Driving Lessons in the Rorach

So, here’s the story of going to the BMW Days in Garmisch last Saturday:

Gerd and Timo, two guys I know from Ravensburg, arrive at my house (a half-hour late) about 9:30 to ride to Garmish for the big BMW Motorrad Days show. It's a huge show, draws more than 30,000 guests over 3 days. It's got everything for adventure bikers, especially if you ride a Beemer.

Gerd, 47, has decades of riding experience on a dozen or more bikes, has been to BMW off-road school, and rides a stock silver 2002 1150GS. He’s in the fast group.

Timo, 29, has only had his license for a couple of years. At first he rode alongside his dad on a gentle CB500, but he's recently bought a 1991 Yamaha 750 Super Ténéré enduro-adventure bike, which he’s outfitted with extra-large Givi side cases.

I've been looking forward to the trip all week, and have been designated the leader owing to my knowledge of the BMW show and the routes between here and there, and the fact that I'm the guy with the GPS. I'm under orders to make the trip interesting, with lots of backroads and mountains. I've pre-programmed a course which will take about 3 hours and give us some variety of roads.

But now I'm sitting on my porch watching the rain, having doubts. It's been raining and drizzling all morning and there hasn’t been much letup in sight – or in the forecast – so I keep asking myself, Why go? I could go tomorrow with sunshine in the forecast. But then Gerd and Timo show up, and, despite having gotten lost on the way to my house, they are pumped, fast-talking about their convoluted adventure thus far, all enthusiastic about continuing, claiming that it’s not all that wet out there, well at least not everywhere, and the forecast for later looks good, so c'mon, let’s just go. Okay, I say, putting aside my doubts. Let’s go.

First off, we ride to the nearest gas station in Neuravensburg where we tank up and I top up a slow-leaking front tire (bad valve?).

Before saddling up, I gather with the boys and say, “Pre-launch safety briefing for a group ride, anyone?” Gerd says, “Go ahead.”  Timo looking surprised, says, “Okay.” So I say, “Alright, rule number one, ride your own bike, don’t ride mine. I’m going to pass cars and ride a bit over the legal limit. Don’t ride over your head. Pass only when you feel it’s safe. If you fall behind, don’t sweat it, I’ll wait for you on the straights and I’ll never make a navigational turn before I’m sure everyone is in sight. Any questions? No? Good. Ride safe, gents, okay? Don’t crash.”

I toss on my helmet and gloves and lead them out the driveway and on our merry way through small villages and secret backways, avoiding Saturday traffic and several train crossings.

About twelve minutes later we're on the long straightaway that takes us up the ‘Rorach’, a winding stretch of the Deutsche Alpen Strasse that is our local version of the tight-side-o’-Palomar.  The serpentine pavement climbs up the mountain through a dark and damp forest with numbered hairpins, where it ends up near the town of Lindenburg. It's still drizzling and the road is actually wet, not just damp, there's water running across in centimeter-deep streams here and there.

As we enter the first big sweeper, we all make a nice high-speed pass on a giant slow-moving tractor just before the no-passing zone begins, a zone that continues the whole five km to the top. There are two or three signs on each side of the road so you dont miss them, No Passing. 

Two turns later we come upon the back end of a slow-moving parade of three cars behind a driving school car with a scared looking teenage girl going wide-eyed round the corners at a crawl. I hate to do it to her, but when the way ahead is clear for 200 meters, I whack the throttle open and charge past. As I do, I imagine her instructor telling her to stay calm, stay calm, yes the motorcycle is breaking the law by passing, but don’t let it ruin your concentration.

After the next hairpin, I see Gerd coming along in my mirrors, so I know he's made the pass, making me feel relieved that I'm not the only scofflaw in our group. Now it's time for shy Timo to man up and join us. Gerd and I continue for a couple of corners at normal speed, then gradually ride slower and slower waiting for Timo's lamp to show in our mirrors.

Finally, about three minutes later we arrive at the top of the mountain, where there's a half-mile straight-and-level segment. We close our throttles and start coasting down to a walking pace, waiting, watching the mirrors. We coast. And we coast. We sneak a little first gear to keep from tipping over. Finally, we put our feet down and stop, nose-to-tail and a bit to the right. We wait. And we wait. The next thing round that corner in the mirror had better be a bike.

It’s not.

And it’s not the driving school car. It's a family wagon which rolls to a stop alongside me, window going down. I know what she’s going to say before she speaks.

