Weekend trip to the eastern frontier of European Union. Today Włodawa is a small frontier town – on the other side of the river is Bielarus, but there is no official crossing or customs. There was used to be a railway line going East but the bridge has been demolished after 1945 by Soviets in …
18 August 2012 – daily trip to Koterka, which is a very small village close to the border with Bielarus. Just beyond the village there is a clearing in the woods where wooden orthodox church has been constructed in 1912. There is also a small cemetery, a well with fresh water which is supposed to …
Bielarus on the bike – second set of photographs. Those were made by Marcin. More or less same places
21-30 June 2012 – Bielarus or short trip to the eastern provinces of Second Polish Republic. One could say that we have never left Poland, at least in it’s pre-1939 borders. Marcin wanted to go Mińsk, but I didn’t like the idea of staying in a big city so we did not cross to USSR 🙂
Two bikes and two fresh bikers: Yamaha Dragstar (Marcin) i BMW G650 X Country (Me). Marcin did not want to risk such a long ride without any backup so he loaded his bike on a trailer. I have done whole trip on the bike.
Click on the photo to see more pictures:
My first riding season on a proper bike was a very short one – I started riding in mid September and had to give up on 10 December 2011 i.e. after first serious snowfall.
Short summary:
Distance: 5100 km
Fuel consumption: 3,3-3,6 l/100 km en route, 4,2-4,5 l/100 km in the city traffic
Mods: Leo Vince exhaust, SW Motech Topcase
… or dirty secrets of the local forest 🙂
One of my very first rides – I was going through the local forest and decided to stop for a moment. This was a big mistake: I was attacked by swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and the place I have chosen for the stop was apparently very busy judging by the heaps of used condoms distributed evenly all over the place. Later I found out that I have stopped few hundred meters from busy transit road known locally as The Hookers Lane 🙂
… or czyli przesiadka z automatycznego Madassa 50 ccm na manualne BMW G650 x Country. Motocykl już stał u dealera i czekał na przysłowiowe boskie zmiłowanie, czyli zrobienie owego prawka. Kupiłem go nieco wcześniej po długich poszukiwaniach – bardziej szczegółowo opisałem to tutaj: BMW G650 xCountry czyli o moim motocyklu W końcu egzamin na prawo …
… not an easy task in my case as until recently my only contact with motor-vehicles was in passengers capacity, I have never had any drivers license and in principle after finishing my education I have promised myself that I would never participate in any examinations 😉
For many years I have kept this promise but apparently I was bitten by motorcycle bug hard enough to break it, and after 3 failed attempts the fourth one was successful although the success required slight optimization of the process involving an examination outside Warsaw in a small town of Łomża, famous for it’s friendly and fairly liberal attitude to the drivers to be.
Trip to Central America in December 2010. 23 days.
Route: flight Warsaw, Munich, Houston, Guatemala, overland from Guatemala through Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua to Costa Rica, return flight from San Jose through New York, Frankfurt back to Warsaw.
Gallery I
Gallery II
Madass is great looking small bike but too small for longer trips and too slow for faster roads…
so after 2 seasons and 19.000 km I have decided to get a proper bike.
It was intended to be about two of my hobbies: scripophily i.e. collecting and researching old stock and bond certificates (see Scripophily section from the main menu and related articles Scripophily & related) and travels (especially on 2 wheels) (see published articles, category Travels, sections on xCountry and Tips). But recently I have also revived my early passion for old coins so you will find posts about that too. And probably about blockchain and cryptocurrencies as well. Looks like I am trying to make the peace between contradictory elements but apparently that’s typical for Gemini 😀