Steel Horses

Last Fall, Springfield natives Don and Sue Rollins saddled up to see Europe by motorcycle. Turn the page to read about their adventure on two wheels.

When he and his wife, Sue, returned from their motorcycle tour of Europe, Don Rollins wrote an update to a local group of doctors. The group formed five or six years ago, veterinarians who ride motorcycles together to continuing education events.

“Challenging?” he wrote in the second part of the letter. “Screaming down the side of a mountain, up to 14-degree slopes, in second gear on my little thumper, a BMW F650 GS, pushing the red line with no throttle for engine braking… Another switchback, this one pivots around a Coke bottle… Four days of this kind of riding, in the middle of nine riding days, through beautiful scenery with occasional obligatory stops to review the history of this old world.”

The idea for the trip Don describes took shape as he and Sue were considering a motorcycle tour of New Zealand—a trip they still might take. The couple has taken many motorcycle trips in the United States, but not one that was all-inclusive. They ultimately decided to try something different, and booked their ride with a company called Edelweiss.

“Their specialty is making tours to fit the profile of motorcyclists,” Don says. “They actually rent the bikes from local dealers, and that gives each individual rider a choice. You need 5,000 miles, I think, on the category of bike you’re selecting.”

Riders are expected to be experienced and appropriately dressed for long rides. A ride across the countryside—through tiny villages where grapes are being harvested, past Brown Swiss cattle being driven alongside the bikes—sounds romantic, but it’s not for the faint of heart. A hairpin turn onto cobblestone thick with cow manure, Don says, creates the very real possibility of an accident.

“These were really skilled motorcyclists,” Sue says. “I had to have official gear. I usually ride in jeans and tennis shoes, but the first thing we heard back
was, ‘No tennis shoes.’ I needed the pants, a Gore-Tex jacket, and of course I always wear a helmet. That was the first clue that we were talking about a serious group of riders. That was the common denominator. And this was adventurous riding.”

Although she says they don’t usually approve of touristy things, Sue admits Edelweiss did a good job. The guides plotted two routes each day, a short route and a scenic route, neither of which were mandatory. The tour also contained a minimum of drafty castles. The focus was more on the scenery, the countryside, and the parts of present-day Europe not usually seen by tourists. Plus, she says, there were other reasons it had to be inclusive.

“My big concern—Don and I aren’t really tour people,” Sue says. “But it was important because we were in five countries in a short period of time, and each country had a different language we weren’t fluent in. Germany, eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, then back to Germany. It was great to have a tour guide.”

“For me, not being a tour person, I stayed with the guide every step of the way,” Don says. “I didn’t want to miss anything.” Each day of riding was only 150 miles or 250 miles, Don says, which was a pleasant, leisurely pace. “We were there in the Fall,” Sue says. “We flew in and out of Munich. The weather was perfect.”

Don and Sue agree that most reasons not to take such a trip melt away in the face of the actual event. It’s better to just get out there and do it, if that’s what you want to do.

“The first reason to keep putting it off: It’s expensive,” Don says. “But it exceeded my expectations. It was money well-spent.”

The rising euro might deter Americans, but the sooner you book your trip, the cheaper it is. “They book and print their prices a year in advance,” Sue says. “So from that standpoint, we had a bargain.” The tour guides spoke fluent English. Don and Sue were well-prepared by their trips in the Ozarks and Colorado to ride on unfamiliar—sometimes challenging—roads in different countries. There were no accidents, Don says. No one even dropped their bike. As he wrote to his friends, “Perpetually studying/practicing riding techniques for safety and fun prepared us well for the challenging riding.”

“I would do another motorcycle trip similar to this one,” Don says. “But more Italy. Edelweiss also has a South American tour. You get away from Europe, and they tend to be more dual-purpose bikes. Dirt roads, gravel roads, across some desert, through the rain forest. They have the northern part of Italy that takes in what they call the Dolomites, then on down in Tuscany. We know we would be comfortable on a motorcycle in that area.”

The touch of the air, the feel of a motorcycle, is a huge draw for both of them. Seeing the country on a bike is different from seeing it any other way.

“When you go by a wagonload of grapes that they’re taking to the vineyard, you smell the grapes, or past the Brown Swiss cattle, you can reach out and touch them,” Sue says. “That’s the kind of experience you don’t have when you’re in a car, or on a bus, or on a train.”