A Brief History of My Motorcycles, Part 3: Goodbye Japan, Hello Europe

Arriving home in San Diego from Germany I went straight to my local Italian bike dealer, GP Motorcycles (GP stands for Geoff and Paul) to negotiate with Paul the vending of an Aprilia Pegaso 650.

My only concern was that the minimum power requirements for riding the small winding roads of the Allgäu and the Alps are quite a bit less than those needed for navigating the major freeways of Southern California, where a burst of speed can mean the difference between a long happy life and a fiery death under the wheels of an enormous SUV.

While browsing the showroom, I happened upon an oddball from the nearly-unknown (in America) Italian maker Cagiva, called the Gran Canyon. It was lipstick red and had apparently lost the d in its name. It had nearly the same ergonomics and geometry as the Pegaso, but was equipped with a Ducati 904 motor, the 90° 2-valve L-twin of the 900 monster. The Duc motor produced 73 hp and 78 Nm of torque (57 ft-lb), half again as much power as the Pegaso. A two-up test ride later, and, for the second time in my life, I purchased a brand-new motorcycle. I opted for the full set of paint-matched luggage.

I sold the FJ to an incredulous buyer who couldn’t believe his luck at finding his dream bike in such perfect condition. Remember, I’d bought it new when it was already two years old. He’d brought a bank check for the full amount I was asking, but before showing it to me, he tried to negotiate a lower price. No, I told him. You’re the first to look at it. If you don’t buy it, the next guy will because there’s no cleaner example anywhere out there. He agreed and sheepishly handed over the check. I hope he managed to keep it in equally good condition, and stay out the hands of the CHP.

Now, here’s the saving grace of the Gran Canyon: you can’t help but notice when you’re getting up over 90 mph. There’s wind blast galore, engine and exhaust noise, and hand-numbing vibrations in the bars. It was just the cure for my hyper-speed addiction. Freed from the ballistic missile that was the FJ, I could now be happy speeding like any other Californian in a cage, going 85 in the 65 zones (with one eye in the mirror), without the risk of an “endo careero” moment on the roadside in police bracelets.

Rare that I stopped by Mom's house on two wheels - she hates bikes

The Cagiva’s ergonomics were a wonder – I stopped having to take ibuprofen before during and after a day’s ride. I started to enjoy the scenery more (as it was going past slower). And it was ridiculously fun. The torquey motor made it quick – very quick – off the line. In fact, the front wheel could be brought up with little effort, something that never happened on the FJ. On the backroads it was oh-so nimble, heaps more than the FJ, whose only real claim to fame is that it was faster than an F-14 until rotation. 

Maneuverable? Holy cats – jumping on the GC after the FJ was like switching from a circular saw to sabre saw. 

The FJ made me feel good, but the Gran Canyon made me laugh out loud, often.

Unfortunately, the pillion seat was less than luxuriously appointed, and Sabine – who, as I’ve mentioned is not a small person – would become uncomfortable after an hour on the rear perch. We tried various solutions (like an Airhawk seat pad), but what it really came down to was that the two of us together were just too big to fit in front of the topbox and behind the gas tank without one or both of us feeling a bit crushed. Consequently we didn’t tour as much as I would have liked. Solo, I loved the bike. Two-up, not so much. 

A year later, the summer of 2001 saw us spending five weeks in Europe while I was between jobs, and on that trip we discovered the BMW shop just blocks from Sabine's mom’s house also had a bike rental program. We rented nearly all the models they had on offer, one after the other, including the K1200RS – which reminded us of all the flaws of the FJ – and various R1150 bikes including the R, RS, and RT models.

           

        R1150R

R1150RS

R1150RT

I liked the naked R, but it was the RT – the bike the CHP had started using that year – which Sabine liked the most. At first I thought it was too big and too heavy, but in motion it felt hardly any heavier than the R, and in action it was just as maneuverable on the backroads while at the same time offering great wind and weather protection, and, best of all, it had an extremely plush saddle, both front and back. Nearly Gold-Wing plush. And I won’t be the first to remark that the low center of gravity of the boxer motor and the amazing suspension package delivered a ride way better than you’d think it would by looking at it. Just ask the CHP.

