On the Road Again!

Although when I lived in Brno I made several trips to Slovakia I made only one for football games. Slovan Bratislava were the biggest, and probably still are, football club in Slovakia. I had the misfortune to be invited by several of my students, from the school I was teaching at, to go with them. The game was March 1993. I have even found it on the Internet. Our club was then called BOBY Brno. We picked up coaches, actually Karosa city buses, for the trip down south east and across the border from the Czech Republic.  The former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic had split into two separate countries only two and a half months earlier on December 31st 1992. I missed it as I went home to England for Christmas!!!😁😁😁 The BOBY owner put on the buses, free if they had won the week before, otherwise we paid. The pickup was always outside the Janáček National Theatre in the city centre.  The often ignored rules were no smoking and no alcohol on the bus. Neither rule lasted much l...

Inner bag packed and in the top box ready to go. It's a test run. The bag fits in the bottom of the box and the lid space is Emory. One pannier contains waterproofs and the other currently nothing.  It gives me expansion space! I'll have the Givi tankbag with me as well. Maybe I can drop it in there for security during stops. Of course, Baloo will be along on the trip too. Hoping the 800kč I have left over from a previous trip is still usable! DFDS now indicating that we should check-in two hours before sailing... Sailing is 8am.

Time flies. It's 29 years today that Audrey Amson (my partner at the time) and I set off for the Czech Republic, where I would teach in a grammar and secondary school for a year. It was a Sunday. I had had the trailer hitch fitted a couple of weeks before and had only tested it with the Freewheel Shuttle connected a few times and not fully loaded! That was a mistake. It was all packed during the week and finally on Saturday.  The first test ride with a few items loaded and it weaved all over the road behind me. I had been told that the heavier stuff needed to be at the front towards the hitch and lighter stuff behind it.   So it was re-packed. heavy stuff like text books packed in bags were laid across the nose, clothes and other stuff I would need (or not!) towards the rear. One test ride and it was as if it wasn't there.... I didn't take any photos before we set off. Back then the internet didn't exist and there were certainly no blogs or digital cameras.... The choic...

Plan A, the ride it all the way and all the way back plan, has been changed a little bit. Originally the idea was to stay in the YH at Hagen and the second in Königstein not far from the German/Czech border. This would mean a longer first day and then a shorter second and then depending on where the rally is, a longer third day on the road. Looking on the map and the spacings out I have decided to change the first overnight to one a little nearer the Channel. I'll keep the Hotel Reif one in Königstein and then slip a third overnight in Prague. I looked at the Hotel Extol where I have stayed three or four times since 1992. It was a youth hostel then and the choices of rooms went from twins to eight berth dorms.  It became a hotel and Claire and I stayed there in 2011. It was still quite reasonable and we could park the car in the yard at the back.  That's where we had parked the bikes on previous trips.  The Extol is now a "wellness" hotel and a room there, for o...

Changes made as we had already lost players due to Covid.   Two players from Chelsea were in close proximity with one of their teammates in the Scotland squad and this was enough for the Covid alert. Grealish and Saka playing well.  Maybe they should have started other games too? England 1-0 at half time. Sterling goal on 12 minutes. And that's how it ended up. In the other final group game, Scotland managed to get beaten 3-1 by Croatia.  Due to Scottish incompetence the Czechs finished 3rd in the group but qualified for the last 16.

"Plan A" is the ride across Europe plan. I expect to be Billy No-Mates on this trip. As I don't know where the rally will be held I have hedged on it being back in Chudčice. It wouldn't take much of a change to the route if it was in Vernirovice. But "Plan A" is the A3 route across Germany So this far in advance I had booked a single room at the Youth Hostel in Hagen in Germany.  This looks pretty decent and is quite cheap. But in the end I cancelled it on booking.com and looked further south towards Frankfurt.  I settled (for now at least!!!) on an area I know quite well and like in the Rheinland.  A hotel in Bingen, Hotel Krone, was booked on the usual free cancellation and no prepayment term. This will give me a longish day in the saddle on the first day. The second night is planned for nearer the Czech border.  Germany is a big country. I have a hotel booked in  Königstein in der Oberpfalz. It's not that expensive for a single room. That will also be...

A day later and here I am. Dog walked and I turned my attention to working out how much it would cost in fuel alone to ride across to Brno or  Vernířovice for the rally next year.   The last day in Czech for Suzi - July 1993 It would probably be my last visit to Czech and most definitely by bike.  As we get older their are "bucket lists" that need to be filled. Either by Kettle or Rocket (unless I miraculously trade the RIII in for something smaller) the cost will be about the same in fuel. Plus hotel/gasthaus/B&B/YH stops to be included. Food has be eaten wherever  you are. All that comes to £X. So I had a fall-back to what I did in 1999 when I went to the Wasserbueffel Club Rally at Moosham and the trips  around the Alps and Dolomites . I went to Cologne and got the motorail train in both directions! Then  I worked out the costs against each other and there wasn't that much in it. A quick google shows there is an option to go from Dusseldorf to V...

I have been looking at this as an event for the last few years but with Covid stopping any idea of going in 2020/2021 I am looking to 2022. Currently Suzi is still "running in" the new engine components and needs to be treated a little gently.  The mpg I got from the first tank refill was a shock as I was expecting with careful  riding around 40mpg or even more. So planning a ride across Europe on a 45 year old bike might be a step too far. Okay. I rode to Brno in 1992 but then the bike was 30 years younger! Economics would really put the trip in the hands of a four stroke. Given that the two other vehicles I have access to, the Rocket III and the Nissan Juke only return a few mpg more maybe I need to re-assess the "No Suzi Triplo" trip! Or plan a journey with shorter days in the saddle?  Or maybe the holy grail... The motorail! Currently I have a planned trip on the Rocket III blog.....  https://rocket3man.blogspot.com/2021/06/czech-2022.html It's still a few d...

