Only 96 miles today along the Mosel, most of it beautiful riding.

The high points of the day are brief though, starting off this morning in cool sunshine on nice winding country roads, an easy wave to some bikers coming the other way. I head toward Koblenz via Wittlich and Cochem a little before which the route joins the river valley.

It should be a straightforward ride but always is the inevitable getting lost, driving into a town then there’s no signpost toward where you want to go. I stopped at an Apothecary and buy soap, looking up the word in my phrasebook before I went in. In German you ask for ‘a’ soap. ‘Anything special?’ she asks. Luckily I remember the word for special from my youth for some reason. The assistant seems a little bemused by me. Later I turn on the GPS but again get into problems, missing a turning or two, then once in Koblenz, it whizzed me onto busy fly-overs and took me out toward my destination – here.

Walking around Bad Ems I can see that it is probably a resort for the older stouter person, either that or the town is full of grumpy older people. The women remind me of my step grandmother, slightly sour.

I buy a coffee in a cafe (there are definately no american chains here) and the rather formal young waitress reminds me of learning a little while ago about how in Germany young people have to decide which trade or training they want to commit themselves to while young, and that people who have tried two or more different things are viewed with suspicion by employers. If this were some other countries – like the UK – , this waitress would really be doing something else with her life, maybe studying, or saving up to do something she really wants to, or filling in. Here, she is a professional waitress, and from what I could see, faintly resents it.

This Youth Hostel is quiet at present and seems genuinely welcoming. I notice there is a ‘bistro’ – a bar downstairs that sells drink. I make a note to make a b-line there after dinner. The only other residents are two fat ladies and a child.



I have covered 208 miles since I filled up.
Its raining and donner und blitzen outside. The bike’s GPS cradle is wrapped up in a very British Tesco bag. Now I will venture down to dinner.

Here in Germany, on this holiday, I am being placed as single: in the last hotel the lady set me a single place to eat, separate from all the couples. Here, I sit at a table reserved for Einzel-Gäste, as opposed to the various labels for ‘Familie Schmidt’ or ‘Family Braun’. After a dinner that is impossible to begin to describe, I went to the ‘Bistro’ (open 7.30 bis 10.00hr) and bought a glass of Riesling. It was small but crowded with parents having got their children to bed chilling out by playing cards or scrabble. I go outside with my wine into the thundery night looking for somewhere to have a cigarette. I find a sheltered set of tables and benches to smoke. A couple of down-to-earth families are talking intently. I sit in a corner and smoke 2 cigarettes, then retire to my small room to brush my teeth and read a little more, leaning my sunburnt shoulder against the cool wall, thinking of going to sleep shortly after 9 with the sound of small children’s feet and laughter in the corridor outside.

Tuesday 29th August: Day 1 (i.e. first full day). Hook of Holland to Khyllburg. Total mileage on day 2 is 258.7

Its grey, almost frighteningly wet and grey with rain and water all around as we approach Holland. I seem to get a free breakfast by ditheringly answering ‘yes’ when asked at the counter whether I was ‘with the biker’s group’. They meant was I one of the 72 cyclists who for an inexplicable reason are also on this boat.

For some reason my bike takes ages to start and I feel a mixture of physical anxiety and mental assurance that I have cover for almost any occurrence. I drive down the ramp and queue up to show my passport, then its on to unassuming roads out of the town and onto the network of motorways that is Holland. Its dry thankfully but the sky is very grey. I’ve set the address of my first night’s hotel into the GPS and am happy to be told how to get there – at least for now. There is not a huge amount of traffic and various smells, most of them agricultural. Eventually, a couple of hours later, it starts to rain and I find that by tipping my head sideways I can encourage the raindrops to run off my visor but when it starts to pour I realise I can’t see a thing and rather desperately pull onto the hard shoulder and start the bike’s hazard lights. I fish into my luggage to pull out the rainsuit I bought but I am really dithering here in the hope that the rain will ease off. I can’t work out why I couldn’t see. With this ballooning suit on it seems to take longer to accelerate. I note that I’ve got 2002 miles from a tank (no that was meant to be 202).