Sabine's charming hometown of Wangen im Allgäu

Sidebar: It was on this trip that Sabine and I decided to move to Germany. It was really my decision, as after spending a month riding here I didn’t want to go home. The decision was based almost entirely on my desire to live where I could go riding in the Alps a lot, and not, as some meager minds speculated at the time, a decision Sabine thrust upon me that I grudgingly went along with. Hardly. Plus, western Europe in general and tidy southern Germany specifically is hard not to fall in love with, and I was smitten. Charming doesn’t even begin to describe this area. It reeks charm. Rolls around in it and tracks it in on the carpet. Charm spills out of every crack and cranny, wherever cracks and crannies are allowed (there are rules, of course). 

There is too little not to like about southern Germany to bother trying to put it into words. You might complain that it’s full of Germans, but even the Germans don’t get up my nose like some other nationalities I could mention. Say what you want, they bloody well behave themselves. 

We left Germany with a plan to come back permanently in about two years. That would give us time to get Sabine her dual citizenship (which would allow her easy return to the US should things not work out in Germany) and for me to get an education that I could use for employment. Specifically, a professional teaching certificate as an English teacher.

Charm galore. Click to embiggen.

German Technology Overcomes Italian Charisma

And so, once again, upon arriving home in San Diego I went to a motorcycle dealer for the third time in my life to purchase a new bike. In this case it was to the BMW dealer to negotiate the vending of one R1150RT with the idea that Sabine and I would spend our last bit of time in America aboard a proper touring bike, exploring ever further the wonders of the American west. We discussed visiting the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce National Parks in Utah, the Sequoias and the Coast Redwoods of California as possible destinations. The world was our oyster.

As it turned out, we made the next two annual trips to Laguna Seca and went on some relatively local rides, and never managed to make the big tours we'd talked about. For one thing, I was swamped with work – which meant income we would need to tide us over when the big move happened, and for another thing, the year 2003 saw a tremendous heat wave standing for months across the western states, whose high temperatures discouraged us from donning our riding gear and heading into the scalding deserts of the southwest.

Sabine and the RT in Lompoc, on the way home from Laguna Seca

We did plan a trip up the cool coast to the redwoods between San Francisco and Arcata, but when we approached my mom about dog-sitting Susie the Beagle, she reveled in her memories of having seen the mighty redwoods many decades before, and cried “Oh how I’d love to see the redwoods again before I die!” Feeling guilty about the fact that we would soon be leaving her behind when we moved to Germany – and taking her ‘granddog’ with us – we switched plans to involve two extra wheels and two extra passengers: our Volvo station wagon, plus my mom and Susie. The travel budget for the year was shot.

Back to motorcycles: The first time I took the RT to work at Gillespie Field, I swept around the rippled asphalt of the constant-radius freeway ramp at a speed which would have worried the suspension of the Cagiva, but which seemed yawningly normal on the RT. The patented BMW Paralever/Telelever suspension is like nothing you’ve experienced, unless of course you’ve experienced it. That suspension brought a whole new level of smoooooth to the riding experience. The motor was every bit as vibey and chunky as the Cagiva’s Ducati had been, but the whole of the RT’s chassis just shrugged it off and went about its merry way without the slightest hint of distress from all the torn asphalt, uneven expansion joints, Botts’ dots, potholes, and anything else the bankrupt State of California's roads cared to throw at it. 

Tip: You'll have to go at least 80 mph to get the foot peg down

Jeff Sabo borrowed the RT one day when he was in town, and came back wide-eyed about 6 hours later, saying “It’s the ultimate man-machine interface. Your neurons are linked directly to the controls. You think, and it does.” And that was 15 years ago, in terms of technology. They’ve only got better since. 

As you know, I switched to the GS when I got here, a model that was born and bred for this environment. First I bought an identically powered and suspended 2002 R1150GS, and then in March 2014 I upgraded to the the vastly improved 2011 R1200GS. Like the RT, the GS models sport the same wondrous Telelever/Paralever suspension and similar boxer motors, all delivering the amazing man-machine interface Sabo raved about. The technology behind these bikes is nothing I'd forego without a serious fight. In fact, as I often say these days, I may well have bought my last motorcycle with the R1200GS. It may be the last petrol-powered machine I own, before I switch to a solar-electric-hydrogen scooter in my 70's. Watch this space.   

