I clearly suck at blogging. Ahh well. Whatever.
I'm finally back in Germany again. I'm only here for a week, but it is grand to be here.
I'm heading to Oktoberfest with some friends next weekend, so I thought I'd spend some days with my motorcycle first, sort out my supplies and stuff and generally get the bike ready for a couple tours next summer.
One reason my supplies are in such a questionable state was due to the last weekend I was here two summers ago; my VFR died, and then my rental 1200GS died. I was perhaps at a bit of a low, harried to get my stuff stuffed so I could leave. And the 1200GS didn't actually get towed back to the bike place, it got towed directly to the mechanic, with my helmet and other stuff still on the bike.
As always, Stefan Knopf of knopftours.com had the TLS shuttle waiting at Frankfurt International Airport for me, and had my motorcycle parked outside of my night's room once the shuttle got me to Heidelberg. 35EUR for the shuttle ride.
My 2003 Honda CBR1100XX, despite not being touched in 1.5 years, started on the first hit on the switch. I'm tellin' you, I love these Lithium rechargeable batteries. I'm currently running with Ballistic Performance LiFePO4 (Lithium Ferrous Phosphate). I'm told they don't survive (Canadian, presumably) winters very well, but the two I had stored on the CBR1100XX were both in peak condition when I put them on the Ballistic EVO2 charger/tester.
I've found most of my stuff. Stefan has a huge basement for storing customer stuff, and a bunch of my stuff wasn't properly labeled or showed up after I left (helmet at the least). He and I will go digging tomorrow morning to find the rest of it.
I'll only have a couple days with the bike, but that's okay. I wasn't even sure what state things would be in, so I wasn't counting on anything. Looks like I'll get three days, two nights on the road, then I come back Wednesday night, store everything, and hop on a train to Munich Thursday morning.
By the end of this, I'll be confident that when I do come back next summer for a couple vacations, I'll have the bike in order. Can't wait!
