The tour begins! Brilliant Belgium, Nurburgring, Bridge at Remagen and top speed. MT-10 Tour ep1

Last week I headed to Germany and Belgium on my Yamaha MT-10 SP for 5 days of touring fun, avoiding the rain and exploring central and Northern Germany. In the first episode we get to Trier across some brilliantly smooth(!) Belgian roads, then faff about at the Nurburgring and see the bridge at Remagen. Then it’s time to head towards our next war destination…

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all right this is more like it it’s time for the best feeling in the motorbike world and I don’t mean the clitter or tingle of the BMW 4 cylinder engine it’s the time you emerge off Euro tunnel into the land of quasons and speed limits going touring on my mt10 woohoo hello and a warm welcome back to the channel of nonsense I’m about to do the best thing you can do on a motorbike I think which is to go touring I’m on a 5-day trip starting here in the lovely petrol station outside Euro tunnel in Cal to go and explore Belgium and Central Northern Germany which isn’t a route IID plann to do a week ago I was going to go down to the Alps but it’s very wet there’s lots of flooding in southern Germany and the black forest so I I’m being forced to go and explore new places which is always a good thing but the purpose of this trip really for me is to explore my own bike to find out whether you can Tour on a super naker this is my own mt10 it’s not a press bike I own this and I’ve uh tally modifi wide slash ruined it for touring so I’ve stuck a top box on it I’ve got the touring screen I’ve got a comfort seat and I’ve got these new maxler Road Tech 02 tires for better longevity and hopefully some decent grip if it does get wet while still give me enough grip in the dry as well to have fun so I’m really excited I’m here with my friend David or chappers we’ll meet him in a bit he’s not ridden for about four or five years he’s just bought a street triple purely so he can come with me if you don’t have friends like that you’re missing out anyway I’m going to do 2 hours of Motorway in in France now get down to Belgium go on some twisty roads and have some fun on our way to tonight stop which is of course if you know me Tri a cuz there’s a really good burger restaurant and then tomorrow we’re going to head over into Central Germany into uncharted waters do some military history stuff and just have fun for 5 days I’m going to take you along for the ride um yeah let’s get going I’m really excited yay I think I’m going to see petrol stations quite a lot right see you in a bit you joined me about 50 km uh east of sh I don’t actually know where we are we’re in France we’re kind of following the French Belgium border for a bit towards uh Buon which is a very pretty town on a river and as I always say I think it’s where they invented stock Cubes but yeah we did about 2 and 1/2 hours of fairly boring motorways and straight kind of a roads to get here but now we are on we got 150 Mi left to go we’ve done about7 mil and I’m already in a pretty happy place now because look we’ve got Corners we’ve got sunshine we’ve got grippy roads and I’m on my own bike that makes great noises and does this so yeah if you’re a longtime follower of the channel you’ll know I was planning to go to Italy and go to the Alps in a long weekend to prove that you can do some nice mountain passes in a long weekend but the weather just means it’s would have been miserable so here we are exploring a little bit Belgium France and we’re mostly going to be going into Germany in the next couple of days so yeah I’m very excited no war stuff today so uh yeah we’re just doing doing some uh some twisty bits on the way to our first stop does feel good to be out stomach gloves jeans I have got my heated grips on not going to lie because yes my hands are a little cold but yeah what lovely part of the world it’s always nice when you have landscape above you towering over you like some kind of a large person sitting on your face in exchange for currency there’s a lake down there probably shouldn’t look at that we’re currently on the D1 there’s like a river over there and uh yeah just feels very nice there’s curves on the map on the route and I think we’re probably like 3 and 1/2 hours from Cali so normally I would just kind of get on the motor W rages and go down to the vge mountains but just think something a bit different today the roads aren’t as epic as in the voge but they they curve nicely get you back into the habit of Leaning a bike over and having fun but yeah this is a very nice part of the world whyly recommend it if you’re kind of heading to Germany Northern Germany you kind of skip along the border between France and Belgium there’s some actual hidden gems that’s really good I like look at this there’s a Weir over there and here’s some people who might pull out on you but it’s all part of the fun Hills Church old lady you got it it’s got it all if you’re into your Gils if you’re into your mountains come to this town is called monam monam it’s been a rock fall up there there’s a sko over here uh there a road going I think I’m go down here you are not allowed over this bridge if you watch 44 teeth look at that a I love seeing all the old remnants of painted signs you can imagine some