The R1150RT in front of my house in San Diego, a week before I moved to Germany

And that, friends, is the history of my motorcycles. My German biking history is pretty well documented starting with the earliest of my blog posts. Thanks for reading this far. And thanks for all of you who have clicked on my blog the last years, driving my readership to more than 5600 clicks. I just recently discovered that statistic and was amazed there have been so many clicks, from as far afield as Poland and Sweden and Canada and France, not to mention lots from Germany and America. Again, many thanks!

End of Part 3, End of this Series

Kiska & Tell - Are You Adventury Enough?

Earlier this month I had the great pleasure of taking part in a focus group in a luxury hotel in the Alps, whose purpose was to give feedback to KTM as they design the next-generation adventure bikes. Wait, what? Listen, and I’ll say it slowly: Adventure bikes. Focus group. In the Alps. In a 4-star hotel. With a bunch of very adventury riders. And yes, it was every bit as cool as it sounds.

Here’s how it came to pass: The Austrian design firm Kiska, which is responsible for designing motorcycles and more for KTM, organized the focus group to ask some ‘adventure riders’ in person what they would want in the next generation of adventure bikes. They happened to find me while searching the forums on ADVRider.com, where I have posted a handful of times. For example, I posted when someone started a thread called ‘What did you name your bike?’ (Padfoot), and ‘Let’s see your 1200GS’ (photo of Padfoot). And I posted several times when some guys from Hamburg wrote in on the Germany-specific forum asking for advice riding around this area.

Kiska saw my proximate location, which is self-reported as ‘the foothills of the Bavarian Alps’, so they sent me a PM – private message – through the forum, which at first glance looked a lot like spam, what with them hinting that they might like to invite me to a hotel in the Alps for a weekend event. The first thing I thought of was one of those ‘free seminars’ which amounts to trapping the unsuspecting in a conference room until they agree to buy a timeshare condo or become vitamin distributors. Happily, this was not the case. A few emails later and a little internet snooping on my part turned up the fact that Kiska is the real deal. Really real.

Tanja from Kiska interviewed me by telephone for a half-hour about my riding activities, and somehow I must have said the right things, because an email arrived soon after, verifying their invitation for me to join ten other guys for an all-expenses-paid night on June 4th at the Hotel Enzian in the Austrian Alps, on the condition that I ride there on my adventure bike, and talk to them about riding. Oh, throw me in the briar patch!

During the phone interview, Tanja asked me several times from various angles about off-road riding – which is something I don’t so much seek out as sort of happen to do when the road I’m riding turns from pavement into a tractor path or forest passage (with no signs restricting vehicular access, as one usually finds here). I relish those occasions, but they are few and far between. The fact that it had happened to me just a couple of weeks before my Kiska interview gave me a recent anecdote to relate, but I’m no off-road enthusiast by any stretch.

Other than continuing a few km on a farm or forest path, I can count on one hand the times in the last decade I’ve managed any truly non-pavement progress: there were a couple of times on Ol’ Blue in the Italian Alps at an enduro park near Passo Croce Domini, and there were the miles of fire roads that Sabo and I rode in Washington when I visited him in 2012. That’s about it. I guess if you go back far enough, I had some dirt bike experiences in the California desert several decades ago. Anyhow, I guess I mentioned enough dirt to be invited, even if in reality I’m 99.9% an asphalt dweller.

The event kicked off at 3 pm on Saturday June 4, 2016 at the Hotel Enzian in Landeck, Austria. Things got started with a meet-and-greet, which is when I first noticed how little I could understand of the thick, rolling Austrian dialect of most of attendees. There were three German guys I could understand pretty well, and fortunately, the Kiska staff of Tanja, Anita, and Christof all spoke excellent English. Some of the other attendees did, too, and were kind enough to do so with me.

