New readers start here. We are three stooges on tour en moto. Patrick is our route finder, planner, military fan and general organiser. He's riding a BMW R80, the old police bike.
Charlie, my son, is our whizz kid, playing around riding the Yamaha XJ6, which I bought him for this trip.
I, as attentive readers will already know, have an, as yet, ill-defined role in this endeavour. What is clear is that I've got a new motorised toy to play with (a BMW R1150RT for those who are into that sort of thing).
And why are we here?
Charlie says he has come to Germany to change his view of the country. In particular, he remembers breaking his arm when he went to Bonn as a child and being shouted at by security guards at the Holocaust museum because he went through security and set off various alarms.
He also wants to find some 'challenging' roads - a desire that will, I predict, be more than satisfied.
Patrick last came to the BF in a 1960s Dormobile with his parents before going on to Venice. He remembers red squirrels. Looking forward to seeing his work colleague the uber civilised Munich to meet Herr Tillman, a work associate.
His one other bike tour was to France over 30 years ago to the Dordogne to visit his bro on a BMW as a result of which his nephew now rides bikes.
For myself, I've been on tour once before back in the 1990s when Fi and I took ourselves off to Rome, via Switzerland on my old R80 - almost exactly the same bike that Patrick is currently using. We had a great time but it was a different sort of thing than we're doing now which is very much a 'boys' tour'.
So I'm here partly to enlarge Charlie's 'weltanshauung' (I've been looking for a chance to use that word for years so hope it's more or less right!) and partly to take me out of my comfort zone. I've travelled around France for years now on various holidays but hardly know Germany at all. So I hope to discover a bit more about our teutonic cousins, especially those in the southern area of Bavaria and the Black Forest.
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