Motorcycling 2012 - Page 2

cat0020 · 06-02-2012, 12:16 AM

cat0020 · 06-02-2012, 12:17 AM

Bikes:

Planes:

extras:

low&slow · 06-03-2012, 02:52 PM

Great pix, wish I could have been there

alvaro84 · 06-04-2012, 05:55 AM

That cannon-towing scooter thing looks funny

cat0020 · 07-03-2012, 06:37 PM

Picked up another salvage bike, this one cleaned up nicely:

Not bad for under $2k

alvaro84 · 08-07-2012, 09:49 AM

Tatra Quick Visit

(part one)

So we had a short and 'low cost' trip to the High Tatras, to see the (probably) closest 'proper mountains'.

The plan was to travel through preferably small and twisty roads, and definitely NO motorways (they're no fun, even though they are free for motorcycles in Slovakia). Thanks to the range of our bikes we could just 'skip' Slovakia in the hope of the cheaper Polish gas. This was our first trip to a non-neighbouring country (to Hungary, I mean), though we really hadn't seen much of Poland, except for some nice mountain roads and tourist-infested towns and villages. We entirely crossed Slovakia, though.

First day's target was Tatransk? Lomnica, below the Lomnic Peak (2634m/8643ft). As we couldn't book a room cheap enough 2 days before the trip, we brought a tent with us too. It was a nice little challenge to place it so it wouldn't deteriorate Teresa's aerodynamics even more (I'm bad shaped enough sitting in the saddle

). In the light of the tank averages it wasn't a huge fail.

The Hungarian leg of this route was familiar to us, even a bit of Slovakia (until we finished our breakfast in front of a store in Sahy), and there are nice roads in this first leg too (like the Slovak road 564). I took the first picture of the trip here:

Hungarian headline, with Chinese text. And this all in Slovakia. The next few were made after a short detour through a narrow and quite bad road (patches of gravel were scattered around) trhough Zajezov?:

On the way back we took a few next to V?glask? Huta - Kalinka too:

We can thank this detour to the Slovak military - a road I wanted to ride through was closed with a barrier, and a guard house. In the guard house I could phone with someone who knew Hungarian (English didn't prove useful there). What the map shows: a village in there, with all the roads leading to it closed - was true. It looked so nonsense I didn't even believe it, but that someone in the phone confirmed it.

The next leg (after a bit of road 50) is a nice treat for the bikers. Though it's hard to stop anywhere to take pictures, the road 529 itself is great, it's full of nice curves and the pavement is good on most of this stretch. It runs mostly in the forest, but sometimes you can see the valleys below, and even a small lake.

Then the treat continued, after a town called Brezno (the photos were taken next to the town).

The next 'wave' were the Low Tatras: the nicely meandering Road 72 crossed the mountains at a 1232m/4042ft high pass, making miles of FAS possible after the climb (I still prefer gliding to engine braking until it's too hard on the brakes). The new dropout bearing passed the test. The scenery from the pass:

And the north side, on the way back (it was really beautiful):

alvaro84 · 08-07-2012, 09:50 AM

The next mountains were the High Tatras themselves. The peaks are all crammed in a small area and the mountains have a very distinct, steep edge. Approaching them, as they pierced the clouds, felt similar to seeing a really, really big monster in a dream. I mean, they felt high. They even dwarfed the Necrogiant for Painkiller.

The road 538 needed hairpin bends to get up to the line of mountain villages at 800-1300m, then the road 537 runs through them all, with cute, mild bends. The villages' names are poems in themselves, like Tatransk? Zruby, Vysok? Tatry Dolny' / Stary' / Horny' Smokovec or Vysok? Tatry Tatransk? Lomnica. It was a game to guess whether we were inside one of them. The signs marking their beginning were spartan, when you saw "some (long and incomprehensible) black Slovak text on plain white background", you had better slow down, that had may been a village you just had entered.

After setting up the tent we went on a stroll back to the village. The campsite was outside, a few kilometers south from the main street, and a bit more from the cable car station. A very nice trail connected it to the village:

We tried some local food too, cabbage soup, Pyrogs with Bryndza (Slovak sheep milk cheese), steamed dumplings and Zlaty Bazant beer.

