2004 - On the Road to Faaker am See - Everything has a beginning.

Everything has a beginning.

In the year 1998 at Harley-Davidson's 95th anniversary, the festivities started down in Faaker am See in Käernten. My good friend Chris Anker-Petersen, who was the owner of the Harley-Davidson dealership in Denmark, told me stories about his rides to the European Bike Week event. Chris loved the road trip to the event, and a overnight stay in Nürnberg. He told me a lot of amazing EBW stories in the wintertime. Chris meant that ride down to the Alps was a must for me.

I had got my motorcycle license in 1998 and only been in Jutland and Hamburg. So a trip to Austria and European Bike Week would be a big ride for me. I became Marketing Manager in 2002 for Caps Harley-Davidson in Denmark, and suddenly I was going out on my first long road trip with journalists and friends.

The first road trip I had to arrange for Caps Harley-Davidson, was a trip to Harley-Davidson's 100th birthday in 2003 at Hamburg. I had heard stories from the first five years, now it was time to ride to the Alps and find my own stories. At September 1. 2004 drove Vagn from Copenhagen, Jan Mirchenbacher, Klausi von Hamburg and I, along with the journalist Gunnar Skycity against the party we only had heard about.

From Aarhus we drove to Bad Homberg for an overnight stay on a Irish pub. Dont do that. The next day we went to Regensburg, Linz, Saltzburg and so the last 172 kilometers in rain to our house for a week. There was booked a house for Danish Harley Riders from the Caps H-D dealership. It was a celebration, a long great celebration. One week in Faaker is like a year in any other place.

European Bike Week 10 times, last time in 2014. I can see now how few bikers there were was down there in 2004. After European Bike Week we drove straight home to Denmark again, for the first and last time. It’s good with a long ride home.