Eastern Europe on a GSA | Ep 1 | Leaving the UK for Strasbourg | Extreme weather craziness!!

Eastern Europe on a GSA | Ep 1 | Leaving the UK for Strasbourg | Extreme weather craziness!!

Greetings, YouTube, and welcome back to my channel. It’s 5:00 in the morning. I have a 555 mile journey ahead of me. I’m on my way to Strasborg, France today on the first day of a mission to try and experience the last gasp of summer. I know it’s not summer, it’s late October, but I just want to get a bit of sunshine, blue sky before the riding season is kind of over. However, the forecast was supposed to be good. I don’t know if you can hear the rain lashing down on the roof. No. Anyway, it’s pretty heavy. There are extreme weather warnings, extreme wind, heavy rain, and the forecast says it’s like this for quite a few days to come. I’m not going to let it dampen my spirits. This is the last tour of the season. Let’s have it. [Music] Well, it is a true two-wheel dreamer tour starting hopefully not as we mean to go on. Yucky weather. Heat. Heat. So, I’ve entered tonight’s hotel into Google Maps. 425 miles to go. 7 hours 4 minutes, it says. So, I still got a way to go yet. Already got 140 or so miles under my belt. Quite a big day. Hopefully it won’t be raining the other side of the channel. Perfect. So, please enjoy all the cars here. Thank you. Well, welcome to France. And uh that’s probably the last time for 2025. Heat. Heat. Invariably, I always end up stopping at the same initial service station if I’m heading on this route. I’m going to grab a coffee and warm up. I’m really glad the rain has eaked off for a bit cuz there’s still a long way to go. So, I was going to plan so far, but the plan did change. So, instead of heading to Istanbul, my initial plan is now I’m going to ride through Black Forest, which I did not that long ago, on the way to Austria, where I will spend the night tomorrow night from Austria. It’s going to be Slovenia, then Croatia, then Montenegro, Serbia, Hungary, back into Austria. More details as the trip unfolds, but this is going to be a spectacular one, I promise you. Um, we just need the rain to stop. One of Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Absolutely brutal. Oh my gosh, those crosswinds. My neck muscles are going to be so big by the end of this journey. Absolutely gruesome. Coffee number two coming off after I kept catching. But it is a complete battle of wheels with the bike, keeping it in a straight line, stopping my head from being ripped round by the wind. Every time you pass the lorry, um it shelters you. So the bike sort of veers off and then you go past the lorry and uh the wind hits again and then you’ve got all the rain obviously that’s making it hard to see, especially as you’re passing those uh HGVs. It’s an interesting ride, I can tell you. But we’re making good progress. Another 3 hours or something. Um maybe four. And I will be at the hotel and I’m looking forward to that a lot. And then tomorrow it’s all away from motorways and hopefully the sun will be shining and uh everything will be fine. It’s all fine anyway. I’m on the bike. We’re walking along. Home for the night. finally made it. That’s good. And according to the correspondence, this car park’s locked up overnight, so it is secure. I’m still going to put loads of locks around, though. So, welcome to my home for the night. I’ve got all my gear drying here. All my stuff waiting to do some work in a bit. My gloves and boots on the heater trying to dry. My helmets next to it also. Trying to get a bit of warmth into that as well. And then for my heated gloves, the batteries are on charge. So, guys, that was a wet one today. making my way across France from home. Um I’m now at Strasborg and uh I’m right on the German border and tomorrow I’m going to cross Germany into Austria and it means I’ll be going through the Black Forest. But unlike where Ben and I were going north, south, south, north, I’ll be going west to east. So be riding different roads. It’d be nice to be back in that area though. I will miss not having Ben with me. Uh and then tomorrow night I should be staying somewhere hopefully in the mountains in Austria. making my way to Slovenia. So, I do hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please give it a like, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell notification thing so that you get told every time there’s a new video out, and also share, share, share, share, please. Um, and that will help the channel to grow and build, and then I’ll be able to keep this show on the road because it takes quite a bit of doing to be fair. So, I will see you tomorrow morning in the next one. Bye-bye. [Music]

Greetings YouTube! Hit that subscribe button and join me as I set off on the final tour of 2025. This time I’m heading east – there are new countries in my sights and I’m estimating I will cover around 3,500 miles in the coming 11 days. For my departure, the weather is absolutely horrid. Brutal crosswinds are trying to blow me off my bike and rain like stair rods is intent on soaking me to the bone. Business as usual then for riding across France! Is all that Mother Nature throws at me, going to bring me down? Not on your Nelly! The bike is more than capable at laughing in the face of this abuse but am I? Only one way to find out… let’s ‘ave it!

@bmwmotorrad @ABRmagazine