Terry Arnold
You’ll need to forgive me for my patchy memories of a 6-year old event, please help me fill in the blanks, add detail or corrections – -use the comment form.
Each of has a different backstory but, we all responded independently to an advertised tour of Slovenia and Croatia to be run by GuidedMotorbikeTours led by a Chris Segal. The company has closed down now but we owe it a massive thanks for our meeting up.
Back – Heather, Darren, Andy, Hilary, Clappo, Andy2, Colin, Gary, Paul, Chris2, John, Terry (Chris in front)
12 strangers met up at a McDonalds car park near Dover, some having stayed in the same hotels overnight, giving the impression that some knew each other. Chris, Hilary and his wife Heather, Darren & Terry, John & Andy, Paul & Colin, Andy2 & Chris2, Clappo & Gary – 6 of whom are now BTBM core members.
Our first overnight stop was at Saarbrucken, this is where were billeted in the pairings as above. Most of us were a bit nervous how this would turn out and not all our concerns were unfounded! 10 of the group are now thought to be solid folks, Chris the Tour leader had an inflated ego and actually wasn’t a leader of people, just the guy out front. Another had health problems and carried a back-pack full of medications and some interpersonal skills development needs. Towards the end of the tour he was last seen kicking a petrol pump and riding off into the the distance, never to be seen again. We hope he got home/better.
The first hotel was pleasant but I don’t remember much apart from parking being undercover at the back, and the reception carpet was red. Oh and John and Colin were normally the first to the bar then – and still are.
Tour fuel stops are defined by the bike with the smallest tank/range, and Andy2’s bike had a range of only about 100miles, which was a nuisance for most other people. This, combined with the leader Chris’s chain smoking and other smokers seizing an opportunity – caused over-frequent and over-long fuel stops in the opinion of most of us.
The next day ended at the hotel Votterl southwest of Salzburg and just into Germany. The routemap shows this as 377 miles and one of our overarching memories was of large sections of days being spent on motorways – whereas the tour was sold as scenic riding. Well, the miles needed to be covered to reach Slovenia and Croatia so maybe this stage wasn’t unreasonable.
The intention was for us to ride over the magnificent Grossglockner pass which was risky in October and sure enough the temperature at the top was 27degF and it was forecast to be closed overnight.
I think we started to bond as a group this evening, it was a traditional german Gasthof with the waitresses wearing dirndl dresses and locally themed menus. including sweet chestnut pie.
Sure enough, the pass was closed and it started to snow lightly the next morning. Chris re-routed using the motorway, I am presuming the new Brenner pass and I remember feeling pretty cold as was John whose handlebar grips were metal and unheated and he habitually wears gardening gloves! Anyway another 3/4 of a day on motorway and we stopped at a hotel at Villach, Slovenia, which was a spa hotel set beside a supposed thermal springs fed lake.
The receptionist was a wonderfully fierce and direct lady who used expressions like “you will….” and “you must…” – all with a strong german accent – not a lot of negotiation was possible with her. She explained about the all inclusive spa facilities, steam rooms, saunas etc and lake swimming off the jetty. The lake was supposed to be a constant 16degC year round.
When we got to our room Darren suggested that we should use the facilities and go for a lake swim. So Darren was a BIG lad and he’d brought his swim shorts so he was going in. I hadn’t so decided to go in with my pants alone. We changed in the changing room and put our clothes in lockers but couldn’t figure out how to work the locks, so being trusting, just left them and went outside.
F**k me 16degC is COLD. Plunging directly into the lake – I thought I was going to have a heart attack! We splashed about for 30 seconds and made a rapid exit, shivering on the jetty. Next we went in to the sauna, mandatory to be naked. Darren and I sat staring at the ceiling on the mid-level shelf while a very friendly and chatty woman lay on her back – legs akimbo – and facing directly at us……! We sampled the cool and medium steam rooms and then confidently moved into the hottest steam room. Here, people were gathering and soon the lower and upper seating rows were full, shoulder to shoulder.
Then our Sauna-Artiste arrived with a wooden briefcase and a selection of towels over his shoulder. He opened the case and displayed a selection of small bottles which it transpired contained fragrances to be cast upon the red-hot sauna coals. The Artiste would select a scent, dribble it on the coals and then deployed a fantastic wafting of the scented steam onto us admiring spectators. With a whip of a towel he could project a jet of hot, sweet steam at individual people or a group or a section, I never realised such skills existed or were needed!.
After a cooling dip, we then joined the other guys who had gathered on the terrace with a very pleasant your barmaid delivering beers as fast as we could down them. Clappo and Paul put on a show, parading around naked for photos with howls of laughter.