Looking to next year for what maybe a jolly-boys trip to the Czech Invader Rally or what might end up a Billy No-Mates trip. I have been to five previous Czech Invaders but only once when I rode there completely alone. I did that in 1992 on my DR800SL. It's not something I would do again. Not in one hit. When I arrived I could hardly get off the bike I was so stiff for sitting in one place for hour upon hour. Those were all held at the same "rally-inn" in  Chudčice  near Brno. The last one I did was way back in 2004 with Claire as pillion. The BMW GS wasn't well received - not being a Suzuki! BMW at Rally. There is no way I'll be on the Kettle. At 37mpg it will cost a kidney to ride the 1700 mile round trip. So Pepé will need to be the bike of choice. If only I had cruise control as well to help with the saving of fuel. If I am to go over as a solo traveller I will stay in Youth Hostels. After all I will be an old age pensioner by then. We did that way back in 199...

The World in Pictures - Day 3 I have been challenged by Neill Devall to post a picture, every day, for the next 10 days. The picture can be of anything you like but each picture must have been taken in a different country. You can tell us about the photo or not, as you wish but must at least specify the country. I'm not going to challenge anyone, but if friends want to take part so well and good! Prague - Czech Republic 2004

After being made redundant for the second time in 7 years I decided to re-train as an English teacher. Despite being obviously quite thick at school or rather crap at remembering stuff for exams, I managed to talk myself onto an accredited course at a large training centre in London.  As I wasn't already a teacher of some kind, and also didn't have at least an undergraduate degree, I had to prove that I could do the course in an interview. The CTEFLA course is very hard and intensive. I passed and armed with my qualification I began looking for jobs. Only a month but learning and teaching everyday was very hard.  I began to search the EFL ads in the Times Education Supplement and the Guardian newspapers.   I then ran into rampant ageism. At 37 I was "too old" to compete with younger, often graduates, who with no experience of life away from mummy and daddy would be better suited. And possibly cheaper.  I applied for loads of jobs across the UK and in EU Europe. ...

Who knows how long this blog will exist for! I don't have the foggiest idea. The Kettle in question is a Suzuki GT750A. First registered in April 1977.  Some background. Sit down. This might ramble on. I bought it in 1984 from the bike shop in Hanwell near Brentford in West London. It came with some paperwork that showed it had had some engine work done. Allegedly the crankshaft oil seals had been replaced etc. I had other bikes as well. For a while  around this time I had a "Plain Jane" GL1000, and a  GSX1000SZ Katana. So it was a complete surprise when riding home from work a couple of years later that the crankshaft oil seals went phut By then we were moving from Weybridge in Surrey to Newington in Kent. I obtained an exchange crank from Robinson's then in Broadstairs. A local guy in Gillingham was recommended to handle the engine rebuild.  At this stage the cylinder barrel to use in the rebuild was one that I had bought off a fellow member of the SOC committ...

This was written by my good friend Ivan Benda. I first met him through his love for Suzuki motorcycles when I joined the Suzuki Owners Club in 1978. At first it was exchanging letters as Czechoslovakia was still under Communist rule. I first met him in 1986 when my partner, Audrey, and I went to the FIM Rally in Hungary. We travelled through Czech and Slovakia to get to Budapest. We stayed with him in his flat in Bohunice and then he took us to a spa resort nearer the border with Slovakia. Obviously in those days there wasn't a real border. I went to the Czech Invader Rally a few times and over the years we have been many times. In 1992/93 I went to work at the grammar school in Zastávka near Brno. Ivan was a good friend and helped me settle in. And so to his email and picture: " I am sure you are informed my homeland celebrates 100 anniversary of foundation just now ( Oct 28th ), so I am sending you a critical picture of "Crying Thomas Garrigue Masaryk th...

Finally getting around to writing up the trip - here .

It's almost a week since I got home and I have just got around to checking the exact mileage and calculating the overall fuel consumption rates, what we call mpg. A bit lazy I know.  The return trip from home to home worked out at 1767.3 miles on Trip 2. Mpg ranged from 44.09 to 54.52.  I haven't sorted them in date order only lowest to highest. But at a quick glance at dates the highest consumption was on the way out in the middle of the trip. Getting 54.52 mpg on a 2300cc cruiser is pretty decent I think. The cross country sections in Bavaria and Czech were frustrating in parts due to traffic, trucks in the main,  but apart from a few miles the surface was better than anything we have locally in Kent or anywhere in the UK. So much smooth tarmac perfectly made for bikes. And at moderate speeds the mpg went up. On the way back, one section, when we had to detour off S19 north of Pisek due to the Ždákovský most (bridge) being closed,  was cobbled. Not just by the edge...

All captured on the joint blog that I started and then got Neill to co-author -  https://devallboys.blogspot.com/ But before this happens we have to get over Neill's "Bank of Dad" for his daughter and naturally my niece's wedding at the beginning of August.

The next and who knows, last Devall Boys trip? https://devallboys.blogspot.com/

This Flickr album contains about 103 of the pix taken on the trip. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157625772506567/ Favourite beer Cerna Hora......

The picture on the left and those linked below were sent to me in a series of emails by my friend, Ivan Benda, in the Czech Republic. Ivan's photos are from the Brno Memorial Day for Marco Simoncelli at the Masaryk Automotodrom on October 30th 2011. To get them seen by a wider audience I created a Flickr account for him and uploaded all the photos. As well as here, with a very limited audience, I have posted it a few Facebook goups. http://www.flickr.com/photos/2strokercz/sets/72157628037175150/