars… she didn’t pick a BMW, I wonder why? 😉

On our way down to the sea we found two old acquaintances we met in Medellin, Columbia before. A sculpture of Fernado Botero, with the same parts polished as in Medellin 🙂.

In the habour we could see the yachts nicely illuminated and from this viewpoint monte carlo looked quite nice.

On our way back to our accommodation we found the hotel Paris, it looks great but is out of our league 😉

Monte Carlo has a real nice atmosphere, very happy that we stopped here. Tomorrow we will have a look at the Grand Canyon du Verdon.

Date:23/09
City: Alessandria, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 198
Cumulative kilometre: 60134
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

The closest dealer was in Alessandria, around 100km from our hotel. So we packed up and drove there. When we arrived we met Michaela, luckily for us, she spoke English very well. That made it much easier to communicate with Omar, the mechanic. After he had a look at the bike, he gave us a price estimation which would fit within our budget and it should only take 2 to 3 days.
We agreed to get the job done.


Omar took out the gearbox oil plug… and it looked like a Christmas tree! Seeing that showed me that it was the right decision to get the job done.

Michaela was nice enough to look for accommodation for us, but there was a police congress going on and all the hotels close by were booked out. So she found a nice B&B 30km from the workshop.

For commuting we got a BMW 650 scooter which looked really fancy J

Date:24/09
City: Alessandria, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 64
Cumulative kilometre: 60198
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

After a nice breakfast, we drove to the workshop to see if Omar found the problem and to get a better idea about the price. When we arrived, we were in shock; there was only half of a bike at the bike lift, the rest was scattered on the ground.


Just to make sure, I asked Omar if he was sure that he could assemble the bike again.. he smiled. The problem was one gearbox bearing. Below you can see the culprit. To my laments eyes it looks ok J

We talked it over and decided to go ahead. Parts were ordered and we had free time. We used that to visit a shopping centre, buying some bit and pieces and for me to go to the hairdresser. At night we got dinner from our hosts. For me it was as I envisaged Italian meals, marvellous food with three courses and wine.

 

Date:25/09
City: Alessandria, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 60198
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today was a quiet day; washing, planning and booking of our flights. At night we had a meal again at the house and also go to visit the wine cellar of our hosts.

Date:26/09
City: Alessandria, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 64
Cumulative kilometre: 60262
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

After lunch we drove to the workshop to pick up the bike. It was ready and looked complete again J.

So we took off and visited a castle we had seen from the distance. We thought that would be a good idea before we leave. I parked the bike in front of a castle to take some pictures and then I noticed some oil drops coming from the bike. Below you can see the oil on the left hand side.

Bummer, the oil was all over the right side wall of the back tyre, great. So we returned to the workshop very carefully and showed the problem to Omar. He looked at it in disbelief, organized the keys for the scooter again and sent us home. As it turned out, he had gotten a brand new seal with a fault for the output shaft.

So we let our hosts know that we would like to stay a day longer. Hopefully the bike is ready tomorrow; otherwise we start to get into trouble, since the B&B is fully booked on the weekend.

Date: 27/09
City: Alessandria, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 64
Cumulative kilometre: 60390
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

I started to write a rough version of our trip for a motorcycle magazine, not sure if that will work at all. In the afternoon, we got the phone call that the bike is ready. We drove back, talked to Omar. He apologised for the problem and told us that he tested the bike for 10km, which I could see on the tacho. So we said good bye, hopped onto the bike and road again to the castle. Last time we couldn’t find the real entry to the castle, so we thought we give it another shot. We were driving around, still couldn’t find the entrance either. however when I drove down the hill I noticed that the back brake failed…. When I pressed the rear brake fully, the bike didn’t change speed at all! So I stopped at the side of the road and had a look at the rear tyre. And guess what, there was an oily fluid on it again! Darn!@#$

It was nearly 6PM, so we gave Omar a call and told him what happened. He couldn’t believe it, but agreed to an appointment with us for tomorrow morning. Now it started to get a bit tight, since all rooms in the B&B were fully booked for tomorrow night. I had my doubts that the bike would be ready tomorrow….

Date:22/09
City: Domodossola, Italy
Kilometres ridden: 293
Cumulative kilometre: 59936
Street: Highway, Mountain Pass
Weather: Sunny, cold, warm

Yesterday we did the Stelvio Pass and that was quite amazing with its 48 switchbacks. Today we were looking to get over the Oberalp Pass, the Maria Pass and the Furkapass. When we arrived at the Oberalp Pass we felt a bit hungry and I must admit it smelled nice outside of the kitchen, so we decided to have lunch there.

