Archive for the ‘EuropeRide News’ Category

We bit the bullet and traded our Jeep Cherokee for a brand new company car: a Mercedes Viano diesel MPV that seats 4 (or even 5 if needed) PLUS a huge luggage compartment. And of course it has a hook to tow the bike trailer.

Although this was the biggest investment so far for our little company, we are very happy with it and put it to the test with a 4000 km Alps tour last week, taking some people from Seattle through 8 countries in 8 days ! It performed wonderful, is very comfortable and for once we did not have to watch our luggage quantity!

The Viano is equipped with snow tires, climate control, traction control, anti-skid, automatic hill-braking, ASB, ESP and some other nifty electronics to make it safer. In the 4-person configuration it has 4 captain seats for comfortable traveling.

The Merc will be used for drive tours, photo tours and for Silver Cloud Publishing too of course….

From one of our relations we received word that he has a special offer in May! Riding a 1200 or 850 GS in the south of Spain and a stay in a wonderful villa INCLUDED.

He writes "…. I am offering 1 weeks rental of a GS1200 or GS650(Twin) for 550 euros. This price INCLUDES stunning accommodation, insurance and airport shuttle. I hope you agree that this is a great deal….".

Well, we agree. Unfortunately we can’t take Marc up on it ourselves since we will already been traveling through Germany, Switzerland and Italy at that time. But maybe YOU can !!??

Check out Marc’s website here: http://www.bmwmotohire.com

That’s the problem of having a busy life….. and few customers: no time to update the website. Truth is I posted most of the motor riding news on Facebook and on the BMWST forums, leaving precious little time to update things here. But, riding season is coming closer again here in northern Europe, so lets start posting again.

Nina and I did a lot of riding last Summer and we never had the time to report on those journeys. So I’ll be starting work on that too. I made some 7000 photos and that is part of the problem. Too many to choose from !

On another note, we’re getting ready to get us a company car. right now we’re looking at the Mercedes Viano as the most likely candidate. It will allow us to not only move a trailer with bikes, but also additional luggage and people to/from departure points! Lets hope we can trade the Jeep in……

Our first ‘event’ this year will be the BMW RT ride in Holland on April 25th. Will report on that when the time is there!

Well, it is stopping some people. So here is the good news: we have time on our hands to accommodate your travel again, since two US customers have canceled their plans. And that’s the bad news; some folks really are feeling the pinch of these economic woes unfortunately.

And yes, I keep promising to update the site, but like so many of you I am too busy trying to make a living. This has been a bad winter too, in more than one way, so I did hardly do any riding. Bummer !

I can only promise you that I am doing my best to get new conent on the site. We have some really nice travel tales to show that are still waiting in the photos folder of my hard disk. And I’ve been collecting many more interesting internet links too. Now, if only I could find a good system of storing and providing those links. Anybody ?

Wishing you all a great riding season(s) in 2009, in spite of the gloomy and depressing news the media are unloading upn us every day. I tend to just shrug it off and enjoy the days I have…… cheaper petrol helps in doing that ! ;-)

Hi everybody. As you already figured from the absence of much activity here, we are very busy! Busy with the Internet work I do, but also with preparing the 2009 riding season. We did some (delayed) scouting in September and found you some great new roads to discover in the Alps. I’ll be posting a story about the trips later in November.

We also are starting to get the first preliminary bookings for the next season, so if you have any plans to visit Europe next year, then do not wait too long with contacting us ! We hope petrol prices will remain at their current low (yeah, right!) and the Dollar will crawl back a little after the elections (maybe!).

The economic downturn does not have only negative effects. Sure, people may have less money to spend (or less confidence in doing so), but competition will be fiercer, especially in the travel industry, so lodging prices may drop a little too. We’ll keep an eye on it for you of course!

We’re back from yet another Alps Ride and I am now sifting through 2000 photos! I’ll be putting some of them in the Pictures and Stories section over the next weeks! We did some famous and not-so-famous routes, covering the Col de l’Iséran, Col de la Télégraphe, Col du Galibier, Col du Vars, Col des Guérins (ever heard of that one !!??), Col du Festre and the ‘obvious’ one, Col de Bonette !

We visited great routes, such as the Défile de la Sauloix, the route around Lake Serre-Ponçon, parts of the Route Napoléon, the Itiniraire des Villages Perchés and many more.
Used up an entire rear tire on the scruffy pass roads too !

Other news:
- we’re talking to new partners to extend the offering of our riding areas. Think Croatia next to South Africa!
- the rider web hosting service is almost ready….. more soon!
- working with an educational company to cover GPS courses
- ……. and working on changing this web site to something even more flexible this year!

Last but not least, I am in the planning stages for a few customers to take along through Europe next year…. and that of course takes priority over other work!

Hope you had a great riding season so far….. for me the ‘nice and cool’ season starts now…. well, after I get the new rear tire mounted, that is !

Riding our motorcycles is a ‘seasonal thing’ for many of us. The bike goes in storage come end of Fall en stays on a charger until March or so. And what better to do in that ‘dark, bikeless period’ then to read and WRITE !?

Since I run a web hosting and design company as well, I figured why not use the skills, contacts and resources to offer cheap websites to bikers, and perhaps even motorbike clubs? Get your own blog and collect your news, ride stories, accessory preferences, travel plans and perhaps even a forum, and maintain it yourself.

All that will be offered for only $ 30 a year…… soon ! Of course you’ll have to learn to ‘manage’ the site a little, but the WordPress software that we use will make that really easy. And, if you want or need more, you can hire our additional services of course.

Only in Summer we’ll be on the road……. like you will be !

Due-South is our latest Motor Touring Partner, added just a week ago. Due-South is run by Joe Visser and is a South-African motorcycle touring company. Joe has pretty much the same ideas about what a good, but small motor company should be and do as we have! His company offers guided, road based motorcycle tours using BMW motorcycles (BMW R 1200 GS, BMW F 650 GS series) in and around Southern Africa.

Joe and I have agreed to act as each other’s booking and PR agents, thereby spreading our operations and contacts over two continents!  Click on the logo to learn more about the Due-South Motorcycle Tours!

I finally pulled the trigger on a navigation system for the motorbike. 4 years ago I was looking at the Garmin 2610, the successor of the old Streetpilot system. At the time it was some 1700 Euros all inclusive. Yikes ! Too much for this ol’ boy!

I kept track of all the systems and prices over the years, while using my Compaq iPaq PDA with TomTom on it to get us from A to B. Worked pretty well in the car, but not at all on the bike. Then came the TomTom Rider. A lot cheaper than any Garmin and made specially for riders. But with it came a lot of bad press as well. So I held out. Even when Rider II appeared.

Although flawed in many ways, TomTom DID make garmin swallow and finally come up with a more friendly priced system of their own, the Garmin Zumo series.

Being able to reclaim the VAT now, the entire system (and installed by myself, see ‘Technical stuff’ on the right) now cost me some 615 Euros…… now THERE’S a difference eh?

Europe… here we come again !!!!!

Yup, we finally pulled the trigger on two things: a trailer to carry bikes on, and a Garmin Zumo 550. I don’t understand how I could have done without one for so many years! Had Satnavs in my cars for almost 10 years already, but on the bike I only used my PDA with TomTom software to get us out of trouble. Easier than 3 tons of paper maps of course. I’ll be posting a complete instruction on how to get the Zumo installed at some point (for my BMW friends), but here are some pictures of the EuropeRides Transport System: