I am fortunate that Emilka, Misa and Rennie each enjoy coming pillion on my motorcycles, but it is Misa who relished the thought of touring with Daddy and who back in the summer of 2018 expressed a desire to ride with me to Rennie’s hometown of Krnov in the Czech Republic.  In November of that year he, myself and Grandma Susan duly went to the Motocycle Show at the National Exhibition Centre, not only to enjoy a fine day out but for me to buy him a full set of riding equipment as his Christmas present.

Preparing for and then moving to Sri Lanka in early August 2019 however put paid to our ride in the immediate term, although in the May we did have a fabulous tour of Northern France together as a warm up.  It rained at some point every day, often hard and sometimes all day, but this didn’t dampen the experience or the fun we had together.  The photo labelled Aire de Translay Ouest in the previous post is from the final day of this trip.

Although last year, as this, we came back to Europe for the duration of the school summer holiday, Covid got in the way of any sensible plans for a ride to Krnov – but this year looked like it could work out.  We planned accordingly, and sure enough I am writing this blog from Krnov on the eve of our ride back to the UK.

As mentioned in the blog post of our journey to the UK, plans included a pit stop at Infinity Motorcycles in Wallingford on our way from Heathrow to Long Compton, this following calling beforehand from Sri Lanka to check options in stock; with Misa having far outgrown every single item of his kit from Christmas 2018, I knew I was in for a wallet emptying experience if he was to ride with me and that with his work experience starting from the Monday two days hence, I had to get cracking with sorting him out.

We were in luck, Misa proudly leaving the shop with new full kit from head to toe, me with a new helmet, and the pair of us with a Cardo wireless intercom that has already proved to be worth every penny; connecting the pair of us with crystal clear speech, Misa also has music streaming from his phone without interfering with my concentration and I have spoken sat nav instructions from my phone in its holder on the handlebars.  It has removed all of the faff of my previous cabled system especially with not having to remove luggage, to remove the seat, to retrieve or store the cables.  The battery life has astounded us too, the system still working perfectly at the end of our ten hour final stretch.

What an amazing outbound trip and opportunity to enjoy 1:1 time together the ride proved to be, Misa making me proud with his maturity throughout and alertness at all times on the bike; it was an absolute joy to have him pillion whether it was filtering slowly through traffic, smoothly enjoying the twisties, cruising on A-roads or motorways, or enjoying when the latter opened out with very light traffic on unrestricted stretches in Germany; not flat out because safety came first, but a long way beyond what would get me locked up in the UK.

Having worked right up to the last minute on Friday 1st July but with the bike loaded earlier in the day, I closed the laptop lid, enjoyed a family dinner, and set off with Misa at 7:05pm heading for a guesthouse near Ashford to make Saturday morning’s Eurotunnel departure and subesequent riding all the easier.  It was just before refueling at Cobham Services on the M25 that I said to Misa, “are you wearing the rucksack with my laptop?” and received the response “Err, no Daddy!”.  Calling Rennie after filling the tank confirmed as we had immediately known that it had been left behind and that she’d bring it when flying over with Emi – so I really was going off the grid.  I needed the laptop for the time spent in Krnov as I was going to be working – this including flying back to Frankfurt for a customer meeting on the Monday following arrival – but it was a real tonic just to be with my boy, the bike, and memories made together.

We arrived at the guesthouse surrounded by open countryside at about 10pm just as it was getting properly dark, and after a night’s comfortable deep sleep awoke to what Misa described as a screensaver scene; picture perfect soft fields and blue sky.  A lovely indication of the weather to follow – almost, but not quite, to the end of the journey.

The Eurotunnel check-in queue was not as long as it might have been and we found ourselves on the preceding train to the one I’d booked.  Great, as this took the pressure off our ride to our hotel at Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium where we dumped the luggage before proceeding to visit our friend-like-family Loulou.  She lives in a homely studio apartment in a house in the old village of Corroy-le-Grand and we always enjoy visiting her – not only because we love Loulou but because this is where I proposed marriage to Rennie in the late summer of 1999.  Happy days then as now, Misa grabbing some kip on her sofa after a few slices of tasty Belgian fruit tarts.

