Moving to Montana Now....

Or not. As the case may be. Negotiations seem to have fallen apart between me and my company. So for the time being I am not leaving Montana, but I am not moving here either.

Floating the Madison

Yesterday I did my first river float in Montana. I have floated the rivers in Texas before, but this is a bit different. It's a lot longer and much cleaner than the rivers in Texas.

Prior to the float I had to go and buy a new pair of swimtrunks as I can't find my speedos. No, not those kind of speedos....it's just the same company. Board shorts seem to be popular, and I like them, but not for swimming. Go figure.

So we go to load up on beverages at the local gas station. I am without my huge-ass sippy cup because I left it in someone else's car. So I grab the biggest drink they have and make a Wild Turkey and Coke. My friend does the same thing and everyone else loads up the cooler with ice and beer. I heard a rumor that there was some water in there, but I was unable to verify this.

While shopping for supplies we happen to notice that a couple of the Baldwin brothers are there. Naturally it was the women that noticed. We could have cared less. "Oh...that's...um...nice." As it turns out they floated the same river as we saw them a few times throughout the day.

We had a good time floating the river. It's about a 4-hour float and there isn't any part of the river that I remember where you couldn't stand up. In fact, there were times when we were dragging bottom.

My friend, Dusty, and I were on Cooler duty. We kept it floating upright and got beverages in and out of the cooler for everyone. The only problem is that when I wasn't on cooler duty we somehow ended up upside down (Dusty and I both) and then I saw all the stuff floating down the river. This upset me a bit as I do not like to litter in such a beautiful area.

We were able to recover most of the beverages and ended the float with some minor scrapes, bruises, and good sunburns.

Afterwards we did a small cookout at the casa. Everyone was pretty whooped.....

Freaking Noise!!

I have never been anywhere where it is this noisey all the time. You would think it would be nice and peaceful around here....but noooooooo!

I'm a bit of an insomniac. I have a lot of trouble falling asleep. When I do sleep, it's very erratic (perhaps erotic, but definitely erratic) and I often wake up repeatedly. So you could say I just don't sleep very well in general.

Everyone has a natural rhythm that they will fall into. It's called the circadian rhythm. If I was left to my own devices I would go to bed somewhere around 3:00 ~ 4:00am and get up about 10:00am.

That being said, we have to have the windows open because there is no A.C. Because the windows are open, the blinds have to be open or the wind rattles them all night long. This is not new, I have posted about this before.

If I am hydrating, as I was last night, I have to get up at least two times during the night to pee. you try sucking down a few liters of water right before you go to bed and see how long you can handle it.

About 4:00 am the sprinklers come on. This wakes me. It also wakes me up when they change cycles.

The sun starts coming up about 4:30am this also aggravates me and makes it difficult to sleep. So now I either have to close the blinds and windows and start getting hot or suffer through it.

At roughly 5:30am my roomies are getting up and moving about. It must be a northern thing but everyone up here slams doors. I'm not just saying that because I am irritated. I am telling you they just pull the doors two without regards to how hard they are shutting it. So WHAM, WHAM, WHAM all morning long.

Then there is all the construction going on. This kicks off about 6:30 ~ 7:00am. Big diesel trucks up and down the street, two-stroke engines, power saws, lumber being thrown around, hammering, nailing, beating, sawing, etc. I honestly cannot believe the amount of racket that these people cause and there doesn't appear to be a noise ordinance.

7:00am they start mowing the grass at the park across the street. Lawnmowers, weedeaters, blowers, etc. Fun fun!

My friends and colleagues start calling me about 7:30am. I think this is just rude. As a general rule I don't call people before 8:00am or after 10:00pm.

By 8:00am it's time to get up and I am now pissed off at the world and want nothing to do with my alarm clock, work, or anyone that will keep me from getting some sleep.

I haven't slept good in months.....

Just Some Babble

I posted this as a response on someone else's blog, but I heard a statistic yesterday that I found fairly interesting. Supposedly the median price that people can afford for a home that move into the Bozeman area is $150k ~ $180k.

