Hope – Rambo, First Blood

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With the temperatures rising and Summer around the corner I decided to take a little trip. The destination: “Hope”, a tiny town in the British Columbia woods North East of Vancouver which would not probably go unnoticed if it wasn’t for Sylvester Stallone and Ted Kotcheff who created one of the most iconic and well known movie characters of all time in this little town in 1982. The movie filmed there was First Blood which kick started Silvester Stallones movie career.

 

The Canadian town of Hope was chosen for it’s somber, triste feeling and remoteness and the fact that nobody had ever heard of it let alone knew it was in Canada. It was supposed to be just any random unimportant small towns in the US.

Before we begin a tour through the town let’s set the mood with Dan Hill’s First Blood end credit’s song.

One of the first scenes shows John Rambo entering the city which welcomes its visitors with a giant 100 years anniversary log sign that reads “Gateway to Holidayland”.

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Though the sign isn’t in its original location anymore it still exists a few hundred meters past that spot.

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The Shell gas station you can see in the picture above is later being blown up by Rambo. It was rebuilt in the same spot.

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After entering the town Rambo soon meets his nemesis Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) for the first time. Teasle feels that being a Korean war veteran himself he was forgotten and never got any recognition by the American public while Vietnam veterans like Rambo were getting all the attention. This unspoken premise sparks the madness that ensues across the following two hours of movie history.

Note the Chevron Gas Station in the back (blue-red arrows).

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Teasle was blocking Rambo’s path coming from the exit on the right.

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A little ahead the Chevron gas station also still exists.

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Later Rambo shoots through it on a motorcycle trying to escape from Teasle.

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Leading up to this chase Rambo gets arrested by Teasle for bogus reasons (vagrancy and resisting arrest if I recall correctly) and brought to the local police station. The movie featured the real police station of Hope.

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Note the white building outside with the red letters. (Also young Horatio Caine/David Caruso from CSI Miami in the background.)

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Like Rambo does, he later blows up the police station too which is why this building is gone today and in it’s place there is a little park with a wooden sculpture. Looks to me like the city of Hope abandoned the concept of ‘police’ after what happened in 1982 because I haven’t seen a new police station in the town. I don’t blame them.

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After having been arrested Rambo soon bust out of jail and steals the motorcycle mentioned earlier. (Yamaha XT250)

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The same location today. (Kawasaki KLR 650)

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Looking the opposite direction: Rambo takes off. In the back, the white building with the red letters.

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Rambo’s perspective today. The building which could be seen from the police stations window has been repainted since.

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To avoid road traffic and to shake off Teasle (who follows Rambo in his police cruiser) Rambo drives on the sidewalk at high speed. Stallone did most of his stunts himself and also got badly insured when jumping from a cliff onto a tree. Several times.

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The sidewalk today. In the frame above Rambo just passed the red car to my right.

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Rambo (John J.) heads for the mountains in hopes of losing Teasle there.

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The same railroad crossing he passes in the movie is still in operation today.

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The production didn’t bother repainting the ambulances of British Columbia which deal with the wounded that Rambo leaves behind. Unlike in the book Rambo never actually kills anybody in the whole movie. Stallone insisted on this change to make the character more likable and identifiable and to not send the wrong message about returning Vietnam war veterans, dehumanizing them on camera even more than the public was already doing.

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BC’s ambulances still look the same today.

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After having been chased through the woods Rambo is back in the town looking for refuge. This time he is not unarmed.

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The same location today.

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This is where I ended my Rambo tour. It was getting dark and I still had a few hundred km of riding ahead of me. If you haven’t seen the movie go watch it! It’ might surprise you.

I left Hope one more time passing the spot where Rambo makes his first appearance.

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New motorcycle and center stand install

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I decided to get a Kawasaki KLR 650. The cheapest powerful enough dual sport bike on the market. As you can imagine it’s balance between power, quality and cost. But it does what it is supposed to do and has proven itself over the past two decades during which this model has only gone through one major update which to a large degree was a cosmetic one. Never change a running system Kawasaki probably though. It’s the most popular dual sport bike in North America.

My brother (who also lived in Canada until recently) had a KLR and since he happened to move I was in luck and ‘inherited’ his bike.

Motorcycle insurance is stupidly expensive in British Columbia. It’s so expensive that if you were to get full comprehensive coverage for two years you’d be better off buying a new (used) bike every two years. The cost drop by 80% (!!!) if you have had your car drivers license for 10 years (I still need 3 more years). Yes, don’t ask me how that makes sense.

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My brother had bought old (empty!) ammunition cans from the US and mounted them to the bike as panniers. They are just the right dimensions, surprisingly sturdy and even water sealed. Just a lock is missing but there’s a solution for that too.

