Reflections of 09

We are on our way back to Toronto and this is a reflection of our trip. About 10 weeks ago we were anxious to start; now we feel a need to get back to a more civilized routine. Travel is not easy. Life is unpredictable on the road, yet we were very lucky. Each night we found shelter. Accommodation went from living in a tent or a garden shed to having the finest society had to offer in a 4 star hotel. We had the illusion that the internet is available all over the world, it is! Yet it is either expensive or so slow that it defies usefulness. We ate well, not always the finest but we were never hungry. The weather was on our side. Yes, we had rain, fog, cold spots even heat but all in all we rode in dry conditions. We were extremely pleased about that. Our bikes held up, no major repair needed. In the most desolate areas the machines ran well. I managed with a defective side stand to get off and on the bike using a wooden block. I was a bit nervous about my bald front tire but I learned from that, too. Next year we will start with a fresh set of tires. We rode slowly when Carol’s chain was worn out and needed replacement. We ran into people that were helpful and even offered their home for us to use. Thank you again, Hilde and Sigurd. We lived day to day with a destination in mind, with a theme to follow. There were a lot of firsts for Carol. The mind was on overload but we survived it all. Right now it rains, the last day of our trip we are holed up at Stefan Knopf’s place in Heidelberg. Our bikes are washed, the oils have been changed, the fuel stabilized and all is put away until next year. We had a good trip. Next year we will continue on a new venture and let’s hope that in the future all trips will be as good as this trip.

Familiar Places

I ask myself some days why do I travel. Do I have a gene that cannot sit still? Do I seek something new all the time? Am I that curious? Most people I know love to go on vacation but the travel I am talking about is different. When I travel I do not have an itinerary with a daily destination; I do not like that too much. I rather like the free flow and sense of discovery when I travel. Yes, I like a target, a city, a region or a country that I will aim for when I am on the road. I like a theme, for example I liked retracing and exploring the route Lewis and Clark took in the early 19th century. I like to find newness, things I never saw or knew before. With the Lewis and Clark example I enjoyed learning about the lives of the Native American at the time of Lewis and Clark. I am not sure how deep I want to go on some subjects but if it is new to me, I like to learn as much as possible. The difficulty is that my brain can hold only so much on any given day. I do get overloaded with impressions and newness over time and I can feel the learning, the sheer size of newness, physically. I know from experience that I need a rest when I feel like this. Weeks of accumulated new experiences wear on me.
That is the reason I go back to familiar places; places that do not burden me with new, but relax me with familiar. Familiar is predictable, something I normally do not like very much. But familiar is calming, reassuring and well, familiar.
So, after all of our travels for the last 9 weeks we went to France. I learned to love this county. France to me is familiar; the food is great, the people friendly and the French routine somewhat predictable. But because I can only converse in words, not in sentences I went back to Germany. Now here, of course, I am at home and I find some pride in the German ways yet I would never live here again. The language is my mother tongue. It is way, way too familiar. Way too predictable for me.
But my bike needed a new headlight, the auxiliary light from Touratech needed fixing and the right aluminum pannier needed adjusting. Touratech was the place to go and we over-nighted in Dauchingen at the ‘Schwarzwaelder Hof’ Hotel, a great, clean, predictably German place for a night. How people can live their entire life in Dauchingen is beyond my understanding. I cannot be like them. I need to travel. I need to explore. I need to search. I am curious. I want to know and learn. So I am constantly in flux; trying to find a place to settle, yet feeling the need to add to my experiences through travel.
I am lucky that Carol is as much a traveler as I am. Her reasons might be different, but we make a good team. After all this time, travelling and getting bumped around by circumstances, we get along just fine. I don’t have, nor do I pretend to know, all the answers to the way I am.
This blog is just a vent as to what goes on in my head while traveling. I am constantly searching for some kind of answers about myself. Maybe traveling is a diversion or an excuse not to face myself?
I am learning though and will do what I do until I can no longer do it.