Once I get to the end of the motorways of Holland, near Aachen, I start to disobey my GPS seeing the name of a town I recognise from the map and so opting for nicer routes.

Unfortunately, as I reflect later, this is not a clever option. The thing with GPS is either to do exactly what it says or not use it at all. Taking my own route and expecting it to know what I want to do is hopeless and I wasted so much time and energy literally going round in circles and taking useless detours as my downloaded route told me after I got home.

I finally arrive at the hotel Kylburg at about 4.30 after driving off the boat at 8am and swing the bike into the garage underneath.

I am exhausted. Interestingly its my hands are forearms that are tired and twitching but not my back which is real tribute to the bike. After 4 ½ hours sleep I rode for nearly 8 hours. This isn’t a formula I want to repeat and luckily I won’t have to.

I shower – the realisation that there is no soap in this cheap hotel does not put me in a good mood with the place. I lie down on my back and fall asleep.

There is something mysteriously staid and artificial about this so-called ‘bikers’ hotel: plenty of artificial plants about 9 inches tall with wooden ladybirds attached, a significant lack of motorbikes and leathers, a lack of the rock and roll on the juke box that the website says they ‘like to hear’. Instead are a quiet collection of hesitant guests who wear money belts and walk with their hands behind their backs. Everyone else is part of middle aged couples.

Today’s riding, on reflection, had a number of phases. 1: a relaxed early time when the GPS guided me nicely on motorways from Hook of Holland across the Netherlands 2; a crisis when it poured and I couldn’t see and rode on in my cumbersome suit getting aware that I was rather tired. 3: the nicer roads in Germany when I started my helmet World War II conversations with imaginary friend Douglas – modelled on legless Douglas Bader of course, barking at him to ‘drop a cog, Douglas’ where appropriate. 4: Getting tired and frustrated with the GPS leading me around in circles when I tried to combine its route with my own ideas.

After walking round the town, I opt for dinner here not feeling up to a lonely evening in the town’s only other eating establishment. It could be a school dinner; a passing chicken curry but served not only with rice but with boiled potatoes and peas and carrots. For pudding there is, believe it or not, Arctic Roll. We can help ourselves to beers from the fridge.

Looking out from my balcony in this town built into the sides of a steep valley, later in the evening, I see houses and gardens ranged up the steep side of the hill opposite, topless fat men and fat housewives standing with their fists on their hips – as my step grandmother used to do in her blue nylon housecoat. My disappointment about the hotel fuels a distaste with this complacent small town as a whole. Having lost my novel earlier my book on psychoanalysis and Houdini does not lighten my mood.

Monday 28th July Day 0 Cambridge to Harwich: Mileage on day 1: 68.7

At the last moment I bought a rain suit from Cambridge Motorcycles as a talisman that might stop it raining while I carry this around. Surprisingly it fits, rolled up, into the minimalist luggage I own. I leave the house at about 6.30pm and already my GPS is trying to send me on some bizarre route out of Cambridge and I ignore it for the first time on the holiday. I am headed for the 11.45pm ferry at Harwich. I have my trusty new Triumph tank bag and, strapped onto the passenger seat, my old two-story tank bag with my clothes, spare bulbs, padlock in case I ever want to leave my helmet with the bike and even the hazard triangle it seems you are meant to carry in Europe squeezed into it. I have a pair of Crocs and some food and water as well as documents in the front.

I started planning this short trip months ago. The first challenge was buying a bike that would not be a strain to ride at speed all day. Even driving down to London on the M11 and back on my old Bandit 600 left me with painful wrists as I tried to hold on against the raging Essex wind. After four months of investigating and looking on Ebay I bought this Triumph Sprint ST 955i with 3000 miles on the clock. Luggage was more challenging – or rather more expensive than I could afford, so hard luggage will have to wait. Instead I invested in a Garmin GPS as I realised without someone with a map on their lap in the passenger seat next to me, finding anywhere would involve endless stops by the curb and a huge amount of wasted time.

