Bring him home

The plan was simple: drive from Berlin to Karlsruhe with the car with my friend Wenke, have my friend Héloïse join us, pick up the motorbike + sidecar from builder on Monday morning, drive back to about halfway to Berlin with the car as support, spend the night somewhere around Jena, and drive back the second part of the way back to Berlin on Tuesday on my own or with Héloïse and Loki in the sidecar. ETA in Berlin: Tuesday 16:00.

The execution looked a bit different.

Sunday 8th March 8:00 we leave Berlin. The car ride went smoothly and we arrived in Bruchsal (near Karlsruhe) around 16:00, so well within our expectation.

Loki looks stupid on this picture, that’s the only reason I’m posting it.

My friend Héloïse arrived by train at 19:00 and we had short walk in Bruchsal, cute city.

Monday morning 10:00 was our appointment to pick up the bike. Unfortunately some roads were closed and we made it there 30 minutes late. Nothing dramatic you may think, but we had a long way in front of us and every minute of sunlight counts.

The build is absolutely amazing.

Loki was surprisingly well behave during the roughly 45 minutes introduction to the rig (maintenance, how to remove the sidecar, etc.)

After everything was discussed and all papers signed, it was time to leave for Jena – our midway goal on the way to Berlin. Since I hadn’t ridden this set-up yet, and in general not since last November, I didn’t feel like driving the 700km in one go, especially with temperatures peaking at 9°C.

On the handover paper I signed, the last line reads “BREITER, BREITER, BREITER” i.e. “LARGER, LARGER, LARGE” to remind the rider that they are not on a slim vehicle anymore, but something as large as a smaller car.

Well I read the page, and I got the theory, but in practice I forgot everything roughly 10 seconds after starting the engine as I hit a small wall at very low speed about 10 meters from the starting point.

Not only did I scratch up the magnificent airbrush paint job of the boat (and the sidecar frame), the shock also got me out of balance and I dropped the bike on its left side. I don’t have any pictures but from what we could see: half broken clutch lever, scratched on the mirror, handlebar, engine cover.

After a short inspection nothing seemed to keep me from riding the bike, everything was pretty much aesthetic. Or so we thought – but we’ll get to that later.

After losing my support car on the country road and wasting another good 45 minutes looking for each other, we eventually made it to the Autobahn.

The sun was shining, we were finally set on the A6, the roads were empty, everything was great. Until…

A serious accident which closed down the highway for a good hour.

Loki was lucky enough to wait out the road clearing in the warm car.

Once the road was clear again, we made some decent progress, but not as much as I had planned. There was no way to reach Jena before nightfall and I was already seriously “hypothermic” at this point.

So we decided to make it to the next bigger city, which was Hof, and take a hotel there. Wenke was supposed to go back to Berlin on Monday evening still, but she kindly stayed with us to play support car for the second leg of the journey as well. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank her enough for this favour.

The hotel was amazing, we got a family room with 2 separate sleeping rooms, a “living room” and free parking spaces and breakfast included for only 105eur!!!

Short flashback: on the highway I also realised that my handlebar was slightly bent from the drop. Most likely nothing serious, but I was concerned the steering was also off – what didn’t help my paranoia was that the bike doesn’t behave the same with the sidecar and the road was very windy, so needless to say everything was a bit shaky.

Tuesday morning I checked my weather app and instead of the announced 6-8°C we had 2°C and snowy rain. Really not the best conditions to ride a motorcycle which behaviour you’re not familiar with yet and especially when you’re out of practice.

Despite Wenke and Héloïse’s encouring words, I decided to try finding a towing service that would take the bike back to Berlin. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find one; either they could only do it the next day, or not all the way to Berlin.

Back-back-up plan: find a towing company that could take us 100-150km up North where the weather was a lot milder (believe it or not). We found one that was charging 520eur. No thank you.

By then things starting to look a lot more desperate and I was getting ready to go on the bike to drive back to Berlin. But I really wasn’t in the right headspace (i.e. I didn’t want to ride) and that just added a lot more risk to the whole situation.

Wenke made one last call and luckily we found another company who accepted to take the bike to Leipzig (150km up North, leaving only 200km to go to Berlin). They charged 400eur, which is insane, but given the context I went for it. You can’t put a price tag on safety.

I also got to see what Wenke and Héloïse saw the whole time they followed me.

Once we made it to Leipzig the weather had cleared up, no more rain and temperature had reached 9°C. My mind too had cleared up and I was ready to ride again, even looking forward to it!

I put on another layer under my leather and the rain jacket on top of it and I was ready to go.

Things started to look good, only 200km left and it was only 14:00 on Tuesday (it was my birthday btw). But then…

Another accident, on the A9 this time. And because waiting an hour on a closed down highway is not fun enough, it also started to rain.

But hey: at least we weren’t involved in the crash, and that’s the most important thing. So once the road got unblocked, we went full throttle – well, I did, Wenke struggled to follow. Apparently the Z’s acceleration to 150km/h was hard to keep up with 🙂

Bragging aside, for the most part I was going 80-90km/h in the right lane and had the pleasure to be taken over by trucks who dropped another few liters of water on me.

We did another warm-up break around 75km from Berlin before starting the very last leg of the trip.

The rain was pouring, the sun started to go down and dragged temperatures with it; I was starting to get really cold (and therefore unfocused). But we were almost there. Only 8km left!

And then it happened. In the middle of the traffic on the Stadtautobahn (city highway) the bike started to smoke heavily, and not just steam, proper smelly smoke. I pulled into the emergency lane and stopped the engine. I had absolutely no idea what could have caused that. We checked the oil, but it seemed fine, plus the indicator wasn’t on…

As I put the bike on its side stand, some liquid dropped from the cooler and the assumption changed to the cooling system which probably got damaged during the fall the day before.

We pushed the bike off the highway and I asked the universe why? Why all this? Why on my birthday?

We called (and by we I mean Wenke, who is awesome and took care of all phones calls) my Kawasaki dealer to see if they could pick the bike up. Since it was already 18:50 they couldn’t, but recommended a company who could come early the next morning.

So we pushed the bike another kilometer to the nearest gas station and parked it there for the night. Before finally making it home around 21:30. I was exhausted, physically and mentally, but also extremely grateful to have such amazing and supportive friends without whom I would not have managed as well.

The next morning the transport company came and took the bike to my Kawaski garage where it’s currently waiting for a proper diagnostic.

Let’s see how it goes, hopefully it’s nothing too serious and I’ll be able to ride again soon.

Stay tuned!