When travelling to a known destination, whether on the other side of town or the other side of the globe, it's comforting to have a pretty clear picture of what you'll find when you arrive. Such was not the case with our inbound leg to Germany -- we'd had a few phone calls, perused a couple websites and reviews, but in retrospect, it's always hard to know what you'll find at the other end of a trip a third of the way around the globe, where you're planning to be received by an unknown driver, shuttled to unfamiliar (and somewhat unorthodox) lodging, and have your shipped-in-advance property returned to you.
In our case, a very kind, well-spoken and professional 20-year-old, Christopher Knopf, greeted us at the Frankfurt airport and chauffeured us the hour-long ride to his family's property outside Heidelberg. More than 20 years ago, his father Stephan kicked off a family business of guiding motorcycle tours, and today the property shows it, in all the right ways. More than a family-run B&B, or a motorcycle storage facility, or a service shop, today's Knopf Tours headquarters combines all these ingredients to create the feeling of a well-worn secret moto clubhouse, awaiting arrival of travelers of every stripe.
Male and female, young and older, a dozen riders came and went in the two days we were there, some riding modern adventure bikes laden with gear, others on sport-tourers and sparsely-packed classics. Conversations on the sunny patio, usually over coffees or beers, were remarkably similar to what one hears in the lounge of a traveler’s hostel, mountaineering lodge or yacht club: recommendations of destinations not to miss, tales of globetrotting adventures past and to come, discussions of the right gear to bring, weather to expect, paperwork to carry and pitfalls to avoid. Knopf stores hundreds of motorcycles for clients from around the world -- clients who ship their bikes ahead of themselves, come explore a corner of Europe for a few weeks, then take the bikes back to Knopf for repairs and safekeeping until the following year, when the clients return and do it again.
If you like to chat motorcycles and exotic destinations to which you might ride yours, this place is like Mecca, and equally humbling: all on a similar path and with lots in common, but some much closer to self-actualization than others. "We're spending a month touring Europe via motorcycle + sidecar," I mentioned to another guest on our first day there, who had cruised in on a beautiful, vintage BMW from the '60s. From the excitement of his response, I might have told him I was planning to drive the family station wagon to the supermarket to pick up some bread and eggs. "Where are you headed?" I inquired of another, whom I'd noticed packing the gear boxes of a well-equipped adventure bike. "Cape Town," he said nonchalantly. "I expect to make it by November. I'm from South Africa, but live in the UK now." Later, over coffee, he talked me through the pros and cons of traveling the east side of Africa (fewer border crossings, but political challenges in Egypt and Sudan) versus the west (just too many tiny countries, each with its own opaque border-crossing protocol). He's done this trip (of more than 9000 miles!) a few times. "The trip really starts in Ethopia," he said.
So, there are rich characters you meet if you're chatty. And then there are people you meet out of necessity. Perhaps, for instance, you realize your 23-year-old bike, after crossing an ocean in a storage container and then sitting in storage for three months, needs a little mechanical TLC. In our case, a very knowledgeable and qualified mechanic named Wolfgang Schweitzer at the Mannheim Honda dealership brought our brakes up to tip-top condition before we got to chatting. It was then that he, very modestly, shared where he'd acquired his affection and knowledge of our bike: he spent decades working as a Honda quality control specialist on the very bike we ride, then went on to get his Master Brief title, and largely engineered the cooling system of a later model of our bike. "Wow!" I said, honestly feeling I was in the company of an unsung celebrity, "so you *really do* know this bike." He nodded sheepishly. "So, what's your favorite system on this bike? Which do you think was engineered the best?" I asked.
"I love them all," he responded with palpable pride. It was as if he was talking about his kids.