The ride takes me out of Cambridge over the Gog Magog hills, via Haverhill, where I fill up with £15 of petrol, and beautiful winding country roads down to the A12 at Colchester then on to Harwich to catch the Stenna ferry to the Hook of Holland. It’s a beautiful sunny evening and still light when I arrive at Harwich to check in behind a German couple on an old BMW.

We chat later about their holiday in the UK. I also talk to another couple who live in Amsterdam on an older Honda with 16000 miles. He’s American and she is an English concert pianist. Also friendly is a Dutchman on a bright red Honda CBR who though young is a veteran of channel crossings as I find out later. He says he has ridden more miles on the left side of the road than the right. Three other young guys arrive on brand new but miniscule 125s and are photographed presumably it’s a jaunt for some biking magazine. I try to get in the background.

Eventually, after waiting for 72 cyclists, we are beckoned to drive up the spiral ramp and on to the boat. The Dutchman has taken his bike on this ferry many times and has his own equipment for lashing it down. I am completely hopeless at it and can’t even work the ratchet on the ties, so I get generous amounts of help and advice on this i.e. tie the bike down by its handle bars being careful not to damage any of the cables. If the handlers insist on tying the bike down over its seat, trap your gloves under the tie first to avoid damaging the seat.

I can’t believe that this is the same ferry that I was sick on every summer as a boy going to Germany for our family holidays. You barely realise that you are on something moving at all so vast and smooth is this vessel.

After months of planning I finally sail from Harwich tonight over to the Hook of Holland and then the rest of the week biking in Germany around the Mosel area. I have spare lightbulbs, bandages and a folded triangle that sticks out the back of my luggage. Accommodation is booked and the daily rides are not ambitious – the first day is about 350k though and rain is forecast for tomorrow. I also have a Garmin GPS which I tried out in Spain last week and I have learnt that it can really help in situations where you are totally lost – though it did give a few odd directions, like the wrong way down a one way street. So baring breakdowns (I have Cover) and accidents things should go well. with a good book – Austerlitz by Sebald (in English) which I have lost – and a pack of Camel, this should be enjoyable.

Read most reviews of the Triumph Sprint ST and sooner or later you will see two things – first, that to change the headlight bulbs you need to dismantle half the bike and, second, that many owners add some electronic gizmos in order to undo the silly arrangement where only one of the two headlights comes on at a time. I spent some time searching the net for instructions and searched through my Haynes manual. In the end, a list of which screws and bolts to undo from the net in hand, I set about sorting both tasks – to change the standard bulbs for supposedly 30% brighter xenon bulbs and install two relays to get both headlights to come on. I approached the task with my usual pessimism but two hours later and with a significant lack of problem the front of the bike was off, and bolted and screwed back on again, the work having been done. Here are some pictures.

Its coming up to six weeks of Triumph Sprint experience. This bike is such a pleasure to ride. I don’t remember feeling exactly the same about riding a Bandit. This evening, for example, I had an excuse to ride out of Cambridge for a few miles, with some windy A roads and a short blast on a dual carriageway. The weather wasn’t fantastic but a pleasant summer evening – rather overcast in fact – but I remember feeling that I didn’t want the ride to ever stop. Slowly I am gaining confidence in handling a motorbike and enjoying preparing for corners (though one or two arrived quickly and turned out to be very sharp) finding a line, crouching down, trying to keep up speed. Even driving along at 45 behind traffic is enjoyable. Last weekend I took it up to the North Norfolk coast up the often-impossible-to-pass-on A10.

The bike is very happy to go along slowly but demonstrated that once I’ve decided there is ample safety to overtake, it rockets past anything and can keep going at 80 or 85 very nicely. The Bandit was always revving too quickly and I was forever searching for another gear. I’ve done just over 400 miles in 5 1/2 weeks. I had the Bandit 8 months and only managed 500 miles on it. The next challenge is to book my ferry ticket to Hook of Holland – and get some more luggage for it.