Christof (2nd from left), Anita and Tanja from Kiska Design

The Kiska team split us into two smaller groups for a round-table discussion, where we were asked a lot of questions. The first one was, ‘What does adventure mean to you?’ I promptly fielded it with the answer, ‘Adventure is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted,’ which brought a round of laughter and cheers from the other guys at my table. I can honestly say that was the last time I had a firm grasp on the conversation. After that, there was a vociferous debate about proper adventure bikes and… well, I’m not sure what all, as trying to follow impenetrable dialects at the table sank my ship of comprehension. Sorry, but input like that simply overwhelms the processing capacity of my brain’s language module. 

Round-table discussion, in a language nearly like German

After the meeting, Christof offered to lead us out on a group ride, but I, and most of the others, declined to go on the ride due to the pouring rain. Adventure is one thing, senselessness another. 

The evening dinner was another one of those German-language events which strain my abilities. Fortunately, I sat next to Christof and was able to chat a bit in English some of the time. After dinner we were herded into a small meeting room for slides and presentations from each of the attendees. We had all been asked to send over 5 photos from a memorable trip before the event; I picked that trip to visit Sabo in 2012.

As they went around the room asking the guys to explain their photos and tell the story of that trip, it became apparent I was in the company of some major badass round-the-world (RTW) adventure riders. ‘My buddy and I went to the North Cape of Norway. Twice, actually. Once in summer, and once in winter. Here are the pictures of the winter trip – 4000 kilometers on ice and snow, with temperatures down to minus 38. We wanted to see the polar lights.” Then, “My girlfriend and I rode enduros from Morocco to South Africa down the west coast of Africa. We got delayed at one border and had to wait a week for our visas, during which time the rainy season began. The roads turned to mud and swarms of mosquitos came out.” And, “Rode from Alaska to Mexico, camping all the way. Up north, the blackflies were horrible and the wolves in the forest worried me at night.” “I shipped my bike to New Zealand and spent four weeks riding around both islands. My friend injured his shoulder so I was on my own the whole first week of riding. Here I am on a glacier.” “My girlfriend and I went off-road through Romania, Bulgaria, and the Balkans.” “I rode from Germany to Baghdad.” The room was positively bristling with Adventure Riding badassery.

When my turn came, in my best low-intermediate German, I told the story of how I’d gone to the States to celebrate my 50th birthday with my best friend Jeff Sabo, the happiest man I know, who has a nice collection of adventure bikes, and we rode them all. I rode to the Pacific Ocean where the Columbia River flows into it under the Astoria Bridge 5 kilometers across, rode the Klickitat Canyon wilderness area in Washington with trees as far as the eye can see and volcanos in the background, the miles and miles of lonely gravel fire roads with no cell phone signal or help nearby if you crash. I emphasized the off-road parts of the riding, without mentioning that we managed to make it back to civilization every night for sustenance and re-hydration therapy in the pubs of Portland. Not very badass, but plenty fun, and quite memorable. At least it involved going to another continent.

Here are the pictures I showed them:

Jeff's collection of Adventure Bikes ( there are 2 more bikes you don't see)

Klickitat Wilderness Area fire roads

Pristine mountain lake, woods as far as the eye can see

Suavie Island with a view to the Willamette River

SE Washington, Mt. Adams in the background, traffic state zero

The presentations finally wrapped up around 10:30 pm and we all headed to bar for some much needed fresh air and liquid refreshment. I complimented several of my peers on their RTW achievements, and, perhaps a little too defensively, pointed out that I had, after all, moved 10,000 km from my home in southern California expressly to go motorcycling in the Alps and wallow in the camaraderie of the European moto-culture, and that every ride I take – indeed, every time I leave my house – I’m in a foreign country with a foreign culture and a foreign language. That should count as being adventury, shouldn’t it? Do I really have to suffer mosquitoes, wolves, and mud to count it an adventure? My new friends politely agreed, and changed the subject. I sulkily drank one more beer than I needed to, and headed for bed.

Don't be fooled - these guys are badass Adventure Riders

Hotel Enzian bar has various pics of bikes, & one of a helicopter. Yay helicopters!

