It was and you could experience local culture first hand and on the Hungarian edition we signed up for a day’s ride out to the east side of the country in the Romania
border
A father and son of the Hungarian club had a shoe factory in this wee town and organised it - to a bike and car museum in their town
Unfortunately they got their kilometres and miles mixed up and the notice board said 500k’s and not 500 miles
It was actually a round trip of 800 kilometres (or 500 miles)
FFS
So, being stupid Brits we thought a 500 km (300 mile) day trip would be fine
So 20 Brits went, 1 old boy from Portugal on a demo new F650 Funduro and borrowed riding gear (we lent him some gloves and a jacket and BMW’s Hungarian importer lent him an open face helmet for a 500 mile jaunt
) and a few dour Germans went in this day trip
Up at 6 am with Breakfast was 7am & a departure of 8.15am ( it was supposed to be a holiday
)
The Hungarian BMW club had organised a 4 bike police escort on K1100 police bikes - 2 up front and 2 at the back and the drop-off system was deployed
Fuck me it was like a cannonball run, we never stopped at any lights/road junction or roundabout for 250 miles, as the Police riders would block every bit of traffic so this 30 bike procession could thunder through at 60-80 mph everywhere
At the 125 mile point we stopped at a pre arranged fuel station with a cafe for a breather
Arriving at this wee town at about noon after a 250 mile high speed ride - the whole town was decked out in bunting and all the folk were lining the streets for this motorcycle cavalcade, cheering us and clapping - like something else and all the roads were dirt and gravel, no tarmac
We went to the shoe factory and try had a canteen with a sports centre, the father/son duo did us proud with a 3 course meal and then a game of 10 pin AML bowling afterwards in the firm’s own sports arena (remember the town was poor and had dirt roads and no street lights or amenities)
After lunch we went to a smarter residential street with American style houses with long grassed front gardens
Pulling up outside this house and parking the bikes, this father & son duo met the owner and we were shown into the massive farm size shed behind the house
The shed housed all manner of old bikes like HD’s and Indian-plus old Eastern European bikes and some cars/steam engines etc
Fascinating couple of hours
At about 3.30 pm we were off again, with the Police escort for the 250 mile return journey, again all on A&B roads with the odd dirt road thrown in - no motorway at all (there weren’t any)
Now the Portuguese rider wasn’t the best and he found the trip an ordeal - being Brits we stuck him
In the middle of our group & told him to follow the lines of the rider in front of him and we’d mop up any issues behind him (bends weren’t his strong point)
After about 100 miles into the return trip, we were crossing some fenland type land with open land and dykes
The old fella failed to make a bend and he was in the grass and gently heading for the deep ditch
He rode into the ditch on this brand new borrowed Funduro and lent it against the ditch side without crashing and stepped off it
We stopped and got off our bikes and went to his aid
The new bike was covered in pond weeds and about 10-15’ lower the the road and bank side
We managed to get the bike out, with me riding it and 4 other Brits manhandling it out, whilst the Germans stood by tutting at being held up
No damage done we got him back on the bike and the Police riders set us off again at 80 mph
We got back at 8pm, after a 500 mile day ride
Some holiday that was