Last night, I flew out of YYZ at about 22:25 or so. After an uneventful flight, the plane landed in Frankfurt (FRA) around 12:00
It was an Airbus A330-300, or in Air Canada parlance, a 333. Decent size, good legroom (at least in the middle, 33" or something), and unexpectedly, lots of carry-on stowage. Really only had one issue; it was freakin' cold. There was a cold breeze coming down on my head, and unlike other planes, I could not adjust the airflow.
After landing, I grabbed the next express S-Baun train down to Mannheim, then transferred to a regional train (S 3) that took me down to the Heidelberg/Rohrbach station. It was about a .5km walk to knopftours.com from there.
Turns out, there's a local shuttle service, https://www.tls-heidelberg.de/en/, with trips for about EUR 35. I will definitely be using them in the future.
This is my first visit to Knopftours. They really are a motorcycle haven; a large garage with lifts and tools for anyone to use, a place to clean the bikes, a small B&B, (the rooms have their own washrooms), communal kitchen, picnic tables, a large yard for groups to hang out and chat, etc. The garage is great; I may attempt to replace my rear shock tomorrow myself.
After I was reacquainted with my bike, I reattached its battery and sighed contentedly as it started without hesitation. I mounted the top box plate and went for a little ride. What wasn't intended to be more than maybe 20km turned into 200km after I ventured out on the Autobaun.
I really just wanted to hit the nearby motorcycle shop and get a few T-Mobile SIMs for my devices. But it seems things close up at 14:00-16:00 on Saturdays around here, and I didn't get out until 16:10. And everything seems to be closed on Sundays. Gah! Started on the way back to Knopftours, but I couldn't stop riding.
At first, I just rolled around the city of Heidelberg. I was itching for some food, but it was only 16:30. I wasn't feeling right for the autobaun, so I just stuck to the regular roads. 15km later, I found myself on the edge of Mannheim. I grabbed "lunch" at a McD's just to get it done. Afterwards, I felt a bit more alive, so the autobaun was in order.
I'd forgotten how buzzy my V-4 is. Now that I ride an I-4 back home, the vibration is quite noticible. I can also really feel how finished my rear shock is. The front is bouncing around and the back is just sagging and mushy.
I was surprised about the lack of good lane discipline on the Autobaun. Several times in 160km, I found myself passing on the right because there was a line up of slower (than me) vehicles camped out in the left lane. I'm sure passing on the right is illegal here, but I was disappointed with the other drivers and confused about what else I could do.
I turned around just short of Basel, got gas, and returned to Knopftours. I didn't have a camera or my Inreach with me; I really wasn't planning on having a "ride", so there is limited evidence from today's ride. That's okay though, I did cross over 5000km to get here today. :)
After getting back, I set about changing my GPS mount to the Touratech Zumo 660 v2 locking mount, checked out the garage some more, sat down next to the kitchen (with the only Internet access point) and got online for a bit. I was itching (again) to get dinner, figuring that 20:00-21:00 is a typical dinner time around here, but then the jetlag hit. Started writing this blog entry, ran out of gas, and passed out.
Premium (95 RON, or roughly 91 Octane (or AKI, Anti-Knock Index) in North America) as prices in Germany appear to be about EUR 1.62/L, or CAD $2.31/L.
Averaged about 7.5 L/100 km today, at roughly 180 km/h.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment