I hoped for WiFi tonight, but as I'm only paying 30 Euro for a giant fairy tale bed, a hot shower and an included breakfast, I'm not complaining. I'm happy I brought this crappy laptop along, so I can write down all the awesome things that keep happening to me! :D
Where should I start? ..maybe with the Cappuccino I had in the morning while sitting down, grabbing a pen and marking the road, I plan to ride today. If there's a definition of freedom, this is it! Fuck yeah! what is greater than hopping on your bike and hitting the road?! I made it from the lake of Bolsena to Terni where I took two consequent wrong turn offs passing a garage. Thinking of it, it was more like two people talking about a car.. not even a workshop. Don't know why I stopped, but I did and asked them about tires. Terni is pretty big and I didn't want to spend half a day looking for new tires, but as it happened, they told me of a tire shop about 300 meters away. So I followed their instructions and ended at a pretty big bike shop. Despite the other guy in Corciano said that it was hard to find a 17" tire for my bike, I had plenty of choice there. So I chose some on-road-off-road Metzler tires that seemed suitable for me. The man in the shop took his bike and drove off.. soon thereafter he returned with two tires on the back. While they borrowed me a bicycle to ride to avenida Roma (300m away ;) and sent someone to accompany me. Turns out the guy lived in Neuchatel for some year, is electrical engineer (and crazy inventor) and some very good company. I would have guessed him 50 something years, but he told me that he's 67 years old. There you go.. when I reach that age, I want to look as fresh as him! :) After eating some yummi food and a good conversation I returned to the shop. They were all quite busy and no one touched my bike yet, but then Mario came back (the chief mechanic as it had the look) and he was working on my bike for about 90 minutes before everything was "pico bello". Well.. the tires I've chosen weren't exactly cheap, but let me tell you something about riding a bike: if you want to save money on brakes and tires, you might as well just jump off a cliff! If you think about.. I bought this bike for 2000 CHF and now I spent 420 Euros on a set of new tires and tubes. I really try to stay on a budget here, but there are some things where I can't make any compromises. There's a good chance I could have made it with my old tires and there's still a small chance I won't even make it with new tires, but to eradicate the percentage inbetween is priceless! In other words.. two new tires: 340 Euros. Not dropping your bike, crushing your kneecap under it or to sliding off a slope: priceless. two new re-enforced tubes: 50 Euros. Not having a flat tire in the most remote part of Albania: priceless. The 30 Euros for the work is waaaaaay underpaid!! if you ever fixed a tube along the way, you know how how much sweat this will cost you. Not considering that I lack all the tools to do it anyway, it is so fucking hard to break the beat and to get the tire off the rim. Not speaking of that I most of the times punctured the new tube while putting it back on the rim. I was cursing big times and almost freaking out doing this job, so having someone experienced doing it for me with a machine is just PRICELESS!!! Not only he rounded down all the material cost, but he also drawn the perfect trajectory for me to get to Bari. This once more confirms the law of attraction. If you're in need and your heart calls out for it, then the universe will answer. ALWAYS! Not only I didn't get ripped off by these fellow bikers, no I got set up in the perfect way to take the most epic route down through Italy! Turns out this season of the year the days are as followed. First it's still overcast early in the morning but then the sun disperses the clouds and you find blue sky above you. In the afternoon it becomes cloudy again (due to extrem sunshine vaporizing water from the sea) and some raindrops follow when the sun gets low and the temperature cools down (compared to Monsoon and the storms I faced in Costa Rica, it's actually negectable). So I made it from Terni over Rieti to L'Aquila ("eagle" in Italian) and then down over Rocca di Mezzo to Celano. All very, very beautiful roads to drive and very little traffic on it. Being covered up in my awesome heavy-duty gear, I took this with a grin on my face and was shouting out loudly all the pleasure I felt along the way. This is just so FUCKING AWESOME!! :D ..after I licked blood with this trip, believe me, many more will follow. I will ride my lovely bike until it reaches 80 000km and if I have to drive