Munich, Germany

I’m here for one week for work. I flew out of Chicago at 6PM on Sunday and landed in Munich Monday afternoon. I flew to London first, then changed planes and flew to Munich. It was a long day by the time I went to bed since I didn't get to sleep on Sunday.





Hofbräuhaus

This beloved beer hall has existed since 1644 and lives up to its reputation: beer, food, tourists, oom-pah music, drunken revelry and Lederhosen.





Oom-pah band









Beer really is better in Germany, my favorite is black weiss beer



Mmmmmm.... German food





Check out the wall of beer steins, personalized and locked away for their owners



Tables labeled with "Stammtisch" are reserved for regulars (this is true for all Bavarian restaurants)







Marienplatz

The boulevard between Marienplatz and Karlsplatz/Stachus, with the medieval city gate Karlstor, has been a pedestrian zone and Munich's busiest shopping area since the 1970s.

Cold ride though the puddles

It was a cold day today, upper 30’s and cloudy. Not a great day for a ride, but I’m trying to practice my dirt riding any chance I get to be ready for my big ride at the end of the year, which is kind of hard living in Chicagoland with winter on it's way.

Yesterday we had some big rains, I knew there would be some nice puddles out there today, so in the afternoon I rode out to my secret spot by the trains to ride in the deep gravel again. This time I had enough confidence to shift in to second gear though the deep stuff. I was hoping for some mud, but couldn’t find any.



My XT posing next to the big pile of crap



Dreary November weather

My little fender and number plate bag came in, those will come in handy when I start taking some longer rides on the XT.



Moose Racing fender bag and number plate bag

My brush guards finally came in too but I haven’t had time to install those yet. I sure wish I had them today, my hands were cold even in my insulated Alpinestars winter gloves.



One of the many puddles I got to play in



Some dirt finally

I really tried to get the bike dirty, but the puddles were pretty clean. Today was nothing exciting, just more practice and getting used to the bike. I only have 150 miles on the odometer.

More off-road gear

My new jacket came in. I think it’s one of the prettiest textile jackets out there. I never thought much of this brand, but for 2007 Fieldsheer has some cool stuff, like this jacket. This is a woman’s Adventure jacket and it has all the features of the guys jackets. The material is really awesome, thick, not flimsy. The armor is heavy duty and it comes in tiny sizes. Actually, this jacket is just a tad bit too small for me, so I’m sending it back and exchanging for the next size up. That has never happened. I usually get the smallest size available and it ends up being too big. I’m really excited to get my jacket, unfortunately my size in on back order so I’m not even sure if I’ll get this jacket in time for my big trip.



I love the color, although the blue is not exactly like my Yamaha, it’s close enough. This jacket did come in black & gray but I really love the blue.





I think the blue brings out the blue in my Arai XD helmet, I just love the orange



And I did get an off road helmet, an O'Neal 904 but I haven't used it yet because I just got my Dragon goggles to use with it. It’s a bit cold now to go with the open helmet and goggles.



After so many years of riding street, I will have to get used to this new look.

A ride and bike night

Today I rode the XT225 to work for the first time. I’ve been getting used to riding this bike on the streets with traffic. It’s a slow bike. Not sure how many horses the XT has, but I have a feeling the 954RR has about 90 more.

Once the XT gets moving it’s not too bad, but getting to 40MPH takes a lot of shifting.
It’s been so rainy and cold lately, my progress to break the XT in has been slow. So with today’s wonderful weather with the temperatures reaching almost 70 degrees, I decided to not only ride the XT to work, but to take a nice ride at lunch also.

But where to go on a dual-sport when you have only an hour and you are in the Chicago suburbs? Since there isn’t many places to go off-road around here, I decided to ride out to the Morton Arboretum http://www.mortonarb.org which is just a few minutes away from work. The fall colors were gone, but there were some dirt roads and parking lots in there and on Wednesdays it was only $4 to get in, all the other days it was $7. It was so warm that I took all the layers off and rode around just in the mesh jacket and pants.























Artsy-fartsy effect

Then after work I went to bike night, there was a lot f people out tonight.



My little XT among the sport bikes



Trying on a Suzuki DRZ400SM on for size





Many Ducs showed up tonight

Ride: Big lake and small lake

The adventure riders were meeting at the Full Moon Café at 9AM, I wanted to show up for breakfast but with the party last night I got home late and couldn’t get up early enough, so I showed up at 9:45AM. It was a brisk ride along the toll way to the north suburbs, the temps in the high 30’s.



When I got to the Full Moon I called Sandy who was interested in coming, but she was still home and we were leaving for a ride at 10AM.





At Full Moon there was a 954RR with more stickers then I have on my 954RR



Lake Forest, IL - empty beach

My phone rang in my pocket, and I knew it was Sandy wanting to know where she could meet me, the ride was killing my clutch hand, so many stop signs, while we rode through the burbs. The 954RR was not meant to go 30 MPH, it was time for me to hit the open road. I waved back to the back marker to keep going and called Sandy. She was still home and waiting.





Lake Forest, some residential neighborhood

The temperatures were climbing now and I started t take off the layers, the high was supposed to be in the upper 50’s today. Sandy and I decided to meet in Libertyville since I was way up north already. I grabbed a bagel from Panera, washed it down with a Red Bull while sitting on the curb in the sun shine waiting. Sandy came along shortly and we got going heading north.





Amazing blue sky and some kind of red berries

The first stop was Antioch on the WI border. Sandy needed to pick up some frozen chilies from New Mexico that her cousin brought for her.



Sandy continued riding with six bags of frozen chilies I each side case

With the sun setting before 5PM now, we only had a couple of hours left of sunlight, so we rode over to Lake Geneva. The temperatures already started falling so we grabbed some coffee at Starbucks to warm up...pumpkin spice late…. yummy!



Lake Geneva, Wisconsin - in front of Starbucks



The sun setting over Lake Geneva and the 954RR



The bikes from the pier



Sandy and I



Both bikes with the setting sun and the pretty street lamp

We took of for home shortly after sunset, it got cold right away, not too bad though with the electric vest and heated grips. An hour and a half later I was home.