Sigrid enjoyed her Hirsch Ragout and I had some Rostis with eggs, I was in heaven J

During our lunch, more and more red Porsches were arriving, all of them older but in very good conditions.

When I took the picture I noticed a Lighthouse, not sure why, maybe Noah had some input here….

From here we continued to the next pass, Maria pass and then the Furka Pass.

We noticed that the snow line was getting closer and closer, and were hoping to avoid any snow on the road. We were lucky. The view from here was stunning; you could follow the road through the valley and see the next pass with a lake at the other end. When we were looking around and taking pictures we noticed a helicopter coming in and trying to land on the road beneath us. I thought that looked like a rescue helicopter. As it turned out it was one!
We took a closer look at the place where he tried to land and noticed a broken guardrail. And looking a bit closer again we spotted a car at the next road level down and people attending to a person next to it. That gave us the shivers, we continued extra careful after that

From here we pushed on to the Italy, since accommodation there is more affordable then in Switzerland. So after the border we turned off the highway and looked for a hotel. Finally we found one! When I was parking the bike in it’s spot I noticed that the clutch noise got worse. So we determined where the closest BMW workshop is and how we could get there. It turned out that just 100km on the highway from here there is a BMW workshop in Alessandria. So that will be the target for tomorrow.

Date: 21/09/2013
City: Airolo, Switzerland
Kilometres ridden: 257
Cumulative kilometre: 59643
Street: Highway, Mountain Pass
Weather: Sunny, cold, warm

We got up early to arrive at the BMW workshop before it is closes on Saturday. We had to get Kuh Elsa a check up, and find out where the gear box noise was coming from. After a very nice breakfast at the hotel we stared our trip to the next BMW workshop, which was just 100km away.

The ride was a bit tense, since I wasn’t sure if the bike would make it all the way. In the end we arrived and the guys at the workshop had a close look and even a test ride.

Well, the verdict was not bad and not good either. It is either the clutch or the gear box, the bike could make it for the rest of our trip or not, depending what was causing the noise.

Great! that didn’t help much, but I got a good hint, the noise will get worse before I have a real problem. The estimated time to get the bike repaired is around two weeks. The made it easy for us, we will continue until the noise gets worse. So we continued to the San Bernardino Pass, which had a little lake at the top.

The road towards Airolo was just great.

In Ariolo we had difficulty finding a hotel with reasonable/affordable prices. Eventually we opted for a small room under the roof, but the view was great.

Tomorrow we will have a go at the Oberalp pass, which is apparently quite scenic.  Here’s hoping that the noise doesn’t get worse 😀

Date: 18/09
City: Munich, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 58976
Street: N/A
Weather: Rainy, cold, warm

It rained heavily today so we took up Uli’s offer to stay. After lunch the BMW service called and told us that the bike is fixed and ready. The afternoon would be too short for us to get to BMW, do the paperwork and get going, so we decided to pick up the bike early tomorrow.

Date: 19/09
City: Prato Allo Stelvio, Italia
Kilometres ridden: 342
Cumulative kilometre: 59329
Street: Highway, Mountain Pass
Weather: Sunny, cold, warm

In the morning we hopped into the public train and went to BMW.

When we arrived we got the bike but unfortunately the parts left over from the incident in the tunnel still had to be fitted. The mechanic fixed it in no time. It was great; I could watch the mechanic fixing it through a glass window.

It turned out that one part in the tank had come loose which caused the trouble. The mechanic told me he used different clamps and I don’t have to worry about this problem anymore. Here is the mechanic with his buddy.

We took off happy that we could continue our journey. Our goal today was the Stelvio Pass which was around 400km from Munich. We went through the same tunnel where the problem started, this time the bike made it through; well there was no traffic jam either ;).
Just before the Austrian border we organized two stickers which were needed to get onto the highway in Austria and Switzerland.

In Austria we went through a couple of long tunnels, the longest one was 11km. I felt it took forever before we came out. I kept thinking what would happen if we get stuck in the middle of this tunnel? 😛

The weather was overcast, but the mountains were still beautiful.


We passed the Reschensee, where a church was submerged into a lake.

The weather got sunnier toward the evening. We decided to stop just before the Stelvio Pass, look for an accommodation and do the pass tomorrow…
The first hotel was already booked out, but he recommended another one to us which was fantastic, and so was the price 😀

View from the room 🙂

 

Date: 20/09
City: Zernetz, Switzerland
Kilometres ridden: 57
Cumulative kilometre: 59386
Street: Highway, Mountain Pass
Weather: Sunny, cold, warm

We had a very exiting ride after a nice breakfast in Prad. We drove up the Stelvio Pass (GermanStilfser Joch), the second highest pass in the Alps.



