Gruß Gott from Austria

[Forest 1100]

Welcome to the forum Alistair.

Forest

[Cammy ST11]

Welcome to the site. You never mentioned where you were ex pats from though. I had a look at your link for your B&B, great looking place - might have hooked yourself a customer for next summer.

[Ali in Austria]

My bad. Should have said we are originally from just outside of Southampton.

[mbrST1100]

My bad. Should have said we are originally from just outside of Southampton.

So shall we greet in English or German upon arrival?

[Ali in Austria]

Greetings I can manage, beyond that you will have lost me

[Gareth R]

How far are you from the Eagle's nest?

[mbrST1100]

Greetings I can manage, beyond that you will have lost me

LOL! We gonna' do just fine

Just roamed your YouTube channel... Wildalpen... my departure/approach path, by now my STs are doing that on auto-pilot
What I'm missing is Dientner Sattel-Hochkönig (B164)...?

And BTW: how does it feel to finally drive on the right side of the road?

[Ali in Austria]

How far are you from the Eagle's nest?

Just over an hour away. Werfen Castle (Schloss Adler in "Where Eagles Dare") about 35 minutes.

[Ali in Austria]

Greetings I can manage, beyond that you will have lost me

LOL! We gonna' do just fine

Just roamed your YouTube channel... Wildalpen... my departure/approach path, by now my STs are doing that on auto-pilot
What I'm missing is Dientner Sattel-Hochkönig (B164)...?

And BTW: how does it feel to finally drive on the right side of the road?

B164 is a great bit of road from B'hofen to Hintertal. It is on our YouTube channel some where. The right side of the road is plain wrong

[David W]

... Just 4 weeks before we were due to emigrate and having just picked up my VStrom from a major service prior to preparing it for shipping, I went for 1 last ride around the area I was born and grew up in. On a very familiar road at a relatively low speed I came to grief on a seriously dodgy road surface. A Bennetts fracture to a thumb was the least of my worries. I had broken 6 ribs, 4 at the front and 2 at the back. A couple had managed to puncture a lung. Imagine being seriously winded and not ever being able to get your breath. Unfortunately after a chest drain was inserted it became infected resulting in a stay in Intensive Care. It only delayed the move a couple of weeks though and here we are now. My only major off in over 38 years, typical.
As a foot note I was really miffed I had trashed perfectly good riding gear, some of it new. The road was a major road just 2 miles from a main Highways Repair Depot and I learned another motorcyclist had suffered a similar fate the day before....

Thanks for that good story, Ali. It's great to hear you survived both breathlessness and Intensive Care.
Your story reminds me of the way police riders are taught that any familiar road can change drastically from one hour to the next. One simply cannot count on things being the same as they were even a short time ago. (So hats off to anyone who can ride unfamiliar roads year after year without an accident.)

As for trashing of riding gear, that part seems far better than further trashing of ones own body. I think the proper word to describe riding gear is sacrificial?