it all the way to China! At the bike shop today I could get a glance of almost every bike that I know (some of them in a pretty used state). There was my BMW 650 GS, Toms Yamaha 660XT, Renzos 990 KTM Adventure, a four-cylindre BMW racing bike, African Twin, all the small off-roaders and a Super Tenere 750 (that has almost twice the power mine got with only 16kg of more weight). Damn.. I should have one of those :P but then I find my bike is suitable enough. You can ride easily with 2500RPM, but if you want to accelerate it needs 3000RPM. While a stronger bike requires less changing of gears, I need to switch down to get through narrow curves.. but whatever, the fun of riding lies in switching gears ;) furthermore the KTM 900 uses about 50% more of gasoline than my bike does. assuming that I make 4000km, I will spend about 350 CHF in gasoline.. so it's about 175 CHF that I save at the cost of having a bit less of power. But let me put it like this.. if you ride a 125ccm, then you might easily reacht 80km/h, but riding a 100km/h is a pain in the ass. if you ride a 660ccm, then a 100km/h is easy, but a 130km/h is a pain in the ass. If you ride a 990 KTM adventure, then a 130km/h is a piece of cake and you can speed up much more than that. But honestly, I don't feel save at a 120km/h and 80km/h just seems fine for me (yes, all the Italians pass me, but they even do if I ride 90km/h when it's supposed to be 80km/h. So long story short: 660ccm is absolutely enough for my style of traveling. I'm sure I could handle a few more horses, but the expect of saving some money by having a low fuel consumption compensates more than enough. One more thing: I really fell in love with my 650 GS Dakar and it undoubtly is very, very comfortable to ride, but there's so much electronic in it, that you need a BMW motorbike dealership to get a proper service for it. KTM and Yamaha is much more wide spread and Yamaha is just much cheaper as KTM and thinking of it, I started riding bike on a 125ccm Yamaha DT and I did the Golden Triangle and Mea Hong Som loop in Thailand on a 250ccm Yamaha as well as ALL of cambodia. So I'm just tending to convert to Yamaha. While KLR is a piece of crap (but cheap) and KTM is luxurious (but expensive), Yamaha might just win my heart ;) Having this bike now, I feel as I could drive around the world once more ;) I as well might, if not the right girl steps into my life.. but let's hope for the later ;)
Where should I start? ..maybe with the Cappuccino I had in the morning while sitting down, grabbing a pen and marking the road, I plan to ride today. If there's a definition of freedom, this is it! Fuck yeah! what is greater than hopping on your bike and hitting the road?! I made it from the lake of Bolsena to Terni where I took two consequent wrong turn offs passing a garage. Thinking of it, it was more like two people talking about a car.. not even a workshop. Don't know why I stopped, but I did and asked them about tires. Terni is pretty big and I didn't want to spend half a day looking for new tires, but as it happened, they told me of a tire shop about 300 meters away. So I followed their instructions and ended at a pretty big bike shop. Despite the other guy in Corciano said that it was hard to find a 17" tire for my bike, I had plenty of choice there. So I chose some on-road-off-road Metzler tires that seemed suitable for me. The man in the shop took his bike and drove off.. soon thereafter he returned with two tires on the back. While they borrowed me a bicycle to ride to avenida Roma (300m away ;) and sent someone to accompany me. Turns out the guy lived in Neuchatel for some year, is electrical engineer (and crazy inventor) and some very good company. I would have guessed him 50 something years, but he told me that he's 67 years old. There you go.. when I reach that age, I want to look as fresh as him! :) After eating some yummi food and a good conversation I returned to the shop. They were all quite busy and no one touched my bike yet, but then Mario came back (the chief mechanic as it had the look) and he was working on my bike for about 90 minutes before everything was "pico bello". Well.. the tires I've chosen weren't exactly cheap, but let me tell you something about riding a bike: if you want to save money on brakes and tires, you might as well just jump off a cliff! If you think about.. I bought this bike for 2000 CHF and now I spent 420 Euros on a set of new tires and tubes. I really try to stay on a budget here, but there are some things where I can't make any compromises. There's a good chance I could have made it with my old tires and there's still a small chance I won't even