After my round of the Ijsselmeer which was 400+ km's, I had the opportunity to take the Ribelle for a spin and take two days for it. So I set off to the Eiffel region, specifically to the "Route of a thousand bends". Didn't count them all but boy, was it close.
Started thursday morning with 85% charge (Forgotten to top it off) and charged a total of 2 times to make the 352km's to the start of the route, all highway. The last charger before the route started was blocked by cars, the next one 25 km along the way was taken as I approached it so I granny charged until I could reach the last charger before the route started.
The route itself, what can I say... If you like curvy (Who doesn't
then this is your cup of tea. Beautifull small roads going up and down the hillsides in the Eiffel region, topping out at 600+ meters and bottoming out at 260 meters. Especially a part that goes through Luxembourg is crazy, very narrow roads with 15% hairpins on both the ways up and down. If you have the chance, drive the route:
https://www.routeyou.com/nl-de/route/view/5631993/toermotorroute/1000-bochten-eifel . There are DCFC chargers in Prum and Daun, so if you start at Prum you can reach the end point with just one chargestop.
I did not completely finish the track because it was getting late and I had not made reservations for a hotel. Which was a mistake; the ascention day weekend is notorious for the amount of people, and motorcycles, to visit the Eiffel region so I called just about all the hotels en route but no luck. I decided to visit an old love of mine: Bastogne in the Belgian Ardenne region. It's a nice little town with a bustling city center and a bit off-track for the biker boys so tried my luck and ended up in the most 60's hotel of em all, but it was clean, the beds were good, and they served a fine collection of Belgian beers to end a good day riding.
Day two started with charging up for the home stretch, still had to make about 350km before reaching home. Since I didn't feel like sitting at a DCFC at 22:00 at night for half an hour I decided to charge the next morning. During the fast charge at the Seat dealer in Bastogne it started drizzling and when I was just on my way it turned into full-on rain for about an hour. I use my phone on the handlebars and charge with a cable... Mistake 2. When the cable gets wet the phone says it cannot charge anymore and just dies. Nice. Luckily I had a backup-GPS with me, my trusty Oregon 600, for which I had quickly printed a handlebar clip and which I loaded with a generated POI of all CCS chargers in Europe (Well, almost). Since the device can navigate I could continue my journey and went to Namur via secundary roads where I charged at the very friendly BMW-dealer who asked me all about the bike. From there on, I decided to go via secundary roads to Maastricht, because the rain radar predicted no rain there so I set off to Liege, and then Maastricht. The rain ended as soon as I left Namur, and because the sun came out everything dried quickly making the phone work again when I was charging in Maastricht. Because of the time I rode the home stretch (202km from Maastricht) on the highway in very strong headwinds making consumption a thing but by charging to 85% both times made it just in time for a late dinner
Stuff I learned: Book a hotel room in advance, you'll have a place to stay and a goal to reach when you're done for the day. Also, don't go blind on the apps. Sometimes it states a charger as available when it is not, sometimes somebody just drives up as you get there, sometimes the 8 (Yes, EIGHT) CCS chargers are behind a fence that only opens when the business is open. Some chargers just won't work, how many tries you have (McDonalds for instance, never got them to work with the car or the bike). Get a wireless charge phone holder for the handlebars.
I also learned the Ribelle is at home in the hills. The bike really came to life on the curves, and being electric (And full of traction control and ABS) made the hairpins and tight downhill corners easier than on my gas bike. I mean, the bike also excels on the highway but she was pretty nimble despite the weight.
I have shot a video of the first part with the GoPro, when I'm done stabilizing, tidying up and uploading I'll post a link.
