Jasná Trip

It was August 1992. I was about to start work at the gymnázium in Zastávka. It was my last big ride for the year. Once working I would have early starts and finish too late on weekdays to get away.

My partner Audrey had come with me. She was on her GSX750ES. 

We decided to have a ride into Slovakia. Looking through the international youth hostel guide book we saw there was one up a dead end valley in Jasná.

We were staying in the youth building near the school. I locked the trailer inside and we set off early.

On the map it was about 250 miles. The Kettle uses far more petrol than the GSX! Even with a full tank from the petrol station in Rosice u Brna, I would need fuel again in Slovakia.

The plan was basically to head east-ish. Stop for a fill up in Trenčín and then head across to Martin and then to Jasná 

By the time we got to Trenčín I was running on fumes. Usually in those days, as there was a shortage of private vehicles, there was a corresponding shortage of fuel stops, but usually they were pretty well signposted.

Not in Trenčín. We rode around for ages until we arrived at the bus station. The pumps were behind it. I filled up. Grateful that I hadn't had to push it. 

Brno to Trenčín is just about 100 miles. I hadn't expected to use so much fuel or I had miscalculated how much I had already used before we set off. The only way to tell it to look down the filler hole and jiggle the bike about to swill the contents.....!  No fuel gauges in 1976!

The next fuel stop was Martin. It was only about 75 miles but with a weekend coming along I wanted to have plenty of fuel.

We had two nights in the hotel. It wasn't a youth hostel any more but was still cheap. They accepted the YH cards and we definitely had a room that was on the basic side!

The ride "home" was better. Better fuel management. No further problems. I bought two stroke oil in an OMV station in Austria.

Audrey was going to ride home. We had a last few nights together in a small hotel in Bad Deutsch Altenburg,  to the east of Vienna. 

Doing nothing but eating and sitting in the sun. Who would have thought the Danube could be so hot!!  

This was another 320kms. 

We rode towards Vienna and stopped just past it on the autobahn for a coffee. Audrey went straight on and I turned off and headed north "home".

"Home" for a year.

All in all, for this trip alone I did about 850 Kettle kilometres. At that time I was lucky to get 180 kms to the tank!  If I was very lucky!