ride to panarit, albania

(73km roundtrip)

ride to the ancient tombs of Selce, Albania

(148km roundtrip, the tombs are said to be found only in Albania and Lebanon and date back to around 5 BC.)

it's been a while...

its probably been almost a year since i have ridden here in albania. the bike is in the garage and i hear its beckon call. being out of the country to get married has been the primary reason! which i can't complain about, although i do miss the beautiful scenery of albania, always best seen by foot or two wheels!  although i haven't done much if any riding over the past year in albania, i did have the opportunity to do a fair amount of riding while in the usa.

before the wedding, vita and i made my annual trip down south together.  the bmw r100/7 broke down just a day or so before our departure.  so thankfully my brother jay loaned us his bmw r1150rt!  i dreamed of taking the bmw r100/7 on this trip, a real road trip in style, since the previous year i made it on jay's r1150r, but in the end the "cadillac" otherwise known as the rt treated us very well.  vita especially enjoyed her first long journey on two wheels with the extra comfort and smooth handling of the rt.  we started from wilsonville, oregon and split over to the oregon coast.  over the next month we worked our way south, following the coastal route until we headed inland to see grandma in napa.  from there over to novato to see my brother darren and his wife.  from the bay area we headed to lodi to see the other grandmother, then into yosemite.  from yosemite we headed to fresno and then down to echo park (LA).  after LA, we headed to vegas through the scorching 110+ heat of the baker area. thankfully mike hammond road his roadking out to meet us in LA just to sweat it out with us the following day enroute to vegas.  vegas marked the final days of our trip, from their we headed back to lodi.  from lodi we made the final stretch back to the northwest in one very long day of riding!  all in all we made covered almost 3000 miles.

the trip south:

just in time for a round of bocce with gma and uncle steve

great great aunt dorris

darren, tabatha, zoe, anya

roots

yosemite

only by the Creator (yosemite national park)

LA (from the observatory)

echo park (the old college day stomping grounds)

the dome

history & many memories

breaktime with hammbone in vegas

always fun to borrow the king for a bit!

is there a purpose to such helmets?

vander meer & rebecca (some vegas eatery)

red rocks, nv

of the most notable rides of the year, was when i road the r100/7 into my wedding June 28, 2008!

a weekend in macedonia - july '06

Over the weekend Tani and I got away. We loaded up the motorcycle and the tent and headed to Macedonia. I wanted to check out a place called Mavrovo which supposedly has a decent ski resort. Turns out although its no Oregon or Colorado for the Balkans its brilliant and even better its only a couple hours away and will make for a great winter gettaway and allow me to do a little snowboarding on this side of the world. We camped one night along the lake in Mavrovo and then the following day we stopped along the Macedonian side of Lake Ohrid and camped one more night before reentering reality in Korce.

Mavrovo, Macedonia


Camping at Lake Mavrovo


The underwater church of Mavrovo


Lake Ohrid, Macedonia


Camping at Lake Ohrid (Tani in background)


A little rest and time to read!

Lake Ohrid sunset over Pogradec, Albania

offroad trip to Cardhak, Korce region, Albania - MAY '06

I finally got my new Continental TKC 80's installed on my bike (thanks Tonia for shipping them!) so I can now do the offroad riding in Albania that I have only been able to dream about thus far. I took off Saturday afternoon and headed to the hills on a trail that we had hiked on months before through the snow for a camping trip. I new by this time, with most the snow melted, I would be able to travel up the mountain farther. I had heard rumors that up the road there was a lot of beautiful scenary but no one really was certain. I saw some 4x4 tracks in the mud so I started following them. The scenary was amazing. The road was a great time, lots of mud, lots of rocks and fallen trees that made for a great ride and allowed me to improve at my offroad riding skills (I guess I should mention a broken mirror from dropping the bike on one difficult incline- next time I will remove the mirrors!). Along the road I reached a part known as Goat Rock. During communist time, the government built weapons/arms depots and bunkers all over Albania, many hidden away far up in remote mountains: Goat Rock is one of those places. During the '97 uprising, all of these depots were looting thus they are all entirely empty. As I continued up this road, I ended up finding myself at a place I have been longing to get to but no one was ever certain how to get there, Cardhak, the highest of the mountain peaks surrounding the city of Korce. At the top of this mountain one can see antennas and a small military building and a road leading to them but because there are so many mountains, knowing which forrest road leads there is hard to find out. Now we know! Hope you enjoy the pics!