A Triumph in Budapest

Since the Transfagarasan I have been riding without a rear brake, the last pad is dust spread over the Romanian mountains.  Fortunately, I have a spare with me, un-fortunately the cap covering the critical bolt has seized in place and I can’t get it off.  Riding a bike without a rear brake is a nightmare.  Around town its useful for subtle low speed control, when riding the twisties it’s great for settling the bike mid-corner and the rest of the time it helps to, well, brake.  I needed a garage that I could trust to help so I went to Google and found that Triumph have a dealership in Budapest.  Perfect.  It opened at 10am so I had some time to kill.  Another consultation with Google showed me some of the sites around town so with them plotted into the Garmin I set off for a motorcycle friendly tour.

St Stephens basilica

Buda (hilly) and Pest (flat) sit on either bank of the River Danube.  Although Budapest, the combination of Buda, Pest and Obuda is a new city (1873) there have been settlements on this site for thousands of years and the whole area is steeped in history.  The buildings and contrast between the two side of the city are fantastic and I wish I had longer to explore.  I guess that it’s just another place that I’ll have to bring Harriet to.  She is far more culturally aware than me and more adventurous then it comes to exploring cities.

Hungarian parliament building.

Széchenyi chain bridge

With my brief tour complete I headed to Triumph.  As I pulled up the guys and girl who work there where enjoying a fag and coffee break outside.  They were immediately friendly and helpful.  The bike was taken away for surgery by their mechanic and I was offered coffee and water while we chatted about my trip and, of course, Triumphs.  The show room turned out to be my ideal garage.  I couldn’t work somewhere like that without bankrupting myself.  In short order the bike was ready, photographs taken, new stickers added to the panniers (thank you guys) and a complimentary bottle of chain lube thrown in.  I was ready to set off in the direction of Brno in the Czech Republic.

Triumph Budapest.

This turned out to be a bad call.  I had crossed Slovakia and was heading towards Brno and after an age burning petrol on the motorway I pulled over and had to ask myself why?  Why was I heading to Brno?  They hold a round of the Moto GP there but the race was last month so am I really only going there to take a photo outside a closed track?  Unable to answer this satisfactorily and with the sky towards Brno darkening and the sky towards Austria looking more inviting I opted to head south west into Austria and towards Germany where I’m looking forward to staying with friends.

I thought that if I could get within 5 hours of their house in Bavaria then I could strike out for it in the morning.

When I crossed into Austria I jokingly thought that I’m only going to see KTMs here (Austrian made motorcycles).  When the first bike I saw was a KTM followed some time later by a “KTM Racing” van I thought that I had better keep my eyes open for the Von Traps just to complete the stereotyping.

It was getting dark when I finally conceded defeat (no Von Traps to be seen) and looked for a camp site.  I was just over 5 hours away but had started making small mistakes; simple things like not indicating and getting lazy with the gears told me I wasn’t concentrating 100%.  Time to stop, there was a camp site close by and I rolled in to see looks of horror on the faces of the owners of the smelly white boxes (caravans and campervans).  The looks said it all: “I hope the noisy smelly biker isn’t camping near us.”  I booked in and was given a pitch with the other tents on the edge of the site and set up.  Once done it was time to touch base with Harriet and the Frey’s in Bavaria. 

As luck would have it the Oktoberfest was on and Uli was going there tomorrow with 3 of her daughters and their Brazilian (NOTE:  If you want to spell check “Brazilian” be careful) exchange student.

I have never been to the Oktoberfest in Munich before so this was a great chance to visit.  They were leaving at 1pm so I needed an early start.