Super Tenere 25th Birthday Meet 2014

I started this trip with the idea of riding with the view to visiting cities without really exploring them but to leave that for a later date if the city was interesting enough, so the planned cities i wanted to look at were Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Bradislava, Hamburg and Rotterdam.

So at midnight on the 24th i arrived in dover port after working a week of night shift i thought it best to travel at night and to pass brussels before the trafic build up.

After two hours on the ferry and 4 hours on the road it was time for breakfast, bradwors and eggs and cup of coffee.

From Calais to Nuremburg a 507 mile journey

as you can see it was a long ride and by 10 o’ clock, i was really tired so i pulled off the road at a parking area and lay next to the bike and slept for an hour and this i did twice, so in the end it was not a good idea leaving at midnight.

I havent riden my bike for over a year with all the repaires done to the engine, and had got soft and was not used to the long hours in the saddle, and was  starting to get really sore so i was taking regular breaks and by the time i got to Nurenburg it was late in the afternoon and  so i just booked into a hotel and had a good shower and meal and then hit the sack.

The next morning I had breakfast and packed up paid my bill and hit the road early, on my way to Munich. The ride there was uneventful, and arrived by 9 O’clock in the morning.

I absolutely loved Munich, I thought it was a beautiful city and have marked it in my book to visit again as I did not spend enough time to explore the city properly. I left Munich at around 10:30 and headed off to Salzburg in Austria. The ride took me two hours to complete as I was stopped at the border post so they could check that I had a valid Vignette to travel in Austria, which I did.

I arrived in Salzburg and was surprised at what a pretty city this was, I honestly did not know what to expect when I arrived there, and none of my friends have ever travelled there, so this is another city that is worth a second visit, and entry into my book for another visit.

It was getting late so I decided that I had to hit the road to my camping site in Traisen for the night.

I got my little log cabin which I thought was lovely, unpacked the bike and then went and got myself a beer and a bite to eat from the campsite restaurant. After eating and ordering another beer I headed off to the cabin to set up my bed for the night and get comfortable.

I saw the owner of the campsite walk past and admiring my bike and started chatting to him and he said that he had a xt500 thumper, and I said I’d love to see it so he unlocked the workshop behind the bike and rolled out his thumper. I must say that I was a bit surprised that the bike was there and it brought back a lot of memories of when I used to own the same looking bike

I left the campsite and headed of into the Austrian mountains, i was told by the owner that i must go pay a visit to the bikers retreat, so i programmed into my GPS the coordinates and was going through the mountain passes admiring the scenery when i looked down at my speedometer and behold i had just reached 90,000 miles. I had to stop and take a picture.

I carried on riding in the mountains and came up to a T junction and my GPS said you have arrived, and there it was a very picturesque mountain pub.

I had some breakfast and a cup of tea, a smoke and then hit the road again as the reason i came to Austria was to ride in the alps and to see Vienna, and if time permitting travel through to Bratislava, in Slovakia. After travelling the whole day i arrived in Vienna and what a beautiful city and worth a longer visit to explore it properly.

I spent about 2 hours in Vienna and then decided to try to ride through to Bratislava, i was on the road for about half an hour and the weather got really gloomy and then the skies opened up with massive raindrops that i could feel through my bike clothes. i pulled over under a bridge and put on my wet gear and made the decission that i would visit Bratislava another day so i turned round and headed back towards Munich. I arrived just outside Munich at around 7 pm and checked into a hotel as i didnt fancy setting my tent up in the rain this late in the evening. I went down to a local pub and ordered schnitzel and for desert apple crumble with custard and by the time i had finished my dinner i was on my 5th beer. Tummy full i retired for the night and headed back to the hotel which was 50 meters down the road, and as soon as my head hit the pillow i was gone.

The next morning i woke up early had some breakfast and hit the road as i had to get to zeltingen rachtig in the Mossel valley for the 25th birthday gathering as i was the organizer of the event. At the same time the wine festerval was on and promised to be a good meet. I arrived around 10am and spoke to the owner and he pointed out that we were to pitch all our tents along the river, i said great and headed down to the site and set up the tenet. During the day people arrived and i welcomed them with a beer and help were i could.

We settled down and chatting and looked at each others bikes, most of the riders were from Germany and the UK, and good friendships were made during the meet.

Detliev who was one of the German riders who we had met for the first time invited us over to have a taste of his Mate tea

After everyone had arrived and set up there tens it was around 6 pm so we headed off to the wine festerval on foot to have some dinner and of course lots of wine tasting. Mike (loopydog) who lives in zeltingen rachtig and who had done alot of the organizing arrived and he and his wife own a bed and breakfast ( river-valley-guest-house ) where my wife Samantha and her sister Michelle were staying, joined us at the wine festival.

I got back to my tent at around 1 am and hit the sack, we woke up in the morning and chatted to Frank and Sabina and to a walk with them to a little coffee shop for coffee and cake for breakfast. andfter we arrived back at the tents everybody was up. we all got dressed up in our riding gear ready for the a days senic ride while other German riders arrived at the meet to spend the day with the rest of us. It was a beautiful ride in the countryside with only one instance were one of the German riders was overtaking and a car approched suddenly and he had to break suddenly and lost his backend dropping the bike and sliding into the side barrier but thankfully no damage to man or bike just a little brussed pride.

we got back to the campsite and got ready for the 25th Super Tenere Birthday celebration at the Brauhaus Kloster Marchern              ( http://www.brauhaus-kloster-machern.de/index.php/de/ )

The evening went down very well and there were lots laughter and chatting and the night was ended off with prizes that we raffled off , a great time was had by all. the next day most of the people packed up to head off home as they had to work on monday but a few of us stayed behind and chilled out the day and explored the area having dinner in Bernkastel.

The next day the rest of us packed up and headed off home, it was a great trip with new friends made and an area to definatly visit again. Thanks to all that attended and made the meet such a huge success.