Viewing 1 - 9 out of 9 Blogs.

The sun comes out and we slowly start to stir. Suddenly the houses covered in dark are revealed.

As I start to pack up and prepare for our long journey ahead, I am gestured over by an elderly man, who has water running from a hose in his garden and offers to let me wash myself. Though the water is freezing I gladly accept, being without a shower for a couple of days now. I give myself a quick wash, and I can safely say that cold water was a quick wake up. I offer the water to Radek and Mrazik, and go back to finish packing. Not long the elderly man calls us over to his steel table outside for tea, cake, and, of course, a few shots of their home grown alcohol made of plums. The boys are hung over and take the offer happily, hoping to sooner be rid of their headaches. I, on the other hand, respectfully decline.

As we sit and enjoy our tea and cake, we tell him where we are going, and learn about his life. He explains that he is a dentist in the city Niksic. He even has an old dentist chair outside of his house, which Radek jokes that it is one of the modern chairs in Montenegro (Czech humor).

We notice after a while how popular he really is in this village, with many visitors coming in the morning to see him, as well as people honking at him (or perhaps his strange visitors in his yard) as they drive by on the main road.

Finally we are ready to head off. We bid goodbye to our kind and unexpected host and head for the mountains of Montenegro.

The first mountain we head up is not to far from the village we slept in, only a few kilometers away. It is a steep climb but the road is smooth asphalt for the most part, and we make it to the top without a problem. Suddenly, the road disappears, replaced by red dirt. Hoping this is the dirt road leading to Podgorica, the captial of Montenegro, we continue forth.

And for what it was worth it did come with a most beautiful view of the landscape.

Eventually we realize that this road leads to nowhere, dead ending in a construction site. We ask the young man guarding the site if we can please go through. He explains there is no where to go. So we ask him where we are and how we head to Podgorica. We show him our map but he is unable to point out even where we are at this moment. We decide to head back, and even though everything and everyone is covered in red dust as if we have been on Mars, the views on the way back were worth the trip.

We come off the mountain and back on the road we are originally on, hoping to find the main dirt road to Podgorica. Within a few kilometers we come across it without a problem.

I for one am very excited to start the off road part of our adventure! The road does not look to hard, as it is mainly flat without too many big rocks.

But I seemed to have forgotten the mountain part of our journey. Soon the road turns into serpentines, and is no longer so smooth for a dirt road. I take my first fall and survive. And then comes a second, and a third, and a forth. But hey, I came on this trip to get a little bit hurt and I keep going. Falling here and there. Then *BAM* I fall and my mirror is crushed! Oh well, who needs two mirrors anyways?

We reach a split in the road and wonder where to go. Should we continue upwards, or downwards? There are no signs, so after a little rest (and I energize up on some wild berries by the road), we head up, hoping this is the way to the city.

We reach break in the forest and enjoy the view. However, it looks like this is not where we are supposed to be as the road is thinning out.

But the view is quiet worth the extra km.

I sit and rest a bit while the boys go ahead to scope out the area and see if we should turn around. Exhausted, and a bit bored, I decide to take a picture of my missing mirror.

It is then I notice the fence. I thought this was quite odd up in the deserted mountains, and wondered what is was doing there, seemingly in a random spot. A few seconds later I hear Radek calling my name, and I my questions are answered.

Tags: Dirt Bike Enduro Off Road Montenegro Eastern Europe

Last time...

Sitting at the illegal boarder of Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, we contemplate... should we take the risk and cross illegally? Or go back and loose about an hour of travel...

It is a hard decision... we see that it is possible to bring the bikes around, carefully...

In the end we decide to go for it! After all, we are here for an adventure!

Once we bring the motorcycles across, we follow the dirt road a few minutes until, out of the middle of nowhere, a highway appears. So we hop on and head down the hill. Not after one minute of riding do we reach a boarder crossing! At this point I was a little disoriented to be crossing another boarder, but it turns out that it is the boarder to Bosnia...when we crossed to the other side on the "illegal" boarder we were still in Croatia!

So after crossing the boarder legally, we start driving through Bosnia and Hercegovina in this farm land. Nobody seems to be around.