Since I may be moving to Bozeman if I can ever get a contract worked out with my company I have been monitoring real estate up here for a while. There aren't any homes here for that price range. The lots start at about $130k and go up from there.

Most homes sit above the $300k mark and it seems like an average price for a nice home will run you somewhere around $400k.

So how are these people affording it? I know that most people here are getting their loans as interest only, 3 ~ 5 year ARMs. This is scary because if the interest rates continue to rise you are going to have forclosures all over the place.

Racism Continues

A friend of mine sent me an article in which it is pointed out that whites will cease to voice their opinion if it is contrast to what a black person is stating. The article goes on to point out that the liberals with all of their efforts to change the standards for blacks and continuing to single them out as the "most repressed" society within America is actually doing more harm than good to race relations in America.

Here is the original link

Crazy People On Airplanes and Penthouse

Let me take you back a few years ago. A friend of mine, and I, were on a return flight from a cruise in the Bahamas. I had the window seat, he took the middle and a guy sat on the isle seat. A few minutes into the flight he cracks open a Penthouse magazine and begins to thumb through it while the flight attendants start serving drinks.

After we get our beverages and are chilling out on the plane the guy completely freaks out, throwing the magazine into the isle, shaking the seats, screaming, etc. This was pre-911 and they had to drag the guy to the rear of the aircraft and subdue him. We never saw him again until we got off the plane.

Now let's go back just one week ago to my flight from DFW to Bozeman. One leg of this flight goes through Colorado. So I get on the plane and this older guy is sitting there with a Penthouse magazine. He must have asked me at least six times during a 2 hour flight if we were still on the ground or if we were there yet. Clearly he could hide his own Easter eggs, but at least he wasn't like the previous guy.

Personally, I find it highly unusual that anyone would read a magazine such as penthouse on a public flight. It doesn't bother me, but I don't think it's appropriate for small children that might see it.

So two flights, two penthouse magazines.....two crazy people. You be the judge!!!

More Global Warming Worries

While I was writing this Dateline and Tom Brokaw (sp?) did a special on Global Warming. It was great! They scared us with the melting ice and rising sea levels. They showed us how much Co2 an average family puts out. They talked about some things we could do to help reduce the Co2 output.

They didn't talk about the expanding ice caps.
They didn't talk about the fact that "nature" produces almost 10-times the amount of Co2 that people do.
They didn't talk about the fact that there is virtually no proof that Co2 causes global warming and that water vapor has a much larger impact on temperatures than Co2.

All that being said, is it a bad idea to be aware of it and that we should be trying to not impact our environment so much?

Questioning Your Govt.

I don't believe it's a bad idea to question your government. I don't believe that makes you non-patriotic. As much as some people think I am a die-hard Republican, that is not the truth. I found this blog that I thought was pretty amusing. I'm not saying I agree with it because some of it is clearly over-the-top, but some of it certainly bears merit.

Here is the original link:
http://gordon.blogsmith.com/2006/03/16/what-you-need-to-believe-if-you-want-to-be-a-bush-republican/

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when DubyaÂ’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Dubya needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born (in perpetuity.)

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Support for hunters who shoot their friends and blame them for wearing orange vests similar to those worn by quail.

Bush NYC Terrorist Plot Foiled!

While I was eating my lunch this afternoon I noticed that there was a breaking news alert about a terrorist plot to blow up the tunnels under NYC. Apparently the eight primary individuals have been detained and the plot has been foiled. Bear in mind that I had no audio so I was only able to read the "headline" captions on the screen and figure the rest out from the video images.

Since the threat of terrorism is not a real threat I figure that Bush has to be behind this. It has to be more of the over-all world domination plan that he and Cheney have been working on since grade-school. It certainly doesn't make sense that Muslims are aspiring for world domination and hate the U.S. They would never do something like that, being a peaceful religion and all. But Bush and Cheney have a vested interest in crippling the U.S. in order to line their own pocket books.

My french fries were also over done.....I'm not sure how Bush pulled that one off, he's pretty tricky.

A Canuck's Sarcasm on Libs

This is from Gary Reid, a Canadian writer. He sent this to my dad in an email and I thought it was fairly amusing so I had to share it.


How many liberals said they would leave if Bush was re-elected and didn't?