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To get the bike ready for adventures I installed the SW Motech center stand he had gotten but not yet mounted. Having a center stand is crucial for maintenance work on the road like changing tires, changing the oil, adjusting/changing chain and sprockets,…

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The procedure was simple. I took off the foot pegs on both sides to put two mounting plates between them and the frame which would serve as attachment points for the stand.

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This was quickly done and the only thing left was to attach the two springs which keep the stand off the ground when the bike is not currently sitting on it.

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To lift up the weight of the bike there is a leaver on the stand on which you can place your foot and put your whole body weight on it while simultaneously yanking the bike up and backwards with your right hand.

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With the necessary force and leverage the bike slides back lifting the rear wheel off the ground. And because the stand is almost exactly in the middle it is also possible to easily tip the bike to the back to access the front wheel allowing maintenance on both wheels.

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Welcome to beautiful British Columbia

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This is the undeniably true tourism slogan of the most western Canadian Province bordering the USA, British Columbia. After a few months of working in Germany I signed a contract with Image Engine, in Canada. I decided it was best to leave my BMW at home in Vienna and look for an alternative in Canada.

 

Like most major Canadian cities Vancouver borders the US in the South. The city is know for it’s rainy climate during fall and winter. There is no such thing as London weather once you have experienced Vancouver during this period. Spring and summer however make up for it big time.

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The ‘little’ green peninsula on the center right on the image above is Stanley Park. It’s one of the biggest city parks in the world and unlike most parks it is not perfectly cultivated. It’s the same kind of rain forest you can find anywhere else in B.C. The park is named after Lord Stanley who was one of the first kind of prime ministers of Canada. He is also name giver to the Stanley Cup, the big final tournament of each season of the (North American) National Hockey League (NHL).

 

The look of the Vancouver skyline is dominated by apartment buildings of which each floor has balconies, surprisingly all the way to the top.

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Vancouver is ideal for any kind of outdoors sports. Lot’s of biking routes and hiking opportunities. Kayaking and rowing are also very popular. Some people even play hockey!

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While Vancouver globally speaking is a very new city it is astounding to find out that tall buildings like this brick building below can be up to a century old.

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The city has one of the biggest China Towns which is often used for movie shoots to double as Asia.

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Because the the city faces the sea in the west there are no mountains to block the sunset which is often very colorful.

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Fishing is also big in Vancouver and naturally all along the coast like in the little fishing village of Steveston just a few dozen km south of metro Vancouver. Surprisingly in Vancouver fish is quite expensive. However here in Steveston the prices are very competitive. Freshly caught salmon is just a tad more expensive than chicken by the pound. (Unlike the US Canada seems to be on the fence about whether to use imperial or metric units so they use a bit of both..)

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Changing chain and sprockets

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The weekend after my chain had snapped I went about changing it.

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I started by loosening the screw of the front sprocket. To do that I put a broomstick with cloth wrapped around it through the rear wheel. It stops the wheel from turning when you yank on the front sprocket screw to get it to loosen while in neutral. You could also stop the wheel from moving by putting the engine in gear but that can damage the gears inside the engine once you apply pressure on the sprocket screw.

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To be able to get more leverage and for using the right amount of torque once I put the screw back on I got a torque wrench. Though only to find out that the previous owner or probably rather the shop I had bought the bike from hadn’t fastened the front sprocket screw properly and it came lose without applying too much force. According to specifications it is supposed to be a huge effort to get that screw off. After all its what keeps the chain from flying off.

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Next I loosened the rear wheel axle bolt to be able to push the wheel a bit towards the front to loosen the chain and give it some play to handle it.

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With a chain breaker tool I went about breaking the connection of one of the chain links. This physically destroys the chain and is what is needed to get the chain off. I It works by driving a little rod through the chain link pushing out the rod that connects connects the two links.

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I had read that this was a considerable effort and these tools were built so poorly that they too often get destroyed in the process.

The rod just didn’t want to move so I used a leaver to apply more force.

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Thus breaking the chain – and the tool.

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But I had achieved what I wanted, the chain was free and I could take it off.

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I now went back to the front sprocket which I noticed had gotten rusty over the years and was now fused to the shaft. A little WD-40 took care of it …

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… and I could put on the new sprocket.

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Next I took off the rear wheel to be able to access the rear sprocket.

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I loosened the screws which keep the rear sprocket connected to the base which connects to the wheel.

