The best motorcycle tours of the season

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The best motorcycle tours of the season
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The best motorcycle tours of the season

The best motorcycle tours of the season
The top spots for Germany’s motorcycle tourists

From the meadow behind the house to the end of the world: traveling by motorcycle and tent is an absolute must for many of our readers. Let us accompany you to the most beautiful spots of the 2012 season.

Thorsten Dentges

03/01/2013


The best motorcycle tours of the season


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The top spot for MOTORRAD readers: Lake Garda in Italy. Mediterranean flair, great campsites, best routes.

Was it just the raffle for the approximately 400 euro expensive Zumo 220 (MOTORRAD 23/2012) donated by the navigation specialist Garmin that triggered such writing pleasure? The question was: where did you, dear reader, end up with your bike and tent? We received letters from all over Germany, like those from Gunar Keindorf from Ratzlingen (see page 107, top right), who, according to his own statements, had not even won anything at the lottery before. But now: Congratulations on your new navigation system! And so back to the letters. Hundreds of travel reports were available within a few days, some only one or two sentences long, others in travel guide format, garnished with specific vacation tips. All in all, first-class reading material and much too good for the electronic wastebasket.

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Therefore now the editorially sorted highlights from the letters, which nicely depict the motorcycle camping trends of 2012 – and whet the appetite for the 2013 season. For Roland Siegling, for example, things went a long way. His 15,500-kilometer mega tour led from Bad Oeynhausen to the deepest freshwater lake in the world, the Siberian Lake Baikal, and then on to Vladivostok. Such long-distance trips are the exception, albeit not totally absurd, as a further letter with the specified destination Lake Baikal shows (see page 109). And Peter Brenner is planning a completely crazy trip: He wants to drive from London / England to New Delhi / India (9200 kilometers) on just one tank of fuel. How to do that can be read at www.projekt-london-delhi.de. Holger Schmidt and two friends had already made a three-week trip in late summer – with the DB car train from Neu-Isenburg to Narbonne / France, then on the road through the Pyrenees and northern Spain.


The best motorcycle tours of the season


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Curve robbers in the mountains.

Gunter Schubert describes his motorcycle tent vacation less spectacularly, but very pleasantly: “I was in Oberbergischen and camped on my cousin’s meadow.” In general, the destination only partly contributes to a successful tour. Heiner Hollerl, for example, lured his girlfriend to the pillion seat for a long weekend and drove towards the mountains. At the small pilgrimage church of Tre Fontane on the ascent to the Stelvio Pass, he proposed to her in front of a breathtaking backdrop. He describes: “We later set up the tent in a secret place near Bormio, where you can relax wonderfully in a hot spring, and celebrated with a bottle of sizzling water 🙂 – so we had an unforgettable engagement trip for little money.” Great experiences also for Daniel Bollmann from Westerkappeln. He is part of the regulars’ table of the Osnabruck V-Maxxers, who always organize their own meeting at the beginning of June and also pay homage to their beloved Yamaha at model meetings across Europe with eight to ten men. In 2012, for example, in Duren, in Brillit (Northern Germany), in the Black Forest and even in England. So a few thousand kilometers came together. Michael Steinmann drove a week to the heavy metal festival in Wacken, then to Sylt to relax. Ralf Baars from Wiesbaden toured alone along the French Atlantic coast from one street cafe to the other, was enthusiastic. Another insight from the email submissions: If the idea is good, the tour is usually too. Christian Wichmann undertook a “German Coast Trip” from Papenburg to Binz on Rugen in the summer. His summary: “It was my first trip and it was uniquely good!” Michael Joggerst from Oberkirch has been traveling with a tent and motorcycle for 25 years, and in August 2012 he drove across Germany to Rugen. He thinks it is a shame “that you meet other drivers less and less at camping sites”. Maybe in the wrong place?

Alfred Schorr from Andernach – traveling with a caravan and a motorcycle lashed inside – in any case locates a dream destination in South Tyrol, at Lake Kalterer: “At the Gretel am See campsite, you keep getting to know other motorcyclists who drive in all directions during the day.” we can look forward to the 2013 season, have a good trip!

Germany


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Motorcycle tours in Germany.

Home sweet home? Daring thesis, at least for motorcycle travelers, who naturally like to be drawn into the distance. But in the counting of all submissions, German travel destinations were far ahead. State winner: Bavaria. Because it is close for many or because it is so beautiful? Both. In any case, Germany’s motorcycle campers preferred to spend their holidays there, in particular the foothills of the Alps and the Bavarian Forest with mountain passes up to 1000 meters high were favorites. But also other low mountain ranges such as the Black Forest (with the neighboring French Vosges) seemed good for a vacation or weekend getaway. The Harz was apparently a popular destination for north German touring riders, because there they found the nearest delicious motorcycle routes with a variety of bends.