make it with new tires, but to eradicate the percentage inbetween is priceless! In other words.. two new tires: 340 Euros. Not dropping your bike, crushing your kneecap under it or to sliding off a slope: priceless. two new re-enforced tubes: 50 Euros. Not having a flat tire in the most remote part of Albania: priceless. The 30 Euros for the work is waaaaaay underpaid!! if you ever fixed a tube along the way, you know how how much sweat this will cost you. Not considering that I lack all the tools to do it anyway, it is so fucking hard to break the beat and to get the tire off the rim. Not speaking of that I most of the times punctured the new tube while putting it back on the rim. I was cursing big times and almost freaking out doing this job, so having someone experienced doing it for me with a machine is just PRICELESS!!! Not only he rounded down all the material cost, but he also drawn the perfect trajectory for me to get to Bari. This once more confirms the law of attraction. If you're in need and your heart calls out for it, then the universe will answer. ALWAYS! Not only I didn't get ripped off by these fellow bikers, no I got set up in the perfect way to take the most epic route down through Italy! Turns out this season of the year the days are as followed. First it's still overcast early in the morning but then the sun disperses the clouds and you find blue sky above you. In the afternoon it becomes cloudy again (due to extrem sunshine vaporizing water from the sea) and some raindrops follow when the sun gets low and the temperature cools down (compared to Monsoon and the storms I faced in Costa Rica, it's actually negectable). So I made it from Terni over Rieti to L'Aquila ("eagle" in Italian) and then down over Rocca di Mezzo to Celano. All very, very beautiful roads to drive and very little traffic on it. Being covered up in my awesome heavy-duty gear, I took this with a grin on my face and was shouting out loudly all the pleasure I felt along the way. This is just so FUCKING AWESOME!! :D ..after I licked blood with this trip, believe me, many more will follow. I will ride my lovely bike until it reaches 80 000km and if I have to drive it all the way to China! At the bike shop today I could get a glance of almost every bike that I know (some of them in a pretty used state). There was my BMW 650 GS, Toms Yamaha 660XT, Renzos 990 KTM Adventure, a four-cylindre BMW racing bike, African Twin, all the small off-roaders and a Super Tenere 750 (that has almost twice the power mine got with only 16kg of more weight). Damn.. I should have one of those :P but then I find my bike is suitable enough. You can ride easily with 2500RPM, but if you want to accelerate it needs 3000RPM. While a stronger bike requires less changing of gears, I need to switch down to get through narrow curves.. but whatever, the fun of riding lies in switching gears ;) furthermore the KTM 900 uses about 50% more of gasoline than my bike does. assuming that I make 4000km, I will spend about 350 CHF in gasoline.. so it's about 175 CHF that I save at the cost of having a bit less of power. But let me put it like this.. if you ride a 125ccm, then you might easily reacht 80km/h, but riding a 100km/h is a pain in the ass. if you ride a 660ccm, then a 100km/h is easy, but a 130km/h is a pain in the ass. If you ride a 990 KTM adventure, then a 130km/h is a piece of cake and you can speed up much more than that. But honestly, I don't feel save at a 120km/h and 80km/h just seems fine for me (yes, all the Italians pass me, but they even do if I ride 90km/h when it's supposed to be 80km/h. So long story short: 660ccm is absolutely enough for my style of traveling. I'm sure I could handle a few more horses, but the expect of saving some money by having a low fuel consumption compensates more than enough. One more thing: I really fell in love with my 650 GS Dakar and it undoubtly is very, very comfortable to ride, but there's so much electronic in it, that you need a BMW motorbike dealership to get a proper service for it. KTM and Yamaha is much more wide spread and Yamaha is just much cheaper as KTM and thinking of it, I started riding bike on a 125ccm Yamaha DT and I did the Golden Triangle and Mea Hong Som loop in Thailand on a 250ccm Yamaha as well as ALL of cambodia. So I'm just tending to convert to Yamaha. While KLR is a piece of crap (but cheap) and KTM is luxurious (but expensive), Yamaha might just win my heart ;) Having this bike now, I feel as I could drive around the world once more ;) I as well might, if not the right girl steps into my life.. but let's hope for the later ;)
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