OK, this was a one-day experience of last year's trip. We did the Jungfraujochbahn and took pictures. It was, of course, great, though the weather was cloudier than last year. We came back late in the day and shopped. Lauryn at the club the previous night had received an invitation to the annual street festival. This was the same one I attended last time, and we happened to arrive on the very day it was happening this year.
Lauryn never did meet the young man who invited her but she did meet two young ladies from Indiana who had just graduated from college and were doing up Europe in grand style. I met a very nice woman, Trixie, who ran the Bodenwald hotel and graciously gave me a hug when my daughter showed up, giving my reputation a great boost. The girls went off to do the club and I eventually went off to bed after midnight. Lauryn had another night of great partying.
Lindau on the Bodensee was my destination today, on the way back to Augsburg. At Meiringen, instead of continuing on the 6 to the Grimselpass, we turned left onto the 11 to the Sustenpass, 2224 m.
MAP from Grindelwald to Sustenpass to Naefels
This pass is truly magnificent. We had to stop several times to enjoy the view of the glacier. Finally, we stopped on top and had lunch. Hint: it really is permitted to ride your bike up the little dirt road to the restaurant. We took it up there and posed the bike and Lauryn slightly offroad to capture a small part of the experience. The lunch was simple, as was the shelter. Our food was cooked on an open wood fire.
At Wassen, we headed north on the little road that goes along the Autobahn 2. It was certainly slower but much nicer. In Altdorf we stopped to get gas and medicine for Lauryn. We had done maybe a half-tank and Lauryn seemed to have a cold. There was a pharmacy nearby and we got her nose drops and some medicine that would fizz in water, which really seemed to help.
The road to Naefels is long, about 75km, including the Klausenpass. The scenery is very nice and farms are selling Alp cheese along the road, mostly manned by farm children. Lauryn and a little girl waved to each other and Lauryn also enjoyed the close up connection to the cows on the free range. One cow was in the middle of the road and we just rode around it. These cows are used to vehicles and not as excitable as the ones in CA.
At Naefels, we still have a long ways to go. We run along the A3 and the beautiful Walensee. At Sargans, where there is an impressive Schloss, we cut north on the 16 in the direction of Rankweil. It keeps threatening to rain again. At the border crossing into Austria, we gas up at a place that professes to take all currencies. We're close now.
I show Lauryn the pretty monastery on the hill in Rankweil before I blast onto my old friend the E60 in the direction of Bregenz. I do have an Austrian Autobahn vignette. I run along at 6 grand and Lauryn says later that it was like being blasted out of a cannon. It's a shame she didn't thing about that when she went to adjust her CD player and took a glove off to do so. Zoom - there goes half of a $60 pair of gloves.
It's starting to spit on us now, but here comes the tunnel to the German border and Lindau. I show Lauryn the harbor with it's distinctive gate: one side is a sitting lion and the other a small lighthouse. Then we find a modest hotel located near the old part of the city. The view of the hotel roof from our bathromm is relaxing. Lauryn is too sick to go out partying so we both go to sleep early. It was only about a seven hour ride today, 330km by the map, but we are both tired.
Lauryn feels terrible morning of Friday the 13th. At breakfast, I ask the very nice lady of the house if we can stay another day. Lauryn needs rest and the bike needs a new rear tire. The weather is wet and there is no tread left in the middle. I've made a good start on wearing down the sides on the mountain passes, but even on those turns, every time you accelerate up the straight part, it does in the middle of the tire. The nice lady helps me call around and I eventually discover that the nearest BMW motorcycle place is about 20km away, in Wangen. So I go.
I resolve to go on backroads as that was the instruction I received on the phone from the tire man. By the time I get there, in the rain, it is just 12 noon and the showroom door is locked in my face. It's the German midday pause. So I go into the old part of the city to wait.
Wangen is a gem. This is the prettiest old city I have ever seen and it seems to be very popular with German tourists. I do a little shopping and grab something to eat. The rain lets up and I go back to the shop after lunch. As I drive up, I notice a really extreme GS kind of bike, but it's not a GS. It's some kind of airhead that has been modified within an inch of it's life to be a real motocross bike. I wish I had brought my camera.
Well, they don't have another ME55 in my size. But I really need another tire. I've now put about 1,250Km on the tire since Seefeld, which means, 3,250 on this trip so far, and there just is no tread left in the middle. The tire man and I have a discussion over the merits of an 88 or a 99 using the brochure. He also calls a few places to see if we can get a 99 delivered but it is too late in the day. I fail to understand why he couldn't have done this in the morning when I called for a 99, but I have to have a tire and he is being very nice. I decide to get an 88. I'm going to be autobahning it for the rest of the trip anyway.
They don't take credit cards at this shop. So while they work on the bike, I need to walk all the way back to the Old City to a bank I saw to use my ATM to get cash for them. This is somewhat grueling on my bad leg, but I had some nice interactions with the locals along the way.
The tire is done and I am taken upstairs to pay. It's 306 DM, including a new tube, which is about what it costs at Cal BMW. Being totally ignorant, I ask why the shop is called "Schek". I am directed to look at the pictures of the dirt racer all over the shop. Herbert Schek is famous and he's the owner. I am now taken to meet him.
He's in the back garage, which is full of partially dismantled heavily modified airheads, along with some KTMs. He gives me an autographed picture. Herbert Schek is a long time competitor in world overland endurance races, including the Paris-Dakar 12 times. He is a multiple winner of the European and German overland races. And he modifies bikes for BMW for such races.
I start asking questions about the bikes. He starts explaining the details of the modifications. One of the bikes belongs to one of his two daughters, who also race. One bike that I am looking at belongs to his daughter who lives in London and uses this bike when she is in Germany. This is a bone ugly rusted double-spring airhead that is very light and powerful, with various mods for motocrossing. I didn't have the nerve to ask if this daughter was married.
Schek is my new hero. He's 68 and still doing motocross. I asked him about his limp. He had broken his pelvis in a Paris-Dakar and one leg was slightly shorter and didn't work quite right but he had forgotten about it.He also told me a funny story about touring the west cost on Hwy 1. In one small town, he was stopped for speeding. He got out of the ticket by pretending in broken English that he was confused about the difference between mph and kmph. Afterwards, the cop was interested in his bike, so Schek explained it all to him in perfect English and the cop never noticed.
After viewing some other bikes and modifications (for instance, the swingarm is longer, they cut off fins on the cylinder for easier dirt cleaning and shorten the cylinder for better clearance, lots of parts are made of magnesium, and the exhaust tubes are held on by springs so no special tool need be carried on the bike to remove them), I leave. It's stopped raining and I use the Autobahn for a short stretch to warm the oil off the tire, which feels fine.
Lauryn and I saw "13 Days" in German that night. I saw it latter on the plane back to the states in English. I had gotten about 90% of the dialog in German but I noticed the airplane version cut out very small parts. The only cut that was not inexplicable, given that we were on an airplane, was the wonderfully graphic breakup of the U2 plane after being hit by a missile.
Part 9: Crossing the DDR Border on the Way to Berlin
