Mini Roadtrip 2020 - Staying Local

DanRoM

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Location
Ruhr Area, Germany
Car(s)
MX-5 ND, Tracer 900 GT & two bikes
In this year of virulent inconveniences, the big roadtrip has sadly been canceled - or rather postponed until next year, we all hope anyway.
But Ringmeet is on track to actually happen, and last I checked, there's even some people planning to attend. :)

And a few of us want to take the opportunity and not let vacation days go to waste. Therefore we are going on a mini roadtrip - just between three and five days prior to Ringmeet, and of course finishing at Viktoria Station on Ringmeet Thursday, August 6th. At the moment, looking more like four days, making Monday August 3rd the likely start. But all that is still fluid.

Planning is still ongoing, but the idea is to drive through some of the Mittelgebirge areas in the centre/east of Germany. Starting point will likely be either in the Bavarian Forest somewhere near the Czech border or in Saxon Switzerland*, also on the Czech border, and then go through Thuringia, the Harz mountains, and finally through Siegerland/Westerwald or somewhere around there to the Ring.

Of course, due to Corona, everything is kind of not set in stone, but we are operating under the assumption that we can stay in hotels/B&Bs or even go camping if reservations are made beforehand. Nevertheless, we will also avoid everything that cannot be canceled.

As of now, the crew consists of:

Of course we'd like to have more company. If you're interested, give us a shout. Planning is mainly done in a shared Google spreadsheet as usual.

I will update this thread with more concrete information about the route as it develops.

* Germans have the habit of naming their vaguely hilly areas "x Switzerland", because Switzerland apparently is the definition of mountains. :D
 
To keep up with you two, I probably have to take the bike... :LOL:

(Not the plan.)
 
Can i take 2.5?
 
Anyone with a Ro 80 around? If yes, I hope they’re not a wankel.
 
To make some more advertisement :) here's the current, still very preliminary plan for our route:

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Time-wise, it looks like we'll get going at the northernmost point of the route on Sunday August 2nd, and arrive at the Ringmeet on late Thursday, as is typical for roadtrips. We're planning to keep the days a bit shorter and more relaxed than some of our previous roadtrips, with a maximum of 300-ish km per day and multiple stops with various activities to do underway.
 
And the planning continues, with only one major gap left to fill:

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Overnight stops have more or less materialized, as well as some specific points of interest along the route.

- Start on Sunday morning: Einbeck (PS Speicher vehicle museum) or somewhere in that general area.
- Day 1: enter the western Harz, loop around for a bit, have lunch, reach Brocken, ride a steam train up and down the mountain, then continue to an overnight stop somewhere around Wernigerode.
- Day 2: dive back into the Harz, visit the Rappbodetalsperre, drive some nice roads, hit up a Supercharger at Sangerhausen, drive through the Kyffhäuser and continue to Jena.
- Day 3: set off southbound from Jena, reach the easternmost point of the route and get to the Thüringer Wald area. Drive some nice roads down there, possibly recharge again at Zella-Mehles, then reach Eisenach with quite a few POIs in the area (a toboggan, Wartburg, and another car museum).
- Day 4: leave late-ish from Eisenach after sleeping in and visiting Wartburg and/or the museum, and traverse west towards Winterberg, past the Edersee.
- Day 5: continue westbound with some detours for driving roads in the Siegerland/Westerwald area, visit the Panarbora, and finally continue down the last bit towards Ringmeet.
 
Oh... if you’re going to start in my hometown, I have to ask if I can join! I probably ought to bring a rental car of some sort because a) I don’t own a set of wheels with an engine, b) I wouldn’t want to do a road trip in mom’s Polo and c) I think I would enjoy the driving.

My route might look like this: Hürth/Köln to Einbeck on Friday, spend two nights at my parents’ and perform the usual tasks (such as computer maintenance), meet up with the Roadtrippers at the museum on Sunday. Would take passengers and am open to adding additional drivers to the rental contract if possible.
 
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- Start on Sunday morning: Einbeck (PS Speicher vehicle museum) or somewhere in that general area.
Note, for actually visiting the bike-heavy museum I'd recommend arriving early and doing it on Saturday, to allow enough Brocken time on Sunday.
 
Oh... if you’re going to start in my hometown, I have to ask if I can join! I probably ought to bring a rental car of some sort because a) I don’t own a set of wheels with an engine, b) I wouldn’t want to do a road trip in mom’s Polo and c) I think I would enjoy the driving.
Sure, the more the merrier!

Don't forget there's also an option of passenger-ing, which basically means you'll get to ride in and also drive most of the cars involved. This worked really well on the 2018 Balkan trip, where we've more or less randomly swapped cars all around between all the drivers and passengers. On Swisstaly last year there were (almost) no passengers, and I kinda missed that fun factor a bit.
 
Note, for actually visiting the bike-heavy museum I'd recommend arriving early and doing it on Saturday, to allow enough Brocken time on Sunday.
You can easily spend some time in Einbeck if you’re interested in beer (and/or old houses where it often used to be made), so perhaps a night of sleep between tasting the local products and driving along mountain roads would indeed be a good idea.
 
Don't forget there's also an option of passenger-ing, which basically means you'll get to ride in and also drive most of the cars involved. This worked really well on the 2018 Balkan trip, where we've more or less randomly swapped cars all around between all the drivers and passengers. On Swisstaly last year there were (almost) no passengers, and I kinda missed that fun factor a bit.
The 2er passenger seat is available for some legs, but the driver seat is not - signed a thing from my company that it's driven by employees or family members only :'( but, no petrol money necessary because free fuel cards =)
 
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My car may be driven by any person over 25 years of age, according to insurance.

Regarding accomodation, if we do camping for monetary reasons my boot will not have much space left for passenger luggage. :D But that is not yet sorted out.
 
Regarding accomodation, if we do camping for monetary reasons my boot will not have much space left for passenger luggage. :D But that is not yet sorted out.

There are solutions to this!

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Of course you ensure that the luggage on the back belongs to the passenger. It's totally reasonable to drive without a rear-view mirror too, I did so for the entire roadtrip. :p

I'm not sure how my insurance would work, UK insurance covers the car for named drivers only and it's down to the non-named driver's policy to cover driving other cars. Thankfully it hasn't been an issue. Anyway, as much as I would like to I won't be able to join the trip, or it's very unlikely at least.
 
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