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The last step before attaching the new chain was bolting on the new rear sprocket. The new set of sprockets had a different gearing ratio. The rear one had one less tooth than before (thus making it a little smaller in diameter) and the front one had one tooth more so it was even again. This means that it doesn’t make a difference for the chain length but it makes one for the bikes handling. Less teeth on the front sprocket (and more on the rear) basically give you more power when accelerating from lower gears. This is also good for driving off road because you have more power for say starting on a steep hill or trying to slowly roll over a big rock under your wheel. In turn more teeth on the front give you less power for acceleration but more for driving faster at higher gears. So for me this was actually a step in the wrong direction but it was back to stock specification. And since I was planing to sell the bike anyway I didn’t mind that.

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What I did mind however was that when I put the screws back into the new sprocket’s holes I realized that they were the wrong diameter. 10mm screws vs. 8mm holes. At the shop I had bought the sprockets from they told me that these were the (only) ones for this bike. I had asked three times to really make sure. Apparently they were wrong.

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It took two weeks for the new parts to arrive so on another cloudy weekend I continued with the maintenance. This time the new rear sprocket fit perfectly.

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I screwed it on and reattached the wheel and the break caliper.

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Finally I wrapped the new open chain (it’s not actually a loop yet) around the two sprockets. I took the single separate chain link that came with the otherwise connected chain and attached it with the supplied gaskets.

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Now the only thing left to do was to rivet the two ends of the newly connecting link to the ends of the chain. This could be done with the same tool used to break the chain. After much fiddling around I got the strange contraption to work even though everything about it felt wrong, as if it were to break the chain and the tool (again).

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Lastly I fastened all bolts on the rear…

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… and the front …

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… and gave the new setup a try on the center stand.

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To my delight the horrible sounds the old chain had been making were gone and later on a first test drive I could feel the bike accelerating, decelerating and shifting smooth as butter once again.

Maintenance

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Since I bought my BMW F650GS Twin 8 months ago I had been riding it for 15 000 miles. During that time the maintenance I performed on it was limited to lubricating the chain and checking individual parts for wear. The dry Spanish summer was a strain on the bike overall but particularly on the chain. In hindsight I believe I should have lubricated it a lot more often than I did. Towards the end of my trip the bike didn’t perform as well as it should have. There was a strange noise coming from the chain as soon as it moved. Accelerating was only possible with much sensitivity on throttle and clutch as a regular immediate acceleration had become impossible without the chain yanking on the gears due to the fact that the chain had started to stretch – unevenly. That meant that I could not simply keep widening the gap between the front and rear sprockets by moving the rear wheel more and more to the back to compensate for the longer chain. So as a result of the unevenly stretched chain links the chain was jumping up and down dangerously when accelerating and decelerating, sometimes even skipping a tooth on a sprocket.

An old or even damaged chain usually damages the sprockets as well. Only changing one of the elements of this little ecosystem means that the unchanged ones will war down the new part very quickly.

A few days after I had received the parts I had ordered I was driving home from work late at night when the inevitable happened. On a little hill at just over 20km/h I heard and felt a tension on the engine building up and suddenly being released. I immediately lost all power and no matter how much I twisted the throttle I was not accelerating. Luckily the street was empty I had just rolled towards a red traffic light. I glanced down onto the chain and saw that one of the double sided chain links had snapped and the chain had jumped off both the rear and front sprocket.

(Photos taken after the fact.)

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Unlike a bicycle chain it should be impossible to lift the chain off the rear sprocket. About a millimeter is OK. With great effort I got the half broken chain back around the rear sprocket but it didn’t want to stay on. This should not be possible:

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Luckily I was just 500 m from home at that point so I pushed the bike up the little incline and to the parking lot. It was time for some bike maintenance.

KTM 990 ADVENTURE test ride

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Having settled into my new home in Germany I went for a test drive with a KTM 990 Adventure, the bike I am thinking of switching to. KTM is known for its off road capable bikes and the 990 Adventure is one of its flagships. A week earlier I had visited KTM Frankfurt to take a look at the bikes they had and I found a used but overpriced model which I decided to take a test drive with.

As soon as I got on the bike I noticed that not only did it look quite different, it’s a completely different seating position. A very different seat altogether and the bike is much taller so getting on is different too.

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I started the engine and lifted my feet off the ground for the first time, realizing how extremely light the bike seemed even though it’s actually heavier than the BMW F650GS. Its center of gravity is a lot higher which creates the feeling that it’s lighter and easier to tip to the side. However that also makes it more unstable and more difficult to balance especially with a lot of luggage on the rear.