Then we continued and drove over the Ofen pass and just before reaching Zermez we passed some road works. Shortly after I asked Sigrid if she was wobbling in the back seat which she vehemently denied.
Just past the next bend I realised I had a flat tyre.
Mumbling words best not repeated into the headset I drove onto the car park of the first hotel in Zermez. Getting off the bike and looking at the tyre, there was no doubt: it was flat.

While I checked out the damage and our options as to what we could do, Sigrid went into the hotel to ask about accommodation for the night – a bit pricy but not too bad.
Outside we met a Swiz-Australian named Fritz, who offered his help. Great to meet people like that! I took the back wheel off, he drove me to the mechanic who said the slit in the tyre is too big to fix… Darn!

Back at the hotel I made a telephone call to a Motorcycle tyre shop about a new tyre roughly some 30 km away, luckily he had one available.
Fritz offered to drive us there after he picked his wife up from the train station.


Together we drove to the tyre dealer where Fritz dropped us off and we got the new tyre fitted.


We carried the wheel to the next train station, hopped on the train and let it drive us back to Zernetz.  Well, that was easy… But now where is the hotel? We proceeded to walk towards the direction where we thought it would be…. Then a car with two ladies stopped. They introduced themselves as guests in the hotel where we were staying and told us that they had witnessed our tyre ordeal. Now they offered to drive us and the wheel back to the hotel where it was fitted in no time! By the way, lucky that we found them ….we would have landed somewhere in the mountains if we had continued in the direction we were walking 😉


Last check and then a test ride. Well..all ok on the tyre front, but ….now I noticed some grinding noise when the clutch was disengaged!  “@#$%”!

The noise was so severe that we decided to change our trip and ride to the next BMW dealer for an assessment, hoping that we would make it there.

Date: 16/09
City: Wolnzach, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 536
Cumulative kilometre: 558926
Street: Three lane highway
Weather: Cloudy, drizzling, fresh

In the morning we said goodbye to Conni, the only person who went to work, and started to pack.  We finally left around noon.

On our way south we got in a bit of rain, but not too much. Just before Munich we turned off the highway and looked for accommodation and found something in a small town off the highway. The beer garden of the hotel was empty, so we had a great spot to park the bike.

We had some dinner in the restaurant and went to bed early. What an exciting day! We are on the move again and it feels great!

Date:17/09
City: Munich, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 70
Cumulative kilometre: 558996
Street: Highway
Weather: Cloudy, sunny, drizzling, coolish

We had an exceptionally early breakfast since the room had to be cleared by 9AM, which we managed. We were excited, today we would leave Germany and enter Italy. Well… that was the plan.

We hopped on the bike, filled it up, and off we went. At McDonalds, our strategic rest point, we had a coffee, looked at our mail and did some skype sessions with Australia. We got a mail from Uli, who suggested that we could meet up when we were in Munich. With our plans, we would pass Munich and stop in Italy tonight, bummer, we would miss a beer with Uli.  So we re-mapped our GPS to pass through Munich.

I had changed the GPS routing from fastest way to shortest way, which led us straight to Munich and into a traffic jam. After half an hour of stop and go, it started to rain but we approached a tunnel, so not too bad. Well at the start of the tunnel the bike decided to stop and it wouldn’t start any more. So I pushed the bike to the emergency lane and stood there for a moment to contemplating what to do.

My wishful thoughts were telling me, “perhaps the bike starts when it cools down”, and the brain said, “No way! the bike is stuffed, it won’t start anymore and it has a serious problem.”
The wishful thinking came back with “Shut up and don’t always be so negative…”

You know the normal thinking pattern which happens when you get stuck in a traffic jam in a tunnel. So I told myself, keep cool, start with the basics, petrol in, check, spark plugs out look at them, are they ok, check. Do we get a spark? Check. Okay…. that meant it is a serious problem, well serious to me with my mechanical skills.

So the wishful thinking fades into the background and panic sets in. What to do now? How do I ever get the bike out of this stinking tunnel (remember there is a traffic jam in the tunnel and not all vehicles obey to the emission standard), our mobile phone doesn’t work, we have no ADAC membership…… Ok, not long after we got stuck in the tunnel a car passed by and stopped at the emergency lane in front of us. First I thought, great there is somebody to help us, but why do they come with a steam engine? Well, out of a car came an old lady. She told us that steam started to come out of her bonnet, so she decided to pull over. Isn’t that great? We are not alone anymore, there are people we can share our pain with J

We had a short chat and Sigrid called the ADAC for her to get a tow to the next workshop. We thought we ask the guy with the tow truck how much it would cost to tow us. Hmm, with the traffic jam, the tow truck won’t be here before an hour. So I started to have a look around, Sigrid stayed in the tunnel and guarded the bike.

