The Lone Wolf Rides Alone?

Alright! I should probably start this blog out with an apology to some of my more avid readers. I have spent the last couple of days reworking the layout of the page and trying to procure some outside content to post on my pages. As well, I’m going to stop truncating the RSS feeds and give the whole story instead of just the first paragraph teasers. I’ve been kinda greedy about trying to get more people to visit the actual site when what I should be doing is just writing for the enjoyment of it. The advertising dollars had me scheming. It’s really not enough money to even worry about it.

Anyways… Sorry! Now for today’s post.

It has come to my attention that some people reading this blog would like to join me for the ride through Europe. Namely Jimmy and Rob (aka Hoover… yes like the vacuum cleaner, and no I don’t know how he got the nickname but when you think about it… it is kinda creepy). So I began the research process and have come up with a pretty good price. Many of the rental agencies in Germany were asking for 800Euro ($1200US) per week but I found this link:

Knopf Tours



Here you can get a BMW R1100GS for $550 for the first week and $500 for additional weeks. Insurance is $70 per week and you have to ask for permission to ride in Eastern Europe. As it turns out this may not be a ‘Lonely Man’ tour after all. If anyone else is interested drop me an email or post a comment to this blog. Perhaps if we had enough attendance we could negotiate a deal with zee Germans.

Not a bad deal when it comes right down to it. As well I have been pricing hotels along the route and you can pretty much keep your hotel budget to under $50/day for a decent place. Sure beats the heck out of camping at the side of the road, which is what I had originally intended to do until I realized my body can barely take 200kms on the back of a bike. I think I would need a hotel with a hot tub every two days.

I’m also starting to compile maps of the regions I’ve been thinking about traveling to. I still have some freebie maps that they give tourists at the train stations from last year but I’m hoping to get more. I love these maps. They are the best for getting around downtown on foot and finding places of interest. A family friend from Prague (Anna) was in town this week and she was giving me names of places that would be better to visit than Prague. I’m going to have to pump her for more information and routes. She named a brewery to go see but I can’t remember the name.

Needless to say I think the route is going to take me through Prague – Vienna – Bratislava – Budapest – Zagreb – Karlovacko – Split – Jadrtovac

I toyed with the idea of going all the way to Odessa and the Black Sea, but then I actually looked at a map. There are some pretty sketchy countries you have to go through to get there and I’m not quite brave enough. Plus it’s over 2000kms to get there and I just don’t have the time… this year.