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The reason everything is higher and taller on this bike is that this is what you want for off-road riding. Ground clearance and suspension travel are what differentiates these types of bikes from street bikes. Same wit the wheels. The KTM has bigger wheels which make it easier to travel across uneven ground. But it’s less desirable for cornering and going fast which is why racing bikes have comparatively small wheels.

I inspected the bike thoroughly. It looked in decent condition except for some rust on a few parts and a scratched exhaust.

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The KTM felt a lot more responsive than the BMW. The slightest movements changed the balance and direction I was going. (It felt a little like using a computer mouse with increased speed settings). Apropos speed, I immediately felt the bigger engine. The 200 additional ccm made a world of a difference. There was so much power at my disposal. It accelerated much quicker than the BMW but I also didn’t have any luggage on the KTM which added to the effect. Even in the higher gears it felt like there was always more room for more throttle even when I really didn’t need any more. I never felt like I must be close to the end of a gear. First the quick power felt uncomfortable because again it felt so nimble and sensitive to the slightest twist of the throttle but I quickly got used to it.

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The dash is neat and tidy with a built in cigarette lighter as any adventure rider would want. The only thing that surprised me was that I couldn’t see any gear indicator. Not a big deal but I assumed that all modern bikes nowadays had one. Even my two years older BMW had one.

Moving on to the handle bar, unlike the BMW the KTM didn’t have heated grips but I was delighted to see that the turn signal control was a one button switch to control both sides like on every other bike in the world except on BMWs.

I went off the main roads to find a spot to get a little more familiar with the bikes handling.

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It was a surprised to realize that standing up on the foot pegs actually felt little different from my BMW. If I were to get the KTM I would definitely need to get handle bar extenders. Basically two metal plates that raise the handle bar a few centimeters which can make a big difference and for off roading being able to stand up is important.

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After a bit of experimenting I felt very comfortable with the bike. Overall the light handling was what impressed me most. I wish I also had the opportunity to test the 990 with heavy luggage as it no doubt would change the handling quite a bit.

Reluctantly I returned to KTM and handed in the bike.

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One thing however I didn’t like about the bike. The KTMs two cylinder engine ran nowhere near as smooth as BMWs. I particularly noticed the difference when I got back on the BMW riding home. The engine is smooth as butter. No vibrations on the handle bars or anywhere else. The BMWs Twin engine is said to be the best and smoothest of it’s kind and now I could tell how true that was. It almost felt like driving a car, it’s that smooth. Even the riding position seems more exhausting on the KTM. Which is not a surprise considering the different purpose of the bike. The BMW makes you feel like you are sitting in a cosy armchair while on the KTM you are standing up behind the wheel of a fast motorboat with the vibrations of the engine and the wind against your body. This difference is something I did not expect to this degree. That’s the trade off of being able to keep going even when the road has ended.

All in all my conclusion from this test was that I will most likely not get this particular example of the KTM 990 Adventure (for various other reasons) but I am still set on selling my BMW for a more off road capable bike.

Frankfurt, Germany

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Frankfurt is a typical German city with the exception that it is the banking capital of Europe. Not only do most major German banks own their own skyscrapers here dominating the look of the city skyline also the European Central Bank is based here.

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The newly constructed ECB building.

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Besides that Frankfurt has a beautiful old downtown with the typical German timber framed houses…

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…and classicist buildings like the opera house.

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This building owes its importance to the fact that it’s the birth place of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who is sort of the German equivalent to Shakespeare in regards to their importance for their respective language.

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Frankfurt is located on the river Main. Which is why its proper name is: “Frankfurt am Main” / “Frankfurt on the Main”. (There also is a “Frankfurt Oder” on the opposite side of Germany.)

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I took a little round trip tour on the river which happened to also pass one of the river branches at which my new work place was located. PIXOMONDO Frankfurt, the grey double structure behind the red one.

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Besides housing one of the biggest airports in Europe Frankfurt also has a number of commercial harbors on the river Main.

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Besides the beautiful scenery Frankfurt also reminded me how important it is to always lock my bike.

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Brussles

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What I had been looking forward to most was taking one of the little canal boat tours.

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I didn’t have much time in Bruges as I had to reach Frankfurt, Germany the same day in order to start work at PIXOMONDO the following morning. So I left Bruges after having a Belgium Waffle which to my surprise was very sugary.

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Next up was Brussles. Brussles was not hugely impressive in terms of its architecture especially not after having seen Bruges but of course there was one important sight I couldn’t miss. The Atomium – which was a lot more shiny and bigger than I had expected.

