Europe

I've been riding for a very long time, but the wife is into the sport for about four weeks. Today she announced that she would like to see Europe by motorcycle and even suggested this coming summer or the one after.

So I would appreciate advice from anyone who has ridden Europe and has any advice on routes, rentals, tour companies, etc.

Edelweiss Motorcycle Tours.

I've never taken one, but I know several who have and all reported outstanding results.

I was stationed in the UK, Germany and Belgium, and rode in all three plus all over the Continent. I honestly can say that almost anywhere you go will be interesting, but if you want to do/see some specific places like the Bavarian Alps (highly recommended!) or someplace like that it's easily planned and executed.

Some people like the 'Point A to Point B' approach, others go for the 'Central Hub' where you stay in one place and take day trips from it. Either work fine.

My only true recommendation is to jump on this opportunity! My memories of riding in Europe are some of the best motorcycling experiences I've ever had. Nothing in the States comes close, and you'll still be talking about it when you're rocking in your chair on your front porch!

Cheers! M2

Didn't ride, but drove Germany last year. If I were to go again, I'd do an alpenstrasse. Not many cars and the views were incredible.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...d=209715340290982056606.00046c665c4f84cf3e82e

I've got a buddy - high school classmate - who is a rider and lives in Munich. In fact, he's a TWT member. His handle here is MCarpen50. You might want to contact him for some ideas. He has more Europe miles than you can shake a stick at. Don't know how often he gets onto TWT, but I can contact him easily enough if you'd like to pick his brain.

Enjoy, for the adventurous souled touring bent rider like myself thats the stuff dream vacation rides are made of. And perhaps, dare I say it.....................................................................dream wife's too.

The Andermatt area of Switzerland has incredible riding, the roads and sights will stay with your memories. I took an 11 day trip with a tour group in 2007. We rode the Andermatt area (Swiss Alps) and the Dolomites of Italy (another awesome place)

I used an outfit called MotoCharlie, It's a single guide tour ran by Charlie Newdorf. Riders (one and two-up) pack their own gear on their rentals and Charlie guides through the best roads. He's ridden in Europe for years and knows all the neat outta-the-way places to ride. Riders can break off from his tour and ride on their and then join back up. Here's his website: http://www.moto-charlie.com/

Hope y'all can make it, it's a riding experince of a lifetime!

Thanks All. Been looking at the rides on the Edelweiss website and a couple of others. I've never been to Europe, but have wanted to see the Alps since my climbing days. Germany, Austria and Northern Italy area sounds especially great since the wife speaks some German. (It used to be REQUIRED grades 1 through 12 in the La Grange schools.)

Keep the ideas coming.

There was a seminar at the BMW moa rally last week on touring Europe on your own. Renting a bike in Frankfurt and up, up, and away. I didn't make the class, but if you need the "teacher's" name that presented the calss,(that owns the mc rental company I can get your his name and maybe his #. The peoson I'd highly recommend is Stefan Knoph "Tours." In Germany. He speaks perfect English. He makes the process easy and he is reasonable and has many suggestions. GO, man GO.

Don't be afraid to wing it on your own. The only trick is to find a bike rental place. Some of the big touring outfits have their own bikes and rent the surplus. There are also several dealerships that rent bikes (BMW in the Munich area, Moto Guzzi in nortern Italy)

If you are a member of ST-N you should look up some trip reports from a fellow named "Orson" who keeps a Guzzi in Northern Italy and just flies in and rides. His reports are fantastic and might give you some good ideas for itineraries.

I've been fortunate enough to have used friends bikes in the past. Am planning a trip to Geneva late September to ride with a buddy of mine who has an extra bike for me.

Roads are fantastic and well marked, best approach is to not overplan your route and/or hotel accomodations unless you are travelling in August which gets busy. It's very difficult to really know how many miles you'll make in a day or how long it will take to get from point A to point B.

Exciting times ahead for you ! Feel free to ping me if there is anything I can help you with. I've ridden all over Bavaria, Austria, Northern Italy, Scotland, and France. Looking to add Switzerland and the French Alps to the list this trip.

