After clearing out our cabins, we were eventually allowed down onto the car deck to get our bikes ready. The paper checks by Italian officials went quickly and smoothly and we were fast on our way North towards Milano.
After picking up a pair of sunglasses (finally!) we continued past beautiful lake Como and crossed into Switzerland after a quick lunch at the border.
Rain was forecast but we did not encounter any until shortly after driving the first few miles into Switzerland, from then on we've had it all the way. It has been a pretty frosty drive today, from Italy through Switzerland, Austria and into Germany. Temperatures starting at 18 and dropping down to 5 where we are now, and that's without the 120km/h rain and wind-chill.
We had aimed ambitiously to ride all the way up to Hamburg today, but we had to call it a day at a highway stop near Ellwang, Germany.
One reason being it is dark, wet and cold, but mostly due to Jim having serious problems with his bike Ida.
It started at a gas-station in Lustenau, or rather "it didn't start", when Jim tried to turn on his ignition after re-fuelling. Everything was completely dead. After some quick troubleshooting checking circuit breakers and measuring the battery with my multimeter we didn't find any obvious faults. I suggested we try and push-start it to at least see if we could get the engine turning. But when he'd mounted his seat and covers again the ignition worked fine all of a sudden. I told him it was probably just a short somewhere due to all the rain.
We drove off again with Jim up front, bike not really running very smoothly, but still working. After just a few kilometers we got to a roundabout close to the highway on-ramp, all of a sudden while in the left-turn of it I could feel the backwheel sliding out from underneath me. As a reflex I put my left foot down to try and stay upright, it got caught under the pannier again, like the day before, and did little to help the situation. In 2-3 brief seconds both Klara and me were on the asphalt sliding seperately along, doing a half piroutte before stopping. Me on my back, legs facing the now stopped car who was behind me, and Klara resting on the left pannier. It may sound very dramatic but it was not, I was driving very slowly (30-40km/h tops) and hardly banking into the turn at all.
I got up and didn't feel much discomfort at all except maybe a bruised heel. The nice german man driving behind me had stopped and came running out asking me if I was OK. I was, so I thanked him, picked up the bike, cursed what I thought was a slippery oil-slicked roundabout and drove 100m to where Jim now had stopped.
I didn't really see any oil-spill in the roundabout, so I started re-tracing my steps. I had noticed my rear wheel had locked up very easily while using the rear-brake lightly just minutes before the roundabout, but I didn't think much of it then. Then I remembered I had driven all around that gas-station looking for a hose to check my tire pressure while Jim was mounting his covers. I probably drove over oil-spills there.
The bike looked fine, with only some shredmarks on my pannier to show for the incident. Those frames are strong I tell you, someone must have done a decent job welding them. :p
I did a "burnout" to try and burn at least some of the oil off, and sure enough the tire was still very slippery. I took it very easy for the next 50km and did gentle s-turns to clear the sides of the tire as well, now its all good again. Note to self: "Take it easy out of gas-stations"
I thought I would keep my mocking-rights over Jim, as he had a small wipeout coming off the bike in Marocco after hitting deep sand on the road at high-speed, but now no longer.
After another hour or so on the highway Jim was not happy with going much further as his bike was intermittently threatening to stall. We've been doing some more troubleshooting here at the highway "Hotel Montana Ellwang", and Jim just came back from a short test-ride right now with good and bad news.
The good: Whichever wire was jiggled or tightened seemed to work.
The bad: Not even German policemen likes to see people ride around without a helmet, even if it is ONLY a 200m ride down the side-road for a quick test-drive. "You wear ze helmet in Denmark, no?" What are the odds? ;)
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