Volante Motorcycletour
Today it was an early start, a tour in the east of the country, the tour is organized by the alumni association of the automotive engineering school, called Volante. Actually it was the plan for Revvy to take part in the tour but due to the rainy weather plan was changed to take me on the tour. We got the first rain after crossing the lake, that was bad news, the good news was that there was plenty time to dry again. A little after 10 we arrived after 1,5h of riding at the meeting place for traditional dutch apple cake and a coffee.
The tour was about 180km and contained some dyke roads, country side and forrest area, we deviated a little from the planned route above, partly to road construction and because somebody knew some nice roads on the way. In the video below you will get a nice impression of the tour. I have a lot of video of myself as for a big parts I was following another motorcycle that had rearward viewing camera.
We started with a dyke road along the IJssel, we could see the low water level. We followed the dyke as much as possible until Kampen, there after a small traffic jam we crossed the IJssel by bridge. Then the tour continued in a north-east direction where we crossed the river Zwarte Water (black water) at Genemuiden by a small ferry. From there it was a small ride to Zwartsluis, where we had a tankstop. At the tank stop we could also see some old cars from DAF. It is a Dutch manufacturer, now making trucks but in the 60ies it was a small car famous for the CVT (Continue Variable Transmission) gearbox. Their forward speed was the same as the rearward speed, made them popular for the achteruitrijrace (rearward-driving-race) that was on TV in the 80ies.
From the tankstop we rode south-east along another river and had a lunch stop at the train station in Dalfsen. There we had a nice meal and some nice talks. After the lunch we continued the route but slightly different from the plan, we rode across the Sallandse heuvelrug national park. We could see the purple heather fields still. After the national park the tour went south-west to the end point at Gorssel there we closed the tour with a drink. After the ride we still had to ride about 130 kilometer back home, that was more fast riding on familiar roads and sharing my experiences with the others.