Shocking immigration trend

Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:17:29 -0500; Winnipeg Herald, Manitoba, Canada,

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blast Rush Limbaugh rants across the fields.

"Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumours have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s.

"If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.

"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said.

“We’re going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps.”

Skydiving Accident Lands Man In Hospital!

Some of you that read this may remember a guy named JP that used to work with me here in Montana. A few months ago he kind of disappeared and nobody was really sure what happened to him.

Well I heard yesterday that he (recently?) had a skydiving accident. Apparently he blacked out or passed out on the decent. I don't know if that was before or after his chute was deployed, but he was unconscious when he impacted the ground which meant that he had no brakes or control. I heard he hit something and you have to figure the speed would have been around 35mph give or take.

All we know is he was care flighted to a hospital in Seattle with massive injuries and we think he is currently in a drug induced coma. So far, we can't figure out which hospital he is in.

JP, if you are still out there we'll be thinking about you. May you have a speedy recovery.

So My 'Priller Is an Alien....

That's what it felt like anyway. After 10 days of flogging the BMW my bike felt completely alien and strange to me.

For starters I was sitting on the bike, not down in the bike. Then there was the over-sized brake and clutch levers. They aren't really over-sized, they just felt that way after working the BMW levers for a while. Then I had to get used to the blinker / horn controls again.

And of course, it's a much stronger engine than on the BMW so when I gave it some throttle to go, the bike went much more quickly than I anticipated. All of that fanished after about 15 minutes on it, though, and suddenly all was right with the world again.

Happy Birthday America!

Another year has come and gone. America is now celebrating it's 230th year as an independent country. That's young compared to some of the places I just visited. Hopefully we have the fortitude to survive as a country for much longer.

I have to get ready to fly back to Montana, so I'll keep this one brief. I hope everyone has a great 4th with their friends and family. But, if you would, take a moment to honor all the people past and present that allow us to have our independence and freedom on a day like today.

Photo Woes.....

I am soooo sorry everyone. I was linking the photos to my Yahoo Photo Album so I wouldn't have to upload them all over again. Apparently, Blogger doesn't like me and I have a lot of problems uploading images so I thought it would be far easier if I linked them.

Well, Yahoo apparently rotates the actual image names (seemingly randomly) so they work for a few minutes and then the links break. Morons.

You can still go to my Yahoo Photos Albums page to see all of the photos:
http://photos.yahoo.com/apriliarider@sbcglobal.net

So now I am uploading all of the images to a new site and am trying to fix the posts. Please be patient and I sincerely apologize.....

And here you go….
Grand Total of 2542.2km (1576.16 miles)

Well, I saw some comments regarding where I was and if I took my adapters and all that stuff. I can assure you that I took them. It was very difficult to get online in Europe. I either couldn’t do it, or it was very expensive, or it was expensive and only on their computers. I don’t do public access computers because I know what people can do with them (security concerns).

I may repeat myself here a bit, as you read further below, but I still have a lot of thoughts running around inside my head about the trip. I can’t remember specifically what I wrote or didn’t write and aside from trying to edit my writing for errors I don’t want to change what I was thinking at the time I wrote it.

Since I wasn’t able to get online I made an effort to post the trip in “reverse” order….meaning you can read it from top to bottom instead of bottom to top as it would have come out were I to post every day.

If you want to see more pictures than I am including in the blog go to my photos site at http://photos.yahoo.com/apriliarider@sbcglobal.net I highly recommend this as you will miss a ton of good photos if you don't.

All of that aside, the trip was absolutely awesome!! I would do it again in a heartbeat. Maybe next year or the year after I’ll take another tour. The Edelweiss folks were great and made touring Europe and awesome experience. I almost couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. We met groups that were on busses and had been doing the standard tourist thing for two weeks. Two weeks on a bus seeing the regular tourist crap….are you high?

I needed the break from work. When on the bike I wasn’t able to think about much else. Sure, my thoughts wandered around a bit, but I didn’t think about work or anything else that was stressful too much. I even forgot what day and date it was. I didn’t wear a watch when I was riding. If the bike didn’t have a clock on it I wouldn’t have known what time it was….half the time, I didn’t anyway.

