From the ferry terminal in Fredrikshavn, Denmark to Hamburg in northern Germany is about 500 km or not quite 350 miles. In Norway, this is a long day’s ride. Speed limits are moderate, gas stops occur every 2 hours or so, nature calls—often on a different schedule than the gas tank, and coffee breaks are always the road trip priority of the old and slow. Once into continental Europe, and eventually the German autobahn, the issue arises that you have to watch your mirrors for the overtaking Audi, BMW, or Mercedes cars going at well over 100 mph. You don’t want to be tootling alongside a double-trailer semi when one of these characters approaches while lounging in a leather armchair, listening to Pavarotti and texting his mistress. That’s what happens to bugs that you have to scrub off your face shield.

One way or another, even the old and the slow let their speed creep upwards and I found myself on the autobahn happily clipping along at 140 kph (roughly 87 mph), about as fast as sane person can hold on with an unfaired “open” motorcycle. Traveling a "super-slab" is often made easier with music delivered through custom-molded earbuds. At this speed however, Blue October sounded like so much white noise with occassional howling and some percussion back-up. Completely uninspiring. I craved stimulatiuon.

Forty-seven km from the Hamburg city limit, I was suddenly stimulated by the sudden red-line roar of the motor and a complete lack of forward acceleration. Trying different gears to no avail, I guessed that the chain had broken. I coasted to a stop on the narrow shoulder. There was my 4-week old chain dragging behind the bike. It had not been flung loose on the road and, fortunately, had not violently wrapped itself around my rear wheel or jammed the rear sprocket. Such an event often leads to sudden deceleration of the motorcycle while the rider continues to journey forward, much to his eventual chagrin.

Several motorcycles went by but no one stopped. Looking around, I realized I was about 150 meters from a rest stop with a WC. It was a clear late afternoon. There was a toilet close by. The sun was setting. It wasn’t cold. And it wasn’t raining! Things could have been much worse. I started pushing.

I planned to stop in Hamburg and had made arrangements with an “inmate” of the Adventure Rider forum to spend the night on his couch. ADVrider has a “tent-space sharing” list and mutual hospitality is not uncommon among long-distance motorcycle travelers. I called and got the emergency towing number for the German auto club, ADAC. Within an hour a flatbed was taking me to my host’s address in Hamburg. No credit cards accepted, cash on the barrel, we stopped at a filling station to use the ATM and I forked over 350 Euro. No lie!  And this wasn’t even Norway!  Prior to leaving the U.S., I had looked into ADAC road service membership which is good throughout the EU and costs 84 Euro per year. Unfortunately, they had stopped offering it to non-German residents. So, no membership, no free ride. It cost what it costs or you push 47 km.

My host, Henning, lived in a quiet urban apartment neighborhood but had rented a slot in a nearby underground garage. It held his two motorcycles and a small selection of tools. The next morning, as he left for work, he gave me directions for taking the subway and the s-bahn to the Louis Motorcycle Super-Store on the other side of Hamburg. Louis is the largest motorcycle parts and gear store I had ever been in. Two stories of helmets, jackets, boots, farkles of various sorts, and a complete parts warehouse at the rear. They even have a motorcycle mounted in a sort of “wind machine” for trying on helmets and jackets in a simulated 120 kph wind blast. They offered me a customer loyalty card. I declined. I hoped to never have to be there again.

By mid-day, I was on my way back with a new chain and sprocket kit and a 50 Euro chain riveting tool. By flashlight in the dungeon of a garage, I struggled to remove the old sprocket with a tiny allen wrench and then to rivet the new chain with only a pair of pliers and a 19 mm wrench to tighten the chain tool. I was still struggling when Henning returned from work in the afternoon. Using vicegrips, four arms, and two heads (one belonging to a German civil engineer), we managed to mushroom the rivets and even come to agree that they looked about as good as two amateurs could hope for. I wondered if it would fly apart somewhere in Poland and leave my holding the kielbasa.