When I came out of the tunnel it felt like it is Christmas. Right on the exit there was a telephone booth, what a lucky coincident. To make it short, I called BMW and they sent me a tow truck! So when the guy finally came through the still continuing traffic jam, he stopped in front of us and started trouble shooting. Right then we could hear a strange noise, something like pipes falling off a truck and then like somebody was dragging them. That caught our attention! We had a look around and found that all of the sudden cars in the left lane started to merge to the right….A lady with her Mercedes standing in the way and her car was leaning on the right front wheel… So the BMW mechanic and I decided to help this poor women. He got the rollable carjack out of his car and I tried to unfold the emergency triangle.

In the end we fitted the jack under the car and moved the car to the emergency lane. After that she called the ADAC.

It turned out that on this car the whole right suspension had collapsed and the spring appeared as spare part under the car J

So, being stuck in a tunnel can be entertaining! But back to our original problem, our underperforming motorcycle…. The mechanic finally gave up, but it looked like there is a problem with the petrol pump, hmmm, I had a pretty good idea what the problem is. To make it short, we got towed to the main BMW workshop in Munich, since this was the closest workshop and it didn’t take more than 10 minutes from the tunnel to the workshop. It felt like the bike was home sick and would like to see its birth place again. During this time I organised the repair of the motorcycle, Sigrid contacted Uli, who was more than happy for us to stay at his place for the night. Great, everything worked out. All the people at the BMW service centre were more than helpful, not only by organizing to fix the bike, but also describing  how we would get to Uli’s address. They gave us some free train tickets as well, what a service!

On our way out, Sigrid had a look for our next motorcycle… to be honest, we skipped the R1200S J

So we hopped onto the subway and got to Ulis apartment just after dark.

It is amazing how things fall in place. In the morning we thought we would be in Italy tonight and wouldn’t have the time to have a beer with Uli. As it turned out, we have the time now. Uli was happy to see us again, and we talked for a while before he went to bed, well he had to work and travel the next day.

We went to bed with the feeling that we had for the last year – to be not completely sure what will happened next.

 

Date: 05/09
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

The flight from New York to Stockholm was nice but relatively short. We arrived around midnight, passed through Customs and organized some breakfast. After getting through the security check again, we had a bit of a rest. The weather didn’t look too good, we were afraid that the airport would be closed because of the dense fog.

But at boarding time, the fog had lifted and we arrived in Oslo on time. The connection flight to Berlin was without any problems, and we arrived around lunch time. Klaus was there to pick us up. We are back in Berlin, the last time here was 15 years ago!!!

On our way to the car park we saw the following sign, I thought it was a nice play on words J– use Google Translate J.

After fetching some supplies we arrived at Klaus’s house and there I saw the BeeMa ( BMW) first time. It is Hugo’s bike which has been sitting in the garage for nearly three years. Klaus already started to prepare it for us and we now had to register and insure it before we could start our Europe trip.

First things first, we organized the paperwork and the number plate for the bike.

Now it was time to visit Gabi, an old friend from Germany. Her son, Robert, turned thirty today and we said we would be there as a sort of surprise. So we volunteered Klaus… to drive us to Gabi’s house. Below are (left to right) Mattias, Gabi, Robert the birthday boy J and Sigrid. We had a wonderful evening and plenty of stories to share.

 

Date: 06/09
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

It was a sunny day and we slept very well after the party last night, so hardly any jet leg at all. After breakfast Klaus took me as a pillion to the TUV check close by (TUV is the german vehicle inspection agency). He mentioned that the bike handled badly since I was sitting on the back. I didn’t pay much attention to that comment and attributed the bad handling to my additional weight gained during our trip J

The TUV went well we got the necessary paperwork to get the bike registered. Within no time at all we got the registration done and on our way back we passed the shop where we purchased the numberplate yesterday. I thought I get a picture of the nice crew that had served us.

Back home Klaus fitted the new number plate and here it is, the number plate with all the stickers needed to drive on the road.