I’ll try to share a few of my experiences. My wife Kathleen and I have taken 3 motorcycle trips (2005, 2008 and 2012) to Europe so far. Only of a lack of funds (mostly) and time prevent us from going more. I’ve heard it said that one of the best gifts you can give yourself is the gift of travel and I agree.

Kind of like a lot folks that wade into a new interest we started out on the small side, with a 5 day ride in 2005. We chose the Scottish Main land Tour put on by Highlandrider.com.

http://www.highlandrider.com/source/tours/tour_c.htm

They were one of the more affordable of the guided tours and we rented their BMW 1100 RT. On a side note, back in the U.S. I wouldn’t dream of using a tour group but when going to some other continent I like them. One cost cutting measure is taking a trip where you carry your own luggage (no chase van) and that’s the way Highlandrider operates. We actually thought 5 days might seem like a lot since we hadn’t done anything like this before. IT’S NOT, and it’s easy to take everything you need for two persons (just maybe not everything she wants).

Our guide was the owner Peter. Peter seems to know everyone anywhere you go and he’s a very good guide. We stayed at nice hotels and had a wonderful time. SCOTLAND IS BEAUTIFUL!

I would recommend flying in at least a day early to fight off jet lag, but more importantly to take in some of the local sights prior to the tour. We spent our first day visiting Edinburgh and an extra day at the end of the trip seeing Glasgow. If you can only do one city, see Edinburgh.

A few photos from that trip:

The castle overlooking Edinburgh


From there a walk down the Miracle Mile


Gets you to the Palace


But what you really came for










Rob Roy’s grave site


John O’Groats at the top of Scotland. You are now closer to Norway than England. Kathleen and I with our new friend Les from the UK


We grew bolder from that trip. By 2008 we’d set aside the funds for another trip abroad. This time it was the Alps. Motorcycle Heaven!!! Again not knowing anything about where we were going we chose the 5 Country Tour put on by Road Runner Magazine. Let them take care of everything, we just have to show up.

http://www.roadrunner.travel/events/five-country-tour/

Our Guide was also named Peter and he was excellent too. This was a nine day tour and again we were able to pack enough clothes on the bike for the two of us. Like the trip in Scotland there was no chase van but Robert Smith (a writer for the magazine) acted as the co-guide / sweep rider. We picked up our bikes from a local BMW shop that handled the rental portion. Again we arranged an extra day at the beginning and end of the trip to tour Munich.

So go to the Alps and see some of these:
BMW Museum in Munich


Fun roads. Duh that’s why you came here.










Some other sites along the way











Like any growing addiction we once again found the money and time to go to Europe. This time it was 13 days (see a pattern here yet?). After searching for destinations and tour companies we decided on Adriatic Moto Tours and their Czech / Hungary Tour.

http://www.smtours.com/Guided-Tours/Czech-Hungary-Tour/Overview/

They provided a chase van and spare motorcycle. You just leave your suitcase outside your room in the morning and you’ll find it in your room when you arrive at your next location. Again we had a wonderful time and met some terrific people to share our vacation with.

They had a nice selection of their own motorcycles. We spent 50 euros and got a GPS that has all the routes for the trip on it. You could easily do the trip by yourself with just the GPS. It’s 20% less if that’s what you want to do and then you can pick the days that work best for your schedule. No chase van but much cheaper. Now after spending sometime in Europe and using a preprogramed GPS I wouldn’t hesitate to take off own my own.

A couple of highlights from the trip.





