Data:
Leg 1 Beirut - Cesme, 1520 km. Depart Sunday August 21, 04:00 -arrive
Monday 05:00; 25 hrs on the road.
Leg 2 Brindisi - Bad König, 1749 km. Depart Wednesday 08:00 -
arrive Thursday 06:00; 22 hrs on the road.
Beirut - Bad König total 3269 km riding, covered in 2 days ;-)
(average 1634.5 km/day - 1016 miles/day ;)
Total time, Beirut - Bad König including ferry boat: Sunday morning
to Thursday morning: 4 days.
Total Trip Beirut to Beirut: 7850 km
Longest ride in saddle with no gas, cigarette or pee stop: 270 Km
between Hama Syria and gas station near Syrian - Lebanese border (near
Damascus).
On way back in Italy, I stopped in Rome & spent a couple of days
with Joyce & Yasmine. Then toured a bit around southern Italy,
west side (Napoli) then east side Bari-Brindisi areas on coast &
country side.
Return trip through Turkey, took longer Antalya - Toros mountains.
2 reasons for this, wanted to avoid going through fu.n construction
roads and fu.n up new air filter, also wanted change of scenery.
Impressions:
1. X11: S U P E R ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! never were there questions
about power / performance / handling / brakes / quality / reliability
etc. Question was how good as a touring machine, as regards comfort,
mileage, night riding.
a. Comfort: Any machine you can ride for 25 hours or cover 1749 km
in one shot, or sit on the saddle for 270 km straight must be FU.N
COMFORTABLE!!! for touring ;-)
b. Mileage: 6.4 L / 100 km ain't bad for a 140HP machine, average
range was: 342 km. average range before reserve light comes up about
260 km.
c. Night riding: Super, regular beam very good visibility (at night
speeds about 120km/h)
Conclusion: X11 can KICK ASS in touring, just as well as it does every
where else! In other words, X11 can kick everybody's ass everywhere
& anytime LOL LOL LOL
2. Riding in Turkey:
a. Gas: Good quality gas everywhere & lotsa gas stations (seems
its good business) and most stations accept credit cards.
b. Roads: Turkey is country of variety
i. Toll Highways: Super quality (except when there is a diversion
- see diversions below)
ii. Regular highways: ok, except with Truck traffic at night and the
smog created by thier exhausts can be real disturbing.
iii. Toros Mountains: Asphalt mostly OK, but very narrow, very sharp
turns, and very very curvy. Average speed about 40 km/hr for about
250km. Turkish truck drivers improving, I met only 1 overturned truck.
The scenery on this road is super, most of riding is in pine tree
woods, with fantastic blue colors of the sea below.
iv. Diversions: Beware of road diversions in Turkey, they can send
you off road, and can really screw up the bike with the dust from
cars & trucks.
v. Asphalt: generally good, but possible to get on roads with no asphalt
or with very very fresh asphalt which sticks on your tires.
Conclusion: If you want to ride quick avoid Toros mountain road and
ride through central Turkey, but be sure to have bike properly greased
for protection before ride; after ride need to clean grease &
change air filter. If you have time, Toros mountain road is nice.
Avoid Antalya & Alanya.. tourist traps. can always find nice small
places on the coast. I stayed in beautiful small place in Bozyazi
3. Southern Italy: Always warned about robbers in south Italy &
avoided it; but this time I wanted to check it out. Actually liked
it a lot & people are very friendly and the Piazza social concept
is still very much alive, with all the town people there morning &
night. kids, teens, middle aged & old people in small groups.
Did coast & country side, both are nice.. I prefer country side..
Conclusion: Southern Italy is a good place to spend a couple of days
touring.
I found a very good way to solve hotel unavailability problem.. by
riding day & night no more need for hotel..can save money also,
& no need to worry about lack of soap in hotel. will always get
enough rain on a long ride to wash body & clothes LOL LOL LOL
LOL .but for this you need an... X11 !