Champions

One of my riding friends, Norm Smith, moved recently, permanently, to Switzerland. His wife Denise is Swiss and Washington D.C., home for Denise and Norm for the last decade or so, lost 2 good citizens.
I first met Norm on a GlobeRiders (http://www.globeriders.com/) Trip in 2004. Norm and I rode together for 65 days, from Shanghai, China to Munich, Germany. If you want to get to know someone well, ride with him/her on a daily basis for some time. Norm is a Champion, hands down. His riding skills were honed by many years of off-road competition all around the U.S. and Canada in his early years. He never lost the touch of riding off road and still does it well. Not only did he win the 1963 Corduroy in Canada (http://www.corduroyenduro.ca/), he became an off road champion everyone can read about or look up on the internet. But Norm is more than just an official page in a book; he received the Friend of the Marque award from BMW 2 years ago, too. All that makes Norm a great guy in many eyes but in my eyes he is a Champion of special caliber. He is my friend.
We visited Norm and Denise in their new home near Montreux, Suisse. Norm still has his passion for motorcycles but seems to start to replace it with learning about the best wines in the region. He gave us a tour of the best wineries he knows and we even had some wine tasting that was very real, without the pressure of ‘buy’ this wine.
What a great spot Norm picked to spend his evening of life. I admire his ability to adjust to all these new circumstances, to the new languages, even though he speaks French, German and Italian and of course English, quite well. Thank you for your hospitality, Norm and Denise. I salute the contentment you found in your new life. Thanks, Denise, for a wonderful diner from your own garden and the local product from your favorite sausage maker.
Norm is a guide for me in some ways; a guide to living as you get older and life starts to wear on your body. I still see Norm’s determination, his will is very strong. I see his passion in everything and I think that makes him or anybody else I admire a champion. A person who knows he/she is getting older, yet never gives up is what I admire. I see this in Norm. You are doing well indeed, Norm, my hat is off to you.
I have a few selected people in this world, all Champions. I like to stay in touch with them. I like to visit them, talk to them, and learn from them. These people have collected experiences not only in the motorcycle community, but in life, too. Life has made them the Champions I so admire. Each one of my Champions teaches me something. Each one has their own unique value; their personal aura is what attracts me to them. It may not be visible to everyone, but to me those people are very special.
The late Lyle Grimes comes to mind, too. Life was not so generous with Lyle yet he was so determined to make the best of it all and he showed it in never giving up. Lyle rode 1.2 million miles plus on a motorcycle before he passed away this year. I talked to Lyle many times, he treated me like a son and I learned from his friendly nature and generous personality. Lyle was a Champion for sure. Everybody loved this guy; everybody must have seen his aura, too. He always spoke kindly about everyone; he was never rude or abrasive. I can still see him in my mind and I think I always will remember him. Lyle and I had a little game; each time I saw him at a rally I greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, like they do in Italy. He pretended he did not like it but yet I know otherwise. Lyle and I had a good mental connection, he was a Champion. He was my friend. I will miss you, Lyle.
Only David Swisher has more miles riding a motorcycle. Dave is a living legend, one of my Champions. Dave and I have talked many times and he told me his life story. We talked about his struggle as a young man, his innovative application of mechanization in the early days of dairy farming and all that added up to what Dave is today. Yes, Dave is still counting his miles, presently over 1.75 million miles, but I am not counting his miles. Dave is my friend. Dave will always be a Champion whether he adds miles or not. David and Lyle were riding buddies for years and I am sure David feels the loss of Lyle the most.
Some people I admire don’t even know me well. Michelle Duff is one of those. Last time I met Michelle she was in Toronto at the yearly Motorcycle Show. She does not know me well enough to talk to me freely, I hear about her in the racing circuit of the generation that came before me. I admire her spirit, her independence, and I admire her for doing her thing no matter what society thinks or believes is proper. Good for you, Michelle! You are a Champion in my book.
Joe Katz, a very friendly, self-sufficient man opened my eyes to another level of motorcycle riding. Joe is no longer able to ride but he drives his new car to rallies now. Joe never owned a car before and all this is new to him. Joe Katz is still a motorcycle rider at heart; never mind that he rides his car now. He is an institution at most rallies and he is a true Champion.
We all are getting older, we all start to fail. Some of us more severely than others but yes, most of my Champions are older. Not that this is a requisite for being a Champion, not at all. Being of a more advanced age just brings more experience to the table. I like to learn and I like to learn from people that can give me a new, different view on life. I do not believe, just because years have gone by, that my Champions have nothing new to contribute. Just the opposite is true. We can all learn from each other, I seem to learn more from my friends who have gone through life and situations before me. I admire their knowledge, their experiences, let me learn from them. I hope I can be as gracious as Norm Smith, as determined as Lyle Grimes, as independent as Michelle Duff or as popular as Joe Katz, no matter my age, no matter my physical conditions. My Champions are always an inspiration to me.
I agree with Norm Smith who is now enjoying life with a glass of wine in his hand and 2 motorcycles in the garage which he now rides infrequently. Life is to be enjoyed.
L’Chaim, enjoy your age, enjoy life! And thank you all, even the ones I did not mention here, you are my Champions no matter what.

