Made it back to the house safe and sound just before 7pm yesterday. What a trip!
Both the bike and myself are a little battered, but otherwise OK. As Graham mentioned the bike was blown over Sunday morning as I was packing up. Fortunately, the main damage seemed to have been the back light cover popping off and a broken rear indicator stalk. No broken bulbs however, and managed to gaffa tape the remains of the indicator lens onto the stalk to have a passable working indicator.
Having made it down from the rally site (very slowly, and akin to riding your bike down a ski run!) and removing the remains of one of the leg shields Graham had made me after an off that completely destroyed it, I set off in a snow storm back down the mountain to the autobahn a few miles away. At this point my sat nav decided not to work! No problem as I had an European road atlas as back up and the navigation for this leg wasn't too bad.
Decided to take the autobahn back as I wasn't sure what state the roads would be in off the autobahn. I'd taken the scenic route down to the rally and having stayed off the autobahn, I'd avoided the need for a vignette (and saved a few Euros). Enquiries revealed that I could get the vignette "at any petrol station", so it was Sod's Law that the petrol station at the nearest easy access to the autobahn didn't have any! Not much call for the motorcycle version of the vignette this time of year, apparently. This meant having to go up the major road parallel to the autobahn for about 10 miles before finding a petrol station that did have the vignette.
Fortunately, having come down from the mountains, it was only heavy rain I had to contend with, rather than snow. The wind however, was gusting very strongly still (having already knocked the bike off it's side stand earlier) and it was very hard work all the way back into Germany, with me not daring to much above 50mph at some points with the side winds being so bad.
The rain did eventually subside and the gusts weakened to a point where I could cruise (at like to thank Jethro for the service he gave the bike just before leaving, as it was running as sweetly I can remeber it ever doing, 120/130kph all day) at a more reasonable pace. To put things in context though, I was passing the autobahn turn off for the Elefantentreffen at about 2pm, some 3 to 4 hours after we would usually have, if we'd done just the Elephant. I knew it was going to be another long day!
Got to just East of Frankfurt about 7:30pm and after my meal since Tuesday that someone else had cooked, I also had the luxury of a bed for the first time in a few days. Rest of the trip back from Frankfurt was thankfully dry and the wind had pretty much subsided. Met a couple of English guys (from up North somewhere) in one of the petrol stations who told me that woken up to heavy snow on the Sunday at the Elefantentreffen. They'd had fun getting down the 12 miles to the autobahn on the snow covered roads, with I think the guy on the FJ (1300?) having taken a minor tumble. They were both on solos, with the other guy being on a twin of some description. It sounded very similar to the conditions Tim Berry and myself had experienced getting way from the Elefant last year.
Drying out and sorting my gear today and will need to go over the bike in readiness for the Dragon. I'm also hoping to find out why the engine cut out on me, causing about a half hours delay on the side of the autobahn Sunday evening. I suspect something electrical, but it has been since.
Hope to see some of you at the Dragon and I'll send some photos that I took on to Steve H to put on the site.
Simon