Sunday 3rd brought a 7am departure and the deep joy of riding to and through the Ardennes and on in to the Eiffel Montains for a stop at the Nürburgring Nordschleife racing circuit.  What a treat.  Mile upon mile under a blue sky through beautiful scenery, up hill and down dale, sweeping bends, tight bends, hairpin bends – and absolutely no traffic the entire way.  Every town and village speed limit was strictly observed, but even with great care having been taken we still arrived much more quickly than Google Maps had indicated for the motorway option when I assessed if the more enjoyable one was doable – and much more enjoyable it was.  Effortlessly swift, sharp, and composed yet comfortably damped, it was hard to believe that a 24 year old motorcycle was delivering such undiluted enjoyment.

After leaving the Nürburgring we rode to Kelkheim-im-Taunus and enjoyed a super afternoon with my German friend-I’d-never-met-before, Stephan, and his wife and young son.  We became good friends through working together, he in Singapore and me in Colombo but with Covid interrupting travel, it was a mutual joy to finally meet up in person.  We are fellow petrol heads, so the opportunity of an autobahn and cross-country ride in five hundred horsepower of his Porsche 911 GT3 was not to be declined.  A four litre flat-six revving to 9,000RPM.  Intoxicating – and reinforcing why I have coveted owning one ever since the model was released.  The world is quickly going electric, but you can’t beat the emotion of such an internal combustion engine whilst it is still there to be enjoyed.

Monday 4th saw us make the 90 minute ride to Speyer and a pretty-much full day at the technical museum, this being the sister location to Sinsheim that we’d visited a decade ago. Sinsheim has an Air France Concorde and the Russian equivalent in an Aeroflot Tupolev 144 on the roof, whereas Speyer has a Lufthansa Boeing 747 mounted in a climbing left hand turn on a 20 metre scaffold.  Stood close to the belly or out on a wing looking back at the fuselage reinforced what an equally incredible invention the 747 was to the two supersonic jets; very different challenges but still each a technological tour-de-force.  The Speyer museum also hosts the only Russian space shuttle, the Buran, to be found outside Russia itself – with an interesting story of the convoluted manner in which it found its way there! 

The only small downside to the day was motorway roadworks meaning that the layby with the Bernd Rosemayer  memorial was closed off, so we couldn’t visit on our way to Speyr.  On 28th January 1938, he was killed on this stretch of autobahn – to this day the longest straight section – whilst trying to break the new land speed record of 436kph / 267mph set minutes beforehand by Rudolf Caracciola in his Mercedes; a gust of wind led to loss of control of his Auto Union.  Exposed and without safety harness, he was ejected and unsurprisingly pronounced dead at the roadside.  Brave, brave men when you consider the complete lack of safety and the enormous power being sent through primitive suspension and narrow tyres.  To this day, Caracciola’s record remains the fastest speed ever officially timed on a public highway.

Tuesday 5th brought a decision to make; 850km / 520 miles to Krnov in one go, or split it in to two days.  With heavy rain forecast for Wednesday 6th, we agreed on the former but whilst we made it in good time and hugely enjoyed the first seven hours, the final three were ridden in a downpour of biblical proportions.  Concentration was immense whether bumpy B road or smooth A road and I was glad when the Jeseniky mountains had been crossed and Krnov was reached an hour later.  Such a shame that the fabulous stretch of well-surfaced road number 11 from Šumperk to Bruntál could not be enjoyed as we wished, dipping and diving, twisting and sweeping with little traffic as it does, but caution was very much the order of the day.  Definitely not a day to put a tyre on a painted white line or to encounter some diesel on the road, as two examples.

We were both bone dry bar my cold and sopping wet feet as a result of a schoolboy error; tucking my Goretex trousers in to my boots, having set off in sunshine. The water then ran down and the inevitable happened; a swimming pool inside the boots.  It took four days and several re-stuffings with newspaper before they were finally dry.

It felt great to be back as the last time I was in Krnov was when we drove from the UK in August 2018 – and great too to reflect on an epic, epic experience with Misa.  Priceless time together and the start of a lovely eleven days with Czech family and friends.

Steve