Germany - Day 1-2

We began the trip from Rotterdam at just past noon on Friday. We made a quick stopover at HK Suspension to ensure that our suspension was set up correctly. After the green light, we drove south on the A61 in the direction of Stuttgart. 

HK Suspension

Our final destination for the night was Bodelshausen to meet up with Matze. Frank Biesold was gracious enough to lend us his basement for the night and even managed to stock it with Cuba Libre supplies, cigars, and a pool table. There was music, but none of the three of us could figure it out. Matze organized pasta and pizza and we were set. Matze “I have never played pool before” Schneider was a pool shark and took us for a game or two at Cut Throat. Luckily we were not playing for money :).

Scott, Matze, HJ hanging out at Frank's

Matze "I don't play pool" Schneider

We went to sleep and awoke the next day to Matze and Liam waiting to take us to the bakery for a bit of breakfast. 

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Liam negotiated some ice cream.

He looks like a natural

Good bye basement, time to hit the road

Touratech was only 50KM away so we planned on heading there to figure out how Harm-Jan could rig the jerry cans to the back of the panniers.  When we arrived there, it was their “open house” and the place was packed!  We felt like kids in a candy store.  There were so many goodies to buy.  Fortunately and unfortunately, we do not have much space so the purchases were kept to a minimum.  I bought a headlamp protector and HJ a new balaclava and the jerry can support.  HJ was helped by Jan who was awesome.  He even gave us a few split pins and clasps just in case.  Jan, thank you!

Fixing the paniers

Thanks Jan!

Once we finally were done there it was 4pm and it was starting to drizzle.  We needed to make it to Innsbruck.  My friend Michi Gaisch recommended us to stay at the Ibis Hotel given its proximity to the center and the garage.  All those nights staying at the Novotel in Rotterdam for the EMBA program paid off as I was able to pay for the night with points :).  The trip went ok, until about 100km outside of Innsbruck where it started to rain hard.  The light was faded by this point and our only guide was the white line on the shoulder of the road - when it could be seen.  We finally made it into Innsbruck just after 9pm.  We were exhausted.  The wifi at the Ibis was super poor, practically no band width whatsoever.  We figured we would start updating when we had internet.