Winter tires – column

If you have just read a story about the all-road winter tires, then you can handle the winter again. Not because they are available in the sizes of my motorcycle, which is not even an all-road, but the idea gives peace of mind. When you hear that Great Barr Motorcycle Breakers in Birmingham is such a nice motorcycle track, you call two acquaintances who also don't have Heidenau compatible all-roads and you just gamble on your daily tires and the climate change.

And there is a tunnel between France and England, so you drive that whole part under cover anyway. For Calais we do a coffee & cholesterol stop to get the hands, knees and feet back to temperature. Electrically heated gloves are good, but they are not magic spells. Despite the relatively safe distance to Calais, we check our bags for illegal passengers before we leave. After all, in the immediate vicinity of Calais, African fortune seekers try everything to get to the Promised Land?

We arrive at the tunnel terminal without being jumped on or hijacked. It shows again how high the workload is and how little humorous Northern French can be. When trying to negotiate whether it isn't cheaper to drive behind the train under your own power – those sleepers, we'll get over that – the French conductor, or whatever pet man he is, completely freaks out. Luckily we speak French. We apologize, calm down, spread our hands with palms up so that we show our impotence and fear. French petmans are even more power-hungry than their Teutonic neighbours. We make ourselves apologetically microscopic.

We make soothing sounds. And they are still allowed between the rails, but at a level. An engine is simply put on its jiffy on board the train. Lashing is not necessary. And because a motorcycle has two wheels, the over journey by train only half of the car fare. After more than half an hour we were on the other side, barely warmed up. Because we only went shopping, we took the motorway and arrived numb at the motorcycle junkyard. Which was closed.

Because not only the Greeks use unique opening and closing strategies. We went to get sandwiches at an almost deserted Aldi. A friendly older Brit with a wistful-looking dog reported that another scrapyard was open further up the road. His brother's. But it only did it in really old motorcycles. “Real British bikes, not that modern stuff.” We didn't find what we were looking for, but the old-fashioned demolition was endearing. We got tea. It was another very nice weekend in England. Back in Calais we saw that Africa was still waiting for crossing. We drove home.

Through the rain.