No more BMW?
If some of you wondered why my spot point didn’t move in the last 24h, here is the explanation. I had a brilliant ride yesterday, saw a lot of Spain. Picos de Europa, Gijon, Santander, Salamanca, the heart of Madrid, Cuenca, Valencia….everything was going extremely well and according to my plan. During my planning, I had spotted that Spain would give more points than the Baltic States or Greece….I had also considered to go to Lisbon, but a careful evaluation revealed that a shorter route through Spain and picking almost all points there was much safer and resulted in more total points. I had informed the family of my lady that I would pass by the centre of Valencia and much to my surprise when I arrived at the town hall, there were 10 people waiting for me to support me and to provide me with food and drinks. Overwhelming! In high spirits I left Valencia and had to pick one point near Castellon and to get to Vinaros where I had reserved a hotel room. The plan was to pick a lots of points along the Catalan coast the lat day and to return already at midnight at the rally finish, maybe even picking some more points near Stuttgart. But when I reached the location near Castellon, the gearbox made heavy noises before it finally died. No more propulsion. The good side: the recovery was quick, I was transferred to Valencia quickly and could stay with my “parents-in-law” and fly back home today.
The frustrating part: I had already a 170000 points and my plan included at least a 213692 points for the total rally…sounds massive. I really hope someone has more points than that or my frustration will be enourmous…my hottest candidate is John Young, as he also found his way to Spain. So it is another DNF in the most important rally in Europe ever. When I was standing with my BMW in the dark in the plantations, I remembered that is was the third time I was waiting for a towing service for my BMW…three more than with all my other bikes….I knew that there must be consequences…and I was so content on that day, everything was running so smooth, a rally of a lifetime, so to say. The bike had just passed the 100.000 km mark and I was happy that it ran so well. But what is a nice performance if in the end you are waiting for a towing truck? Maybe I should look out for Japanese bikes again?
Well, the rally was great fun up to that point and I visited so much iconic and scenic places in such a short time. This was gorgeous and will stay in my memory. Here is my track of the gorgeous leg 2:
My gorgeous route in leg 2 until my gearbox crashed.
I will try to get to the ceremony tomorrow, although it will be tough, but I owe this to the organisers who did a fantastic job! Thank you for this outstanding rally! It set a standard in Europe!
hutzlmandl on tour 
This really is sad. Even from the Spotwalla-perspective it looked like a smooth ride, that you started from pole position. Now again a gearbox has kicked you out of the competition in a major rally .Consider automatic transmission with the next event.
The difference to a Honda gearbox is: you don’t get back home, grrrrrrrr!
Really sad to read. Also thought you had big scores going on. It has been fun to watch, discuss but not know anything about the Rallybook with guessing and predicting.
Some day the luck will turn Robert. Let us hope the rally come back to Europe.
You know the things about Honda’s.. I’m up to a change too.. Same thing but newer with better fuel economy
Schade das mit dem bairischen Mistwagen, aber das hilft vielleicht beim Loesen des Problems, welches Moped du fuer den naechsten Ironbutt brauchtst.
Inderdaad, eine Nachfolgerin steht schon bereit…
So sorry to learn about your hardship Roberto…I will get you my details later it would have been a close call between us…..now go and buy a real bike……
Damn shame Robert – I had you down for the win; you got a decent score in the first leg and were fairly close to the best route on the second 🙂
I did a video after Leg 1 – what a winning route could look like.
Guess who the yellow route is…
So sorry for you, Hutzlmandl! Really – I know how you suffer.
…. never trust a Bavian, one might think … 🙂
Nevertheless, this BMW …
Bavarian, of course !
Robert – have you considered a Triumph ? 😉
Yes, for about 2.46 seconds B-)
Hallo Robert!
Das tut mir sehr leid für Dich. Bin gespannt, wie Deine Entscheidung bezüglich der BMW ausfällt!
Gruß
Christoph
2.46 seconds?
…”das ist eine unglaublich lange Zeit für einen Androiden!”
(Lt. Data in Star Trek ‘First contact’)
Is doch klar, der hat nicht Android im Kopf sondern Apple!