Table of contents
- 2 weeks of extreme motorcycle touring to nowhere KTM therapy trip
- KTM 1290 Super Duke R as a therapist
- Where? To myself. Not a bad goal.
- In the Mecca of glider pilots
- The tender side of the KTM
- Neither self-pity nor loneliness. Rather perplexity.
- Deceleration can mean senseless acceleration?
- A life beyond destructive claims
Breakable
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No plan, no map, no sat nav, no destination. Not knowing in the morning where the day will end. Driving for the sake of driving – with a motorcycle that demands all the senses.
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06/24/2015 Canossa.
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06/25/2015 Via Mala.
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June 25, 2015 Thusis.
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Austrian sculpture on Schweitzer Boden: break on the southern slope of the Bernardino Pass.
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Where? Bends according to feeling.
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And in doing so, the driver learns: The KTM can also be gentle. It’s nice when you can make up your mind.
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At 180 hp, Markus doesn’t have to rein in the bike, but himself.
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Regardless of whether you are a cruiser or an athlete – almost everyone is interested in the KTM 1290 Super Duke.
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KTM 1290 Super Duker on a big tour. The luggage should be small. No problem, because ownership is a burden anyway.
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Editor and motorcycle on the San Bernadino.
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Paragliding course in the Alps? Freedom? Only felt, because the weather also determines.
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MOTORRAD editor Markus Biebricher escapes everyday life. Where? He doesn’t know.
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The KTM 1290 Super Duke R accompanies him as a therapist on his therapy trip.
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And she does her job brilliantly. Among other things, she brings the pilot to Croatia – a three-day coastal vacation to swim away worries.
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He ends up in the Ruhr area, in Croatia, in Italy.
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June 23, 2015 Fontanelice.
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06/22/2015 Peglio.
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Architecturally valuable in Castel San Pietro Terme: Kiska-Design complements Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore.
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Two weeks of extreme touring to nowhere, in search of inner purification. Bullshit or recipe for luck?
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MOTORRAD editor Markus Biebricher grabbed the KTM 1290 Super Duke and just drove off.
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June 16, 2015 near Zadar.
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06/17/2015 road to Nin.
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06/17/2015 Pirovac.
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06/18/2015 Crvena Luca.
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06/18/2015 Shortly before Šibenik.
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Contrast: KTM in front of the historic sailing ships of the Maritime Museum in Cesenatico.
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Therapist and patient: The KTM 1290 Super Duke R is socially and ergonomically valuable. Here with a view of Split.
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06/19/2015 Vodice.
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June 19, 2015 Donji Seget.
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06/19/2015 Split.
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06/20/2015 Paullo.
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06/21/2015 Villa di Mezzo.
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Cult and culture.
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Two weeks without a plan – on the road with the KTM 1290 Super Duke R..
to travel
Extreme motorcycle touring
2 weeks of extreme motorcycle touring to nowhere
KTM therapy trip
No plan, no map, no sat nav, no destination. Not knowing in the morning where the day will end. Driving for the sake of driving – with a motorcycle that demands all the senses. Two weeks of extreme touring to nowhere, in search of inner purification. Bullshit or recipe for luck?
Markus Biebricher
08/03/2015
Time is racing, the pressure is increasing. Ever higher demands, fewer and fewer regeneration phases. Pure stress has imperceptibly replaced the joy of the job. Then comes the end. From one day to the next, all driving forces suddenly disappear. Burnout? I need to get out. To question everything, to find myself anew. The boss says: “Go away, but come back”. I do not know yet. It only seems clear that nothing is better suited for a catharsis than a two-wheeled escape vehicle. Preferably one that you can grow on. Then the hand twitches to the key of the KTM 1290 Super Duke R..
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At first glance, anything but a smart choice for long journeys. But a motorcycle in the literal sense of the word: diabolical two-cylinder in a tight tubular space, powerful brakes, wheels, tank, handlebars. There is nothing more to it. It should stay that way, so luggage is kept to a minimum. Possession encumbered in the form of material. One reason why precisely this device promises freedom: maximum power with minimum weight and the most compact dimensions.
KTM 1290 Super Duke R as a therapist
Day one, in the middle of the Ruhr area. Where the people are rough, direct but warm. Where I grew up. All of these memories. The attraction of old friends and familiar surroundings is so strong that I cannot flee far. I also have to learn to shed the busy days, to let myself drift. Where did we always ride motorcycles in the past? In the Bergisch, in the Sauerland. On the familiar routes it becomes clear: This motorcycle is a fire chair that leaves you with one leg in hell and the other in heaven.