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I left Brussles and got onto the motorway heading for the Netherlands. It started to rain and I didn’t have any waterproof clothing – or at least so I thought. Passing through the Netherlands the shower turned into the strongest rainstorm I had experienced in years. Not quite ideal motorcycling weather. Just before crossing into Germany I finally got the chance to get off the motorway, pour out my boots and wrap plastic bags around my gloves which were completely drenched as well. My boots were waterproof but I had tucked my pants into them so the water was conveniently flowing into them. At a gas station I waited ten minutes for the rain to ease off but it didn’t. In retrospect I probably should have taken out my waterproof overpants I had placed very accessible in my luggage but I had forgotten I had brought them with me..

Back on the bike it got darker and I was glad I was wearing my four reflective tapes around my ankles in addition to my reflective vest. Visibility was no more than 50 meters not least due to the rain being vaporized by the cars creating a thick fog. It actually looked pretty neat with the rear lights illuminating the air and I enjoyed the challenging conditions. The only thing I was a bit worried about was aquaplaning. But luckily the German roads are built well so there were no dips and puddles and the cars in front of me were pushing the water off the lane so I felt it was safe enough to continue.

I was glad when the rain finally stopped though because unbeknownst to me I had just entered one of the famous no speed limit sections of the Autobahn. Cars shot past me at what must have been well over the general Autobahn speed limit of 130 km/h. I had never taken my bike to the limit in terms of speed but now was the time. With the rain gone I merged onto the “fast lane” and accelerated from 100km/h to 166km/h. At over 160km/h the bike started getting a bit unstable so I didn’t want to go beyond that. After all the bike was also fully loaded. Especially the panniers tend to make motorcycles wobble at higher speeds. I was surprised to notice that 140 -150 didn’t feel particularly fast. 160 did. But while I was going 160 I was still going “slow” and cars behind me were catching up fast. So I merged to my right and noticed how people were passing me at probably well over 200km/h. People were driving very disciplined though. I loved how everybody kept an exceptionally long distance to the car ahead of them. The only thing that was bothering me a little was the fact that people didn’t seem to take into account that at these higher speeds when merging to a different lane you have to wait a little bit longer to merge back onto your lane in front of the car next to you. I found people were merging with very little distance at these speeds. Still driving in Germany was a pleasure.

I reached my hostel in Frankfurt at midnight and after some much needed sleep I began my new work at PIXOMONDO the following day.

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Moving to Germany

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After two years of London I decided it was time for a new adventure and move to Germany to work there. Being Austrian I had visited Germany before but living there would be new. The language barrier hopefully wouldn’t be too big and my plan was to follow a friends invitation to work on the next Season of Game of Thrones. So on a warm Saturday afternoon after packing my bags I set off to Dover to cross to France by ferry.

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I didn’t have much time to reach the ferry. In fact I knew it was going to be close. Luckily the roads were empty except for that huge huge traffic jam I encountered half way.

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With a car I would not have made the ferry. While everybody was waiting and people were getting out of their cars I was going slow and steady between them. I reached the ferry terminal twenty minutes before the closing of the terminal.

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It was a short trip and after 45 min the ferry reached Dunkirk, France around midnight. I didn’t waste any time and kept pushing on to Bruges, Belgium right away.

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At 2AM I reached a hostel where I had made a reservation once more using the hostelworld app.

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Bruges is famous for it’s medieval architecture and it’s Venetian canal city center layout. I knew Bruges mostly from the very entertaining and dark movie “In Bruges” which shows the city in winter covered in snow.

Finding my room at the BAUHAUS hostel proved a bit difficult but I did get some much needed sleep and a rudimentary but included breakfast the next morning after which I drove to the city centre for some sightseeing.

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No wonder this place was used for movies. It looked like straight from a fairy tale.

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This little tavern really was as little as it looks.

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Spain 38 – Coming home

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I left Madrid in the evening heading for Bilbao where I wanted to spend the night before finally driving to Santander to catch the ferry back home to England.

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I reached Bilbao in the evening spending the night at a not so cozy hostel at the outskirts of the city. There were lots of mosquitoes and the place looked and felt as sterile as a prison. I parked the bike a few streets away a little concerned if it was still going to be there the next day.

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But it was and in the morning I continued to Santander. I boarded the ferry and enjoyed the view from the various decks of the ship before falling asleep in my cheap cattle class seat.

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The next day the white cliffs of the coast of England announced our arrival.

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I disembarked the ferry…

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… greeted as it should be by the congested traffic of London’s roads. At least I didn’t have to worry about driving on the wrong side.

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After almost two months my journey through the south western tip of Europe had come to an end. With considerably less tread on my tires, many thousands miles more on the odometer, huge numbers of captured images on my hard drives and an infinite amount of wonderful new memories I parked the bike in front of my flat already wondering where my next trip would lead me to.

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