There are some people around, a dog barking at us here and there, as well as random abandoned houses with weird 'Blaire Witch' things hanging there...

After a few wrong turns, we find the right way and head up a mountain. There is not much to see, with trees all around us. Eventually though, we break through and we see a great view of Bosnia and Hercegovina.

We ride a few hours through Bosnia and Hercegovina, and I wish we could have spent more time there. Though you can tell the country is poorer than Croatia, there are beautiful landscapes that we continue to come across.

We head up more mountains again to cross the boarder over to Montenegro. Again, we are driving another breathtaking view.

At the top of the mountains, we reach the boarder and cross it with ease. As we head into Montenegro, clouds start to cover the sun shine and I get a feeling of sadness. The mountains we are driving down are bare, with little greenery and lots of white stone. Again, abandoned houses randomly scattered about, even on this main road towards Niksic.

Soon we reach another view point, where we can see the lake Slano.

Unfortunately it is very low in water, but still beautiful none the less.

We drive through Niksic, which was not impressive. A very run down and flat city, with a river that was full of trash and dead dogs lying on the street. While the people were very friendly I was happy to get out of there as soon as possible!

We leave the city but it is late, we have not yet eaten and the sun is starting to set. We need to find a place to stop and soon.

As we drive further away from the city, the area between towns becomes wider and wider.

After a few kilometers, we stop and ask if there is a restaurant or camp where we can eat and sleep. The locals tell us to keep going and we should reach something in about 10km, and we eagerly head that way.

Of course, even though we are eager to get settled for the evening, I can still find time to take a picture of the Cyrillic letters. Interestingly enough, even though I can no longer read, our Czech is still useful and somewhat understandable when speaking with the people of Montenegro.

We reach the next town and find a small pub. Exhausted, we pull over and ask. They say yes, we can sleep somewhere on the ground here. And while they don't have food they let us bring our own food in while we drink their beer and some wine and relax.

Just in time to see the sun hitting the mountains, making a great picture!

After a few drinks, I am ready to pass out and sleep! So we ask where would be best. The bartender says that we could sleep across the street, in the yard of the house. Too tired to argue, we set up camp and go to sleep, not realizing where I would wake up in the morning...

Tags: Bosnia And Hercegovina Montenegro Europe Off Road

Day 1 - Croatia

We leave Prague early in the morning, fresh and ready to go! After a 22 hours train ride we arrive in Croatia and sunrise with a beautiful view of Split.

We immediately hop on our motorcycles and head to Dubrovnik, Croatia, about a 160 km ride. The scenery is just gorgeous as we head down the coastal road with the sparkling blue sea on our left. The weather is perfect for riding and we have a long way ahead of us!

But we are not ones for all work and no play :) We decide to take a ride up a mountain top to check out the view. We pay a small fee to enter this protected national park and even going through the small forest at the foot of the mountain it is worth it. But once we break the forest, the mountain view is to die for.

 

There were so many off road paths breaking from the main road. Being on my DR350, I was very tempted to try them out. However, being in a protected part, I had to show my respect. After an hour and a half of nice twisties and scenery we make it to the top! And we are awestruck...

We were at the peak, at 1762m above sea level...

and we could still see the ocean!

After our little detour, we made our way back to the highway and continued on our journey towards Dubrovnik. We stopped on the side of the highway where there were fruit stans and a great view.

We brought out our little cooker, took off our boots, and enjoyed the scenery.

Afterwards we continued on our way. We passed through a small strip of land that is Bosnia. Their ocean was terrible, since they were land locked and only had this small patch in the middle of Croatia, they had all these boxes in the ocean, I supposed for catching sea food.

At this time there was a fire blazing, causing a major back up in traffic. We are getting tired, our arses are starting to hurt, and at about 10 km away from Dubrovnik we decide to stop for the night at a small camp not to far from the beach. As it is almost dark, we wait until morning to check out the beach...