“Are you waiting for your colleague?” she asks in German. I nod. “He crashed back there in a corner. But he appears to be unhurt!” I shout back to Gerd behind me, “Er ist gesturtzt!” (He’s crashed!) We thank the folks in the car, and the man getting out of another car that’s also stopped, and make the U-ey to go find the lad. It's a tense three minutes back down the curves as fast as we can go in the wet.

About halfway down the mountain we see Timo standing (good sign!) next to his bike.  The bike is upright (also good!) and parked on the fog line painted at the edge of the right lane. There’s no breakdown lane or off-pavement area; the mossy hill intersects the driving lane at a 30-degree angle. We roll past him and whip around to park behind him, emergency blinkers on. (Thanks, BMW). I dismount and ask the obvious first question, “You okay?” and begin to check him over for injuries he might be unaware of if he's in shock. His gear has apparently done its job and he reports no injuries save an aching toe. The right padded elbow of his jacket is torn, and his right knee pad is a bit scuffed. 

Somehow, he explains, he lost grip with his skinny rear tire when he tried to pass the driving school car after a hard right-hand corner. Seems he hit the gas, the bike swapped ends, and...splat. The bike spun its back wheel around to the right and fell on its left side, sending Timo sprawling off toward the right side of the lane, the bike's back wheel pointed uphill.

The left-side mirror is shattered and the windscreen's snapped off, but otherwise there’s little to tell his bike had a fall, just a little road rash on the bottom corner of the left-side Givi box and the left handguard. There’s a splash of gasoline showing rainbows on the wet pavement where some gas vented from his freshly topped-off tank. Hell, I’ve done worse in my own driveway.

It's pretty clear that Timo's adrenaline is still spiking, but we get him calmed down enough to persuade him to re-mount for the ten minute ride to the Agip station in Lindenburg, where we can do a better assessment of rider and bike.

At the gas station we can see that there's little damage. The round mirror glass is a star-shattered mess stuck to its adhesive backing, but it peels away easily and goes in the trash bin in one piece. I get out my Gerber multitool and Gerd and I take turns sawing off the dangling plastic disc which once held the mirror and is now flopping loose on its stalk. There's nothing to do for the windscreen but chuck it. I get my tire valve and check his pressures, they’re okay. Really, other than a missing mirror, the bike’s mechanically okay to ride.

Timo is rattled, so Gerd and I do a lot of laughing and joking, easing him back from the narrow ledge of panic. “This your first accident?” I ask. “Yes,” he says, none too happy about it. Gerd and I laugh and high-five him. “You hear that Gerd? He just popped his cherry! First crash!” “And a cheap one too, by the look of it,” says Gerd. “I ever tell you about crashing in Australia?”

And so the stories come out, Gerd’s and my crashing histories and what they cost us, in bucks and bruises.

Timo suddenly decides that he wants to go home. Nobody challenges him on that idea. He’s probably a bit shell-shocked to be making the 400 km round-trip that's ahead of us, and his toe might be more hurt than he thinks. I've had  those things happen after crashes. After my first scary crash (on my 1993 FJ 1200) I certainly didn't continue the group ride. I rode slowly home and sat in the garage staring at my damaged bike absorbing what all had gone wrong. And after Frieda knocked me down in Italy with her Audi (http://www.reidman-alps.blogspot.de/2007/07/curse-of-sabo.html) my foot hurt so bad an hour later that I could hardly walk.

We give Timo lots of back-pats and encouragement and send him on his way.

As Gerd and I continue the trip, we find to our amusement that we are quite evenly matched for skills and speed, and both enjoy riding a bit on the naughty side. So while it's me leading most of the time, no matter who's leading, the leader never has to wonder what's going on behind him.  And that, as you surely know, comrade, is one of life’s great pleasures – finding a good riding partner that doesn’t worry you whether you’re in front or behind.

All day I kept feeling sorry for Timo who was missing a jolly good ride, as well as missing the extravagant show in Garmisch. But I also couldn’t help but chuckle and shake my head every time I thought of the girl learning to drive. She'll have a story to tell the rest of her life, how these two crazy motorcycles went racing past her in the rain on the Rorach, and then the third one crashed spectacularly while trying, sending bike and rider spinning across the road while she stood on the brakes….I can still see her face in my mind. Hmmm....just like I remember saying at the gas station, “Don’t crash!”   

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Ol' Blue among the wildflowers - Austrian Alps

Last Day of Riding Season 2011?

Wow! A 2-hour Sunday afternoon ride on the local backroads -- in November!

