Like last year this bike holiday was dedicated to riding (obviously), a bike meeting (what's new?) and art. I'm a teacher at an art academy and, and last year's experiment was quite a succesfull one. I call this trip 'Splitting Germany', as I rode this country from the far west to the far east.

Monday July 7 I took the A57, one of my favorite German roads. Not because of the tarmac quality (certainly not) but this road has often been the start of interesting trips, like the ones to the Essen Motor Show, Fighterama and Nitrolympics.

First museum: Gasometer, Oberhausen. A huge gas holder, built in the late 1920's, a beautiful industrial monument. This landmark of the city of Oberhausen was converted into an extraordinary exhibition hall after its decommissioning in 1988.

Such an impressive building, such a modest (silly?) entry.

Well then, beauty. In the lower part of Gasometer you make a journey along the greatest works in the history of art. Famous paintings like 'Portrait of Gabrielle d'Estrées and her sister, the Duchess of Villars', 1594, School of Fontainebleau ...

... Botticelli, 'Birth of Venus', 1485 ...

... and, of course, Leonardo da Vinci, 'Mona Lisa', 1504.

Actually it was a fast tour through the history of art. All well-known artworks, and all reproductions (of course). I see it as a good introduction to art, a kind of artistic fastfood, but not surprising nor exciting at all. Shiny reproductions on a beautiful location, not suggesting to be 'the real thing' because of their uniform scale. I mean: the real Mona Lisa is 77 x 53cm...

I was more impressed by the installation called '320 degrees Light', by a group of artists called 'Urbanscreen' (Bremen, D).

They projected a fascinating game of growing and changing graphic patterns on the 100 m high interior wall of the Gasometer. Supported by seven channels of sound the installation is among the world's largest and technically most sophisticated interior projections.

Coming outside was quite a shock, like waking up from a nice dream: noise, sun, rain, heat, humidity.

Walking? Climbing! I climbed Blast Furnace 5, a huge furnace that produced pig iron until 1985. It has been open to the public since 1993. And what a place to wander around ...

... and take pictures. I love industrial buildings. Their brutal size, rusted steel constructions, their 'form follows function' principle, their almost alien appearance.

I like stainless steel but I like corrosion too (not on my projects, that is).

Being in such a place made me feel really humble.

It proves that size does matter.

Okay, the last one.

Back at the camp site I cooked myself an extensive meal; after 218 steelseated kilometers and two exhibitions I thought that was well deserved.

Tuesday July 8: modern art this time. I rode to the center of Essen to visit Museum Folkwang.

The exposition called '(Mis)Understanding Photography' was about the question 'What is photography?'. Is it an object, an image, of a way of seeing? Interesting matter.

I certainly liked the statement you see on the left. For me photographing is constructing an image; I'm not into random snapshots.

These 'landscapes' are made by Timm Ulrichs, and are called 'Landschafts-Epiphanien' (1972). Foggy horizons, warm sunsets ...

Andreas Sauer showed a greyish picture ...

... which, while looking close, showed no less than 16,777.216 different colours. This is exactly the palette graphical computerprograms use. It struck me that such variety combined results in quite a disappointing dull grey.

Pavel Maria Smejkal, 'Fatescapes', 2009. He might have called it 'Fakescapes'. Something's missing, isn't it? Some tanks, a man with a white plastic bag perhaps? All photoshopped away, but still present in a strange way. That is what monumental pictures do.

Aim at the picture to see the original photograph 'Tank Man', 1989, Charlie Coal.

Same artist, same series, same effect: although the falling republican militiaman is very absent, he still is very present in a weird way.

Aim at the picture to see the original photograph 'The Falling Soldier', 1936, Robert Capa.

A variation of the most expensive photograph ever sold. Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger make it look like the picture was a fake, made in a studio. It made me smile.

Aim at the picture to see the original photograph 'Rhein II', 1999, Andreas Gursky.

So did they with the early mentioned Beijing 1989 picture: make it look like a set-up. Because of the political importance and the human drama of this situation back then it did not make me smile this time. Still don't know what to think of it.

That's what good art does: makes you wonder, laugh, think, reconsider. It scratches, even irritates sometimes.

Time for some lighter stuff: not a photograph this time but 'Kijkende gezichten' (1961) by our own Karel Appel.

Paintings like this have a dimension that photographs don't have, being the third dimension.

Wednesday July 9: Zollverein, Essen. This day the temperatures were simply gruesome. Although the distince between camp site and Zollverein was just 17 km, it was a terrible ride: Essen has very bad tarmac and traffic jams all the way. No fun for me and even harder for an aircooled six cylinder bike.

Zollverein is an old coal mine. Impressive architecture, like Landschaftspark, but more polished, less raw. I prefer Landschaftspark.

Main goal this day: the Red Dot Design Museum. Yes, we go from Classic via Modern art to Architecture and finish at Design.

Design is a very undervalued artform, mainly because it is so 'normal': it surrounds us in our everyday life. Good design though, unlike good art, takes more than a beautiful appearance, it improves our daily life with its functionality and ergonomy.

The exhibition proved the unremarkability of design: Red Dot felt like a shop, filled with highclass products. Not the experience of your average museum at all.

Well, not a normal shop of course. Again the architecture was overwhelming, and in what shop would you find a polished aluminum car body hanging from the ceiling?

One striking example, IMHO: the titanium Akrapovic Evolution Line exhaust for the Ducati 1199 Panigale. It just transports engine fumes and kills sounds you say? Well, just look at the sheer beauty of this snake-like design ...

... sadly hidden behind the outer shell of the bike. Just a tip of the iceberg of the designer's skills is visual. Although it must be comforting that the Panigale is not your average bike.