(Steamed dumpling, one of the foods I think to have the funniest names - in Hungarian, at least: it sounds like it was made of steam

)

On the way back we ran into a HUGE deer in the darkness, inside the village.

Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures of the mountains, the Lomnicky St?t (and the Slavkovsky St?t, I guess), in the evening, in the morning, wide angle, normal, and close-ups (up to 300mm, great tool for scenery

)

After setting up the tent we went on a stroll back to the village. The campsite was outside, a few kilometers south from the main street, and a bit more from the rail car station. A very nice trail connected it to the village:

We tried some local food too, cabbage soup, Pyrogs with Bryndza (Slovak sheep milk cheese), steamed dumplings and Zlaty Bazant beer.

(Steamed dumpling, one of the foods I think to have the funniest names - in Hungarian, at least: it sounds like it was made of steam

)

On the way back we ran into a HUGE deer in the darkness, inside the village.

Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures of the mountains, the Lomnicky St?t (and the Slavkovsky St?t, I guess), in the evening, in the morning, wide angle, normal, and close-ups (up to 300mm, great tool for scenery

)

First day was 376km/233.6mi according to google maps. The bikes will never agree, even with each other, so let it rest

alvaro84 · 08-07-2012, 09:50 AM

Second day

Our plan was to ride around the High Tatras (there is no road that would cross the central, steep and rocky area). Teresa's low fuel light had been on since the top of the Low Tatras (it came on at 387km/240.5mi), so I was a bit (not too much) worried not knowing the exact distance to overcome, but I trusted my calculations. Zakopane was quite close, after all.

So we got round the mountains from the South and East, now I know where we should have stopped (yes, it's still a huge problem for me to reconciliate riding and photography

), and reached the Polish border.

For some reason cars were queueing there, thankfully not in our direction... and when the queue ended we found a parking spot next to the serpentine road (practically a gazebo). It was full, of course; good that the bikes are so small.

Zakopane, our 'target' was awful. It might be a nice place, but it was crowded, teeming with tourists, showing the face of a busy city (while it's not a big town, really). Here we finally found a fuel station and filled up the bikes - it turned out that Teresa still had a lot of fuel to go (and Ciliegia had even more, not having 80km of commute and city trips back in Hungary).

The main sight in Zakopane and the neighbouring tourist villages was the local architecture, the tricksy houses that sometimes consisted of many floors and full roof. I don't know how they're insulated, but I'm quite sure they need it, winters can be cold up there. Even the parking attendant's booth was built in this style.

We stayed in Poland till Chochol?w, took a little detour to a side street to eat a bit (we got food in a store where we were totally amused by the Polish texts - it's even more entertaining than Slovak village names

) and get our first sheep. It has the name 'Zakopane' embroidered on its side. The second we bought on the Slovak side, it has the name 'Vysok? Tatry'. They are our Shanghai and Hourai, in a sense (Touhou hint here, please ignore

).

Next place I found really beautiful was the West road of the High Tatras. It has the number 584 if anyone would like to find it. It leads among fields and less steep hills, then goes up to ~1100m/3600ft again, and is just as twisty as any such road there. Of course I missed the parking place on the top, so here are a few pics from 'down':

And on the way back to the campsite:

Tanks finished this day were:
Ciliegia: 424.7km (263.9mi), 11.91l (3.146 gal): 2.8l/100km (83.875 US MPG)
Teresa: 509.1km (316.34mi), 14.04l (3.709 gal): 2.76l/100km (85.29 US MPG)

Third day

The way home, almost the same route as forst day. We took a few more pics (many of the above were really shot this day). Road 537 on the South side of the mountains:

And the most mountains I could cover with a single shot, before the blue haze covered them:

The weather was hot when we left the mountains, especially when we arrived to Hungary in the afternoon. We haven't fueled the bikes again until the station closest to home.

The finishing tanks were:

Ciliegia: 521.2km (323.86mi), 13.78l (3.64 gal): 2.64l/100km (88.97 US MPG)
Teresa: 517.2km (321.37mi), 13.45l (3.553 gal): 2.6l/100km (90.45 US MPG)