This May we took our ride outs further than ever before and ran our first group tour in Luxembourg, where the roads are maintained excellently and the rivers and valley’s they follow mean you can ride bend after bend. In May 6 willing participants joined us to adventure into the unknown. We met bright an early on a Sunday at the entrance to Le Shuttle, and while many had stayed locally the night before but a few made their own way in the morning.
Day 1
As we gather on in the train compartment, chatting about the other side, one of our group is closely inspecting his rear wheel… A little surprising since it’s only really 30 minutes into the trip but a reluctant reveal is made of the brake squeaking all the way down the ramp. Turns out, the rear must have been binding a bit and there’s no friction material on one side. A little challenging to address right now, but as it’s not linked brakes the best thing to do is use the front for now and to see what support we can find on the continent.
Nothing to exciting in the first half of the day, we make our way from Calais to Wiltz by making our way down the motorways in France and Belgium. It’s not the most interesting and well managed with average speed camera’s, still the maximum 130kph, makes quicker work than the UK limit of 70mph. We stop for lunch at a motorway service station to enjoy food that puts the UK offerings to shame and with bright and sunny weather we sit outside to enjoy our meal.
For the second half of the day we split from the motorway and start to make our way to our hotel for the next 3 nights “Hotel Aux Tanneries de Wiltz“. These
roads are much more fun, with flowing bends and only a little traffic to interupt that flow.
Day 2
Given our little brake issue, we are lucky to find a motorcycle shop open (it seems most open on a Tuesday in Luxembourg) and not far of the days route which is a loop around the outskirts of Luxembourg (the city) and we decide to take a detour to see if they can help.
However weather guru has been checking his app and warns us all about the rain that’s coming, so everyone not in gore-tex pops on their waterproofs. This turns out a massive mistake and after an hour of lovely woodland roads we come to our first stop, it’s warm over 20 degrees and the waterproof guys are boiling in the bag. We stop a while longer for them to take of a few layers.
Continuing on we start to make our way north and to the BMW/Harley dealer we found open. Our luck is in and the dealer amazingly has the parts in stock and even kindly offers to fit them.
With this done, we find a little local cafe for lunch and settle in for a break. In the afternoon we return north back to Wiltz following the valleys and enjoying some more technical riding.
Day 3
Our second days riding takes a eastbound route. We ride over to Viaden through a series of sweeping bends on what would be A roads in the UK. Then cross into Germany and the roads get smaller, think twisty B roads without the potholes. For lunch we stop in Bitburg. On the way back we pass a few marker signs, they say something but our German isn’t great, so we continue on. Whoops the road was closed! The bridge at the bottom of the road (see picture) is being rebuilt. Still it was a lovely clear ride down the twists and turns as the road worked it’s way downhill. You can see us here, regrouping after a u-turn.
We make our way back up the hill of the closed road and head over to Esch-sur-Sure to view the lake.
We return to the hotel after two days of riding sweeping bends, tight bends and hairpins in lovely dry weather and on excellent tarmac. This is our last night so settle in chatting about the day.
Day 4
The return trip is a motorway slog to get back to Calais and back into the UK. I won’t describe the long straights, the many speed camera and will just say, thank you cruise control.
I’m pleased to report, everyone made it and other than the break pads everyones bikes performed faultlessly. Look our for next year when we strike out again as there are more roads not yet covered.