Yesterday the XBR appeared to be fine. Today I left before 7 to meet John near Fulda. It took us more than 1 hour to find us; a road block on the A7 and some deviations were the root cause for this. In the end, we could finally start the trip at half past nine. We headed towards Berlin at a constant 110 km/h (65 mph) and stopped for an enormous lunch break. It was a totally new feeling – no hurry, no pushing, just enjoying the ride, looking around, with plenty of time…discovering slowness…We passed Berlin and filled up before the border. It was quite hot now, some extra stop was quite welcome. We entered Poland and I was quite surprised to see this brilliant new motorway. Still at 110 km/h. After 800 km we reached Poznan, our destination for today. I had made a booking on the fly and we enjoyed the air-co inside the building. Our bikes had to be hidden from the public view in the underground parking. Bike issues: one dropped XBR with a bent brake lever and a Triumph owner desperately looking for his keys. The XBR still runs fine, I’m inclined to believe that it was a combination of an alternator with a dead battery.

Tomorrow we will head for the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

A beautiful sight. And our bikes.

Found them!