A
Trip to Croatia.
A
magnificent journey gong through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria,
Italy, Slovenia and finally arriving in Samobor near Zagreb in
Croatia. It would have been a nice ride on a bike covering over 1200
miles but 41 C heat in Belgium at the start and torrential rain going
over the mountains in Austria would have put a damper on things and
did spoil the views. Sadly we did this in the Burton sports car as we
were heading for the 2CV World Meeting in Samobor.
There were a few
bikes there and one was a very different special. He had put a 2CV
engine and gearbox into a frame with odd bits of 2CV to make the
front suspension. It did look a bit strange with the spring
arrangements but it still worked. Using the 2CV differential and
locking it by welding the sprockets together he achieved turning a
two wheel drive into one and the final drive of one to one by chain.
He retained the stick shift and the lever was a bit too close to the
“crown jewels” with a secondary foot controlled throttle to
assist in gear changes.
I was impressed by the ingenuity. Other parts
used included 2CV wings as fenders. He wants to sell this novel
machine. His email address is srdjan.krneta@gmail.com
There was not much biking stuff on this journey but my interests include other museums and not planing the trip that well I missed out on the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart mainly because the car was not old enough to go into the low emission zone and too old to get an entry pass. The same with Strasbourg when we stopped there. I have some issues with the Bureaucrats, having talked to an Italian car enthusiast and works in the industry he said that the emissions are made up and they had the tests created to enforce the limits and are not very accurate. Why should the emissions on diesel engines be allowed to be 40% higher than petrol engines? Having been in both cities they are quite clean and there are few cars around. However on the motorways surrounding the cities they are almost grid-locked with everyone trying to avoid being fined. I didn’t see one motorcycle in those places. I had to cancel my hotel booking for Stuttgart and ended up in an Ibis near a metro station by chance and did get an evening in the centre of this remarkable city.
More
tales to tell when I get around to it but as it was a car holiday
that is for another blog.