uh some stuff going on here a while ago in the middle of the 20th century with guns I love my bike it makes great noises scenery probably can’t see that on a GoPro almost smell the French midges we’re on the n 945 now it’s pretty good road there’s lots of villages it’s a bit stop starty but it gets you up in the woods above the river valley it’s very pretty I like it I love my bike it sounds so good so fast look at this road it’s really good these Corners just keep on going the tac’s not perfect right I’m going to pull in on the side here cuz I believe there’s a Viewpoint here let’s go and check out the bloody view what’s the point of the Viewpoint oh God yeah it’s pretty nice nice bin what a lovely bloody flipping View so we’re deep in the heart of the Arden now lots of Woodland valleys and generally good roads actually the surfaces aren’t as bad as I remember but yeah we’re still coming into Buon so I so lovely lovely way to spend the day it’s not going to be the quickest way to get into Germany from Cal but yeah 2 and a half hours of boring French motorways versus 5 I’ll do this I think and there’s so many frites if you want chips and you like chips this is a good part of the world to come to just expect them to give you mayonnaise and enough mayonnaise to cover like the underside of your movs as well as the top the full Mo mayonnaise experience delightful yeah some of these Corners do have slightly crappy Road surfaces mid corner but it’s kind of okay in the dry at least right as the Germans say new is in bu lovely town in the Arden famous for having a castle and being named after a kind of soup so we’re just looking for a cafe and uh petrol come on something needs to be open no no no it’s Thursday national day of sleep in Belgium or is that just every day that looks open on the other side of the [Music] river there was the viewpoint but I’m having too much fun so this little road that I’ve just been doing is a detour a complete nothingness that I found on a map it’s called the n865 and it’s bloody good there’s a bit of single track as you come out buoy on and then it gets really smooth there some lovely lovely Corners like this corner here oh got my toe down was bad foot position more than Things El what an amazing bit of road if you think all Belgium roads are full of potholes and rubbish this n865 will really uh change your opinion on the matter slightly sketchy Road surface lovely [Music] corner right you join us as we leave Luxembourg and enter Germany we’ve just done about half an hour of filtering through a massive massive traffic Chan that was meant to give us an hour and 3 water’s delay but turns out to only give us 10 minutes delay in the end I’m never sure whether you meant to filter in Germany in places like that so my advice is let a German biker go past and see if they do it and then follow them so that’s what we’ve been doing with matey boy here on his tiger 900 but anyway we’re only 7 miles from Tria we’ve done about an hour of Motorway I’ll see you in a minute at our lovely Boutique Hotel there an Ibis but whatever hello welcome back you join us in PR a where we’ve spent the first night of our little trip around Europe and I just want to give you a bit of an update on what we did yesterday cuz it’s a bit whistle stopped to lots of GoPro footage nor rest it but basically we started in Cali did about 2 miles 2 miles felt like a lot longer than that two hours of boring French motorways and got off and came in to Tri through the rarden in Belgium then did a bit of a auto at the end but yeah the mt10 has been really impressive so far as a Touring bike P because it has got a real mix of comfort speed decent handling um and not fuel economy but things like cruise control heated grips both of which I used a lot yesterday but yeah it’s doing really well this screen kind of fires the wind about here so you can like hold 100 milph on an autoban much better than if it was purely naked the Road Tech O2 tires they’re brilliant like we’ve had some proper fast Corners they felt really stable and pretty much like as grippy as my old s22 so really impressed with it is we’re just having so much fun though which is the main thing when you come on a tour but anyway today’s video we’re going to go and explore some German civil engineering projects one of which might have had a hole put in it by the Royal Air Force the other one the Germans put a hole in but anyway you’ll join us on the road we’re not doing any motorways today we’re going across the middle of Germany which I’ve never done before kind of going Northeast from Tria up towards mes which gives you a clue where we’re going to end up it’s going to get a bit damn good it’s too hot let’s go and ride motorbikes look at this View we’re just leaving Tri a look at The Vineyards I think this must be l moel i could be entirely wrong but we’re heading for the Ry Valley the heart land of Germany’s industrial Minds by which I mean we’re going to see an old bridge that isn’t really doing much of a bridge impression anymore by not being there we’re get to Ragan yeah you might have seen an old film Bridget Ragan with the guy from man of mle it’s basically a pack of Lies but we’re going to go and see the real thing right restricted Auto Classic I think I saw 259 260 that’s probably close