Everyone in Europe was very friendly. Except, as you can probably guess, the French. That was probably my least favorite country with Germany and Austria being my two favorites. The people and the culture are indescribable.

About the only major complaint I have is that we just didn’t have quite enough time to experience the towns as much as I wanted. Now, this is not to say that I wouldn’t do this again, but if you had to have something negative that’s it. For the most part I rode the longer routes every day. That meant that we were clutch-out (moving) by 9:00am and riding all day (sometimes 10 hours) to get to where we were going. Then we’d have some beers, shower (sometimes not!) and eat dinner. At that point everything would be closed so we’d have more beers and then repeat the process the next day. Only a few times did we get to walk around much and check out the towns. Sure, I could have elected to not ride on my rest days, but was there ever really any choice?

My trip was also a bit of a personal journey. See, for those of you that don’t know me I am pretty anal. I like to be spontaneous and have fun, but I also like some order to my chaos and disorganization. Journeying to Europe on my own to ride a bike across various countries was both very exciting and a little bit intimidating. I had to get beyond some of my own reservations about a trip like this to make it work. And let me tell you, I loved just about every minute of it.

For those that were asking, the answer is “no” I didn’t hook up with any German cuties. I obviously made it back to the U.S. didn’t I? I will say that the women in Germany, Switzerland and Austria are all very attractive. It reminded me of being in Montana…but not Texas. Why? Well, for the most part the Europeans are all very fit and have that “outdoor” look that I like. In Texas we sit around in the A.C. and eat fried Twinkies while watching the Jerry Springer show (at least that is the stereotype).

Again, I am glad to be home….. don’t fly Air Canada (the most convoluted F’d up airlines ever), if you are up for it then take a ride with these folks and see some of the world. You will be glad that you did.

Those That I Rode With:

There were approximately 22 people in our group. Of those 22 a few were couples and rode two up. I rode with just about everyone in the group at least once (there are some exceptions though they were not intentional). Here they are:

Mike and John – two Boston boys from the East Coast with thick accents and a great sense of humor. John is a bit of a mess, but a very likeable guy. I think everyone got along with him. Mike is also funny as hell and has the honor of grinding the cylinder heads on his BMW (read further). I rode with both of them on multiple days and often they were the highlights of my trip.

Carolyn – a really great rider who I rode with on a few occasions as we picked up the pace!

Keith and Katie – a really nice couple that was riding two up. Keith was hysterical and a smart ass so you can probably imagine that I enjoyed his company. Katie was a sweetheart and a real trouper of a wife. I wish them both well.

Andrew – While most of us were smartasses and what not, Andrew was the clown of the group. He always had something funny to say, and a penchant for good wine. He rode by himself most of the time, but everyone enjoyed his company at dinner.

Portor – This guy had been on multiple tours. I didn’t see him and his g/f much as they were usually off on their own. A nice guy and I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to ride together.

Sheila – very interesting lady that was celebrating her 60th birthday!! She has had some interesting carriers and travels and was always welcome around the bar or dinner table.

Jack and Georgette – another couple that I didn’t get to ride with very much.

Elizabeth (Liz) – Liz and I hung out quite a bit. She is married with a great husband and kids back home. Being a beginner she rode more miles with us than she had on her own bike. Still, she did great and picked up some good riding skills along the way.

Mike and Jo – another couple that was riding the tour. I didn’t ride with them as a two-up, but Mike came along on the faster “rest” days. Good rider and I enjoyed watching his lines as he carved up the twisties.

Ray (a.k.a. Tex) – When I first met Ray, I didn’t like him. But as it turned out he was hysterical and a great Good ‘Ol Boy from Texas. He is in his 60’s and seeing as much of the world as he can while he can still do it. He was the one guy that would always come out with some off the wall comment that would get us all rolling.

Bill and Sue – a Texas couple that I ended up never riding with. That’s ironic because it was the one couple from Texas that I emailed and was going to ride with.

Nick – a last minute fill in from Uganda in South Africa!!! Nick was great to hang out with and was a serious power house beer man. I couldn’t keep up with him in the bars, but I think I had him on the roads. He has invited some of us to Uganda for an “unofficial” tour.