After Connie returned from work we met with Gabi and Carsten in Tempelhof and had a great meal in an Indian restaurant. When we walked around we found a sign for food that we should buy for our bike trip J

 

Date: 07/09
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

Today was Saturday and we borrowed Klaus’s Mazda to meet with Robert and family for a boat trip at the Berlin waterways. The weather was great and we went through the first self-serve lock before we continued towards the centre of the city. The landscape looked completely different from the water than it looks from the street.


Dreamily we looked over the water; it was really quiet ….then I noticed that the engine was off. I assumed that the captain switched if off so we could listen to the nature around us. When I looked back I saw the puzzled expression on the captain’s face, hmm, that seemed to indicate a problem…. To cut the story short, after a couple of attempts to get the boat going we realised that the exhaust fumes came out of the water cooler, not a good sign…

But the Capitain had a way out! He got the motor from the dingy and fit it to the boat. It worked, and with some manual tweaking we slowly made our way back.

After some time we made it back, sat a together a bit before we departed. It was a beautiful day, even with the surprise of a broken engine.

Date: 08/09
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

Today is the day; Sigrid and I would test run the BMW. Klaus, Connie and we hopped on the bikes and made our way to Paul, an old friend from Berlin. Klaus, Hugo, Paul and I did our apprenticeship together and stayed in contact since then.

We were treated to nice coffee and cake and sat together on the balcony.  Below are Suma, Connie and Klaus

I liked the sign in their toilet (please be seated when peeing)… 

 

In the evening we went out for a drink and something to eat before we went home.

 

On our way home the BMW started to play up, it was hard to convince it to keep going, it preferred to stall on the traffic light, a bit like a stubborn donkey. In the end, with plenty of gas a playing with the clutch, we made it home and decided that we would check out what the problem could be tomorrow.

Date: 09/09 – 14/09/2013
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: rainy, cool

The next couple of days were dedicated to find the problem with the bike. Stephuhn, Klaus cousin, passed by and gave us his opinion on what could be wrong (below is a snap shot from a new game, team guessingJ)

Sigrid organized some Currywurst for us for lunch; we enjoyed that , had been a long while since it is difficult to get in Australia.

The next couple of days we tried to find a problem with the bike without too much success. We swapped the lambda sensor. That improved the CO2 value, but the bike still refused to run smoothly. In the end we gave the bike to the BMW workshop to have a look at it. The guy at the service desk seemed to know what he was talking about; he asked the right question to find the source of the problem. But even he gave up and submitted the bike to the mechanic.

We went home and in the afternoon we received a phone call; the bike is ready for pickup, diagnosis done. We were keen to find out what the problem could be. Talking to the mechanic, it seemed that a broken hose in the tank was to blame. We organized one of the two hoses involved; the second one had to be ordered and would arrive only Tuesday next week….. Darn would be too late for us! We will try to organize a hose elsewhere tomorrow.

It turned out that a workshop in Spandau would have the hose so we jumped in the car and drove there. At the end, he had only a hose that would nearly fit and we thought we could adapt it to fit propely. Below we are happy at the shop that had a hose as close to our needs as we could get it.

Since we now had everything required we took our time to walk along the old part of Spandau. Sigird and I remembered a coffee shop that sold ice cream, so we went there. To our amazement the shop was still there! After fifteen years, it hadn’t changed. So we all had some large ice cream before we went home.

On our way back we saw the bear ‘Fielius’. We took a picture of him as we have a small version of him in Adelaide. As well we re-acquainted ourselfs with a nice bakery – Thoben. They had too much choice for us, so we bought more then we really needed J

When we arrived at home Klaus and I started to fit the new hoses into the petrol pump and put the pump back into the tank. Then we nearly assembled the whole bike, but…the last screw jumped out of Klaus’s hand and was hiding somewhere in the engine, clutch or starter motor area. So we looked for a while before we called it a day. Bummer, we wouldn’t know if the bike now is running or not.

Date:15/09
City: Berlin, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

In the morning I got woken up by the sound of a running BMW, what a morning!! It turned out that Klaus had gotten up really early, fished the hiding screw out with a magnet, fitted it and made sure that the rest of the bike was correctly assembled. When I came down he went for a short test ride.

His smiling face when he returned told me that we finally fixed the problem!

So we had great breakfast and then Sigrid and I went on a test ride.

After nearly 100km driving around the outskirts of Berlin, we thought it is time to get back. Since we were close to Mahlow, we thought we pass by Ria and Frya, two very close friends. Ria was really surprised that we turned up. As it turned out, it was Rias birthday as well, what a nice coincidence- bummer that we forgot..:-).

Anyway, Ria didn’t mind and we talked a bit before we returned to our base station in Kleinbeeren. With the bike ready, we prepared for take-off tomorrow around lunch time.