So concentrate. Be fully engaged in the matter with all your senses. Please force yourself to be more moderate whenever the engine tries to seduce you with its desire for power output. Do you think that happiness hormones, goose bumps and holistic arousal help against apparent burnout syndromes? Then you have with the KTM 1290 Super Duke R the right therapist.
Naked bike
KTM 1290 Super Duke R in the top test
Even the neighbors get curious
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Where? To myself. Not a bad goal.
I don’t know where I’m going. There are rough geographical ideas in my head, but when I come to a fork in the road or a crossroads, I make a spontaneous decision. Make every turn dependent on whether the place names on the signs appear phonetically or semantically interesting, or whether I can perceive an inner twist. Right left? It doesn’t matter. How far do you allow yourself to live completely without meaningful activity into the day?
Quite far. But then you get nowhere really, except to yourself. Not a bad goal. There is also room for passionate driving. How alive it is, this one KTM 1290 Super Duke R, how softly it vibrates. How it makes you breathless while it sounds like a thunderstorm. If you give the V2 the spurs, you are sitting on a cannonball. You whistle upright through the clouds with your head, it rushes around you like heavy surf, you fly a jet on the ground.
Too much gas in the wrong places can be fatal here. But that’s exactly what I’ve done with my life before. Made wrong decisions and then not turned around. Out of pride, ambition or fear? Shortly before the catastrophe, instinct always saved me. Even now something makes me close the tap in time, choose certain routes. I guess where I’m going, drifting east. My internal air traffic control reports immediately and makes suggestions: Go to Poland, you always wanted to go there. Visit your father in the small village near Kassel. I don’t really know how to get there, but the old man is happy.
In the Mecca of glider pilots
Day two: where should I go? For rock sweet or black hazel? To let yourself drift is harder than expected. My journey is still far too cerebral. It is clear that something fundamentally has to change in self-management: I have to delegate work, say no more often, reduce demands, take up more time for myself. Like now. And because time is so precious, I’m glad I have the KTM 1290 Super Duke R. Thanks to her potency, she can beam me anywhere. And it does that because my controller reminds me that I used to be so taken with the Rhon.
An hour later, the KTM is parked with hot tires on the Wasserkuppe, the Mecca of glider pilots. Then I sit with Lukas in a duo discus, a two-seater high-performance sailor. Luke is a theology student and spends as much time in the air as possible. I envy his freedom. We enjoy the climb, because up here worries are less. A single-engine Robin DR 400 pulls us into the first thermal. It has 180 hp, just like my moped. However, not from 1290 cubic meters, but from more than five liters of displacement. Lukas releases the tow rope and lays the disc in a banked curve. It rustles, it whistles, one wing points perpendicular to the earth, the other to the sky.
That’s exactly how Super Duke driving is.
The tender side of the KTM
The Rhon feels good. Your vastness heals my insides. There are straight lines that seem to lead into orbit. Cannonball launchers. There are curves for the knee on the ground and a distant view to kneel down. In Poppenhausen there are not only leading shipyards for gliders, but also a hiking trail for lovers. Slowly a longing for the south stirs, and my course commutes in unreasonable capers towards the Franconian Forest. It is a relief not to have to do anything other than refuel, check for air pressure and chain. No rush, no emails, I am now even discovering the tranquil properties of the KTM 1290 Super Duke R. Hard to believe, but the brute engine also has a delicate side. This manifests itself through cultivated running at low speeds. Now I can choose whether I want it wild and dangerous or relaxed and gentle. Another piece of freedom of choice.
When I fell a tree, a pilgrimage church or a view, I just stop. Enjoy peace and time. The days are blurring. I find myself back in Postbauer-Heng, where I visit a friend whom I haven’t seen for 25 years. In Regensburg I get in touch with Sabine, who I have known for 30 years, she is still a great woman. Even if I don’t visit anyone, I find suitable accommodations. Once the landlord was standing on the street when he heard the noise of the engine. It doesn’t sound obtrusively loud, but haunting. Nice bass, clear highs. The KTM 1290 Super Duke R is allowed to sleep in the great hall.
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Neither self-pity nor loneliness. Rather perplexity.
