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Copyright Jussi Savola 1999. No quotation without permission granted.
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Sitting in my office waiting for saturday... All paperwork is
done; Passports are OK, Green Card is fetched from insurance company (cost:
0 FIM), Baltic Pool insurance has been bought from Ingosstrakh office in
Helsinki (cost: 80 FIM for five days). As I understand, the Baltic Pool
insurance is not mandatory but it still is definitely a good idea. My normal
traffic insurance (+ Green Card) is enough for other countries along the
way but Lithuania is an exception. Travel insurance is no problem, we have
continuous insurance for trips to foreign countries. No visas are needed
for finnish persons and hey, that's what we are.
Took a short test ride yesterday with my GF in the sidecar; the
combination
feels quite rideable with a passenger. Still do not know whether to
take
a tent and sleeping bags with us. I've driven plenty with the sidecar
but never carried a passanger for more than 50 kilometers...
Just came back to office from AllRight and ProTrim. Got new exhaust
system from ProTrim; the old one was broken, kept bad metallic noise.
The guys at AllRight
installed a new tire to the sidecar. The tire was the one I bought from
Pedrozavodsk on previous trip.
While they were doing the tire work I installed Kappa wind-shield to the
sidecar. There should be no problems: during the last couple of weeks I
have changed oil, spark plugs, headlight bulb, sidecar tire, rear tire,
chains, sprockets and what else ...
42022 km in the
morning, today we proceeded from Espoo to Bauska. Taking the
bike over Gulf of Finland to Tallinn was easily arranged, we just drove to
harbour and to check in: "We want to get to Tallinn with this sidecar". We
got lost in Tallinn only once and I am still sure that there was something
wrong with the road signs ...
So we crossed the border from Estonia to Latvia and from
Latvia to Lithuania.
Finally we got to
Bauska, to a hotel. For some reason we took a photo of the
toilet.
Not as many kilometers as we wanted but it seems that traveling with
the sidecar is not for the busy bikers. There was nothing special to
mention about Via Baltica,
it is a good road. However the local police had their radars ready just
waiting for us... Too bad, we did not ride faster than the speeding
limits
were. Anyway, me met a nice Italian couple in hotel reception and, poor
me, I got to be a translator with my very modest vocabulary of Russian. The
bike slept well in the yard of a fuel station under the never-sleeping eye of
militia. Too bad, we got to hotel so late that we could get nothing to eat except some cookies in the hotel restaurant..
Bauska - Augustow. We drove through Latvia, this photo is taken near Riga. just like this one. It rained all the way from Poland border to Augustow.
Crossing the border
took one and half hours... We waited in the rain for
the seemingly lazy officers to do their things (playing cards ..). We were
quite wet, hungry and tired when we stopped for a pizza in some small city
in Poland, near the border. Ordering the pizza proved to be a problem; we
had no common language with the sales-person even though we (me and my GF)
both speak finnish, swedish and english. I speak very little russian and she
speaks a little german. The pizza shop (New York City Pizza was the name of the shop ..) sales-person spoke only polish...
The knowledge of at least little russian helps a great deal in Baltic
countries. You absolutely cannot rely on people speaking english.
42795 in the evening when we found nice little
hotel beside the E67 road we
were driving. And, again, here is a little picture what describes the niceness of the hotel.
Couple of beers and to bed we went. Slept well, we were quite tired and soaking wet..
Ride through Poland from Augustow to a small city
in the almost vicinity of Wroclaw.
In this picture we are nearing big city of Warsaw.
Imagine, 70 FIM (12 ECU) for two persons a night in a nice hotel
in the middle of city! We had tried to go to a modern looking motel
beside the road but they had no mechanical visa card reader and we had
no local currency... My visa card electric stripe was non-functional
for the whole trip. It caused plenty of problematic situations but this
one was a blessing. The modern motel would have cost _much_ more but we
got local money the next morning with
travellers cheques the next morning, paid for the hotel and everyone
was happy.
Crossed the border from Poland to Check Republic in a
good weather.
Changed money at some smallish town. Good roads, wonderful
scenery and so we crossed
a border again ...
Finally at Prague!
We checked in in the hotel Palma at 19.00. Were
too tired to do much else ...
Spent the whole day looking around... The
Charles bridge, the Prague Castle ... In the evening we rode
metro back to hotel.
Shopping around, Torture museum... Absinth, 1st set of pictures developed
...
Shopping and wandering around ... Had pizza, bought some clothes.
Woke up in Prague for the last time, loaded the gear to bike and rode
through Germany to Hamburg. We decided to buy this
nice little house for a summer cottage.
We stopped at
Dresden to get some local currency.
Tried to find a decent but cheap hotel in Hamburg but
no luck ... The motel we slept in was quite expensive and
our monetary resources were getting low.
Stripped
off the sidecar and
rode to Amsterdam.
These
british guys were of great helps; we owe them ...
Hotel
Cynthia or something (150 Guldens per night, ouch!)
Decided to stay another night in Amsterdam, found hotel Titus, 135 guldens.
Wonderful city... Bought a pair of driving gloves in this shop (the shopkeeper had not heard of Kawasaki ER-5, maybe they have not been sold to Holland?).
Woke up in the A.dam for the last time, rode back to Hamburg.
It was nice driving even though the road had some problems.
Paid for
the garage (2*15DEM) and re-installed the sidecar. Headed towards north
and crossed the Germany - Denmark border. Tried to exchange money using
the
automaton
but no luck .. Camped in the Kruså camping area (104
danish crowns per night for a tent and two persons as we found out in the
morning).
Woke in the camping area and went to bank to get some money to pay the
camping. Strange village, Kruså ... Not a big city but still we spotted
4 shops selling pornography and toys for adults. Paid and started the voyage
through Denmark. We got to Frederikshavn in the evening, loaded ourselves
and the bike to the boat and cruised to Göteborg. Speeded to something
like 60 or 70 kilometers near Trollhättan and built a camp in a truckers
sleeping area. Not very warm, +12C.
Ride from Trollhättan to Stockholm and found the Silja Line terminal.
There must be something wrong with Kawasaki, it is not supposed to consume
9 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers even though we drove quite fast...
With tank capacity of 14 liters or so, the range between refuels is not
good enough. We even had 1/2 hour spare time when waiting in the Silja Line
check in which we spent waiting nervously for free room for us and the
bike; the ship was fully booked.
Woke up in the boat, approaching Helsinki. Got to home at 11.00 with
46436 in the odometer.
Trip was total of 4414 kilometers. There were no technical problems with the bike except for something that causes the extra fuel consumption (maybe rear tire bearings ?) Maximum speed reached with the sidecar was 130 kilometers per hour but a good traveling speed was around 100-110 km/h. The highest speed without the sidecar with two passengers was 170 km/h but it was not fun without the windshield on the bike. Good speed on german autobahns was something like 130 km/h; my poor neck did not like sustained speed of 140++ even though the bike had no problems.
Rear tire which was installed just before the trip has only one and
half millimeters of grooves left; it's quite "done". Chains had to be tightened
after the 1000++ kilometer autobahn session and I really consider my next
bike to have cardan axle, not chains.
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Copyright Jussi Savola 1999. No quotation without permission granted.