Thursday July 10. The Panigale connects both parts of the week: no more art from now on, just bikes. Goal for the second half: Superbike event at Schleizer Dreieck. But first catching up with friends, at Biker-Treff Brilon, halfway Germany.

Again it was a hot and muggy day; I'd rather have rain.

No, just kidding. The CBX would, though.

It was not very crowded as I arrived. In fact I was the only biker on site.

I had no problems with that: Willy 'Hammer of Justice' Mecklenborg (r) was there with girlfriend Helga and her son Jos. Willy and me go back to 2008, and visited quite some events together like the one in Vaale, and Altes Elefantentreffen.

In the evening Erwin arrived on his GL1000 sidecar bike. Don't have to introduce him, do I? We met fourteen years ago and this is our tenth bike summerholiday anniversary.

We all had a nice talk and a nice beer ...

... which, for some reason, lasted until 04.30h.

Friday July 11: rise and shine, after a few hours of sleep. Okay: rise will do for now. Camp site owner Dieter kicked-off the day with a nice breakfast.

Erwin and me had a long trip ahead of us. We rode seperately to Schleiz because I'd ruin the CBX engine if we got stuck in a traffic jam in this smoldering weather. But even without a sidecar companion the 383 km trip was a challange with numerous 'Baustellen' (construction sites) and 'Umleitungen' (diversions).

For the first time I entered the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

Erwin arrived some hours later at Schleiz.

For the first time in my life I rode in a sidecar. Quite an exciting experience I must say, although I'd rather be in control.

We rode to a gas station to get some meat and beer for the evening. And night.

We were told that the atmosphere at the IDM Superbike races at Schleizer Dreieck were similar to the TT Assen in the early days. I visited Assen a lot and Schleiz turned out to be far more peaceful, not as brainless as Assen was. Still there was enough going on.

Saturday July 10. Our neighbour Toni turned out to be a longsleeper: incredible how one can survive in a closed car when the temperature outside (!) is over 30 degrees Celcius.

We rode to a supermarket in Schleiz and did this, because of the heat, without any protective clothes. Quite extaordinary: both of us feel naked like this. But we enjoyed the cool breeze, it blew away the hangover very fast.

On the other hand: it looks silly.

Little correction: the breeze wasn't cool enough to blow the whole hangover away, as you can see.

Neighbours Markus and Toni joined us again.

And so did others, once in a while.

I think it was the hottest day of the week. One had to find shadow not to get fried. The bright weather did not attract any visitors to the fair.

A lot of them found shadow at a more strategic location: the beer wagon.

About three in the afternoon heat and beer (or: beer and heat) took us down. We granted ourselves a little beauty sleep.

Reborn we re-entered the arena. Did some bike talk ...

The sidecar race started.

Right in front of our noses one of them crashed. It took quite long before the ambulance arrived. Not so neat.

After that the main event of the weekend: the Superbikes. I love the sound of those bikes, especially the twins.

Listening to the bikes, looking at the fans.

Young and old.

Loved the atmosphere. Germans have a perfect word for it: 'Begeisterung', which is more intense than its translation 'enthusiasm'.

After the race we went back to our tents. Again we were not alone.

Once a while I gave a small demonstration ...

... and incidentally let someone pose on the bike.

Again we had a nice BBQ. And a novelty: mushrooms! Yes, a vegetable!

And meat, not to forget.

An Aprilia Tuono gave a nice demostration for eyes, ears and noses. By flipping the kill switch blue flames came out of the exhaust.

We went to the crowded party area and had a few drinks.

Late at night Erwin did a small burn-out, just for fun.

Sunday July 13: sorry, this must have been the hottest day. On my way to the penultimate stop my old navigator lost track. I would have crashed a million times if I'd followed its directions.

Oldskool maps to the rescue!

We arrived at camp site Schloβ Roβdorf in de small village ... Roβdorf.

Too bad for us: the annual 'Schützenfest' (marksmen's festival?) was up and running. The majority of the visitors were over sixty.

The Roβdorf youth did some dancing ...

... and a band made some kind of music, I guess.

We soothed the pain with some cold beers.

At first we made our own little party but during the evening we were invited to join the locals. It wasn't quite as planned but hey, it was better.

Monday July 14: it had rained a lot overnight.

We had a small breakfast and rode to the last destination: Boele's Place. Erwin and me had been there before, on the way back from Free Wheels, three years ago.

The weather had changed: very cloudy, every once a while a few splashes, but not enough to put on my rainwear.

As I arrived the party was already going on: the present group expected a rainy day so decided not to go for a ride. Their Plan B.: beer. I joined in.

(By the way: it didn't rain that day)

The food was as good as I remembered, as was the Jan's and Anne-Marie's hospitality.

We put up my tent at the nice camp site ...

... and we had a joke-rich evening at the bar.

Tuesday July 15: view from my tent, after a rainy night.

Breakfast, a strong one, a good one.

You might know I'm not a huge fan of sidecars and trikes. Not because of their looks but because of their width and maneuverability, and therefore limited use in traffic. Ype de Vries proves that there's nothing wrong with the looks of a trike, especially a compact and yet brutal (295 rear tyres!) one as he owns, and built.

Like the one he built for his wife, powered by a Indian engine.

Okay then, home sweet home. After a nice trip on small roads I was back on the A57.

The warm weather took its toll: in the near future the LCD display has to be replaced as it seems to bleed. Can't blame it though: what computerscreen survives 12 years of rain, sun, vibration, and fumes?

The bike gave me another 1,531 km of art and fun and now it just needs a little TLC. And that's what I'll give.