Ride the Autobahn

“With a gladsome song in my heart and an eager right fist at the end of my arm I sailed into my first ever autobahn experience. I was in Bavaria, the fun part of Germany. The sun was hotly shining upon my endeavours and I was astride a pearly white Victory Magnum packed and stacked for a 3000km-long foray through Europe, so there was a bit of a Star Trek feel about the whole thing. You know, going boldly where no man had gone before, which was Hungary. Anyway, to get to Hungary, I first had to go through Germany, and then Austria. And while I had no intention of autobahning my way through Europe, I also had no idea of where I was going other than east, and so I ended up on my first autobahn. What a brutally humbling revelation that turned out to be. I knew, from watching TV that the far right lane was for slow-moving trucks. The two middle lanes were for cars, and the far left lane was for very fast cars. No biggie. I had a motorcycle that could happily sit on 180 all day. That being the case, I felt that my right and proper place was in the far left lane where the fast stuff lived. It was while I was making my way across to that far left lane that the first sub-sonic German funeral convoy slammed past me.”

“I only drove on the Autobahn a little, and the car I had only did about 180kph. I remember hitting a wide open stretch of road with several lanes, and after a minute I noticed my leg was getting strained because I was standing on the gas pedal! But most of the time I was riding with a friend in a Golf 2.0, which only did about 130mph I think. I remember doing 120-130mph and being passed like we were sitting still. Also one time we drove a small Mercedes van that would only do about 100mph. Some big Mercedes passed us and his wake nearly pushed us into the other lane. [...] I felt safer doing 130mph over there than I do at 70mph here. Lane discipline was awesome. The only times I was kinda scared would be when we were hauling ass and there were only two lanes, and suddenly one semi decided he wanted to pass another. You can go through some brake pads in a hurry like that.”