My 2014 roadtrip video
Discussion
I'm not quite smug enough to put this in the 'best' Youtube bike videos thread, so here's what's now an annual video of last year's summer bikey roadtrip.
We did about 2,600 miles I think in 10 days – the route looked like this: https://goo.gl/maps/Zvm7C
The weather wasn't really on our side – surprising, because early September is usually fine – so we didn't do things like the Grossglockner. There were four of us, one of whom had never done a European roadtrip by bike, and it was still good fun.
Highlights include the Route Napoleon in a mixture of blazing sunshine interspersed with 10 minutes of hail, staying at the Gasthof Hochalmspite in Malta, Austria (run by a really friendly English biker couple) and the Sinsheim Museum, which is an absolute must visit if you're into planes/tanks/racing cars/Hitler's cars. It's a very odd museum, and seems like a bunch of drunk German billionaires just buy random items and put them on display, but it's all interesting.
Lowlights included our roadtrip-newbie paying £500 for a big service on his Street Triple the week before the trip, and then finding an oil leak on the second day. This meant he did the Route Napoleon with the constant fear of oil dripping onto his rear tyre – luckily he was OK until we got to the incredibly friendly guys at Triumph in Milan. Other lowlights included being incredibly hungover after a slightly messy night in Munich, and then having to ride five hours in the freezing rain to Friedrichshafen.
Hopefully the weather will be better this year – enjoy the video! And apologies for the music, as ever…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNR_XZs566g
We did about 2,600 miles I think in 10 days – the route looked like this: https://goo.gl/maps/Zvm7C
The weather wasn't really on our side – surprising, because early September is usually fine – so we didn't do things like the Grossglockner. There were four of us, one of whom had never done a European roadtrip by bike, and it was still good fun.
Highlights include the Route Napoleon in a mixture of blazing sunshine interspersed with 10 minutes of hail, staying at the Gasthof Hochalmspite in Malta, Austria (run by a really friendly English biker couple) and the Sinsheim Museum, which is an absolute must visit if you're into planes/tanks/racing cars/Hitler's cars. It's a very odd museum, and seems like a bunch of drunk German billionaires just buy random items and put them on display, but it's all interesting.
Lowlights included our roadtrip-newbie paying £500 for a big service on his Street Triple the week before the trip, and then finding an oil leak on the second day. This meant he did the Route Napoleon with the constant fear of oil dripping onto his rear tyre – luckily he was OK until we got to the incredibly friendly guys at Triumph in Milan. Other lowlights included being incredibly hungover after a slightly messy night in Munich, and then having to ride five hours in the freezing rain to Friedrichshafen.
Hopefully the weather will be better this year – enjoy the video! And apologies for the music, as ever…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNR_XZs566g
Thanks everyone!
jjr1 said:
Great video and nice editing. What did you use to film it?
Just a GoPro 3+ Black (I bought it a week before the trip and sold it a week or so after), and edited using Final Cut Pro. The hardest bit is having the patience to go through 7 hours or so of footage, meticulously (ish) highlighting your favourite bits. It's surprisingly easy to get that much footage down to 5 minutes; what feels exciting at the time rarely looks like it. I find each year I do these I include less and less riding footage and more pratting around.That looks amazing, I'd love to do something like this with my mates. The route looked fantastic and the 2600 miles in 10 days sounds quite reasonable - no rush to be hitting tight mileage checkpoints and more time off the bikes to enjoy the places rather than just rushing through.
Was that an SRAD 600 or 750 with your group? How did he get on?
Was that an SRAD 600 or 750 with your group? How did he get on?
It was a 600 SRAD. My mate drafted it in at the last moment after his TLR started making some hideous engine noises (can't remember which end sounded like it was going). Just after he'd spent lots getting it ready. The SRAD was pulled out of hibernation, MoT'd and prepared in about 5 days.
It had some amusing problems - on the Italian autostrada up to Austria it started cutting out, then starting again with a pop. After someone spotted something bouncing out of the bike and pinging down the road, we pulled over at a services. Took the seat off and found that an allen key from the tool kit had welded itself neatly between a battery terminal and the frame!