Swiss, Schweiz, Switzerland, Suisse, Svizzera

A delightful day in Bolzano (Bozen), where we finally found an Italian Internet connection, gave us a starting point for Switzerland! Bozen is a town I could spend some time in. I loved the real life, the real market, and the real people in that city. If only they had better internet set up in Italy.
The anti-terrorist laws in Italy on Internet use are very strict. A copy of your passport is needed to use any public internet. So if you own an internet café you need a copy machine because each customer must present their passport so a copy can be made. All this is rather cumbersome and, of course, nobody wants to be bothered doing it. WiFi is not in use since this would circumvent the law. The fines for letting someone use the internet without you obtaining their passport copy are steep and expensive. Two hours of internet use in Italy, if you can find a café like this, costs 8 Euros. But Italy is fun, lively, real and a great place to visit. In Italy I don’t see the falling apart houses, the grime. I only see life as it is. But we cannot stay here, we must move on.
So we left Italy after some outstanding, difficult riding in the Dolomites. When we left Bolzano we did not use the highway since even the secondary roads were in the valleys and riding secondary roads after all the Alpine passes, seemed a breeze.
I have always wanted to add Lichtenstein to my roster of countries in which I have ridden so we made sure we visited Valdus in the country of Lichtenstein. I had such a romantic notion of this Earldom that the reality of what we experienced there floored me. There is nothing pretty about this county. A hodge-podge of building styles put together without a master plan. Chaos is the best word I can think of. Nothing nice; all just business oriented and may I say it, ugly. Well we visited but were glad to get out of it, fast! We thought it can only get better in Switzerland.
We entered Switzerland from the east after riding on some rather mild roads. Maybe it was Lichtenstein, but this time around I was not impressed with Switzerland either. The buildings were old, dirty and in some cities, full of graffiti. A power washer business would be a good business to have in Eastern Switzerland. Maybe it is hard to keep these old buildings up to snuff. I am not sure; my impression was that the towns we rode through needed help.
There is sticker shock too. Hotel rooms are 140 Swiss Franken a night. One Franken is about one US Dollar. Yes, it includes breakfast but the rooms we stayed in were so-so. The furniture was old, the light fixtures old, the backyard stuffed full of stuff. Yes, next to each house, in every backyard there seems to be stuff. Building material lies around, ladders are leaned against the house, plastic tarps cover something, etc. It does not look pretty.
So how do I tell you about Switzerland? Is it as romantic as in Heidi? NO! Although we did see some of the old ways still preserved. We rode through some towns where cows were driven through the streets to spend their winter in barns after a summer in the high pastures. The cows were decorated in the old Alpine tradition with large bells around their necks and garlands on their heads.
Today, however, the cars drove right past them and the cows and cars did not mix well. The glorious old days of the cows coming down, the celebration of a good year on the high meadows, the feeling of jubilation is gone. The dung left on the roads by all the cows is now a nuisance. You have to be careful were you drive, this stuff is all over. You do not want to slip on this goo with your motorcycle tires.
Gone, too is the sense of beauty, it seems. All is business; all is a striving after money. I did not get that feeling in the French part of Switzerland. Here I felt that wine is still the driving force; there is a joie de vivre and life comes before money. In the east it was the other way around.
Carol and I rode a few major passes, the Flueelapass, Klausenpass and the Sustenpass. Beautiful riding with the usual switchbacks and riding above the tree line. It was cool but not cold. The weather was wonderful and we were extremely lucky that we had no rain. We stopped for lunch and it rained. It starts to rain lightly in this valley but we get into a tunnel and when we pop out the other side, no rain, and beautiful sunshine. We must be protected somehow, isolated from getting wet.
Our feelings start to change now, we only have about 10 days before leaving for Toronto and we are kind of mellow. We ride without a target, just drifting about. Will I visit Switzerland again? Yes, I am sure. Switzerland is a wonderful country in general, the areas we rode through, the Eastern parts I will try to avoid next time around. I am partial to the French Alps and I find them wonderful and a great place to ride in too. Yes, I am sure I will be back here. I just need to stick to selected areas and not assume that all of Suisse is the romantic Heidi Mountain out of movie land. Life and modernity has changed Switzerland I need to change as well.