...and now I'm back!

Bugger me sideways with a rusty tyre iron if that wasn't a damned fine weekend! I wonder if we made the TV news in this country with the demo?

The weekend began inauspiciously, as I arrived in Dover on Thursday evening to find every Hotel in town chocka with a combination of Bank Holiday makers and bikers, heading variously for the A1-Ring, the EuroDemo and Spa. I thus spent the latter half of the night on the tarmac outside the locked check-in lanes of Dover Hoverport. I didn't sleep.

Eventually, I was able to check in, and then spent a very long time indeed waiting dockside for the 0700 Seacat to Ostend, which was rescheduled to 0745. During this time I got a grandstand view of the Hovercraft departing and arriving right in front of me - they are pretty spectacular pieces of kit, aren't they. The way those enormous contraptions pirouette in their own length then slide straight off the dock and onto the sea is pretty impressive.

Eventually we boarded - to be told that due to 'technical difficulties', our two hour crossing would be nearer three. While this was annoying, I wasn't too gutted, since I reckon I needed the sleep. It turns out that one of the four engines had packed in. First aboard, I headed for the bar and found a comfy sofa, assumed a prone position and commenced some serious Z-ing. Sadly, it only lasted an hour, whereupon somebody sat on me as the ship rolled. I was then kept awake for the remainder of the crossing by three of Britain's finest export who had chosen to occupy the adjacent sofa, pulled all the cushions off to rest their feet on, pissed off other passengers, insulted various members of the crew and conducted loud, boorish, sub-intellectual, racist and generally obnoxious discussion for the remainder of the trip, intermittently drinking excessive amounts of lager. On at least two occasions I was minded to grab the most obnoxious of the three by the throat and punch him repeatedly in the face until he stopped being a cunt, or at least stopped being. Had I been the Captain or the Purser I'd have pitched them over the side half way across, but they've obviously been on more 'Customer Service' training courses than I have. The weather was now Force 6, and the sound of retching filled the boat, further improving the atmosphere, and I discovered that while I was asleep, another engine had shit itself, leaving two - and this combined with the weather made it a four and a half hour crossing. Lovely.

Understandably I was barely alive when we hit Ostend at lunchtime, but I had 300 miles to do before dark and no time to hang about (and after I'd allowed four hours of slack in my schedule as well!). Suffice it to say that the trip was long, boring, all on the Autoroute and Autobahn, hard on the arse and punishing on the soul. I stopped for gas and a meal in Aachen, just on the Belgique side of the border, and was so fortunate in my choice that I sought out the same place on my way back. It was only here that I started to feel tired again, and by the time I was into the

last 60 miles I found my mind starting to lose focus alarmingly. I must have stopped four or five times in the final stretch on the Autobahn, to collect my thoughts - and I needed every stop.

I perked up a bit when I left the Autobahn and headed for Kastellaun (twisty A-roads being far less soporific than 120mph Autobahn cruising), and the airfield Hahn a few miles beyond it. Nice road, less fun with a square back tyre (but more exciting). This is a former US air base, but it appears to be still intact and moth balled - the hardened aircraft shelters still have their blast doors, the buildings still have their windows and everything is apparently hot to trot if the previous tenants ever wish to return.

The site itself was far less well organised than the Belgian effort two years ago, but it was well sorted enough, quibbles aside (I'll get to them later). I found the Wycombe MAG Advance Party easily enough - the flag was a bit of a giveaway, but I didn't see Mr & Mrs Keoghs, despite taking a quick tour (in fact I did that several times over the weekend at more length, and never did spot them - I was looking for a red T595 though, so I might have been on the wrong tack. Whereabouts were you, guys?).

Tent up, it was time for a brief tour of the site to check out the facilities. How many bogs between how many bikers? None of the marshals spoke any English, nothing was signed in English and my German (which has improved 300% over the weekend) was initially up to no more than ordering a 'Grossen Pils Bitte' so it took me some time to understand the antediluvian tomfoolery required to purchase (grossly overpriced) beer, involving tokens and a 3Dm deposit on the plastic glasses and going here to buy this / there to cash that in / there again to get a beer. There was a distinct shortage of food outlets in the central area (One van selling pizza slices, and one selling roasted half-chickens), although we were lucky in that we had an apparently independent outpost up our end of the site where they were barbecueing Wursts and selling tea or coffee from a hardened aircraft shelter. I was also mildly disturbed - at a FEMA event - to see a stall in the traders area selling Samurai swords, fighting knives and ten cell maglites. Nothing like pandering to our detractors prejudices, is there? I don't think they did much business, actually.

There was an outdoor stage on which Friday night's fayre was truly dire (although the lot on Saturday - who made me look emaciated - rocked up a storm with the whole gamut of classic covers!)