When we went to get changed into our clothes Darren found that his were missing. I got changed and went to the reception to report it and the officious lady announced that it was against the rules to leave the lockers unlocked so, she had confiscated them! He could only have them if he came to claim them in person – naked. Hahahaha. I eventually persuaded her to give me his clothes and his modesty was restored.
We enquired about where we could eat dinner and we were told that they don’t serve food on that day. This was another example of the poor level of organisation for this tour. We walked into Villach for very nice pizza and got to know each a bit more.
The next day we had a meandering route though Slovenia ending up near Ljubijana. The roads were quite small and the surfaces were poor as we wound through very rural areas. There was some light rain and the going was quite tricky.
We had quite a selection of bikes and abilities ranging from a scarcely roadworthy Suzuki RF600 to modern BMW GSAs, my Multistrada 1200, Clappo & Colin on Triumphs and John on an Uber-cool MotoGuzzi Audace cruiser with an Italian flag helmet. As we struggled round these difficult rocky roads, we marveled at John not just keeping up but properly ‘holding his own’.
The Suzuki had had its fairing removed and was converted to a twin headlight ‘streetfighter’. Andy2 thought this very desirable, everyone else thought it a dog. All the wiring that would normally be hidden in the fairing was in the open elements. In the wet weather it was misfiring. Clappo very kindly managed to stuff all the wiring into a condom for water protection, but unfortunately it partially filled with water like a venus fly trap plant.
Not unsurprisingly, the Suzuki expired in a very remote part of Slovenia. As tail-end Charlie that day, it was my job to wait with Andy2 while the others went on (I had a Satnav and the route to catch them up). He called his UK break-down service and they asked where we were. No idea. We used my satnav to obtain the co-ordinates of the location and they quickly agreed to send a recovery vehicle.
As I could do no more, I left Andy2 and set off in a determined way to catch the others. I had a blast! Ragging it round empty country roads for miles. I’d zoomed up a series of hairpins and switchbacks up a big climb and as I crested the hill, there was a line of the guys bikes parked beside the road. I circled back and they were just finishing a lunch and they waited as I had a hot bowl of soup and then were were off again.
We struggled to find the route to somewhere and as will be seen later Chris’s satnav was flakey. It turned out that we were looking for the Lake and castle Bled. We did eventually find it and parked up to visit the castle set high on a rocky outcrop. The scenery around the lake was lovely and – this, we felt – was what we had signed up for.
The hotel neat Ljubljana was very strange, it was in a flat open farmland with paddocks and was very ‘out of place’, a shiny new square, blinged up building. It looked like a drug dealers palace or a massive money laundering operation. Shiny marble tiles in the reception, all very incongruous. The evening meal choices featured many different cuts of horse! All written in piggin english.
Mid-evening, in walked Andy2. He and the bike had been taken to a bike shop in Ljubljana and he had been given a Skoda rental car until the bike was repaired. For the next 3 days he followed us bikes, ragging this Skoda to keep up.
We had an interesting conversation/badgering with some locals in the bar who insisted that we abandon our route plans and visit their magnificent capital Ljubljana. It was interesting how different our cultures were, they meant no malice but their manner was very insistent and directive.
I have very little memory of day 5, the route shows we went through rural Slovenia and into Croatia. I think it was here that we saw deserted and destroyed buildings and villages – a result of the regional war approx 15-20 years earlier. It really was very disturbing to see all the remains and the destruction.
At one point we stopped for coffee and I made the mistake of parking my bike on a carpark that turned out to be the local police station’s. I was immediately instructed very forcefully to move it without delay. The cafe was full of the police from across the road, about 20 of them. Once the bike was moved they were all very friendly and we chatted. Apparently the border with Bosnia was immediately to the rear of the cafe, across a river – and it was still dangerous for locals to stray over that side.
The day’s riding ended at a very nice modern tourist resort hotel at Brela on the Adriatic.
Day 7 was designated a rest day. While everyone else decided to travel in to Split about 20miles to the north. Instead, I decided to travel down to Dubrovnik about 100 miles to the south, as I just fancied it. Darren decided to come with me for a while and he left me after about 10 miles, taking his GSA onto some off-road trails – he was hoping to ride the TET (Trans Europe Trail) at some stage.
The ride to and from Dubrovnik was fantastic, an almost deserted, wide, smooth, curving road winding along the eastern shore of the Adriatic. Bright blue clear sky, 30degC, azure waters, a truly wonderful day.