Art and Colleen – Shawn’s parents. Really nice folks that I enjoyed talking with from time to time out on the balconies.

Shawn – Shawn is about my age, but much better looking. He’s also a better rider and he was definitely the craziest rider of the group.

My Quick and Dirty BMW R 1200 ST Review:

First and foremost this was a great bike to rent, but I would not buy one. It was fairly comfy but even for a short guy my legs got a little cramped from time to time. As you read about the trip you will note I started to have severe problems with pain in my left arm that were probably a combination of carpal tunnel, pushing the bike through the twisties, and the buzziness of the engine. I still enjoyed the bike a lot and there weren’t many other choices that I would have made.

The engine is the standard boxer engine that BMW is famous for. I guess it’s a love / hate relationship but I just wasn’t that impressed. It always felt like I was lugging the engine (maybe I wasn’t) at anything less than 4000rpm, and anything above 5000rpm was very buzzy. So there was a tiny sweat spot that I had to be in for it to feel “right.” It didn’t have as much power or torque as my ‘Priller.

The gear box was clunky and if the engine was cold you had to play with the clutch to get it into first gear. From there I caught a few false-neutrals that irritated me. The bike is geared tall and with the low power from the engine it meant I was mostly in 2nd gear for most of the trip through any twisties. A few times I had to downshift to 1st gear if I wanted to get a good drive off the hairpins and getting into 3rd meant I was moving pretty good. I would have geared the bike down just a bit to make it more useable in the mountains.

Handling was pretty good, but it felt heavy when moving it through the corners. It was, however a very stable bike on the straights – even at high speeds. I am not sure if I liked the Telelever front end or not. The bike definitely didn’t dive much when you got hard on the brakes, but that is also a technique that is utilized to increase corner speed on sharp turns and I think I use that unconsciously. The chassis was a bit too softly sprung for the riding we were doing as any inconsistencies in the pavement upset the line of the bike. This is a bonus if you want to increase the pucker factor while leaned over in a corner while staring off a 1000+ foot drop off.

The brakes were partially linked, servo assisted and had ABS. Let me say that I don’t see myself ever buying a bike that has this. The front brake operated the front brakes and partially the rear brake (this is linked braking). The rear pedal only applied the rear brake. However, both brakes were servo assisted. If the bike wasn’t running or the computer didn’t have time to run its diagnostics the brakes barely worked. When they did work I thought they were a bit mushy but did have a fairly linear feel that I liked. I never engaged the ABS even though I was hard on the brakes a few times.

I loved having the saddle bags and again it was a great bike to rent. I am just too used to my ‘Priller and riding true sport bikes for this bike to appease me enough to buy one.

Day 1 - Greetings from the Tin Can Man!
Munich, Germany

Or at least that is what I felt like today. I left for Germany at approximately 10:00am CMT. My flight actually took off at 12:15. Nothing unusual getting to Canada. Then I had a three hour layover in which I met a real nice guy named Peter. Peter was studying to be a brewmeister and had just graduated. He also is from Germany, but went to school in Palo Alto, Ca. So he is telling me all about these beers, and those beers, and I am thinking “this is a guy I need to know!”

Needless to say the flight to Germany was long, but fairly uneventful. However, I don’t sleep well on airplanes and when the sun started coming up at 1:00am MST you can imagine it just made sleeping impossible. Interestingly enough, the German’s are very relaxed when it comes to entering their country. No declaration forms, no hassles, no B.S. Welcome to Germany!!

I had to grab about 1.5 hrs of sleep before I met the group to go get our bikes. I was still tired so I didn’t feel like riding much before I went back to the hotel. It’s been a long day. Two hours sleep in more than 24 hours at this point. I am about to sack out and get some zzzzzz’s for the ride tomorrow.

There are 22 people in our group and a few are riding two up. We rented all kinds of BMW bikes and spent most of the evening and dinner discussing what we ride, where we ride, etc. We are all looking forward to the ride tomorrow!!