to top speed gets there quite easily though and uses probably all of my pet roll let’s do twisty roads cuz they are actually more fun going faster than your aut toine you do it once a twice then you’re right it’s not massively comfortable it’s not good for your fuel range and it’s not good for your tires if you’re in the middle of a tour do it at the end so you have a massive blowout and can end up in a German hospital that’s my traveling advice there my friend chaper on his uh street triple street triple sounds so good now this is a complete fluke and you’re not going to believe me but our route has brought us straight past the place called the nurburg ring so we’re get nurburg ring not only laps tourist farting isn’t on until 5:00 tonight we’re just going to stop have a watch see what’s going on ironically I was here 5 days ago on a car thing so um it was raining and foggy then but if you’ve not been here it is one of the prettiest parts of the world that just happens to have this massive honey pot racetrack in the middle of it but the roads around here are stunning as well not this one especially but if you take some of the side roads it’s like they had leftover tarmac from uh the Nord schlier and they just dumped it on the road so you get these beautifully smooth well this is pretty good flowing bends now you have to yeah you have to be a bit careful there’s lots of signs saying motorcyclists die here which you have to slightly block out but yeah have you not been here it ising obviously you do have your opportunity to go around the track you won’t be insured if you B it it’s on you and if you bend the YCO that’s a couple of thousand personally I’ve done a few Laps on a bike very slowly it’s fun and it’s amazing to see the elevation changes on the track and that’s the main thing you don’t get on your PlayStations and Xboxes is how upy down it is technical term but it is a real it’s just a real Buzzy place it’s got really lovely vibe there those are really great restaurants there’s just loads to see even if you’re not going to go around you can go to brunin which we’re going to do and watch whatever fancy track day is going on or the industry testing that they do here it’s honestly it’s a day’s ride from UK if you want to come here long a longish day ride and it’s well worth it even if you got no intention of going around the track as a place to start a tour it’s excellent it’s just very pretty good restaurants you can go to the piston clous and have steak on a stone like a proper tourist which I’ve done a million times or rent a car go to rent for rig and borrow a vaguely track prep Suzuki Swift or whatever and uh yeah go and be overtaken with a 200 mph speed differential by local in a GT3 RS what’s not to like yeah if you’ve never been to the Nord slier there are so many spots where you can stop and watch the action on track but to get between them you’ve got to do all these amazing roads it’s not a real hardship this is better than when I did it last weekend in a mini Countryman in the rain so this is the road leading out of Adan now we’re getting up towards the viewing spot greenin hopefully but again just a lovely road you don’t want to go too fast cuz there a big crash barrier there and there’s lots of shade that goes under trees and stuff but it is pretty well Tac and it’s just left right left right following a valley it’s kind of irrelevant that the nurburg ring is here as well it’s just a great road now I know you won’t actually believe me but this was completely unplanned the route for today was just to go from Tri a to the Bridget Ragan then up to the mes D which we’re going to get to in a bit but it brought us past the nurburg ring like right past it and we knew the roads around here are so good we couldn’t resist having a bit of a play now the Nord life if you’ve not been here there’s tons of viewing points this is probably the most famous one brunin I think it’s called YouTube corner on the internet but yeah when stuff’s going around this is a really good place to come sit and watch it’s got a really massive car park you can get nice and close to the track and if you’re here during the 24-hour race as I was last week this is like a proper rave up here but yeah it’s just a stunning part of the world sorry there’s nothing going on but I think the way nurburging filming licenses go I’m probably not allowed to show you anything going around anyway but yeah if you’re ever in the area do pop by even if you’re not interested in going round you don’t have to go and scare yourself and have a crash just come and uh have a look at it because it’s a really nice place and on that note I’m going to go and eat some sausage soon in a bit not will sausage I’m on David’s 2019 stet triple RS it’s been a while since I R one of these and it immediately has better brakes than my bike but that’s not really saying much cuz an aut mobile has better brakes than my bike that sounds amazing it’s such such airbox honk it’s also got lovely handling as well I hate that hairpin there he goes it’s got his first acent to mt10 wheelie I do love seeing people doing acal wheelies on wearing bikes I had this with my M as well this street triple I’m a bit big for it but it is a lovely lovely thing swapping on do street triple for a little bit I am just