I had lunch in the old city by the sea at a lovely restaurant, took and posed for photos on the city walls and then headed back. Whilst refueling, I asked a guy where I could get chain lube as I hadn’t seen ANY. He phoned a mate and told me to follow him. He led me through a smart residential district and into a gated underground private garage. There his friend greeted us and opening a wide electric garage door, his collection of Ducatis was revealed. He thoroughly doused my chain with chain lube, we chatted about his bikes and I set off back on the long, arduous commute back to the hotel. Magnificent.
I gather the others had had a great day in Split, even dressing up as roman centurions as part of some event – help me fill this in guys.
Leaving the Hotel we headed north riding the coast road beside the Adriatic, past Split and up to Trieste. For me this was one of the best days of the tour. Like the Dubrovnik trip, the roads were excellent and Chris, Darren and myself, had a very spirited ride along the coast at high speeds. Chris could really make his Honda Africa Twin hustle along and Darren was equally quick on the BMW GSA. I could use the speed of the Multistrada to hang on to their shirt tails, but only just. Andy2 had gone off to Ljubljana to collect his repaired bike and joined us at the hotel in the evening.
The maps show that we should have gone along a scenic route to the Brenner pass and into the german alps stopping near Garmisch Partenkirchen. In reality, we used mostly motorways to cover the near 300 miles.
Earlier in the tour we had completely missed a scheduled excursion to visit some ‘famous’ and extensive caves, but Chris’ satnav was malfunctioning and he couldn’t find them. Eventually we reached them and had some lunch. Then we went to the caves entrance we learned that we needed to buy tickets for the train and the next available was 2 hours later – so we gave up on that and left.
The point is that Chris’ satnav was malfunctioning. He was constantly stabbing at it and later criticising his UK assistant for her incompetence and – I think – he was making up a lot of the routes on the fly – using the main roads/motorways to reach the somewhat over optimistic distances.
The stop at Ettel was a typical for the area, lovely german chalet restaurant/hotel. That evening Darren became very withrawn and then announced to me in our room that he was going to travel the rest of the tour alone. It transpired that he and Clappo had had a minor disagreement that day over something trivial, it really was a disproportionate response. I wasn’t comfortable with Darren riding alone so, I proposed that we ride together to the last night’s stop.
Amazingly, I knew where we were as I had ridden that exact road the year before with Adrian. The planned tour route for the next day was to the north but I knew that if I reversed last year’s route it would take Darren and I on a very scenic route including the Black Forest Hochstrasse N500. A plan was hatched.
I told the rest of the group over a wonderful german dinner, where Paul – true to form – accused me of stealing his meal! In fairness, I had accidently taken his choice and apologised. He still reminds me of this.
The next day we went our seperate ways, us heading south to Garmisch, along the north shore of the Bodensee, an area very rich with fruit growing. Up we went through the Black forest, crossed into France at Strasbourg, though the Vosges and up to the classy hotel Campanile at Metz.
The main tour group should have followed a broadly similar path but for some reason (maybe the satnav issue mentioned) they were led almost entirely on motorways for the whole day.
We pulled in to the hotel about 10 minutes after the other guys and they were pretty pissed off at the different experiences of the day.
As this was the last night of the tour, Chris had included the meal in the tour price. Well, how generous was that, a totally forgettable meal on formica tables in a Campanile. The best part of the evening was when Chris encouraged everyone to tell the others something they wouldn’t know about themselves.
The most memorable was when John stood up and announced that he had only passed his full bike test 6 months earlier and this tour was more miles than he had ever ridden. We were all totally astounded and were in awe of his achievement. Respect, John.
The route from Metz to the tunnel was entirely on motorways. Very dull. When we arrived at the ticket booths, any organisation fell apart, some went into the terminal building and others went on to the boarding queues. So effectively the group tour just evaporated, ending like a bit of a damp squib.
As a few of us arrived at the train, Andy2’s bike cut-out again. An officious lady told him that the bike had to be driven on or it couldn’t board. Somehow we got it started and he was able to ride it on, but that was the last time we heard it run and a pickup truck was to move it from the train to the fuel station in the Folkstone terminal area and we presume that happened?
We rode up the M20 and introduced Darren to filtering on the M25 for the Dartford tunnels – he wasn’t nearly as fast there! I peeled off for Essex fairly soon and the others all found their ways home safely.
In summary, we all really enjoyed the tour even though there were clearly some organisational issues. We had found a sub-group of people we felt we could be friends with. I think it was Clappo who said “we could organise this better ourselves” – so we did – hence the establishment of Clappo Tours and later Clappo & Herbert Tours.