 

Tags: Croatia Bosnia Off Road Moutain Ocean

MC group Full of Energy each year throws a huge rally - this year being bigger than the rest! Camping near or on the banks of the Vltava river, the nights were filled with motorcycles, rock and roll, and of course, beer :)

While my personal favorite was the wet t-shirt wet short contest, I was unfortunate not to have a camera with me.

Radek's favorite part, it seems at least, was the naked man that ran on stage during one of the performances. And unfortunately for all of us here, he did have his camera readily available.

Besides this blurry naked man, pictures from the evening are few, due to the lovely nature of beer, and too much beer :) However, in the morning I woke up and took a little trip around the camp ground.

Not to far from where we were sleeping was Alf, ready to take off on his bike.

Also in site was a group of riders who only had Jawa bikes. Though now Jawa is a bit embarrasing, in the 40s and 50s they were on top of their game. Which is why you will see Jawa riders riding motorcycles from the 40s and 50s :)

While I was wondering around I found only *part* of the beer supply :)

All in all it was a great rally, and I look forward to next years!

Tags: Czech Republic Rally

A lovely ride to the mountain city of Liberec.

 

 

The sun is finally out and we are enjoying riding around when we can. The other day we went up to Liberec to visit a friend of mine who used to live in Prague. We were running late and were in a hurry to get there, so we took the freeway up - NOT fun! But at least I realized that I will need a windshield for our trip to Scandinavia, we are planning on taking the freeway during the "boring" parts to get to the more interesting ones

 

Arriving in Liberec I was reminded what a nice town it is! For those who have time I definitely recommend stopping by. It is a very clean town with gorgeous houses, and the area is very hilly.

 

After our short visit we headed back towards Prague -- this time avoiding the freeway!

 

We took the 592 down to Osecná, and got some excellent pictures of Ješted in the background, the famous tower on the mountain near Liberec.

This is also a great places to visit when in the area, the twisty turns up this mount are lots of fun!

We headed to Cesky Dub taking the 277 to Mnichovo Hradiste(.

The weather was wonderful, the roads clean and practically empty (it was a Sunday afternoon), there was nothing else more we could ask for.

 

I definitely recommend this route to others looking to get out of Prague for awhile or those who just want to enjoy a nice ride.

Tags: Liberec Czech Republic Europe Trip

Finally got some work done on the Suzuki! Since the front forks were crooked, we took them off. One has to go to the shop for fixing, the other we are going to fix ourselves.

 

 

The front wheel cover was badly cracked, so we started to repair the plastic. Obviously we still need to sand it and then paint it. So far the shape looks great.

 

It is not much, but we got some work done. Now we are just waiting for the front fork and we will straighten the other and put them back on a see what else needs tuning

Tags: Motorcycle Wrenching Suzuki

Part two of the entry for the biggest motorcycle exhibition of the year!

 

Well, I promised you I would find the specs on this spectacular Czech engine, and so I have! :)

Compacity: 2442 cm3
Type: Four stroke, liquid cooled, 6 valve engine
Angle: 90
Weight: 107 kg
Type of Coolant: water
Cavil x stroke: 90 x 64mm
Stroke: 1000 ot./min.
Max. stroke: 8500 ot./min.
Compression ration: 9.9:1
Oil content: 4 l

 

As you can see, quite amazing stuff! the compnay Moto FGR s.r.o. claims the first prototype of naked bike for this engine will be build in 2010 (though I don't know who would be crazy enough to ride it!)

 

You can see more information about this amazing 6 valve Czech engine here.

Now for the coolest part of the exhibition (at least I thought so), the custom made bikes!

Even though this section was in the back of the exhibition and we had to go through a maze to find it, there were still quite a lot of people there. In all I would say there were about 70 to 100 custome made bikes or paint jobs.

First, there were some very cool custom paint jobs done. There were a few with flames but this bike on fire was the best of them!

But by far the best custom paint job on display was the Alien bike! Blue being my favorite color this bike definately one me over... hmm, maybe I should make a predator addition! lol

Next, the custom bikes. These are simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! Granted, many are not very practical, but beauty makes up for practicality. Most of them were choppers, and there was a row of Czech Hell's Angels custom made motorcycles as well. With all the chrome it was hard to take good pictures, but some did come out. I will leave the motorbikes to speak for themselves as they need no words!

