EXPERIENCE FAAK AM SEE THE OTHER WAY AROUND

Our Harley tour to Lake Faak

You can plan a tour well in advance, or you can get a call from your buddy the night before. I'm coming with you, we'll meet at the rest stop in Neustadt/Holst. tomorrow morning at eight and off we go.

That's how it went this year, at first I wanted to go alone, but then I wasn't in the mood because there wasn't really anything special to expect at Lake Faak. My buddy Hermann didn't really have any time for work, normally work always comes first.

The weekend before the tour, we went for a drive together and raved about our previous experiences and we both always say that you shouldn't put anything off and this year we haven't done a big tour together yet. It all kind of worked in our heads and so we set off on Wednesday morning. I hadn't actually expected it, so I had to start packing in the evening and suddenly I was in travel mode.

We had no plan, we just set off and drove.

At 8 o'clock in the morning we met in Neustadt on the highway, where we filled up the tanks of both Harleys so that we would have roughly the same refueling cycle on the tour. 

The goal is to head south as far as we can.

Hermann's weather forecast predicted bad weather in the south, mine spoke of a second summer, which sounded much better.

Regardless, we were equipped for all weathers and have our experience in this area.

We took the A20 / A24 and then the A10 via Berlin in the direction of Leipzig. At some point it was clear to us that we would drive east via Linz to Lake Faak. So we took the A93 towards Regensburg.

At the Mitterteich service station, I received a message from Volker Gegenfurtner Deluxe Motorcycles, who has a custom bike workshop in the Bavarian forest. I know him from a few events where he won with his Mexican Bike and I once sent him photos of it.

He invited us to his workshop and after a moment's thought, it was clear that we were going there. 

The first evening alone was worth the tour.

When we arrived at Tanja and Volker Gegenfurtner's workshop in Bernried, we couldn't stop being amazed. The workshop is a dream and once you look behind the facade, I would say that someone has done everything right. At some point he got out of his stressful everyday life and started building Harleys on his own, no employees, he only takes on what he can do and most importantly, he never loses the fun.

The hammer is the converted Deluxe, today it has the name „The Rise of the Mexican“ and is really a very extraordinary Chicano Style conversion. He has already worked with her on the Bike shows of the big events, which is how we know each other.

„The Rise of the Mexican“
Best Paint Job Custombike Show 2016 - 1st place H-D Stock Class Swiss Custom - 1st place Big Twin and 1st Paint Best Airbrush Hamburg Harley Days 2017 - 1st place Best Paint Pullman City.

The eye-catching paint job was done by Marcus Pfeil, who completed the work exactly according to Tanja and Volker's specifications.

That's where it really starts, Marcus Pfeil is really a number as an international airbrusher, but in the end he has to absolutely understand his customer so that he can conjure up the project as expected. They both have a very good idea of what they expect from Marcus' project. It also seems to have been an important project for Marcus, as the work can be seen prominently on his website.

And so the thread continues, the saddle, the rims, individual elements and even the exhaust system must be pleasing. The typical Chicano chain/cord that prefers to hang from the handlebars is not visible in the photos. All around you can see the absolute detail work, although of course you have to look at the paintwork first, but even that is only part of the whole! Unfortunately, there are not so many individual mechanics in the custom bike scene who work in this way, and it is precisely these who characterize the special individuality in the custom bike scene!

We had really good accommodation at the Landhotel Winterl in the village, great breakfast and right next to it a well-stocked bar for the thirst in the early morning 🙂

The next morning we head for Austria

After a great evening with the two of them, we set off again the next morning in the direction of Linz, at least that was the plan. After passing Lake Chiemsee, we decided to head more in the direction of Salzburg. We cross the border into Austria without any problems, after sticking the sticker on the Harleys before the border.

There is a vignette especially for motorcycles, at the first gas station they didn't have any more in stock for motorcycles, that wasn't the first time that happened to me.

We got off the highway just after the border. We drove without a satnav and just wanted to drift along. However, it wasn't really worth it, the route really had nothing special to offer. Just a lot of traffic, tractors and everyone crawling around, not even driving the speed limit. We had really good weather and in this case you are happy about every breeze that doesn't really come up at 60km/h.

We will not be rattled

We are totally relaxed on the road, we somehow drove past Salzburg and then ended up in the small town of Puch. Here we immediately suspected that the place Puch something with Austrian Puch-Werke from 1899 could have something to do with it. I used to have a Puch moped myself, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case, at least there's no link to it on Wikipedia. Nevertheless, apparently a place with a long tradition. Disappointed not to have found out anything about it, we continued on and later ended up on the A10 after all. Now we had to slowly see how we could get on, as we hadn't yet found accommodation.