Mediterranean Sea


The best motorcycle tours of the season


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Motorcycle tours on the Mediterranean.

Bella! Pittoresque! Hermoso! Regardless of whether Italy, southern France, Spain or other Mediterranean countries – with sun, wine and excellent food, the motorcycle camper is very happy. And has been for decades, because the Mediterranean region has been a top destination among touring riders since the 1980s. The warm areas were apparently still extremely popular with the MOTORRAD competition participants in 2012. The islands of Sardinia (Italy) and Corsica (France) were chosen as top spots among the prima climate classics, which, due to their size, offer first-class variety of routes even for holidays lasting several weeks. On land, the Pyrenees (France / Spain) were the hit last season. The long journey seems to be worth it. Newcomers Northern Croatia attracted with low prices and a relatively short journey.

Nordic countries


The best motorcycle tours of the season


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Motorbike tour in the Nordic countries.

The North Cape – a magical attraction? Apparently not, in any case the northernmost passable point in Europe was not even mentioned in any of the travel reports sent in. Scandinavia, primarily Sweden and Norway (Denmark and Finland only played a subordinate role), were nonetheless well represented among the 2012 trips. Southern Norway offers very attractive winding routes along fjords for motorcyclists; Southern Sweden with its lonely lakes is a paradise for wild camping with the associated natural experience. But also the rough landscapes of Scotland and the Baltic States made it into the hit list. Mediterranean destinations were named three times as often as Nordic travel areas, which are still more for die-hard and weatherproof fans.

To the mountains


The best motorcycle tours of the season


Rossen Gargolov

Motorcycle tours in the mountains.

Alps, Alps and again Alps. Europe’s largest mountain range was voted second after a neck-and-neck race with the Mediterranean region. The mailings showed that the high mountain regions in Switzerland, Austria, France and Slovenia are viewed as a Mecca for motorcycle tourists because of the quality of the routes. However, little was reported on the subject of camping. It seems common to start from a permanent campsite in order to eat as many passes as possible on extensive day trips. The places themselves are more of a means to an end, with one or the other reader also having recommendations ready (see, for example, reader’s opinion on page 109). The Alps were also particularly interesting for short tourists who pitched their tent in southern Germany (Upper Bavaria, Lake Constance) in order to spontaneously set off for the high mountains from there.

Wild East


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Motorcycle tours in the wild east.

Adventure calls here. Fortunately, Europe’s southeast – with the exception of a few regions such as Kosovo – is largely pacified and offers exploratory motorcycle tourists new opportunities. Except in Croatia, however, you cannot fall back on a well-structured network of campsites, in rural areas many roads are not even paved. A dream for endurance travelers, especially since a pitch for a tent is usually easy to find after a short conversation with the farmer – even without a GPS device, which otherwise makes sense. Sports enthusiasts like the wilderness of Romania (Karparten), outdoor freaks prefer alpine-like regions in Montenegro or Albania. However, among the many emails with 2012 travel destinations, few said they dared venture deep east, even though the Balkan Wars were more than ten years ago.

Very close


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Motorcycling nearby.

When the good is so close. For Bavaria it is the Czech Republic, for the Swabians it is the Vosges, for Rhineland motorcyclists the Benelux countries. Would you like some french fries to Bastogne? Drinking a pilsner in Pilsen or having a tarte flambee followed by a curve dessert in Alsace? There are many reasons to travel to neighboring regions with a motorcycle and tent for the weekend, as the participants in the MOTORRAD competition demonstrated. And in fact, it is definitely attractive to tour one of the neighboring countries for a brief change of scenery, because the language, food and routes are usually pleasantly refreshing and differ from the familiar local environment. The effort for such trips is low, a campsite can be found quickly. But no one went on tour “next door” for more than a few days.

Very far away


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Motorcycling in the distance.

Satisfy wanderlust. The supreme discipline of travelers is long stays in exotic countries. Still today a great adventure on a motorcycle that requires good preparation and a little daring. The tent is compulsory because in very remote areas there is often neither a hotel nor an inn, as can be seen from Thomas Hose’s letter to the reader (see right). But long-distance travel destinations only played a minor role in the submissions (similarly weakly distributed as Southeast Europe), albeit a particularly colorful one: West coast USA, overland to India, Mongolia, South Africa, Black Sea. North Africa has been a dream destination for enduro riders since the 1980s and the Dakar rally, but with the exception of the Kingdom of Morocco it was rather avoided due to political unrest among motorcyclists in 2012.

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