A few quick notes:
The Europeans here don’t believe in A.C. Forget it. It’s hot and humid and a bit on the uncomfortable side.
The Europeans here don’t believe in ice. They look at you like you are high if you ask for it.
I saw more Aprilia motorcycles today in the hour I walked around than I have seen in the last year.
It’s very green and pretty here.
There are motorcycle shows on the T.V. – which I can’t understand a single word, but I watch them anyway.

Day 2 - Keeping the Shiny Side Up in Europe
Munich – Rothenburg, Germany – 296.7km

Today was our first day of real riding. Most of the people elected to go off in smaller groups of two or three bikes. Since I was riding for my first time in Europe, and on an unfamiliar bike, I elected to go with the “group.”

That turned out to be good and bad. Good from the perspective that I didn’t really have to worry about reading directions and it allowed me to concentrate more on learning the road signs and driving habits of European drivers. BTW – they are much better drivers than we are!!!

Bad because there were some people in the group that, in my opinion, should not have been here. Not so much from an inexperienced perspective, but because…well….let’s face it, they suck as riders. The tour guides asked me to hang in back to keep an eye on everyone and it wasn’t necessarily pretty.

At least one other person and I got left behind on two different occasions and had to try to find the group again. Fortunately, the tour guide was also back-tracking trying to find us so it worked out in the end. But it was REAL slow going. For those of you who ride bikes you will know what I mean when I mention folks that slow down for every corner or cross the center stripe because they can’t keep their bike in their own lane. It also rained on us. For a small period of time it poured down rain and even hailed on us some. We were able to get the rain gear on so that we weren’t totally soaked, but it sucked for a while nonetheless.

Now, that’s not to say all is bad! I had an awesome time viewing the countryside!!! Germany is very green and for all the people that live here, they seem to be concentrated in the larger towns. Most of Germany is wide open with lots of forests or farm lands. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone riding on the back so I couldn’t get photos of the general landscape.

Speaking of people riding on the back, there are a few (very few) people who I really wish were here with me having a good time. The company would have been well received. I am sure we would be having a blast together, but perhaps there will be another trip.

All of the German people I have ran into so far have been very friendly and kind. Most of them speak English to some degree so the language barrier is not as much of an issue as I originally thought it might be. It’s very warm here this time of year, though, and there is no A.C. to be found. I take a shower to get the old sweat off so the new sweat has a place to stick.

The towns are absolutely beautiful and I find the architecture to be very simplistically European in nature. It’s interesting, though, that you can have a barn / farm right in the middle of town with cows and John Dere tractors running around. Almost as if the towns were built around them. Again, no photos and my apologies.

Speaking of cows, let’s talk about chickens and cows. This morning we had breakfast (awesome I might add) and I noticed that the eggs were somewhat orange (post-cooking). Another guy had a poached egg and it was orange as well. Then the cows we smelled coming through town didn’t smell like normal cows. I spent plenty of time in the country and I know what cow shit smells like. This was German cow shit. It just didn’t smell right somehow. I am not sure what is going on with the livestock over here, but it’s definitely slightly different than what we have back home.

And how about this - automatic toilet seats that clean themselves? One of the coolest things. You push a button and this little motorized whizmo (technical term) pops out of the tank with a sponge and some sanitation fluid. The seat then spins around to wipe itself off. I found this highly entertaining, of course.

On a break in some small town near Rothenburg we were shooting photos and having coffee when the Germans won their third match in the World Cup. The whole town erupted and for hours there were people singing in the streets and having spontaneous parades with cars whizzing by that had people hanging out of them with German flags. How is it our folks burn the town down, loot and riot when their team wins and the Germans seem to know how to have a good time without hurting anyone or vandalizing anything?

We had to eat fast to catch the “night watchman” tour of the town. It was very informative with regards to the history, but there were so many people we ended up splitting off and shooting photos and trying various beers. Grasshopper – if you are reading this we toasted you in a beer garden this evening. Nobody gave us overtly funny looks even though I yelled “Grashopper.” I guess the Germans expect a certain amount of weirdness from tourists.

My body clock is still messed up, so even though it’s almost 1:00am here, my body is not quite ready for sleep. Still I will try….because tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us. I won’t be in the main pack anymore because I would have to beat my head against a wall to suffer through it. A few of us will be taking off to hit the more sporty routes.