Next morning after breakfast the Kiska crew took us one by one out to our motorbikes for a personal interview. Anita invited me to go first at 8:00, which I was happy to do so that I could get on the road and be home by lunchtime. She asked me lots of questions about how I’d customized the bike, what I want and don’t want in a bike, ergonomic preferences, the luggage system, and a lot more I don’t remember now. She also asked me to explain my riding gear – a pet topic of mine, you know – and I was happy to expound, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not good at pop quizzes. I would have given better answers if they had thought to send me the questions a week in advance.

The interview went on for the better part of an hour, at which time Anita patted my arm and said, ‘Well I think you’re an adventure rider.” Aww, shucks. Glad I qualify, Anita.

I was thanked for my participation, dismissed, and invited to take a KTM backpack as a parting gift. I scampered off to my room to pack and gear up, check out of the hotel, and load the bike. I bid everyone farewell and headed off in the rain around 9:30. I managed to forget my free backpack.

I discovered to my abundant pleasure that if you want to ride on empty roads in the Austrian Alps, go riding in pouring rain at 9:30 on a Sunday morning. All my gear is Gore-Tex lined, so the rain is hardly bothersome, and the empty roads magnificent. A sunny day with lots of traffic isn’t necessarily an improvement. Kudos to the Michelin Pilot Road 4 Trail tires that have seemingly unlimited grip in the wet.

Roadside view towards Landeck under threatening skies on Saturday

As I hoped, I was home in time for lunch, and a much needed nap as I had papa duty to take Anika to her school choir concert in the late afternoon. The choir concert was actually really fun. The school orchestra performed on half the songs, and altogether there were 220 kids in the orchestra pit and on stage. From a school of only 1100 kids, that’s quite the talent ratio. The concert was two hours long, giving me lots of time to reflect on my riding history and what the word adventure really means to me.

So, am I an Adventure Rider? I’d kinda thought I was, at least in my own way. But after thinking about it, I realized the problem isn’t with my answer, it's with the question. It’s the No True Scotsman fallacy all over again – there’s always going to be someone out there who, no matter what you do, keeps moving the goalposts. He'll say, “He’s no true Adventure Rider. A true Adventure Rider rides on knobby tires, sleeps in the dirt, and eats roadkill cooked on the hot motor,” or some such crap.

Think of all the times you’ve heard it: Real pilots fly taildraggers. Real sailors sail in salt water. Real rock guitarists use Marshall amps. Real beer drinkers drink Guinness. Real jazz fans understand Mingus. Real runners don’t quit when their knees hurt, they run through the pain. (I fail on all these tests.) Are you a real adventure rider? It sounds to me like little more than a marketing ploy to get you to buy the bike so that you can claim the title, whether or not you have adventure in your heart.

Here is Triumph selling "The Best Equipment for Real Adventurers" to the German-speaking market

I know the argument, I heard it over the weekend: to the serious RTW rider, a guy on an adventure bike that doesn’t leave the pavement is like a guy in a Land Rover that doesn’t leave the city, who simply wants to be seen as adventuresome. But that analogy fails on a crucial point: It’s not what he drives -- it’s that the city guy stays put in his comfortable world, making the same stops around the same routes. And what is the meaning of adventure, after all, if it’s not pushing outside your personal zone of comfort, of exploring the world outside your usual orbit just to discover what’s there, to see what you’ll see, to meet who you’ll meet? You don’t need an ‘Adventure Bike’ or need be an ‘Adventure Rider’ to do that. You just need to do it. Adventure comes from your heart, not your equipment.

So thanks Anita, but it’s okay with me if I’m not a real Adventure Rider in the eyes of the marketing department, or anyone else. In fact, I’m satisfied just being a rider of any kind.

Now, let’s go riding!

Switchbacks

Nice view of the switchbacks going up the...is it the east side of Passo Stelvio? First person to positively identify the pass wins a self-paid trip to that pass this summer.

[Update 28 Feb 2016: We have a winner! Stefan S. has identified the pic as Gotthard Pass in central Switzerland. Good job, Stefan!]