Anyway, a beer or two and a wurst mit brot, then I hit the sack in total exhaustion.

Saturday was Demo day, and we were slated to be on the road at 08:30 for the ride in to Bonn. Why so early? Well, it's 90 miles isn't it! What bright twat thought that a 90 mile ride-in would be a good idea? Wycombe MAG did their now traditional White Boiler Suit number which gained a lot of interest from Press photographers and French TV types alike. The slow ride-in was distinguished by the fact that the Gestapo closed the Autobahn for us, and by the fact that the German Public had turned out in every town and village, on roadside verges and at junctions, on Autobahn bridges and even on the hard shoulder to watch and wave at us. At one point, I threw a US-style salute at one of the Politzei blocking one of the junctions for us as we crossed, and he braced and snapped one back... I stopped doing it after that :-).

Anyway, the painful pace of much of the run (only relieved by the odd blast to close up the gaps) gave me a chance to look at some of the truly awesome scenery which I had flown over the previous night. There is one very long Autobahn viaduct which we crossed, which must - I assume - be a single span - that would appear to be about a thousand feet off the deck, spanning a vast chasm between two mountains. We stopped briefly on the hard shoulder - totally awesome view!

Anyway, hours later we reached the Demo site, listened to assorted speeches from riders rights leaders representing various national groups, watched Simon Milward burning the latest German Environmental proposal (as detailed elsewhere), then headed out for the grand tour of Bonn. Bonn nil, Bikers 15,000+. It went a bit to ratshit when about half of the demo run was somehow misdirected and steamed straight out of the prepared and blockaded route into the Bonn traffic on an Autobahn, but somebody improvised and blocked the traffic, so on we went until we hit total gridlock, leaving the police to fight their way through 5,000 bikes on a solid Autobahn to unsnarl things and get us back onto the tail of the main run. They certainly knew we were there, anyway...

The run back was quicker, although I did thirty miles on a closed Autobahn with the fuel light on, shitting myself. I made a service area running on fumes, and joined a queue of several thousand bikes waiting for gas and being served at the rate of one per week.

Back at camp, weary and saddle sore, the party commenced. The numbers swelled by post-demo stopovers, a good time was had by all. I think I showed commendable restraint, though, and went to my pit at a reasonable hour.

Anyway, the next day dawned bright and early for some of us (while others appeared to be suffering) and I packed up, grabbed a Wurst brekkie, then hit the road. Halfway down the autobahn, some distance past Koblenz, a sign grabbed my attention... Nurbürgring!

Fuckit, I've got time to spare, I may never be this close to the place again, let's go and have a look...

It's a bit of a trek - about 30 klicks - but clearly, it attracts sport bike riders and car loons like shit attracts flies. I made... good progress all the way there, and was passed by more than I overtook, and since I was murdering the German national speed limit, they must have been doing the same then pissing on it's corpse afterwards.

When I arrived in the vicinity, I asked a sports bike rider at the local gas station where I needed to go, and he suggested I follow him there. Whoosh! Suddenly I'm in a little car-park, with a concrete hut, a portaloo and a Wurst stall. The concrete hut has a ticket machine set into one wall. Nothing is occurring, everybody is sitting around, and I don't understand the sign in the hut window which mentions the Ring Taxi - which is what I want a lap in. A german girl wearing race leathers helpfully translates it for me, and explains that the inactivity is due to an accident (as she speaks the casevac chopper takes off noisily from out on the circuit) when the driver of the safety car, out to deal with a minor car shunt, unwisely crossed the track just after a blind crest and was hit by an airborne motorcycle. He left in the chopper, the biker in an ambulance with shoulder and leg injuries. It also seemed that the Ring Taxi was fully booked out - but, unbidden she said - 'Ein Moment' and returned with a huge, blonde German wearing leathers which had obviously survived several _big_ gettoffs, and said 'My friend Gunther here - he rides a CBR1000, unt he will give you a pillion ride around here that you will never forget - don't worry, he knows the track very well indeed'. I looked into Gunther's wild, staring eyes, took in his slightly manic grin, eyed the scars on his leathers, and politely declined. In retrospect, it would definitely have been the trip of a lifetime, but it had definite possibilities for being the trip of the end of a lifetime as well.

No ring taxi left me only one option. I paid my 22Dm (about £7.00) for a ticket, just as the track re-opened. Then I was wondering where to stash my luggage while I went round - but as I pondered, a BMW went out, complete with panniers. 'Fuckit' I thought, and entered the fray complete with squarer-than-square tyres, Panniers, Givi Maxia and tank bag.

