Day 1, June 14th 2002, Eindhoven (NL)- St. Märgen (D), 600km (375mi)
I was late leaving Eindhoven at around 2:30pm. Needed to make my 7:00pm appointment with Mark, some 600km down the road. Traffic was heavy on the A61 into Germany. Some traffic jams, so I lane-split my way toward St. Märgen. Most Germans make room for ya. Especially if they see the blue/white roundel :) Some never look in their mirrors though...Via the A65 (Neustadt a/d Weinstrasse) toward France, to cut off the traffic-infested autobahn near Karlsruhe (D). Back into Germany, it was a quick stretch to Freiburg, where I exited the autobahn system to head toward St. Märgen on secondary roads.
At 7:50pm I arrived at the agreed-upon junction in St. Märgen. No Mark yet, but he arrived within 10 minutes. When we both had our bodies back to normal temperatures (it was hot!), we started the search for a hotel. I had some good experiences with Hotel Löwen, but that one was full (despite the green lights at the information board). So we opted for hotel Rössle across the street and got a room there. It was pretty good. The shower gets a 7 (out of 10).
After a quick discussion what route to take the next day, we relaxed with a nice cold beer in our hands.
Day 2, June 15th 2002, St. Märgen - St. Märgen, 391km (243mi)
We got up at the Destination Spass-traditional time 7:17am and went downstairs for a tasteful breakfast. At 9am we started our engines and headed off toward the south.The roads were quiet and we enjoyed the still cool weather with the nice curves in the road. Germany - Paraguay (World Championship Soccer) was being broadcast on TV, so the roads were really deserted, except for a couple other motorcyclists, also enjoying this opportunity. Great!
It all to soon became warmer and warmer. We stopped in the town of Kandern to gas up the bikes and refuel our bodies as well. On the road it's pretty nice, big green trees provide enough shade and the nice curves in the road make you forget the heat, but as soon as you're standing still, it just hits you. Sweat starts pouring. We soon continued and enjoyed some more forested sceneries. We got on top of the Hoch Blauen, and skipped the Belchen (both large hills). A part of the route near Schauinsland (we got from an earlier bike trip Leon took), is closed for motorcycles in the weekend. So we took a different road to meet up with another route more to the north. Even the wider roads are curving through green forests and nice little towns. And you can do 100km/h outside of city limits without having to fear for a ticket from our green friends :)
We find the roads enjoyable in a different way than the ones in Switzerland or Italy. Here we have long high-speed sweepers on fairly good pavement and green scenery. Switzerland has the best pavement and more switchbacks per mile than any other country we know. And the scenery is a bit more impressive too. Nevertheless, we are enjoying our ride tremendously. We have to come back here again...
At one point in our ride, we saw a siderig standing next to the road. We quickly rode past it. After conferring on the radio with Mark if he thought too that the guy sitting next to the rig could have trouble, we turned around. We had to take those nice curves back to the place where the guy was sitting. He wasn't reading a manual (I we thought we saw as we were passing by), but was looking at a map. As he was german (according to his plate at least), we asked if he needed any help in german. He was astonished that we stopped just to see of he needed some help. He said help was on his way, and we couldn't help him. He was really friendly. So we took off again, and agin we had to tackle to thos curves. That's what you get when you want to help your fellow biker.
Mark has been complaining of the lack of beautiful women here. Most of them weigh a ton and make you wish your sunglasses were less transparent. Only the bride of a local wedding could pass his judgment (barely). We haven't taken many pictures today, only two action photos. The scenery doesn't lend itself to amateur photography, the roads do lend themselves to amateur riding though. :)
After our dinner (which was spoiled by other loudly chatting guests), we had a nice stroll around St. Märgen. We did find out however, that one shouldn't walk into the fields because local farmers then start calling you "Vollidiot" among other things...
Mark in action. At a curve in the Black Forest.
Leon in action. Same curve
Day 3 June 16th 2002, St. Märgen - Eindhoven, 800km (497mi)
We left St. Märgen around 9am in the direction of St. Peter. We stopped at the local gas station for bread and a map of the French areas of Alsace and Vosges, which would be today's playground. I am glad we were not in need for gas as a group of about 15 Dutch riders were filling their machines when we arrived. Through many small villages and over less exciting roads that we'd seen yesterday, we reached river Rhine and crossed the French border at Breisach. The route from there to Cernay was a drag and made me think of the incredible straight roads you can find in the Dutch "polder" landscape.Although the French road signs had been pretty good so far, in Uffholtz they were not helping very much. We had to make a couple of 180s to find the first nice twisty road today over Col de Herrenfluh to Le Grand Ballon, which is a landmark in the area. As the name says, it's a big ball (on top of a hill). The pavement was better than I had expected for such small French "D-roads". Every bump in the road is called a "col" (pass) here and that's why we stopped counting them or writing their names down.
We tried to stay away from the "tourist" roads that are marked on our map, which appeared to be a good decision: we could have plenty of nice sweepers all to ourselves and we enjoyed taking them at a brisk pace. We continued to Munster, Col du Linge, Col du Wettstein,Col du Bonhomme, Ste-Croix-aux-Mines, Rombach-le-Franc, Villé, where a motorcycle accident had just happened. A motorcycle was lying in a ditch and other motorists were already helping out. The situation didn't look so wonderful as I remember the panicked face of one of them. We decided our help was not needed and carried on towards Le Hohwald. It was difficult to find our way to La Broque and Schirmeck, but with a little luck we found it.
As Leon didn't want to be late leaving for home, we decided to take the faster roads to Molsheim and have a quick dinner at Saverne, where we parked our machines between twenty others. The Péage (toll road) was an interesting exercise in keeping the toll card in the map holder (aka "het Mukmapje") while doing 140kmh (85mph). It quickly led us toward Strassbourg and exit 52, where Leon continued northward and I went south, back to Switzerland. The end of yet another terrific tour in the Destination Spass series. We also have to return to this area again as there are many more beautiful sweepers to discover!
Mark, Zoeki and Magnet in France.
Leon, Zoeki and Magnet in France.
Leon's total for Destination Spass 4: 1800km (mi)
(c) 2002, Leon Brunken (leonb(at)steeg.nl.eu.org) and Mark Verhappen (m.verhappen(at)tue.nl)
(Edited in joe)