June 27-28, 2022
The plan was to leave Camping Goed Vertoef and head to the very top of Germany, just short of the border with Denmark, and camp there for the night. But the weather had other plans. And other problems conspired to slow us down as well.
We packed up at the campground, but were moving slow. Heike was packed before us, so we hugged and said goodbye, and she hit the starter button on her Africa Twin.
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Okay, maybe just a slight buzzing sound.
At which point Frank and Sandra (the owners of the campground) came to the rescue. Sandra grabbed a battery booster and we wheeled Heike’s bike over to an electrical outlet. After about ten minutes on the quick charger, it fired up, and she was gone.
“Bye!” Click. Click. “WTF?” A little more conversation with Diana, Heike and Sandra while standing around waiting for her battery to charge.
She’ll be in Texas a few days later, picking up her Royal Enfield Himalayan to head further south.
We continued packing, got another late start, and headed north, directly into a black cloud. The skies opened up, and it rained steady — not particularly hard, but heavy and steady for quite a while. Eventually I could feel water running down my back; I wear a Buff bandana under my helmet, and it hangs out the back, just enough to act as a wick and direct water up and down my collar. We continued on until I realized I had a good water siphon going at my collar, and decided I’d had enough. We pulled off at a roadside service area that had a small motel, and got a room for the night. Of course, not long after we unloaded everything in the rain, it stopped.
Home Not-So-Sweet-But-Alarmingly-Loud Home.
The room looked like 1940s, and smelled like 1960s; that is, it smelled like it was smoked in continuously for the past 50 or 60 years. I opened the windows and it either got better, or I got used to it. The bed was comfortable enough and I was tired enought that I fell asleep fairly quickly. Until 1am. That’s when the smoke detectors in the entire building started sounding off. I could hear the other guests walking the halls so I walked to the parking lot to find everyone standing there. And realized that we were at least twice the age of all the other guests. This place wasn’t cheap, but it was inexpensive by European standards, so I guess it gets used a bit like a hostel.
I walked around to the front of the building where the restaurant and convenience store are located. Everything was locked up tight and lights out. Apparently there are no employees that stay overnight. When the store and restaurant shut down, everyone goes home, and the motel guests are on their own.
After thirty minutes or so of the alarms going off, we all got tired of it. It was clear that there was no fire or smoke. So we started taking the batteries out of all the smoke detectors. Somebody hit the jackpot and all the remaining alarms ceased when they pulled that battery. We all returned to our rooms and got a few hours of sleep.
In the morning we decided to re-route. Heike had mentioned a ferry to Denmark, and Google Maps confirmed that it was a shorter route, so we decided to pay for the ferry and head that way.
Just south of Lübeck, in the fast lane at around 130kph (80mph), I felt a vibration from the rear tire. I immediately started moving right, and by the time I got slowed and into the right lane, it was clear that we had a flat rear tire. I moved onto the shoulder, and luckily there was an exit a couple of hundred meters ahead. I turned the flashers on and we limped slowly up the ramp and around the corner into a parking lot. Within a half hour or so I had replaced the tube and we were ready to go again.
In 2015-16 I went 34,000 miles, changed seven sets of tires, and came home with the original factory inner tubes with not a single patch. Never had a flat. Hopefully this isn’t setting a new standard.
However, we were now without a spare tube, and being a bit superstitious, I figure if I have a spare tube, I won’t have another flat, but if I don’t have a spare tube, well…
Technically, we had a spare tube for the front tire, which might work in a pinch, but it’s not the right size, so I would prefer to have a correct rear inner tube for a spare.
I check the GPS, and found a Triumph and Indian motorcycle dealer about a half mile away. We drove there, and I asked for a tube. The salesman went in the back and searched for a while, but came up empty handed. He said he could order one and have it in a couple of days. Then he gave me an address for an auto parts store that he thought might have one. We went there. Nothing. I looked again and found a Kawasaki and Ducati dealer nearby. We drove there. They didn’t have any inner tubes and also offered to order one and have it in a few days. It seemed odd that not only did no one my size inner tube (a fairly common size), but no one had ANY inner tubes. Granted, many if not most street bikes today come with tubeless tires and no inner tubes. But it’s still a fairly common service item. The Kawasaki dealer suggested a motorcycle repair shop in town, so we drove there. The woman there was very helpful, and called four or five other shops for us, but no one had an inner tube.
I thought for a moment that perhaps Germany was like Central and South America: you didn’t get inner tubes at the motorcycle store, you got them at the place that fixes flats on cars and motorcycles. But it seemed like one of the dealers or repair shops would have told me that.
I resigned myself to the idea that we would be traveling without a spare tube, and figured maybe I could order one on Amazon and have it shipped ahead. We headed back onto the highway and towards the ferry.
About fifteen minutes later I decided to check the GPS to see if there were any more motorcycle shops north of Lübeck, and a place called “Schwerin” came up; that’s all it said. But it was just off the highway, so I decided to try it. It turned out to be a Honda dealer, and there were two new-style Africa Twins in the parking lot, which use the same size rear tire as my 700 Tenere. I walked into the store and the salesman, who spoke good English, immediately said, “Sure, I have one of those.”
“Do you have two?”, I asked.
“Probably.”
So I bought two. And we talked Africa Twins, both old and new, and the Isle of Man TT. It was a great experience. And we were back on the road with backup inner tubes.
We made it to the ferry, and lined up behind two BMWs with Swing side cars. The side cars sat some distance away from the bikes, because the bikes lean side-to-side like a regular motorcycle, while the side car sits rigidly upright. It’s a bit odd looking at first, but probably a lot more enjoyable than a fixed sidecar.
Swing sidecar. Although it’s actually the bike that swings, not the sidecar.
These ferries run every thirty minutes. Three of them passed us going the opposite direction in the 45 minutes that it took to go from Germany to Denmark. These are Hybrid-powered ferries; they run on a combination of diesel and electric power.
Onboard the ferry.
We arrived in Denmark, our 14th country in the past two months, and rode northeast to Rødvig to camp for the night.