Until tomorrow….

Day 3 - A Much Better Ride
Rothenburg – Heidelberg, Germany – 296.7km

Well I still can’t seem to get online and I am a bit behind on writing, but I had a much better time today. I hooked up with three other riders apart from the main group. Two guys, John and Mike, and a girl named Liz (she is married, don’t even think it!).

Mike rides like I do, which is to say that we are here and let’s ride the crap out of these bikes. John doesn’t like the fast hard-core stuff and Liz seems to like it, but she is learning. That is OK…everyone has to learn sometime, right?

We ended up doing a pretty good ride and saw a lot of beautiful German countryside. Castles were literally “popping up” out of the countryside and we followed several riverbeds and streams. Not a whole lot of twisties, but some definitely fun routes. We got lucky a couple of times because we would be cruising at 140kmph and then about when we would slow down to enter a town we would see the police. So we definitely avoided some tickets, there.

To those of you who don’t ride bikes – I’ll keep mentioning “the twisties” as we like to call them. What are they? They are the roads that twist back and forth like a cork screw. If you have ever drove in mountainous terrain then you probably know what I am talking about. Some bikers love them, some hate them. Since I ride sport bikes, I love them. And I have a feeling that we will get our fair share, soon.

We also had a nice lunch at a café where nobody spoke English. We made out the menus as best we could and pointed at the items. The food was most excellent. I had some type of smothered ham and mushrooms with snitzel. It was nice to sit outside at the café and enjoy a refreshing lunch.

A short detour was made to an old castle. It was pretty interesting and I wondered what it must have been like a few hundred years ago. I can’t believe that they were able to get up and down the narrow staircases with all of their armor and / or garments on. I am not exactly huge and I had a pretty hard time navigating the staircases. Still, the view from the top was pretty incredible.

We finally arrived in Heidleberg and stayed at a wonderful hotel. It was in a “courtyard” area which was built around an old church. The only thing I didn’t like about the town is that it had way too many tourists (that is the pot calling the kettle black, eh?). And again, no A.C. We sat outside of the Hard Rock café listening to American rock, eyeballing the eye candy and tossing back a few cold ones. I did some shopping for some folks back home but I had the problem that the shops wouldn’t ship the items back to the U.S. or it was all your standard tourist crap. Mom and my niece will have to wait.

Now that I think about it, I am actually writing this on Day 4 and I still haven’t bought anything for myself or anyone else as of yet. I guess I better get busy on buying some souvenirs. The problem is that I don’t have room in my luggage for much and my mom and niece get priority.

Keeping the shiny side up in Europe…..

Day 4…
Heidelberg, Germany – Ottrott, France – 342.3km

I made it to France!!!! But…it was my worst riding day yet. I stayed out way to late with the boys partying and having a good time. I wasn’t hung over, but we went to bed about 1:00am and my body woke up at 5:00am. I just couldn’t concentrate very well on so little sleep. See there is this thing called the sun. And there is this other stuff called A.C. I had to have the windows open because there was no A.C., but there was plenty of sun at 5:00am.

Then Liz was running way behind. I waited for her and everyone else took off in their own groups. John and Mike said they would wait at the gas station, but we were so far behind they were long gone when we got there.

And we couldn’t get out of the gas station! It was a bunch of one-way streets that led us all over creation and back before we could get back to the main road. So just trying to get out of town put us almost 2 hours back!

Liz and I skipped several of the side-trips and made up as much time as possible. I was really having problems because I was so fatigued. I also was reading the route maps because I was leading Liz. That requires far more concentration that I wanted to expend but we kept going.

Axel, one of our guides, told us that we would get lost today and we did. A bunch. For whatever reason, once you come into France they can’t put up signs where signs should be. So you would be booking along a road just fine and get to a town. Then you would lose the road. So you would try to find it…..and you did this by just randomly trying different roads until you finally found a sign or stopped and asked for directions. We probably burned a total of 1.5 hours dicking around in the towns trying to find the roads leading out of the towns. In some cases, we found other roads that we could see on the maps and took them instead. That combined routes 1 (easy route), route 2 (harder route) and the Brad and Liz route (most f’d up route).

