The Elefantentreffen, or in English The Elephant Meeting.

I’ve wanted to do this bike meeting (treffen) for several years and planned to do it last year for my 50th birthday, however lack of a day job made staying at home more cost effective.

Anyway, one year late, I made the trip.  I decided to put a combination together as the likelihood was we would encounter some snow, so from ebay I purchased first a Squire side-box, and second a 15 year old XV535 to attach it to, all inspired by a friend, Rollin’ Roger, from the West Mid’s, who has a Ural combination he planned to ride.

The 535 set up was a pig to get right, but in the end was near perfect.  The reliability of the bike was another matter.  I had constant problems with what I thought was an electrical problem but what turned out to be a slightly sticking choke mechanism, causing the bike to misfire on low rev’s when the engine was hot.

Having resolved the issues with the bike, I set off for Hull packed up with all things necessary to keep me comfortable in the extreme conditions I was expecting - possible heavy snow and constant sub-zero temperatures.

The trip to Hull, some 145 miles went off well, the bike ran and handled like a dream, that is until I got into heavy traffic in Hull, when it all went horribly wrong.

To cut a long story short(ish), the AA did a fix on one of the coils that was shorting out, which lasted long enough to get to the port, only to be refused access to the boat because I missed the check-in time.  The best advice the P&O staff could give was to either head down to Dover and get a ferry to Callais, or call the hotline the next day and rebook.

Rog’ and I decided to head down to Dover and when I started the 535 the fault was there again.  Rog’ headed off to Dover (an additional 261 miles) while I called for home recovery, with a plan to swop what gear I could on to my BMW and catch up with Rog, either by running down to Dover, or catching the Hull ferry the next night.

Recovery got me home at 02:30, so after a few hours sleep I was up and on the phone to P&O, only to discover that the bookings had been cancelled.  Re-booking was a possibility, but would incur the same cost again as the original booking.

Meanwhile Rog’ had caught the 06:40 to Callais and was already in Europe.  Now just think about this for a minute.  I’m in Shields, Rog’ is in France, P&O say there is no booking.  When I point out to them that a Brit’ passport holder was in Europe with no means of return they put me on hold.  Eventually they came back with the original booking, but for an extra £70, which I refused, they put me on hold, and eventually we agreed that I would pay an additional £22 so I could get the boat that night and our return arrangements would stay as they were.

So I packed up the BMW and headed down to Hull to get the overnight ferry to Rotterdam on the Wednesday, with the aim of meeting up with Rog’ at our original day 2 stopover at Nurnburg, some 456 miles from Rotterdam.
I should mention here that Rog’ had done some 838 miles with the extra mileage down to Dover.

We met up on the Road at Ranstacker, Junction 71 on the A3, at the Harley dealership run by Peter Schuler, who made us coffee and fed us homemade cake, and allowed me to get the blood flowing.

On from here to Nurnburg International Youth Hostel, which is in the old town Burg.  It’s spectacular and worth another visit when the temperature gets up a bit.

Friday morning we set off for the last 130 miles to the rally site at Solla near Thurmnsburg.  Rog’ had a back tire puncture on the way so that took us an hour or so to sort, and we reached the site at about 14:30.

I’ve never seen anything like it, not at any rally, or event, or even in my dreams.  It really is unique, as I hope you can see from the pictures.  There are no bands, no disco, not even a marque, it truly is an event where you need to take your own fun.  During the weekend I had conversations, and shared hospitality, a camp fire or a beer, with Brit’s, Bavarians, Italians, Germans, Poles and Russians, and I’m sure one or two of them will become good friends.

It’s a bit ‘hard core’ because of the extreme (for us) weather (cold, snow, biting wind), but it’s and experience I’m glad I’ve had.  If you want route details just ask and I’ll supply them.

If anyone fancies this in 2011, let’s talk, I might be tempted to do it all again.

Grum