I had stopped and spent the night at my friend’s mom’s house (thanks Ana!) in Zagreb, actually Novi-Zagreb because it’s basically a new part of the city that was built in the socialist era. There are the usual tower blocks and so on but what struck me when I woke early the next day was the trees. They had all been planted by the people in my friend’s mother’s generation and what I saw looks like a forest with buildings in it. It’s really quite nice.
The bike was loving the journey too. Even lifting it off the side-stand was easy that morning (it’s top heavy…!) It’s a nice ride, though. Tall enough to see over the top of cars, narrow enough to move between them in traffic jams (something that you can’t do in Canada, sadly) and powerful enough to get out of trouble quickly. I’ve often thought that being able to move quickly is at least as important as being able to stop fast. Waiting at traffic lights is one example: more than once I’ve been able to quickly zip sideways or out of the way in order to prevent a rear-end collision with a driver who simply said, “Sorry mate, I Didn’t See You” (SMIDSY, it’s a thing…)
Anyway.
I’d decided not to try too hard for the BunBurner (2500km in 36 hours), so I slept a little later and left around 6am. Riding in the daytime is preferable to at night, for safety reasons for one thing. But, also because the landscape, ever changing, is an incredible thing to simply be in not quite a part of, always a visitor, most often welcome.
North of Zagreb is a case in point, as the road moves up through Ljubljana in Slovenia and into Austria, and thence through the Alps (close to the Italian border).
Sheer bliss.
I’ve said I like mountains. I love them as things, but they always provide amazing riding. And the Alps are wondrous, a huge defiant statement plonked down in the middle of Europe. Stunning, with tunnels built through them by humans that are adventures all by themselves as you move from one side of a massive mountain to another, with different weather: sunshine, rain or whatever, on each different side and a warm microclimate inside the tunnels themselves.
I will never get tired of the Alpine tunnels.
And the light. It has a certain clarity in the mountains and passes that is difficult to define. You can see very far and very wide, and when you stop you realize that it has simply been giving you the opportunity to see into yourself, all along.
And so it was, seeing signs for Italy as I went (that will be an adventure for another day), that I passed through Austria, with the odd gas stop, quickly indeed.
Europe is quite lovely. The ability to move from one country and culture to another seamlessly is a gift. Sometimes you only realize you are heading into another country because of a small sign on the side of the road with a circle of stars and a country name: Deutschland, here I come.
From Austria to Germany was easy. Then I was routed through what seemed like downtown Munich. It was interesting, and a reminder that cities are not my thing, but that cities are no match for motorcycles. When I got halfway up to Nuremberg I was glancing at the clock and thinking the 36-hour thing might actually be doable. When you get so close, it becomes a compulsion, so I decided to try.
Germany has autobahns. It’s actually quite incredible the speed at which you get passed by certain cars (always seemed to be Volkswagens, but the occasional Skoda did enter into the equation) and paying attention to being passed when you yourself are hitting a reasonable rate of knots is unnerving. They’re uniformly busy roads and, whilst it is unnerving, they do have a rhythm. But the roadwork doesn’t help, and the rather small speed limit signs (because sometimes there are speed limits on the autobahns) are important to watch for.
Because speed cameras exist, of course.
No, I didn’t get flashed. Well, not this time.
I got to just outside Frankfurt with a bit more than 30 minutes left on my 36-hour clock and was entirely unsure if I had gone far enough, because whilst the bike said I had, the GPS was not so sure. I hopped back on the bike and rode to the next gas station on the autobahn, close to 60 kilometres away, in the last few minutes I had (I did not exceed the posted limits, either). I got the gas receipt and stopped. There! I’d done it. Both a SaddleSore 1600 and a BunBurner 2500 on my first ever Iron Butt.
After a small rest, I headed back to my campsite in Wetzlar.
I got lost in Frankfurt. Two thousand-five hundred kilometres with no real issues and it took me more than an hour to find the 25-kilometre route I needed to get back. Needless to say, I was both unimpressed and, yes, found it hilarious.
By 5pm on the Saturday evening, I was back at the campsite. The GS had been comfortable, fast when it needed to be, and cruise control is lovely. On my return to Canada, I had to get ready for the big trip to Tuk. But I was a little more than tired, to be honest, and had a day to rest before flying home.
I used it.