Unseasonably positive temperatures -- nearly 40F (5C) -- means I'm out for what may well be the last day of riding for me in 2011. This year's mild weather has made for the longest season in my six seasons riding here.

I got in my first ride in mid-January (see blog) and here it is almost December, and I'm still at it.

The sunset today was sure worth stopping for a couple of pics. After the next photo it's back to the barn for Ol' Blue, trickle charger on the battery. It's best to be home before full dark given the weak headlights and the number of wandering deer between me and home. But we made it!

All Heed!

This sign says: Beginning in 6 km, motorcycle traffic is not allowed on the "Look Into The Land" stretch of (Highway) L124 from first April to first November on weekends and holidays.
Located in the Black Forest south of Frieburg, it used to be a road-racing track until 1989, but I guess the moto-community didn't get the memo and kept on racing. And crashing. The closure is due to the high rate of accidents there in recent years. I went on a Friday and lived to tell the tale. Come visit, and I'll take you. Meantime, whet your appetite here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBsTa6Z1w4

Lunch stop in the Austrian Alps

What's on the plate? Homemade goat-cheese ravioli, 'Grandma's recipe' according to the menu. Yummy!

Captain Safety Man Jacket

The honking in the background is because of a wedding at the village church, about 150 meters away from our house. Funny, but I didn't notice it at the time. It must have been very brief. Credit to camera operator Anika for her steady hands despite the distraction!

Touratech Travel Event

This weekend it's the Touratech Travel Event with tents and vendors like at BMW in Garmisch. In this video I stopped filming just a little too soon - the couple seen approaching in the last frame both waved and said "Hallllo" into the camera. I said to them, "You're on TV!" and they both laughed heartily.

What a great event -- I could care less about all the stuff for sale, what makes it rock for me is just seeing all the bikes and bikers in full battle regalia, as these are my (or shall I say our?) people, the ones who have really invested the energy and intellect and worked out what it takes to outfit themselves and their bikes for those long-day-in-the-saddle missions. It was a sea of high-quality European textile combi's (jacket + matching trousers) bearing the names Rukka, Pharao, Reusch, iXS, Hein Gericke, Held, and of course lots of BMW gear. On the bikes, it seemd every second bike was wearing stickers from all around Europe, esp. the Alpine passes, and some bikes sported stickers from far-away places around the world. GPS brackets were de riguer, as were the 80/20 tires, and additional racks of lights. Sabo, any one of your adventure bikes would have been happy grazing in this paddock as with its stablemates.

What's amazing to me is seeing so many of this kind of rider in one place -- these people are not easy to organize, as they are generally independent and busy riding. It's like holding a tent revival for non-religious people -- there's little incentive or tendency for this kind of creature to seek congregation with others of its kind. So finding several hundred in one place is like stumbling across a herd of orangutans. Not that we seek to avoid contact, mind, it's just that we're kinda too busy doing our own thing to join a club. If you happen to see us on a Passo, say hi, we're friendly and will tell you all about the accessories that make the most sense to us. But one doesn't often get to see such a gathering as this. One year you'll have to join me here, you'll see what I mean.

I got my ride off to an interesting start: A large silver Mercedes violated my right-of-way at the end of my own street, causing me to take evasive braking action, whereupon I *almost* dumped Ol' Blue on the curb due to loose gravel, but I managed to save it at the last second with a well-planted foot. I gave the driver a serious dose of the evil stinkeye, then went home and put on my neon safety vest, which I had not been wearing (for shame!). The rest of the 350-km trip was uneventful. Wouldn't that have been special, setting out on an all-day trip and then being knocked off 12 seconds after departure?

It's nice to be able to report that all my equipment and apparrel worked brilliantly. Shining stars of the day include the Schuberth helmet's retractable sun visor, and the BMW phase-change pants and jacket (under my Rukka trousers and black Held jacket). It was quite cloudy and dark upon departure, but occasionally the sun poked thru, and when it did it was great to be able to snap down the sun visor inside the helmet with the flick of a switch. Later in the day, as I was riding through areas with as much difference as 11C to 18C in just a few miles, the expensive undercrackers did their 'phase-changing' job of keeping me comfortable.

Best of all, Ol' Blue proved yet again to be the perfect bike for the mission. Can't imagine being happier on anything else. Few machines I know of can do so much so well. No squawks at all, just a super bike, and a super experience. I packed for an overnight trip in case I decided to overnight it somewhere, but at the end of the day I happily rolled up to the cheapest and most comfortable hotel around -- home.

That's the ride report!