One of my favorite places to go with my motorbikes are the alps. I was staying at my favorite hotel (Franzenshoehe) on the Stelvio pass. Which itself has been declared the best road in the world by top gear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZm8VFCKNj4! The ride up there was a bit wet and rainy but the day after was great and with the roads dried up I had an amazing drive over some of the best mountain passes in the alps! Watch the video for your self and judge it!
Me, Matthijs and Misael went for this awesome drifting and rally course this summer! All old BMW 3 series with locked differentials and special handbrakes meant a lot of fun!!! Especially the rally stage was a lot of fun and keeping the car in a perfect drift on the special track! Here is a small video of the day:
After a really warm summer day there were big warnings about the thunderstorm. The NS even decided to have the trains drive according to a special schedulte to avoid problems. For me it was a good excuse to enjoy the lightning from my balcony and take few nice photos!
For some reason I just love buying myself new toys and I found this sweet deal on this exclusive hand build italian MV Agusta F4 1000R. This is seriously like the Lamborghini of motorbikes with a top speed of >300km/h. It has some realy nice extra carbon parts, special Arrow race exhaust system and tuned to some 190bhp. For a bike that weighs 195kg this means seriously fast .
But the only slight issues is that I have 3 bikes now that even for my standards (if I have any ) is a bit too much so the Ducati will be sold .
After 5 years of pleasure with the Land Rover I now exchanged it for something slightly faster. A Porsche Boxster S with 252bhp, a top speed of 260 (twice as fast as the Land Rover ) and 0-100km/h in 5,9sec.
As most of you know by now I love travelling and take any opportunity go somewhere. In my trip to Seattle in June this year I met Katie and she invited me to come over to visit her in Washington and when I heard that Imre was also in New York that time a plan was quickly made and tickets were booked. It was all packed into 9 days with some hiking, sight seeing and off course driving in between. Great weather and 2 awesome cities and like usual time flew by! But we always have the photos to remember it
To make sure the Orange Heroes make it all the way to Dakar on the extreme route we (Me and Hans) offered to help them to get the Van Africa proof. After some pre checks, ordering parts and preparation we all left to Belgium where Hans has a Farm to work on all of his old cars and 4×4′s. I left from Arnhem and picked up some extra material to make a bull bar, Bolke went by Jesse to collect some extra under body protection in Amsterdam and Hans and Maurice came from Brussels.
There was a lot of work to and with an old 500 euro car you never know what problems you might run in too. But after 2 days and a bit of nights we are extremely pleased with the results. Here’s a small checklist of the things we achieved:
Engine checkup – Replaced oil, thermostat, new filters, tightened the fan belt, etc.
Extreme route ready – Bull bar, under body protection bar, big lights, off road tires, snorkel
Safety – New front brakes, cleaned rear brakes, welded down the safe to the floor and created a safe storage area for the extra fuel jerry cans
Comfort – Extra captains chair in the back, removed the internal wall
There’s still some work left on the battery, power converter and finishing the snorkel but overall the Van is Africa proof!
Like our yearly tradition me and my brother rented a nice german sports car. This time we had a 2010 BMW M3 with 420bhp, 7 gears, rwd and after driving it for 5 days we can say that is was a BEAST!!!! The speeds were amazing and in the tight twisting roads of the alps the car even had a bit too much power now and then and the traction control was working overtime . We choose some of our favorite roads and mountain passes including the Stelvio pass and Gavia pass. Here are some photos of this amazing trip:
It’s summer so time to camp me and Jesse thought, what better than to take out our Land Rovers for a nice camping in the Belgium Ardennes. Ronald joined with his Laro and was able to bring along Ruudje and Shosh. So with our cars packed with food and beer we arrived at camping Maka near the french border. This Land Rover oriented camping was in the middle of nature next to a nice small river. We right away started a nice camp fire and spend 2 great days chilling in and around the water, getting trees for the camp fire from the forest and BBQ-ing! We definitely will have to do this again next year!
Before summer starts I already felt like travelling again. Luckily a friend of mine had the same spirit and we both still wanted to visit the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) once. So we booked our tickets and a car and did an awesome road trip through the 3 countries. With loads of different scenery’s, nice old towns, great coastal areas and some amazing places we stayed overnight. Let the pictures speak for themselves!
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