This bike below was my favorite, the air brushing on it was just amazing. And I LOVED the helmet! I want horns!! :)

This one below was Radek's personal favorite. He went back to look at it 5 times! I think he would have purchased it if we could have afforded it :)

All in all it was an amazing exhibition and a great start to the motorbiking season!

Tags: Czech Republic Prague Custom Made 6 Valve Engine

Over the weekend we stopped by the annual Motorcycle Exhibition, and wow, it was amazing! So many bikes, new and old, customized and originals! And not to forget the beautiful Czech women advertising the bikes :)

 

My goal? To test out the Ducati Monster and Street Triple to see which bike might fit me best.

 

 

This year, like before, the exhibition was held at the Holesovice Exhibition Hall which is HUGE and holds various exhibitions throughout the year. As you can see from the entrance, this is no small exhibition!

 

 

Right behind those gates, still outside of the hall there was a motorcycle platform where professionals were performing stunts, basically hopping around on their bikes. Quite nice, but we were eager to get to the hall!

 

 

 

On the opposite side of the stunt platform was a wheelie machine, where random people could try to do a wheelie safely on a bike secured to the ground. It took a lot of revving to make the sports bike go up, but it looked cool! Unfortunately it was so crowded (and not well displayed) that I didn't get a chance to take a picture.

Once inside the hall we ran into tons of bikes! And it wasn't just one hall, but about 5 halls full of them!

 

Some of the highlights:

 

One of the first bikes we saw was from Motokari.cz, a Czech motorcyclist website.

It was a bike that traveled in 2007 from the Czech Republic to Africa and back!

 

Next we saw this amazing, one of a kind, Czech invent, 6 cylinder motorcycle engine! It was quite impressive. I don[t have the specs with me now but will post them soon

 

Very impressive, but a bit useless as the bike they will build the engine for will be a suicidal rocket!

 

 

Next I found one of my goals, the Ducati Monster 696.

 

It is a very pretty bike, but unfortunately I couldn't sit on it! As the model was directly from Italy and they needed to return it unscathed. However the nice woman at the stand said I could try a bike that was very similar.

 

The bike I tired was nice, my feet touched the ground, however the handle bars were too far in front and it wasn't love at first sight.

 

 

Next stop, the Triumph stand! This time I WAS able to sit on the Street Triple. This three cylinder bike is amazing!

My feet touched the ground quite nicely (I am 5'4"), and it was quite light. The color there was not what I would by, but a minor detail.

 

The only problem I have with this bike is aesthetic reasons... I think it looks a bit like a bug and someone could squash it in a second. But I have lots of time before buying anew bike, so maybe it will grow on me. It already has in a bit

 

Another great bike we saw was a Jawa Pioneer 50.

Unfortunately the picture is a bit blurry, but this small bike also made it to Africa and back (4 weeks, 8500 km without breaking down)! Very impressive considering how small it is

 

And of course a personal, favorite being a Czech bike.

 

Also lets not forget the beautiful Czech women that were at the exhibition helping to promote the bikes.

Heaven, beautiful bikes and beautiful women, who can ask for more??

 

The last hall we saw was the gorgeous custom made bikes. To be continued on the next post!

Tags: Motorcycles Custome Ducati Monster Street Triple Prague

I have a new addition to my family! We purchased a Suzuki Bandit 400 in Germany with the intention of fixing her up and selling her... but as soon as I saw her I fell in love and decided to keep her for myself! :)

 

It was quite an adventure going to Germany this time around. We passed through a huge wind storm. At one point we had to pull over the car for it was no longer safe to drive! After the storm passed (about 5 minutes) we continued our journey with fallen trees in the middle of the roads. We even passed one car that was completely flipped over by the wind! (It was carrying a most likely empty trailer).

 

But finally we made it and picked up my beauty :) She is a 1991, and was in an accident. Her front forks need fixing (one will have to be completely replaced, and when we take her apart we will see what other problems arise. But I look forward to working on her and eventually riding her!

 

 

Tags: Suzuki Bandit Germany New Bike