At 17:00 we were at the Golling rest stop, so now it was time to see where we wanted to spend the night. According to previous information, it was clear that nothing special was to be expected at Lake Faak, so we looked for accommodation in Velden on Booking com. We optimistically narrowed our search down to a maximum of 500 meters into the town and stories like that. Believe it or not, we were actually lucky and later only had to walk 300 meters.

We booked the accommodation directly for the whole weekend so that we could start our tours into the mountains from Velden.

Our arrival at Lake Faak

At 18:00 in the early evening, despite our dawdling, we still arrived at Lake Faak, where we went first to see if there was really nothing going on at Lake Faak.

Slowly we passed the station where the MC has its clubhouse, where everything was in the green zone and set for a party, but the rest was really a very sad affair.

It sends shivers down your spine

It's a really bad feeling when you're standing at the event site and there's nothing there.

The pictures were now facts!

You only believe it when you see it for yourself, even at the Arneitz there was nothing special set up, only on the roofed area there was a bit of a party and the bike show took place outside sitting on the wall, where you could watch the passing bikes.

It has to be said, there were a lot of Harleys on the road, nothing like the years before, but there was always movement on the road.

Saddened, we drive on to Velden

Of course you are overcome with sadness, but you still have to say that the Harley-Davidson certainly made the right decision. If the event had turned into a hotspot for the C, someone should take responsibility for that afterwards.

We checked into our lovely accommodation in Velden and headed straight into the town, we were a little surprised when we arrived at the casino. Velden was well filled, the bars were all busy, that's the advantage, everything here is stationary and the restaurateurs all have their hygiene concepts. But corona wasn't really an issue here, occasionally people wore masks, masks were only compulsory on the sidewalks from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at night.

There were plenty of opportunities to sit outside

Anyway, we were a bit surprised, we decided to only eat and sit where there were outdoor tables, it's always best in the fresh air. The weather was perfect the whole time, it's hard to imagine what would have been going on in Carinthia this year.

On the first day we drive to the Nockalmstrasse

We took a relaxed approach to the day and walked into town for breakfast. We chose Café Sternad near Lake Wörthersee, where we had breakfast every morning.

The Nockalm Road also charges a toll for motorcyclists

I've been to Lake Faak for so many years and haven't even been on the Nockalm Road. The Nockalmstrasse is one of the so-called adventure roads and is open from the beginning of May to the end of October. However, there is a special restriction for motorcyclists, as there is a motorcycle driving ban from 6 pm to 8 am.

The Nockalm Road lies between Innerkrems and the village of Reichenau in Carinthia and is 34 kilometers long. The route has 52 hairpin bends, many of which are long bends and around 5 of which are somewhat tighter bends that can certainly be mastered by inexperienced motorcyclists.

There are no petrol stations in the toll area of the Nockalmstrasse, only in Reichenau is there another one. There are several opportunities to make a stopover, quite far up there is a small hut where you can buy souvenirs and coffee.

The tour to the Nockalm is not particularly spectacular, but it's definitely worth doing. We also had a very good view over the mountain peaks.

There are sometimes cows on the route, so you should watch out for them as they are generally used to the traffic. The tour is a good route for us northern Germans to get used to. The beautiful landscape is impressive and the altitude of around 2000 meters is quite good for a start. Our highest elevation in Schleswig-Holstein is the Bungsberg, at 168 meters it even has a ski lift.

Motodrom Harley-Davidson Klagenfurt

We would do the tour again any time, we really enjoyed it. But the day isn't over yet, so we're off to the Harley Dealer according to Klagenfurt, We have heard that there is a lot going on there.

And really, the courtyard was well filled and that seemed to have been the case all week. The event T-shirts weren't for us, the one-sided print somehow had nothing. It's just a matter of taste, sometimes you leave the store without a Sovenir T-shirt if you don't like it. But apart from that, everything was taken care of, with live bands and a delicious homemade cake served to the bikers.

The Hollywood Bar on Lake Wörthersee rocked on the open road

Now we were done for the day, we returned to our accommodation in Velden and went into town in the evening. That evening we wandered around the Hollywood Bar sunk.

The place was kind of tough, live music was playing in front of the bar and we sat more at the Wörthersee than at the bar. The service always ran across the street because it ran right in front of the bar and so someone was always driving through our concert :-).

This was too tempting for some bikers, so one of them stopped for a burn-out.

We were able to sit outside and listen to the live music, with Lake Wörthersee rushing behind us on a balmy summer evening and a well-tapped beer in front of us.

We did everything right and the next day the Malta High Alpine Road is on the program, which you can read about in the second part.

PODCAST - Faaker See Tour Part 1