Since Liz and I were so lost and trying to make up time we finally ended up stopping in the La Petite Pierre Nord region of France and having a nice picnic lunch of fruit, bread and cheeses. We even had a lovely view of the town. Sounds pretty romantic doesn’t it?

Did I mention this was from the curb-stop in a parking lot of a grocery store? See, everything was closed. The French obviously don’t believe in having any place to eat open past about 1:00pm and it was almost 3:00pm. My blood sugar was so low I thought I might literally pass out. So we just hit the store and bought a few things and munched them down in the parking lot.

I then had a thought. It takes a certain kind of person to ride motorcycles. It takes another breed of person to ride motorcycles and go on adventures like this one. And it takes yet another kind of person to get totally freaking lost in France and make a picnic lunch in a parking lot of a grocery store and actually enjoy it. Maybe it’s because I was starving to death?

So Liz and I high-tailed it out of there and got lost a few more times before finally running across another rider that we knew. He had already been to the hotel and was back out for a quick flog on the bike. He never found the roads he was supposed to be on, but we figured it out and ended up on the Tour De France route into Obernai!! It was one of the sweetest roads I had ridden in many years. I believe this is road 704 out of Mollkirchen and then route 204 from Klingenthal to Obernai.

The only problem was that I was running on fumes and didn’t know if I was going to make it. The fuel light came on with almost 50km left in the tank. No problem….except the French also don’t have gas stations in their towns. I don’t know where they gas up, but we went through at least six towns without any gas. Then we found one and it was closed. I then found a Texaco sign and headed towards it only to find out there was no gas. WTF? But I arrived at the hotel with 3km left on the tank and knew I could make it until the morning to gas up.

The hotel here is beautiful and I will try to include some pics later. They also have A.C.!!! BTW – the French servants are very rude and difficult to deal with. The folks in the little towns were very friendly and helped us out tremendously throughout the day.

We weren’t the only ones that got lost. EVERYONE got lost on that route. Some took it better than others. One guy went down on the bike, but it was in a mud bank. I don’t even think his pride was hurt. Me, I was riding too slow to get hurt – I couldn’t concentrate to ride fast.

I am crashing early to get some rest!

Day 5….a Rest Day!
Rest Day in Ottrott, France – 220.7km

No rest for the wicked!!! Several of us got up and rode with Axel this morning for a most excellent flog through some of the best roads I have ever ridden. The group was moving fast and furiously through some of the most heinous ball busting twisties I have ever seen. One rider bowed out after the first 15 minutes because he couldn’t keep up (he ended up having a great day).

We rode fast and hard through all kinds of terrain up into a ski area somewhere around Le Bezouard. There we had a lovely lunch of crepes while many sport bikes went by. It was cool, almost cold and we finally headed down the mountain.

Mom – stop reading here!!! Skip the next paragraph or two!!

Some of the riders were good, some were fast, but only a few were fast and good. For the most part, these were definitely the most skilled riders in the group. I was asked to take the rear again and did so until after lunch at which time we all felt like we were pretty comfy and I went up to the front (about 2 bike of the leader). I almost ate it on a turn when I was pretty deep into a corner with the bike nearing maximum lean and I hit some sand or gravel. The bike stepped out on me and I had a serious case of pucker factor going on. Fortunately I pulled it back in and got through the corner just fine.

I also saw a guy almost get creamed by a tour bus on a hairpin turn. He rode wide of the center line before the turn to set it up (so he was in the wrong lane) and the bus almost took him out. I hope he learned his lesson. I was almost taken out by a bus in MY lane…the bus was in it’s lane plus ½ of mine. Yes, the turns were that sharp!! If you ride, imagine looking through the apex of the turn back, behind you and either uphill or downhill. It was pretty wild. Grashopper, if you are reading this, you would have hated the ride today. For me, it was great!!!!

I did a little shopping in town, but again I couldn’t find anything that would make a good gift.

I gotta get some rest, it’s a long day back into Germany tomorrow. Goodbye to Obernai.