I become part of the road and part of the motorcycle. Sometimes I forget to eat and drink because the Duke beguiles me with her sex appeal. She just doesn’t want to stop driving with me. The seat and ergonomics are a perfect fit, I’ll be there. We come through a place called Powerless. Symptomatic of my insides? You can control certain things, but not others. Too much power definitely still made you sick. I don’t feel sorry for myself or loneliness. Rather perplexity. So I’m only too happy to be distracted and entangled in life on the street. Here you get to know people all the time. With or without a motorcycle. The KTM 1290 Super Duke R cannot be assigned to any genre, all of them pay tribute, whether Harley riders, enduro riders, sports pilots or pedestrians. That too is a piece of freedom. Being detached from classification or identification rituals.
But being free is not easy. When I wanted to spend the night on the banks of the Danube, millions of mosquitoes attacked. When I got pregnant with the idea of doing a paragliding course in the Alps, other bikers talked about the bad weather there. So I make myself dependent on meteorological phenomena and continue to flee to the southeast. Vagabond over Austria and Slovenia to Croatia. Roughly the direction in your head on picture-book country roads. The people seem more closed, but the motorcycle exudes an erotic charm that both driver and passers-by succumb to. International brain research disagrees as to how often a man thinks about sex on average each day. 20 times? 200 times? 400 times on this bolide.
Deceleration can mean senseless acceleration?
Three days vacation on Croatia’s sunny coast. Swimming a lot, that also has a cleansing effect. Again and again, parts of stress fall away from me like iron brackets, of whose existence I had no idea. Then I board the ferry from Split to Ancona, Italy. Finally Italian coffee. We are in motorcycle country, here people pay attention to two-wheelers. As a motorcyclist you can allow yourself a lot that puts me in danger again because I’m crazy about the Super Duke. You see a gap, aim and fire the projectile. Can deceleration also lie in senseless acceleration? I am slowly seeing fresh substance in life because the little Apennine streets are so intertwined, women look so beautiful and forbidden to wear short skirts. Because the wine is so easy to drink.
I meet Gordon in a country inn in Tuscany. A true motorcycle traveler who swears by his Harley Softail. If anyone is relaxed, it’s him. Has freed himself from the hamster wheel that looks like a career ladder from the inside. Can live from savings, is happier and healthier than when he was the owner of an IT company. Of course the boy comes from the Ruhr area. In the evening we are invited to a mojito drink. Guests have come from Bologna. And what kind of guests: The Ducati MotoGP works team! Andrea Dovizioso’s mechanic can not only work, but also mix drinks.
My batteries are recharging. I enjoy people, landscapes, yes I even go to Canossa. Take the penitentiary walk for me and my mistress from Austria. If she’s groaning while pushing, I could kiss her. At some point I can enjoy myself. Then again I let myself be annoyed and have to be careful with my front striving towards the sky, twitching wildly, that I don’t bite a black Porsche Turbo’s wide buttocks. In contradiction to such childish behavior, the KTM 1290 Super Duke R also teaches me serenity. Thanks to her diversity of characters, I am more relaxed and satisfied than when I started. But how great was the freedom really on these 4400 high-contrast kilometers of self-discovery? Was she there just because you didn’t use orientation aids, didn’t plan anything? Or does it only exist if you can free yourself from yourself?
A life beyond destructive claims
Is there such a thing as total independence? No, you are being bullied by emotions, the weather, the geographical knowledge in your head. You succumb to the temptation to let your wife book you accommodation by the sea. You’re talking to friends on the phone. It’s good that they don’t know how wildly you have played with your consciousness expansion machine, how far you have let your sense of responsibility off the leash, looking for the risk to fill the inner void. A 125cc for the discovery of slowness would not have been able to do that in this form. Perhaps it would have led to more humility or gratitude? I admit that in my search for sensations I compensated for the impending burnout with burning propulsion. And that the KTM 1290 Super Duke R asked me to throw it in my head: “Let the pig out if you are already fleeing!” Total nonsense, right? Do you really need 180 hp to indulge your longing for pure driving? Doesn’t it work with less pressure, this soul-freeing movement, which, like music, corresponds to my inner rhythm?
Because of this music, I never wanted to stop driving. Unfortunately, I had to because total freedom does not exist on this planet. But my time-out, my vacation from result-oriented thinking, from the sense of duty, made me realize anew: There is a life beyond destructive demands, beyond the hectic everyday life and sense of mission. Doesn’t it really matter whether we turn left or right, whether we have to turn around? Can’t every path become a great experience if we open up? Aren’t experiences the only currency that no one can take away from us? And isn’t every memorable moment an island above the depths of time? In this sense: Thank you, Duke, thank you, boss!
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