Everywhere Virtually

All great adventure motorcyclists have periods when their bikes are off the road, their bikes are incapacitated or they’re incapacitated. In my case the recession clipped my wings adventure motorcycling wings for a while. I’m far from being unlucky though because I happen to be residing in one of Europe’s best countries for motorcycling in general. Austria.

While the CB500 won’t win prizes for comfort it is a handy tool for short jaunts into scenery as seen above which is 35 minutes from my base. In the meantime I ponder which route to take next. I’ve pondered this in past posts. I start to wonder if I will just retire to road riding then something happens that reinvigorates my passion for adventure motorcycling.

On a recent flight back from Greece my plane flew over the Balkans. I know this region well now after last years ride through Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and FYROM. I have studied Google Earth, Google Maps and paper maps. I have observed the land from sea level and from high mountain passes. So when flying above I was delighted to see places and features I recognised.

In the photo above you have lake Ohrid in the foreground and lake Prespa over the ridge in the centre of the photo. Ridge is probably too tame a word. Mountain is more like it.. Myself, Walter and Marcin navigated the snow up there back in march 2009. With those lakes as reference I knew Albania was below and I snapped away at interesting features. Aircraft windows facing into sunlight with their inherent reflections, ice crystals and scratches are never the best medium to photograph through but it was enough for my research purposes.

This is Parku Kombëtar dajt resevoir in Albania

What caught my eye though was a region of mountains that straddled southern Albania and Northern Greece. On last years Sibex ride when I exited the Albanian border into Greece I was too far to the East to see the most dramatic portion of this range of mountains but I certainly saw them from 35,000ft. They are the mountains of the Pindus range in the Northern Epirus region. What I had photographed here is the Vikos Gorge which according to the Guinness Book of Records is the deepest gorge in the world in proportion to its width!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikos-Aoos_National_Park

The Pindus (also Pindos or Pindhos) (Greek: Πίνδος) mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m (Mount Smolikas). Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece". The mountain range stretches from near the Greek-Albanian borders in Northern Epirus, entering the Epirus periphery and Macedonia region in northern Greece down to the north of the Peloponnese. (source:Wikipedia)

Returning to my original thoughts of having a “little pause in adventuring” and watching other adventures take place it is important to remember that even being still and not riding is part of future adventures. the byline on my website is “The adventure begins in your head” and certainly on that sunny Monday morning over Greece and the Balkans the seed for another adventure was sewn.

Wherever you are at in your adventure planning take strength from the fact that one day it will happen and savour the planning, the browsing of flickr, panoramio and trawling over countless maps. It’s all part of the journey and makes limbo almost fun.

As we trip into the wee small hours of the morning I remembered that I should log two highlights that happened to me yesterday. The first being the arrival of Austin Vince & Lois Pryce’s DVD.

As the embryonic components of a hack are beginning to take shape in a secret Austrian garage I have to say this is a very welcome and timely arrival. I saw Austin last week and he gave me the jewel case of the DVD as the actual DVD’s had not arrived from the guy putting them together. Myself and others wrote our addresses out on sticky labels and so as of today I was reunited with my label and a shiny shiny new adventure DVD.

The second momentous event was that of Si Johnston calling me on Skype from Volgograd. I was beginning to wonder if he would ever make it to Russia as the Ukrainian cops were bleeding him dry. I wondered if it had put him off the Ukraine but what at the beginning was a negative had turned into a positive namely because of the generosity and friendliness of the people he had met.

A few weeks back at the Horizons Unlimited event in Derbyshire I said to a friend of mine if he was ever in Austria to give me a shout and we’d meet up, sample the local cuisine and have a ride around the lakes and mountains to the South West of Linz. I’d met Paddy on a few occasions through the UKGSer forum and in person because I’d sold a few bits from my F800GS.

Little did I think he was only 12 hours behind me on the road. On the Thursday after my arrival I picked up my girlfriend from a meeting she was having with colleagues. I had no clue as I made my way from Leonding towards the Danube that my buddy Paddy was wild camping on the opposite bank.

That night I received an urgent message from another forum member telling me that Paddy didn’t have my mobile number and could I get in touch.

The next day we met up at 8am and headed into Linz for some breakfast at a favourite cafe of mine. We were tempted to swap our bikes for something more suitable around town.

After filling up with some gas we headed down to the lakes around Gmunden and Ebensee

The weather was hot at around 28c, sunny and being a weekday the roads were empty. It was perfect biking weather. All the better for having a biking buddy along to share the experience. Austria is a special place to ride and I never grow tired of it.

Paddy had a Helmet cam so when he gets back to blighty and uploads it to YouTube I’ll post it on here.

My friend Simon is keen to get into motorcycling. That said he has 3 large tasks before him. Firstly he needs permission from his wife (or I say get it anyway as it’s easier to ask for forgiveness), then he needs a bike license. This is somewhat complicated by the fact he lives in Germany. Lastly he needs a bike.

In the meantime he gets to sit on my bikes when I visit

It was a beautiful day and I decided to ride in Jeans and T-shirt. I know all the ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time) crowd will go on and on about this but I believe sometimes it is good to be aware of the dangers. Not having all the gear makes you more cautious and a cool rider is one that is concentrating as opposed to one that is hot, sweating and perhaps has restricted visibility due to wearing a full face helmet.

I mentioned previously that I didn’t load all the maps on for expediency. I didn’t realise how close I was cutting it cartographically

Riding between Dusseldorf and Linz is a long slog. In order to fend off fatigue and boredom I have regular stops and treats along the way. To find Chunky Monkey on this trip was a particularly rare and welcome find

I took a wrong turn at one point which mean’t I had to do a bit of cross country. This gave some welcome relief from the blazing sunshine. The cooling effect of the forests was wonderful. I’m not much of an environmentalist but I have to say I really do like trees. They really do have a tempering effect certainly on the immediate environment. With the detour over I was soon back on the autobhan and to my surprise… gridlock

Filtering or lane splitting is illegal in Germany but in situations like this such rules are not enforceable and so I made my way gingerly between the trucks and cars. This jam was about 10km long and towards the front portion of the queue people were standing around, getting out of cars and truck drivers would open their doors without any warning so I kept my eyes peeled and took it slow.

I noticed this Hungarian truck had a double puncture!

It got dark around Regensberg and by then I’d had enough. It had cooled down considerably and despite the warm clothing I just wanted to use the instant teleport button to get me to Linz. I got to Linz just after midnight. The CB500 had done its job valiantly and while not my first steed of choice I was surprised that it covered the distance without fuss.