The old Nurbürgring is simply awesome. I had never seen it before, so my only option was to ride it like a road, albeit a road without oncoming traffic or speed limits and with decent run-off in many places. I wasn't the slowest vehicle out there, but on the other hand, sometimes it felt like I was standing still, as bikes flew past me at + 50mph in many places. You haven't lived (or nearly died) until two Porsches dicing with each other pass you on both sides at once. Staying out the way of the really fast stuff, the people who are committed to racing lines and know the circuit, is quite important for your health and wellbeing, as is not getting suckered into gross over-enthusiasm, but the track - all however many miles of it there are - is just wonderful. I got caught out on one chicane that tightened up, getting round OK with a scrape of left boot - full luggage and all - but it was on the open sections that I could make real progress, because I could see where the track went. At one point I was following a committed BMW M3 (which had just passed me) flat out down a straight, steep drop when I suddenly realised that it was airborne. It was just as this registered with me that I was also - both wheels off the deck, full luggage and all, then landing just in time to brake like fuck for the 120 degree right hander which I was now almost into. Those brakes are amazing - hauling my fat arse plus full luggage rapidly down from insane speeds without fuss or drama. I braked from 150 mph (flat out down the start finish straight at the end of my session - that's how fast the T5 is with full luggage hanging out there in the breeze - and Givi only approve it up to 75mph, don't they?) to almost a complete stop in almost no distance at all. Anyway, as the lap went on I was getting more enthusiastic than was quite prudent, but still being eaten alive by almost everything (many are locals, most do it every weekend, some come here on holiday for courses to learn the ring and do nothing else for three solid days). One trick I definitely didn't emulate is on two of the hairpins, which have concrete rainwater runoff gullies on their inside - and which I was amazed to see a Yamaha R1 which had just blasted up my inside using as Daytona style banking to get a seemingly impossible corner speed. I enquired afterwards of a group of experienced locals, and apparently if you get the line right you can ride round the hairpin pretty much flat out (!) but if you get it wrong, you drift up the banking and fly off the top; at this point, if you are _really_ lucky, you touch the ground before you hit the armco...

Anyway, after what seemed like hours of big lean angles, impromptu power wheelies, eyeball-popping braking, bouncing off the Triumph rev-limiter and surviving keck-melting passing manoeuvres from assorted fast people in cars or on bikes, and after a final manic flat-out dive down the start finish straight, I was back in the car park, and buzzing like a wasp on whizz. Yep, I'd say do the Nurbürgring if you are ever nearby! Despite the full touring luggage, my tyres were nearly round again and orange-peeled right to the edge - and I was wired, man - /totally/ strung out. While I was drinking my post-Ring soft-drink and smoking a cigarette, the circuit closed again. Another biker had binned it and the ambulance was required. Shortly before that, the safety car came in with yet another biker, forlornly clutching the loose pieces that he had gathered from near the remnants of his tricked up Ducati 916. What the FUCK is this doing in Germany, land of the Safety Nazi? 'Ja, Ja - just turn up, pay your money, unt go kill yourself...'! Nope, it's got to be done. If you never do it twice, it has just got to be done - before the Kraut government notice, and plough it all up to become a giant vegetable garden or something.

Next up, I headed for Aachen across country on the A258. The country in question is the Ardennes, and the road is gorgeous. Going that way means about 70 miles of absolutely beautiful gorgeous (often open) switchback twisties, with few habitations to interrupt the flow. Definitely a great road! In the dry...

Ten miles in, it pissed it down, turning 60 miles of gorgeous tight swervery into 60 miles of slippy slidey horror. I made it in one piece, but the number of 'whoops - I just slid a foot sideways' incidents was not insignificant. I was definitely riding like a granny as well - maybe the tyres might have been implicated...

At Aachen I stopped at my previously selected eatery, fuelled up, then realised that as a result of the delays and detours I was a bit short on time. More than a bit, actually...

A few miles into Belgium the rain petered out, and soon it was bone dry - which was the point that I discovered that my waterproof jacket complains loudly and attempts to flagellate me when I hit 130. I pitted to top up the juice and take it off, than calculated that I had to average 95mph for the remainder of my journey if I was going to make the ferry. I didn't quite keep that up, but I tried extremely hard - for all the shitty 40 mile an hour twiddly bits near Brussels there were empty stretches when I briefly flirted with _really_ silly speeds, and spent a great deal of my time cruising at about 110. As I hit the A10 I was in real danger of missing the boat, and the traffic had evaporated so I just lit the afterburner and hung on all the way to Ostend at 140. Thank fuck they didn't catch me is all I can say...

I got on the (now mended) boat with seconds to spare (they closed the rear doors whilst I was still fumbling to get the sidestand down), and thence on to Dover, and then home via the M20 and M25, struggling all the way to keep my speed within sight of the UK motorway limit. Needless to say, by the time I reached home I was beyond merely being knackered and I needed about twelve hours sleep before I felt human again…

Ken Haylock [T595 + CD200 Rat]