I just realised that I didn’t write a review for 2021. Well, in fairness, not a lot happened during the first two years of the pandemic. In 2021 however, I took a break from the pandemic and visited Iceland which was a very lovely trip.

I thought first ‘not a lot has happened in 2022’, but when I went through all the pictures on my phone, I stood corrected. I did not post a lot and there was not one monumental event like in 2019 that dominated the whole story, but there were many little things and one ‘adventurous’ trip that made this a quite nice riding year, at least considering the conditions (still a pandemic going on, although less dangerous than the previous years). I will mention everything in a chronological order, after all this blog is a diary that lists what I have experienced. In contrast to earlier travel diaries, it is digital and public, but I essentially write all these stories for myself and not for others, although I don’t keep this blog private and I appreciate that so many people seem to like it 😊.

Another event that happened for the first time since 2019 was what was called in former times the “XBR Wintertreffen” (XBR winter meeting). Since 2003 I invited fellow motorbiking friends (linked to the XBR Alpentour events) for a meeting in March, accompanied by a yummy dinner. Since 2007, the meetings happened in Belgium; the mild climate allows to do a motorbike tour, often the first one in the year. This year, Jo, Hans, Ralf and Gernot made it to the meeting, Hans even made it on his Pan European. Using some of my bikes, we did a nice 100 km trip through Southern and Northern Brabant. In the evening, the motto of the dinner followed the typical pattern: my last journey. As my last trip went to Iceland, I tried to reproduce some of the nicest dishes I had enjoyed on the Island: sandwiches with aquavit, Humarsúpa (fish soup), slow cooked lamb and Skyr with fresh berries. Delicious.

In April, I had the idea to connect two business trips and left the old XBR in Valencia. Until picking it up, I had some other things to do.

After having done many motorcycle rallies, it was my first time to try a classic car rally, the Eifel Marathon Rally: Driving 390 km on nice back roads in the Ardennes and the Eifel. Not in a competitive way, just based on on arrow instructions (‘tulips’) on a touristic route. There were many great cars in this rally, it was fun to to be surrounded by a lot of iconic cars. My co-pilot and navigator was my neighbor Jeroen who managed to guide us criss-cross though the Ardennes and the Eifel during this long day. We started mid-field and arrived in the top group, that was fun!

The first test for the new set-up was a trip to Kent, riding the short ‘Invictus Rally’. Initially I had considered to ride with the ‘hot’ XBR680, but I was still waiting for the right sprocket. Well, my BMW was finally ready, just in time! I went to the BMW dealer, put a bunch of bills, equivalent to a very, very nice XBR, on the desk and rode home with a new suspension. Just in time to head off to England. As is it common for short rallies, I had received the rally book a few days before and solved the puzzle to plan a potentially winning route. I transferred the waypoints to my GPS and left for Calais, getting stuck in an enormous traffic jam at the Eurotunnel terminal. I arrived at my inn in Tonbridge and had some pub food before I prepared my stuff and went to bed. In the next morning, I went to the rally HQ, signed in, had some chats and set off together with all the other riders. The rally took place in Kent Sussex and Surrey. I had planned a tough and ambitious route that should give me a lot of extra points.

I arrived soon at the first location in Lynsted. In time. On the way to the second location, I wanted to introduce the third location in the GPS…and couldn’t find it! How could this happen?? Well, ok, I have to skip this one. Next location, fine, picture taken. Looking for location number five….where is it? Number Seven, eight?? I had to realize that during the waypoint transfer process, only half of the points were transferred. As I had left the laptop in the hotel (normally I always carry it with me, but not on a such a short rally). Well, this was it. It made no sense to continue when half of your points are missing. I returned to the hotel, packed my stuff and rode to the rally HQ where I informed the rally team that I dropped out and I would return home. This was a technical DNF like never before. I realised later that there was something wrong with the old Garmin Zumo 590, it gave me a lot of problems later. As usual, I had checked if the transfer of the points had happened, but I didn’t check for completeness. So when I rode back to Belgium, I took the decision to buy the new Garmin Zumo XT which I did.

However, I noted also something else during this trip. When riding on bad roads, the front of the BMW was still producing this rumbling noise. After all what was changed! I was super annoyed. So I went to the dealer (again) and discussed what to do. The bike rolled impeccably, but any small hole or obstacle resulted in a noise as if the steering bearing was loose…except that this modern bike, equipped with the duolever system does not have a classic steering bearing that receives any force from bumps. The ball joint was exchanged, so what else could be the problem? I had enough of this…the labour costs of removing any parts are actually much higher than the parts themselves…thinking we would remove one part after the other….so I took the decision to replace all remaining parts in the front. Yes, all of them. Sounds crazy, but I wanted to avoid further incremental attempts.