reminded you can t on anything I mean we’ve both had slightly non bums doing 420 mies yesterday but there’s no limit to going on a tour you don’t have to buy a GS you can do it on something that is fun when you get to these roads don’t think you have to get an adventure by right you joined me on the Ry and you joined me on my phone cuz being an absolute numpty I’ve just just left my Rock sack with £3,000 worth of camera kit at a cafe back at L Nur ring so we’re about to head back there but anyway in this video what you need to know is we are on the rine look absolutely massive River and here between I think it was the 10th and 17th of March there abouts in 1945 the Allies were advancing fast through Germany racing to the Ry desperate to find a bridge to get across and onto Berlin but all the bridges been blown up by the Germans as you might imagine as they were retreating except here in Ragan The Americans came across the ludendorf bridge a massive bridge that stretched all the way across here and it was still intact and obviously the Germans they attempted to blow it up from within a railway tunnel over there which you might have seen in the film Bridget Ragan but it didn’t fully blow it up so there’s a battle for 17 days as the Germans tried to blow the bridge up and the Americans tried to quickly get men across it into Germany and they succeeded I think about five divisions across the bridge about 155,000 men they reckon it shortened the war by a couple of days weeks we don’t really know but yeah eventually after 17 days collapsed into the river taking with it about 36 American Engineers who sadly lost their lives but you can still come here to visit the remaining peers and I have to say pretty imposing look up there I’m not sure if you can see because of the Sun but the Germans tried everything to try and destroy this bridge in those 17 days that the Americans held it uh they floated mines down the river to try and detonate them against the p they sent a team of frogmen in the water to try and mine the bridge and blow it up Hitler got involved as he does in these things and he ordered that they fire V2 rocket to try and blow it up they fired 11 V2s at this bridge and the closest they came is about half a kilometer I think they never hit it with them and I think that’s the only time the Germans ever fired V2s at German soil so it was a really important thing for the Germans to destroy and eventually it did collapse they sent about 350 aircraft to bomb it in the course of those 7 days and around here the Americans concentrated lots of anti-aircraft guns and apparently the highest concentration of anti-aircraft Firepower anywhere in the world for that week and they reckon they shot down about 30% of all the planes that came to bomb this bridge but anyway we’re going to head back to the nurburg ring now and try and find my stuff so I can do proper videos not on an iPhone but yeah what an interesting place there’s a Peace Museum here as well I’m not sure we’re going to have time to do it but yeah it’s a very imposing structure with quite an interesting story and I’m going to have to go back home and watch the Bridget Ragan with the guy from man from unle in it anyway let’s carry on it’s an old person thing it’s a big heavy Rock sack I’ve been wearing for 2 days suddenly I was on a different bike and just didn’t realize I’d left it in a restaurant but luckily the cockpit B at NB ring still has it so let’s go and fetch my very expensive bag of shite yay I’m a child we had to go back to the nurburg ring which has basically added 2 hours to our day when we were still 4 hours away from where we were trying to get to and it’s 3:00 in the afternoon I don’t feel particularly clever right now but what we are about to do is head to our final destination for today the M Lake which you might know from such World War II major actions as the Dam Busters raid anyway we’ll be there in about 3 or 4 hours we’re going to do a bit of modway and hopefully some fun stuff to get there on time I say on time massively late like 700 p.m. that’s fine got nothing better to be do to ride a motorbike it’s all right we’re only 80 km away but we’ve got a fun route planned that’s going to take an hour and 20 minutes and all for the past 2 hours which you haven’t seen it’s been really boring going through lots of towns I’m using the Garmin Zumo xt2 is adventurous route on reasonably not an adventurous setting actually to be honest and it’s taking us through 50 limit after 50 limit after 50 limit I’m talking kets now here so it’s getting a little bit tedious I am just thinking we should have gotten an autobom but the map looks pretty twisty soon don’t know if you’re going to be able to see this but yeah we’re going to go and do all this kind of jazz so yeah we’ll report back in a minute [Music] goodbye why is it so smooth this road does not have to be the smooth but you have made it so nice oh yeah oh yeah this has uh sort of made up for 2 hours of complete bordom front V to ground there’s a quite a good road coming up apparently I think it’s just a 30 m hour limit but it’s got an excellent Name the finest German tarmac I really need a Wii and this is not helping luckily my electronic Erin damping is doing wonders for my bladder and now there is poo on the road [Music]