Motorcycles & The Environment: July 2007

Finally an update

So I have been on the road for three weeks now, but am back in Heidelberg for a bit of respit, to get refreshed and recharged for my push North. I know I have been lacking with the updates, but 14 hour riding days and $4/hour Internet is not conducive to regular updates. I have included a semi chronology from the French Riviera through Italy.

I do have to give a big thanks that to Phil and Monica for having Sarah and I over for Dinner. That was still the best night of my trip, and I need to get an Ice Cream maker when I get home. Short story. Sarah and I were sitting outside of the super market in the small town of Arenzano, eating the lunch we just bought. After a few minutes a guy and a woman on a R1100gs pulled up and the guy took a fascination in the little camera set up that I had. I got out the recorder an explained to him how the whole system worked and he thought it was really cool. we chatted for a bit and turns out he, phil, was planning a trip to Spain in a few weeks. As we were talking Monica his wife came over and invited us to have dinner with them that night. I didn't need any time to think, my answer was yes. The dinner was great and I learned a lot about how regular Italian people live. Monica and Phil were even kind enough to help Sarah fine the trains she needed to get to Munich. Now me helping Sarah get the trains she needed to get to Munich is another story entirely.

Oh by the way, the order of the subsequent posts is older to newer so if you want to read them chronologically its best to start a ways down at The French Riviera post

Cheers all

Ducati, Ducati, Ducati

Went to the Ducati Factory again in Bologna. Awesome. On my left they are building Hyper-Mottards, on my right they are building Ducati Monsters, and at the end of the tour I see an entire lineup of completed 1098s. To top it off we get to go to the Ducati museum and see a chronology of the bikes in the company's history. To relate my feeling in a manner my fellow Sex and the City fans can relate to. Imagine how Carrie would feel if she got to go on a tour and see all the Manolo Blahniks are being made.

Oh and by the way at the end of the tour, the tour guide stopped by a bike and said, "Just from looking at the bike we can tell where is is destined to be sent. This bike is going to the united states, because as you can see it has an emissions canister on the side top trap unburned gasses. The United States and California has really strict emissions standards and so we have to add extra parts to these bikes"

This shocked me, I was sure that the far superior, environmentally cleanlier, more emissions conscious French, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, and Italians would require the same emissions control devices on the bikes sent to their countries as the bikes sent to the united states!!!!!

More to come on the environmental front.. I have been gathering my thoughts for some time now.

Le Corse (Corsica)

1 Motorcycle; $2400

95 Gallons of gas; $650 (yes gas is almost $7/gal here)

1 Ipod mini; $120

watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean, after an early morning swim, listening to Tangled Up in Blue sung by the Indigo Girls......PRICELESS

(I know this is played out but the guy who did this for MasterCard is a marketing genius)

Video:
Riding through the gorge, Corte to Porto
http://vimeo.com/251026

Corsica Rocks. It has great roads for motorcycling, great trails for hiking, crystal clear waters, old medieval cities, picturesque views of mountains. In the winter it even has skiing. And lost of one of my favorite animals, PIGS!!! I guess it was mating season because the males were chasing after the females sticking their snorts it the females vagina's. Watching pigs run is funny.

Sardinia

After my 14 hour boat trip from Sicily the warm morning air and the openness of Sardinia felt wonderful. However that warm morning turned into a scorcher of a day. At 5pm it was still 105 degrees (around 40 C, for you non Americans) Again since I hadn`t bathed since my swim in lake Bolsena a few days earlier I decided to go for a swim in the sea at a place called San Giovanni de Sinis off the Sinis peninsula (I don't count the sponge bath I had in the woman's bathroom on the boat, where I was chastised by this Italian lady for going into the wrong bathroom. She had every right to be upset that there was a shirtless guy with a blond Mohawk using the sink as a wash basin while she and other ladies wanted to use the toilet. In my defence I was so fatigued from the heat and the 14 hour days of riding I hadn't noticed the small picture of the woman on the door, nor thought it weird that in catholic Italy of all places, men; I guess a man really; and woman were using the same bathroom. I just had a complete brain fart. I still have no idea what that lady was saying to me though).

Sicily

When gas costs $7/gallon and a hostel dorm bed is over $20/night, this is how I gotta sleep.

I caught an 11:00pm ferry just north of Reggio de Calabria over to Messina on a Friday night . I had to catch that late night ferry because I was going to have less than a day on Siciliy as the ferry to Sardinia left that day Saturday and I didn't want to wait around another three days to catch the next ferry. Again I didn't get to sleep until about 3:00am as it took me about three hours to find a suitable secluded place to camp. I ended up parking the bike and throwing down my sleeping bag behind a old ruined house in the hills at the base of Mt. Etna. Saturday morning I climbed Etna and it probably the most fun ride I had done so far. I could see the smoke and steam coming out of the mouth of the Volcano, and the evidence of its still active nature was well represented by the black volcanic soil.

After descending Etna, I hauled ass across the interior of Sicily on the Autostrada (south of Naples the Autostartda is almost free), because I needed to get to Palermo before 3:00pm in order to buy my ticket to Sardinia. Palermo is one one hot city and I didn't feel any regret that I wasn't staying any longer.

The Boot; going to Calabria

Look at the size of the olive trees above, use the fence posts which are normal sized as a reference. I have never seem olive trees this size, and they were all over both sides of the road in this town

From Salerno down south the tourists melt away, thank heavens. I think I have reconciled to the fact that I will never come back to Europe in the summer if I can help it. But regardless of the season, when I do come back to Italy I am heading straight to Naples for the eats, and then down to the coast to the area around San Giovanni a Piro. I am going to find me some old Italian lady who will rent me a room for a week or two, and probably be the only non Italian speaker in the town. Ah future plans.

Also I never thought I would find a road that could truly remind me of the PCH but the road from Sapri down past Paola sure did. Again all of yous with motorcycles, after Amalfi head down this way.

The Amalfi Coast

Video:
The Amalfi coast from Sorrento to Salerno
http://vimeo.com/250903

After getting lost for over an hour leaving Naples which was not helped by a pack of wild dogs blocking the on ramp I wanted to the Autostrada, and having to ride until 3:00am until I found a suitable place to crash for the night, I woke up at 6:00 ready to tackle to Amalfi coast. But first I needed a nap, three hours sleep in the dirt at a campground was not enough, so I bumed two more hours sleep (7-9) on a stone bench overlooking the island of Capri. Fully rested I was ready to tackle the Amalfi coast. All I am going to say is that if you have a motorcycle and if you are in Europe you need to ride from Sorrento to Salerno along the coast. Just go do it

On to Napoli

I knew I had to hustle because I wanted to make it to Naples that night and have dinner at my favorite restaurant of all time, but I had to find it without knowing the name. This search was not aided by my excursion to Montecassino to see the Abby. After seeing this place I now have a much better understanding why a European invasion at Normandy was necessary and why there were so many American Causalities as the army made its way north through Italy. I left Montecassino just as the sun was beginning to set, around 8:30, so I knew I had to take the Autostrada if I was going to make Napoli in time for dinner. Ah the Autostrada, how I hate you. Always there, so close, mocking you at how long it is taking you to ride through every freaking Italian town, saying to you "your struggles can all be over, just as long as you have enough euros to pay for the never ending tolls". After cruising at 130 for a little over an hour and paying the $7 toll, I arrive at Naples and after 45 minutes of searching the winding streets of Naples in the dark I find it, Pizzeria Belinni. Woa what a meal.

Tuscany

After Cinque Terre I made my way to Pisa and then over and down into Sienna. I had a wonderful meal at the same restaurant my father and I had visited 3 years ago, but I knew I had to keep going. The sunset in Sienna was breathtaking as the light shown through the tall building and narrow streets of the city creating interesting shadow combinations. I camped at a roadside rest stop just south of Sienna and in the morning had a great ride through the Tuscan hills on my way to Rome. It had been a few days since I showered, so I bathed myself in lake bolsena at about 10:00am. A good swim in a lake leaves me almost as clean feeling as a shower with soap

Cinque Terre

Video:
Riding the moutain road behind the towns on the way to Cinque Terre.
http://vimeo.com/247438

I found the Italian coast, just east of the french Riviera, to be just as beautiful but not as crowded. The coastline east of Genoa, which is another big dirty port city, was even more beautiful. All along the coast, from Chiavari to La Speiza, are these little towns that hug the coastline climbing into the foothills. Towns wedged into these small stretches of beach and little valleys cut down from the coastal mountains that merge into the Apennines. The road leading in Cinque Terre was especially great riding with nice switch-back corners and elevation changes. Every so often these roads spit you out above one of these gorgeous little towns. I had a nice lunch of bread, olive oil, tomatoes and cheese sitting overlooking the Harbour at one of the towns of Cinque Terre.

The French Riviera

The french Riviera is a gorgeous area, but way to crowded, with too many tourists. The water along the coast is just so blue. The riding would be much better if there weren't so many people. Nice is a town 25 years past its glory and is in real need of a makeover, while Marseilles is just a big huge dirty port city. Monaco/Monte Carlo is as spectacular and glamorous as advertised. with beautiful buildings hugging the mountain sides and these windy streets leading to the famed Casino.

Riding videos

leaving the Mosel Valley 1
http://vimeo.com/236031/l:transcoded_email

Leaving the Mosel Valley 2
http://vimeo.com/236070/l:transcoded_email

Bandol (south of Marseille) to Toulon
http://vimeo.com/235999/l:transcoded_email

So after 10 days I have reached Nice. Tomorrow I will cross over into Italy and make my way down to Sicily. My trip started off great. I left Heidelberg on the 29th with relatively clear skies. I made my way North along the Rhein river for a couple of hours, and then cut across to the Mosel river. The Mosel is full of beautiful little German towns, nearly all seeming to have a castle or some type of citadel perched above them. After riding south west, up the Mosel for about an hour I turned north again heading into the direction of The Netherlands. I rode out of the Mosel River valley on a great two lane road through lush German woodlands (see the Mosel videos). However, right when I got out of the valley and into rolling hills near the Nurburgring it began to rain. There was an on again off again drisel all the way to Koln, a city I had no intention of going to, but the arrival at which signified the 4th time I had been lost that day.

After an hour trying to find my way through Koln in the rain, I managed to get going in the right direction (north east) toward Arnhem, the dutch town where I would be spending the night, before heading up toward Assen and the GP race. The ride into Arnhem was nice, the skies had cleared up for the most part and the road was good. Incidentally both Germany and Holland have great road surfaces and great drivers. France has great roads but not so great drivers and all the exhaust from the old diesel Renaults and Citroens really burns my eyes, but that is another story entirely.

I pulled into Arnhem, and again got lost, this time for over an hour and to add to my frustrations as soon as the sun went down, at 10:30 I might add, it began to pour. After making a couple more loops of the same part of the city, I went into a little food cafateria and finally the 10th person I asked was able to help me. Turned out the hostel was really far away, out near the national park. Luckily one of the employees at the had a food delivery to make near to where the Hostel was, so I followed him on his little scooter, through the rain, out the hostel. When I got there I paid the equivalent of 32 dollars for a hostel dorm bed (Holland is not cheap, gas is 7 dollars 50 cents a gallon, but that too is another story. I got into my immaculately clean hostel room with one a roommate, a 50 something German fellow named Petr on a bicycle trip to visit his son over in the UK. I liked Petr.

Here are some pictures