In June, I went for the trip I wanted to do since 2020, but the pandemic had put the plan on hold: visiting the ‘white spots’ on map in south-east Europe. I had planned the trip with Stefan in 2019 and finally it was going to happen. We wanted to visit a lot of countries in only one week, but the distances were rather short. After a week the a booth at an exhibition in Munich, we set off on a Friday evening and went to Villach in Carinthia. The next day, we enjoyed the beautiful Croatian coastline on the way to Split. We did a detour into Bosnia to Mostar and strolled through Dubrovnik. We passed the Kotor Fjord and went up Mount Lovćen in Montenegro, rode the stunning mountains of Durmitor. We rolled through the Tara Canyon and crossed into Kosovo, a truly different experience. We enjoyed the wild beauty of the Valbona Valley and the Albanian mountain, including its potholes. We stayed at the Ohrid Lake in Montenegro, rode the bumpy backroads of Southern Albania and were surprised by the hospitality in Gjirokaster. A day on the Greek island completed the trip before we embarked on the shabby ferry to Italy.

Back in Belgium, I picked up the BMW from the dealer….everything replaced….another monster bill…..first I thought everything was ok now, but I had my doubts…but it was too late to change my plan, I had to leave for the Brit Butt Light Rally in England, a 12 hours rally. Also here the rally book was sent one week before the rally, so I could come up with another cunning plan. The rally was based on collecting locations in the same group: the more locations of the same kind, the more points. One ‘group’ is also called a ‘string’. I had planned to do four strings which required a top-notch execution, there was only a buffer of 15 min foreseen in the whole day. The topic revolved around pre-historic sites that are quite abundant in central England.The tricky thing was that all points of the same string needed to be visited consecutively which resulted in a criss-cross and a lot of planning had went into optimizing this puzzle.

On my way to my hotel in Portishead, I noticed that the problem of the BMW lingered on…every time I rode over an obstacle in or on the road, a loud noise rattled the bike. I had no other chance than to endure this é&§%*%$!!! To my surprise, the hotel had its pub closed (staff shortage). Finally I could check in and leave my luggage. I went to the rally HQ in another town, registered and had dinner with German and British fellow riders. The next morning, I went back to the same place and started the rally from there. The roads and the locations were nice to spectacular, the traffic was a bit unexpected. I realised that the area was attractive to tourists as well and then there is always the notorious Saturday morning traffic. I visited iconic places such as large horses engraved in hills or neolithic monuments, such as Stonehenge. One location was crucial: walking from to road across a field, up a hill to take a picture from inside a neolithic monument. This are the things rally masters start to giggle when they develop their evil plans.

On the way to the points in Wales I could make up some time. Things looked good again. I was using the new Zumo XT GPS together with the old Zumo 590 and things were working well. Back in England I deviated from my routine and started to introduce locations for the next but one point, while riding. I had to go on backroads and single track farm roads but I could maintain my plan to do the four strings (spoiler: that nobody else was able to do).

The BMW gave me a lot of noises during the trip to England that I had ignored with a cold heart. But at home, I went to the dealer again and together we speculated what other source could be the cause. We were clueless, as every part in the front that could wear out had been exchanged. We agreed on an appointment to check AGAIN.

But before that it was time for another XBR Alpentour! I had equipped the grey XBR with the correct, custom made sprockets and now the system seemed stable. I went to meet Gernot in Karlsruhe and we rode together to the meeting point in Reutte, Tyrol. During the trip, I had to turn the bike as we had to turn around. In that moment, as it seemed retrospectively, my tank bag touched the starter button while the motor was running. The starter came on and would not stop! Even if I removed the keys! Panic! I tried all kind of things…The starter would not stop!! Sooner or later it would get fried! Frantically, I ripped the luggage from the bike, searched for my tools, removed the seat and tried to disconnect the battery while the starter was turning the motor hysterically😱😱😱. As I was in panic, the unscrewing did not happen without some flying sparks (in my panic, I tried to remove the positive and not the negative terminal 🙄). Finally, there was silence. What had happened? Well, pushing the button had pushed the starter relay that got stuck and did not get released. As the starter is connected to clamp 30 (permanent positive), a hanging relay results in a permanent current that cannot be switched off by the ignition key. I knocked on the relay and connected the positive terminal again. Silence. I pressed the starter button. Worked without problems. Everything ok again. It’s a Honda.

As usual, we had a great time and my tuned XBR behaved as expected: spectacularly.

Back home, I rode to the BMW dealer for the appointment to inspect the bike…again. On the way, I noticed that the mirrors were vibrating a lot and I told this to the dealer. He startled and ran outside to the bike: ‘I have an idea’. I followed him. He took the whole cockpit in his hands and joggled it. I tried as well. I could lift the whole cockpit by one centimetre. So this was the crux of the matter! No suspension, no ball joints, no bearings….some bolts of the cockpit frame were broken and caused the annoying noise. After another intervention, the cockpit was fixed and I had a new bike. Trying not to think of all the money I burnt in this process 🥴.