New Helmets for 2015 Riding Season

Got the Vauxhall GT-Air in the post today. It's fantastic quality. Unbelievably good fit and finish.
The Hornet DS was a present from Sabo for my 50th two years ago when I rode with him in Oregon. I swore I'd come back to Portland soon and use it, but after two riding seasons of it doing nothing more than degassing on a shelf, I asked him to send it to me. I decorated it with a bit of blue tape, which makes it look a bit less like I'm guarding the Millennium Falcon. I'm sure looking forward to the warm summer days when its great ventilation will be a treat. Click on pic to check out these beauties!

New Hat on the Way!

Ordered this lid from Great Britain today. Can't wait for riding season to begin!

Details: It's a Shoei GT-Air, a full-face helmet with a drop-down sunvisor like the Schuberth it's replacing. Slipping it on head is like, as Sabo says, 'putting your head in  a velvet bordello'.

I love the (unintentional) U.S. Coast Guard motif, and I like that it ‘speaks English’ including sporting the name Vauxhall on the back, which is not only the moniker of the German car builder Opel as badged in Great Britain, it is – according to Wikipedia – the name of “an 18th century pleasure garden in New York City.”

In fact, the graphics commemorate an annual 200-mile road race in Northern Ireland. Takes place on public roads through villages and hedgerows a la Isle of Man.

Shoei only made 350 of these, so if you see someone wearing it in the Alps, that'll probably be me.

What's that you say? You don't have a lid with a drop-down sunvisor in it? I’m not kidding you when I say that I will never be without such a lid on hand, and that it’ll be my primary hat for almost all uses. You owe it to yourself to test ride such a lid before you buy your next normal non-sunvisor lid. (and I recommend a GT-Air, of course). Find a store that’ll let you borrow one for an hour (easily done here, if not there) and then go for a ride in changing light conditions. The ideal test conditions are found on a day with the sun poking between scattered to broken clouds, on roads that go in and out of dense forests – a scenario which describes a great deal of the riding over here.

I used to ride with sunglasses all the time on even moderately bright days, even with the drop-down sunvisor installed, because I liked the tint and optical perfection of the Serengetis more that the plastic sunvisor. But the quality of those visors has improved a lot in recent years and now I don’t bother with the Serengetis, I just rely on my integral sunvisor to do the job. As a result the lid is comfier and quieter, and my eyes are never so blinded by sunbright that I wish I had my Serengetis on in addition. It took me years to figure out that the intensity of sun up here at 47 degrees latitude, even on the most perfect cloudless summer day, is far less than what I’d lived with for 40 years down at 32 degrees in San Diego, here. Now my challenge is to remember to bring my Serengetis with me so that I have them when I take my lid off – a mistake I’ve made a couple of times. Checklist, please.

Last ride in the Alps for 2014 -- Furkajoch, Austria

The road is closed now to get to the top and over the Furkajoch pass, the crest of which is about another two kilometers further from where I’m parked. See the bar across the road about 50 m back in picture 2? One nice thing about riding a closed pass road is the near complete absence of traffic.

Check out that little bit of blue sky to the west in the second photo. I started the day with the idea of going east after this and deeper into the Alps, but I elected to follow that bit of blue sky which turned out to be a good idea. Coming back down the hills to the Lake Constance area was stunning under sunny skies.

New skins!

My new tires – Michelin Pilot Road 4 Trails – are anything but knobby, so don't look to my GS to pose for any of those RTW (round-the-world) posters. Michelin says they are "designed for large adventure bikes that spend almost all their time on pavement." That'd be me, then.

 

My first impression is one of pure amazement, as they come out of the mold with no mold-release compound so they’re ready to rock from the moment you roll. Of course, anytime you put new tires on it’s like buying a new bike, so any first impression would have to be positive, wouldn’t it? 

 

I bought them on the internet and removed the wheels myself, taking everything to a nearby auto-tire shop that mounts & balances them for 25 bucks. Total cost: around 250 euros, compared with around 400 euros if I had taken  the bike to the BMW dealer and let them do the job, as they always insist on supplying the tires (at quite a markup) and then charging full shop rates for installation.

To my budget, the 150-euro savings I eked out equals one long overnight trip to Italy. But best of all, I just like the feeling I get from working on my own bike. 

Update: 1000 km on, they are the best, I mean THE BEST, tires I've ever had on any bike I've ever ridden. Result!