EuropeRides.com

Europe Rides is back on-line

francois — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:25:36 +0000

Not much riding news posted currently, and most of you will know WHY by now. We were hacked by Russian cyber criminals and I had to take many of my websites offline to clean and resurrect them. EuropeRides was one of them.

We’re back on-line now and hopefully I’ll be able to get the travel forum back too, somehow.
We ARE in France yet again and we ARE riding here, so there is stuff to tell you and show you….. as soon as I have the time again!

Thanks for your patience and apologies for the time lost.

Francois.

Road conditions in Umbria

francois — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:44:03 +0000

Nina and I just returned from a 6-day trip to Umbria in Italy and found the roads to be as bad as ever.

Should you be planning a ride into Umbria in Italy, then be advised that even the main through roads there are in very bad shape. The province doesn’t have money and most main roads are littered with potholes, only with some tar poured in here and there….. which with air temps of 40C an more is quickly coming out again!

The Dolomiti roads (Alto Adige and Friuli) and Toscany roads are in much better shape.

We would advise NOT to ride at night (you won’t notice all the holes in time) and be very careful by day, especially on the faster roads (4-lane through roads).

Umbria and its thousands of ancient little towns is still VERY MUCH worth a visit ! Just be careful!

Fuel prices in Europe

francois — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:33:18 +0000

Check out the ‘Fuel Info’ tab under Road Info. I have added more links to sites about fuel prices in Europe. I will continue to add interesting sites. Some are in local language, but most have some way of entering a city or region and will then show pumps and prices. Check back regularly for more new!

Our new company car

francois — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:50:26 +0000

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….

Riding in Spain !

francois — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:27:43 +0000

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

MSA is new EuropeRides partner!

francois — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:18:33 +0000

With motor season approaching there’s new activity on the site and in other areas. One bit of news is that we have a new business partner on our site ! Kenny Simon handles our technical support for our BMW RT but also for other brands and models.Ken has opened a new shop in Den Dolder, in the province of Utrecht and will discuss any work on your motorbike with you. Just click on the picture to check out his website!| Ken is from New York, speaks Dutch and English and is an enthusiastic BMW rider himself! Find his website here!

And then we hit a snag….

francois — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:24:35 +0000

in the form of some virus, or more likely a False Positive (i.e. a mistake by the anti-virus program), in our previous WordPress Theme.

So I had to take it off-line and replace the look and feel for now. Sorry!

But don’t worry, I am hard at work to design a new look for the site and we’ll be back soon!

Francois

Gone for too long

francois — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:06:41 +0000

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!

Getting cold ??

francois — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:32:08 +0000

Many of us ride through winter months as well, and then it can get REALLY chilly. I did a few rides down to 6 C (that’s around 42 F) and it was alright the first 15 minutes, but after that it starts getting cold quickly.

What better ‘garment’ to wear then but a heated vest of some sort. Trouble is, these things are expensive. My US friends ride with Gerbings stuff and that’s difficult to find here AND expensive.

That’s why I wanted to share a nice site with you, on which I found a Do-It-Yourself heated vest with a complete and very clear building instruction. Maybe something to make over this Summer and be less cold next Winter, eh?

Check out

‘Goldwings’s’ site here !

Is all this gloom and doom stopping you !?

francois — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:36:48 +0000

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 ! ;-)