At least the BMW was finally ready for the longest rally this year, the Brit Butt Rally 2022. After my errors sending bonus location pictures with the wrong codes last year that resulted in a disappointing 6th place. So after all the hiccups of last and this year, I wanted to focus on sending proper information and pictures at every bonus point locations. I arrived early at the rally hotel in Coventry and had time with fellow participants. The registration, odo meter calibration ride, technical inspection and filling up petrol is a well established process, after all this was my 12th Brit Butt Rally. After the dinner we had the riders meeting and the handout of the rally books. This year’s theme was simple: castles. This sounded great. Big objects in remote places. No riding in big cities, less traffic, simple tasks. Maybe an occasional walk. I had high hopes that my wish would come true: riding to Scotland. After my monster ride in 2021, including riding from Dover at lunch to Penzance before sunset on lots of secondary roads with zillions of weekend drivers, I was desperate to ride through the Highlands, avoiding the typical bank holiday traffic.

As usual, I tried to look for alternatives. This is very important as often your first impression can trick you and the second best option turns out to be the better one. Alright, what could be an alternative? Well, there was only one option where enough points could be found: going to Cornwall and Wales. I use a well-established method based on spreadsheets that helps me to quickly calculate the points value of draft routes. I did the calculation of a route similar in riding time and concluded that it would not bring more points. So the decision was clear: I wanted to go to Scotland, avoiding all the traffic to be expected in the Southwest. I didn’t bother to go into the fine-tuning of the alternative route; I had longed to go to Scotland, so Scotland it was going to be. At 6 a.m., the horde left the parking in the dark. I had to get to Scotland as quickly as possible with only one quick detour near Penrith where I visited Brougham Castle. I passed Glasgow and Loch Lomond, as usual infested with tourist caravans. On the way north, Barcaldine Castle was visited and I was still in time. What I had not expected: crossing Loch Linnhe requires taking a ferry! Of course it was on the other side and I had to wait. The crossing took 20 min off my plan and suddenly I was behind schedule. The road to Tioram Castle was beautiful, but mostly single track, so this costed me more time. However, riding in this part of Scotland is just fantastic, lots of nature and no traffic.

I arrived at my hotel at midnight where I would stay for seven (!) hours to get the maximum points for the rest break. That is a very generous rest break. Back in the times when the Brit Butt rallies were more competitive, there would be only three hours of rest break, asking for much more bonus hunting at night. The break gave me time to fine tune the second day to make sure I could get the big combo north of London.

I had achieved what I came for: going to Scotland and losing no points at the table, i.e. I had sent all pictures and information correctly. So this looked like a very good result. Yet during the ceremony, I was surprised by the high point values of the other riders…I was called on the podium when only three riders were left. And for the first time in a Brit Butt Rally, it was third place for me. John Cross and Dave Winter came second and first with a bit more points, but a lot fewer mileage. What? How was this possible, they all went to the southwest…had I overlooked something? Anyway, it was a splendid ride and I had perfectly executed the planned ride.

Back at home, I had a look at the calculations. To my surprise, I noticed that in the calculation of the alternative route in the spreadsheet, I had not ticked the boxes to add two combos, this would have changed the whole picture. So I sat down and recalculated in detail a possible route through the southwest with the correct point values. To my surprise, the total points value was 2400 points higher than my route to Scotland, with 20 % shorter distance! 😫 (I had thought it would be 600 lower). This was more than double the gap to first place. Right, confidence restored, I still can design winning routes. Just a simple, but stupid error. As the saying goes: ‘the one wins who makes least errors’. I keep on beating myself, maybe it’s time to get my act together and to ride a perfect rally again 😊.

But this attempt had served me; I knew that the Pan was in good shape to be used for the last rideout in this year: the ride to eat in Milan. I wanted to go there in one day and arrive before 3 p.m. at the hotel to drop the luggage and to show up at the usual meeting point for the picture at 4 p.m. So I started very early in the morning and zoomed through Germany and Switzerland. I had a good pace that allowed me to have a snack before the Italian border. I arrived in time at the hotel, checked in and showed up at the meeting point ‘Il Dito‘ with 30 min to spare. A special place 😅.

We had the usual dinner and chatting in the evening, a nice closure of this season. The ride back was of course a piece of cake for the seasoned Pan European and its rider. The bike always surprises me time and again that a bike designed in the 80s can still be such as a smooth and reliable ride. One of the best bikes ever built.

Sooo, 2022 was a year with a lot of interesting things happening. Not any big events, but a lot of smaller things that were of interest. Six new countries visited with the XBR. A new racing XBR. Another great Alpentour (No. 22). In terms of rallying, this was a kind of annus horibilis. Never since 2011 had I finished a year without a rally victory. Two DNFs and two third places are due to some bad luck and stupid mistakes. On the other side of the balance I know that ad planned excellent routes that, if perfectly executed, had been winning routes. Shoulda coulda woulda. It doesn’t matter, I just need to return to my usual routine. After the pandemic break, maybe my performance is a bit rusty 😄.

What’s up for next year? Well, probably the biggest rallying year ever. I’m a participant for the Iron Butt Rally in North America – the mother of all long distance rallies. And then the same thing again in Europe, the 12Days Rally. For the first time a copy of the IBR happening in Europe. two big rallies in one year, but it will be a one-off as this probably will not happen again. So no big trips are planned apart from that. More on this blog in the next months 😎.