Travel Tales: 24 Hours to Munich

It wasn’t exactly an auspicious start to the trip, riding through London's southern suburbs already an hour late for the boat at Dover, and crossing Blackheath grey with rain. In the previous few days my Moto Guzzi Monza had consumed £70 in new oil, overhauled brakes and a new battery. With reset tappets and balanced carbs it was purring along contentedly, although purring is perhaps an entirely inaccurate description of a Guzzi’s progress and chugging may be more apt, if not as evocative as the yowl of a Scott or the thunder of a Vincent.

Destination Dover, for the Continent, and more specifically Munich. The rain stopped as I reached the motorway, the last morning boat was caught with seconds to spare.

Odd how the ferry companies vary in their facilities for bikes, some have sensible strap systems built in which fix the bike firmly to the deck, but this one relied on a loop of rope tied to a nearby handrail - next to useless in a rough sea. It left me wondering what the compensation rates for damaged bikes were. The only other bikes aboard were French registered, a BMW R80 and a CX500, which had enjoyed a rainy tour of England.

After an hours calm crossing, a revolting lunch surrounded by revoltingly noisy French school kids, La Belle France appeared in what looked suspiciously like rain. Sure enough, a few miles out of Calais I was back in Belstaff and Rukkas.

I’d planned to follow French N—roads as much as possible to Strasbourg, and then travel on the German B28 through Tubingen and the I310 from Ulm to Augsburg and Munich.

I figured what time I'd lose by avoiding the autoroute and autobahn would be repaid by a more scenic and varied route. It may be an old fashioned attitude, but I like to think that motorcycling is a unique way to combine rapid travel with an opportunity to get a feeling of the country you are in; and motorways don ’t allow this combination. By the time I’d got to Munich, as will be seen later, I had adapted the adage to read it is better to arrive than travel...

At an optimistic 40mph average I could cover the 700 miles in 17 hours, and have a few hours spare for sleep and coffee stops. Best laid plans made no allowance for torrential rain and as it got worse my speed was cut down. I was cruising the Guzzi, laden with panniers, tank bag, sleeping bag and a rucksack strapped to the pillion seat, at no more than 65mph.

Despite the conditions, my opinion of French roads remained the same: often as good as their English equivalents but with fewer cars and more bikes. French riders have a great sense of camaraderie, as they all wave to other bikers - at times I was lucky to have my hand on the bars for more than five minutes, having to wave to a constant stream of Paris Dakar replicas and Jap 750s and 1000s. I’ve always found riding on the right to be easy, although more care is needed at roundabouts and junctions; in France you have to keep a sharp lookout for old men in 2CVs ignoring give-way signs under the impression that the old priorite a droite system still exists.

I reached Cambrai before nightfall, deciding against the Autoroute de L'Est. This soon turned out to be the wrong move, as the rain was still tipping down, which combined with frequent stops to clear a misting visor and unfamiliar roads meant that my average speed was cut to little more than 30mph. Eventually, after fording a river which had burst its banks, flooding the road with six inches of muddy water, I was stopped by the police at a roadblock - they waved me on when I said I was on holiday and I wished my French was good enough to explain the irony of being on holiday at eleven in the night, in pouring rain, somewhere in the middle of France.

I decided to stop for the night. The original plan was for a cheap hotel but I ended up asleep in a bus shelter (quite comfortable in several layers of motorcycle clothing) awoken by the passions of some politico tearing off the Chirac posters. 2.30am, I rode off into even more rain. In the dry and daylight, the D955 south from Metz is a wonderful motorcycling road; in the dark and wet it was miserable.

The German border by 5am, two hours sleep while waiting for the petrol station to open. The B28 winds up into the Black forest hills, where even in mid April there was snow on the ground. I was wet, cold and the Guzzi started misfiring. WD40 and new plugs cleared the problem up.

It actually stopped raining and I chose the autobahn for a hopefully fast 150 miles. At 70mph I was almost the slowest vehicle in sight, so I turned it up to 80mph which felt much safer. Lane discipline is impeccable, essential with big Mercs et al doing 100mph plus. My heavily loaded Monza was happy overtaking at 90mph; I was finding the high speeds and my tiredness a rather daunting combination. But the sun was shining and the last miles rolled by - I reached Munich’s outskirts and crossed the city to reach my friend’s home. So at last it was done, rarely had tea tasted so good, or a bed felt so soft after a long ride.

Tim D. Francis