Then, back on the road for five miles we realised that in fixing the problem, said SRAD owner hadn't done up his bungee net properly. We couldn't be bothered to stop, and attempted some highly legal bike-to-bike bungee attaching manoeuvres at 70mph. Not recommended, and we just made it worse as it dangled worryingly close to the SRAD's rear wheel. We pulled over and fixed it properly…
Oh and then the SRAD's fuse blew outside the hotel we'd just arrived at in the middle of Munich. After 30 minutes diagnosing the problem, someone had to go and find a place to buy fuses in Munich.
And then, 5 miles from Calais at the end of the trip the SRAD's lights started flickering/not working and the dial stopped working. Again, we pulled over and realised that we hadn't screwed the battery leads on very well in Munich four days previously…
Apart from that, and the Street Triple's oil leak it was fine!
It had some amusing problems - on the Italian autostrada up to Austria it started cutting out, then starting again with a pop. After someone spotted something bouncing out of the bike and pinging down the road, we pulled over at a services. Took the seat off and found that an allen key from the tool kit had welded itself neatly between a battery terminal and the frame!
Then, back on the road for five miles we realised that in fixing the problem, said SRAD owner hadn't done up his bungee net properly. We couldn't be bothered to stop, and attempted some highly legal bike-to-bike bungee attaching manoeuvres at 70mph. Not recommended, and we just made it worse as it dangled worryingly close to the SRAD's rear wheel. We pulled over and fixed it properly…
Oh and then the SRAD's fuse blew outside the hotel we'd just arrived at in the middle of Munich. After 30 minutes diagnosing the problem, someone had to go and find a place to buy fuses in Munich.
And then, 5 miles from Calais at the end of the trip the SRAD's lights started flickering/not working and the dial stopped working. Again, we pulled over and realised that we hadn't screwed the battery leads on very well in Munich four days previously…
Apart from that, and the Street Triple's oil leak it was fine!
Awesome vid. I think that would bring back happy memories to anyone that's done a trip like this and makes us all want to get out on our bikes.
I get caught up in wanting to do more and more track days and wanting to push myself that sometimes I forget how incredible it can be to just go off exploring and seeing what's out there.
I get caught up in wanting to do more and more track days and wanting to push myself that sometimes I forget how incredible it can be to just go off exploring and seeing what's out there.
TimmyWimmyWoo said:
Then, back on the road for five miles we realised that in fixing the problem, said SRAD owner hadn't done up his bungee net properly. We couldn't be bothered to stop, and attempted some highly legal bike-to-bike bungee attaching manoeuvres at 70mph. Not recommended, and we just made it worse as it dangled worryingly close to the SRAD's rear wheel. We pulled over and fixed it properly…
I can only imagine what that looked like 
podman said:
Really enjoyed that mate, put a smile on my face, roll on next years tour...where was the tunnel at 3:17 and the dam just after?
Thanks! Gives us something to look forward to during winter, doesn't it!Those tunnels are on the Malta Hochalmstrasse, here: https://goo.gl/maps/edlrq.
Halfway up the road there's a set of traffic lights which stop you for about 10 minutes (there's a countdown so you can hop off the bike and stretch your legs). Then you go around the first hairpin and realise why the traffic lights are there – it's flipping narrow!
The dam is at the end of that road.
Mastodon2 said:
That looks amazing, I'd love to do something like this with my mates. The route looked fantastic and the 2600 miles in 10 days sounds quite reasonable - no rush to be hitting tight mileage checkpoints and more time off the bikes to enjoy the places rather than just rushing through.
Was that an SRAD 600 or 750 with your group? How did he get on?
The SRAD 600 was mine - it went surprisingly well actually. I was concerned that it'd be ragging the hell out of itself to cruise at the same speeds as the other guys, but it was fine (apart from the slight user-error related mishaps regarding loose allen keys and bodged fixes...!).Was that an SRAD 600 or 750 with your group? How did he get on?
The only place where it showed its age/lack of power was when doing silly speeds on the autobahns and when at altitude, when the carbs weren't quite a match for the FI of the other bikes.
It's a bit nimbler than the TLR too, although doesn't sound as good and doesn't go as fast!
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