Budapest


Auschwitz


Birkenau


Prague


Salzburg, city of the Sound of Music


The trip ends



A few thoughts in no particular order:
As others have said, you can do this on your own. Enough people speak English in most of the places you’d be going.
If you hire a tour company it’s cheaper to get one that doesn’t have a chase van. To make room in the panniers we took old T-shirts, socks and underwear and threw them out as we went, filling them up with souvenir T-Shirts as went along. We packed them in Space Bags to get them as small as possible.
Chase vans are nice. You can take more clothes in your suit case, they usually carry an extra motorcycle just in case and if the weather is bad your passenger can ride in it if they wish.
In Scotland we just had a lead guide. I don’t recall how we stayed organized while riding but I don’t remember any problems. In the Alps we had a guide and a sweeper. At times when there was no way we could get sidetracked / lost we were allowed to “play” and meet up at an easily found location up ahead. For me I came to ride the Alps and have as much fun as I could. This system worked well for me
In the Czech/Hungary Tour we had the guide, sweeper and chase van. The van usually took the most direct route to the next hotel. The system used for group riding was that you could pass in the group as long as you did so safely. However whenever we came to change of roads /direction the guide would point to an area he wanted the rider directly behind him to stop. That rider would stop and direct the others until the sweep rider arrived. So if you wanted to pass in the group it just meant you’d be a corner marker sooner. Often times the group spread out over a large area and would not see each other until a change of direction. You could stop and take pictures or whatever. Just don’t take too long. You could go ahead of the group (love that GPS) or leave late as long as you informed the guide. I got to play all I wanted to when the roads were fun and stayed in line the other times. A few days we stayed ahead of the group and just met up for coffee / lunch breaks.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend any of these three companies and we enjoyed each. After looking around a lot on the net I thought they each provided a good value for the services that had to offer. Having said all that, you’ll love the Alps. It’s the number one place I’d go back to. There are just so many places to see. I know this was lengthy but I hoped in some way it informed and inspired.

I am fortunate to be married to a European (would that be an European?). If all goes as planned we will be living in Northern Serbia in about a year and a half and I will take my Hardley with me (temporary import). I am planning on riding Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Transylvania and Croatia. This is my short list. We have a friend in Serbia who has a Honda Veradero, he has told me that I can borrow it whenever I like.

Meriden sounds like a great trip. time will be your biggest problem as in not enough of it. I couldn't imagine making the arrangements for this and only being able to ride 1 or 2 weeks. I will do this also in the not too distance future but will buy a bike upon crossing the pond and allow a minimum of 6 months for the travels. I have friends in England, Belguim, Germany and France so will be doing home base 1-2 day rides in addition to the travels from country to country.

_

Steve,

Thanks for the post and the advice. It was inspiring. The wife and I spent some time travellng in Central America with a 25lb limit on our luggage so making a trip without a chase van would be easy for us to pull off. We need to get together for some riding soon.

Best,

m

SilverBullet said:

Meriden sounds like a great trip. time will be your biggest problem as in not enough of it. I couldn't imagine making the arrangements for this and only being able to ride 1 or 2 weeks. I will do this also in the not too distance future but will buy a bike upon crossing the pond and allow a minimum of 6 months for the travels. I have friends in England, Belguim, Germany and France so will be doing home base 1-2 day rides in addition to the travels from country to country.

_

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I thought it was Baja after Barstow to Vegas. You telling me now that you're moving to the continent?

M2 said:

Edelweiss Motorcycle Tours.

I've never taken one, but I know several who have and all reported outstanding results.

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The globe-trotting TWTEX rider Rich Simmons has used them before with his wife. He has nothing but positive comments to make about the organization. It is a bit pricey, but a class act if you have $ample$ funds.

RB

The AZ Beemers also rely upon Edelweiss to host their tours. Here is a report from their August trip. The actual road report starts about halfway through the thread but I'm linking to the beginning if you feel like reading everything about the prep and planning.

Once they get into the actual ride report you'll see photos and video.

http://www.azbeemers.org/forum/index.php?topic=3470.0

Meriden - once you get some options together feel free to look me up, you guys can come over for tea and talk through your ideas. There's also a fellow Brit on LoneStar Riders who I know would be happy to chip in with plans.

Thanks Philip. I may be setting it aside and starting an MBA. I just can't help myself...

Do the MBA now and you'll be able to afford the full Edelweiss package later!