Tourstart

20/12/2024

🎄✨ Merry Christmas to all you motorcycle enthusiasts! We hope Santa has packed his sack with plenty of horsepower, thrilling curves, and exactly the motorcycle gift you've been dreaming of all year 🏍️🎁

May your Christmas be as amazing as your next road trip – full of great memories and the perfect route! 🚦🌟

14/09/2024

See how easy it is to make a manual transfer of a GPX route to a TomTom RIder?

Follow this tutorial to make a manual transfer of your motorcycle ride to a TomTom Rider gps ...

07/09/2024

Do you want to make a manual transfer of gpx files to a Garmin?
-check this tutorial

Follow this tutorial to make a manual transfer of your motorcycle ride to a Garmin gps ...

23/07/2024

Do you have a Garmin XT2?
-this is how to transfer a route
https://youtu.be/LAEiFB_LbdM

06/04/2024

Så kom tørvejret endelig til Sjælland, og så til og med på en lørdag hvor Kærsgaard Motorservice i Slagelse (KB Motorservice ) også holder åbent hus, med lidt til ganen.
Når nu maskinerne er pudsede og der stadig er lidt benzin på tanken så kunne man jo fortsætte til Munkholmbroens skønne grill, hvor man med sikkerhed kan møde andre Mc'er, samt få endnu mere til ganen + Is.
Ruten her fører jer begge steder hen, og du kan jo bare starte hvorfra du ønsker.
https://tourstart.org/tour/Rundtur_fra_Nstved_til_Munkholm_107510?share_key=883b8d2b3bbdb11e056b1a35a490a072

04/02/2024

This week-end in Denmark we had a fair "Motorshow" where all kinds of vehicles vere on display. Great to see the motorcycles models and also get an impression of many other types of vehicles - all in one great exhibition.

02/02/2024

BMW MC Club Finland offers free access to Tourstart for all their members, as part of their "Member Loyalty Program"

This weekend 2-4 February 2024 they exhibit on a motorcycle show in Helsinki MP-messut explaining about the benefits of the club, and one of the means are the flyer about Tourstart so they visitors can bring this home and study it closer.

Thank you Tuomas Aho for always your positive approach to Tourstart and hard work explaining your motorcycle members how they can plan, ride and share a motorcycle tour.

28/01/2024

Do you need to boost your mood?
Then do as BMW MC Club Denmark board and regional contacts did when they spend the week-end planning the tours for 2024.

What is better than dreaming of the tours on your beloved motorcycle??

Share with us your dream tours for 2024, so we all can get inspired.

08/01/2024

Many thanks to all of you who have followed the "Old School Man" and my good MC friends' fantastic trip around Eastern Europe.

We drove from home with Romania and their fantastic Mc roads as a focal point. Both Transfăgărășan and Transalpina clearly exceeded what we had expected, B.la the joy that there was almost no traffic on them on weekdays makes the experience calmer.

On the trip, we gathered a wonderful insight into how the countries have changed significantly since the great upheavals in Eastern Europe, after the day of joy with the fall of the wall on the 9th November 1989.

Our expectations and the many prejudices completely fell to the ground already on day one in Poland, even the small paved roads we drove on had good asphalt, we could pay with our credit cards even in the smallest places, we were greeted by a population that could as much language as, i.e. for household needs.

Out in the country, far away from the big cities where our many routes were deliberately laid out, we met, as mentioned before, few horse-drawn carriages, what we also met was a local population still talking to each other on the street (they did not hide in their smartphone and looked important), the children played happily along the roads.

The older people sat on benches or stood in clusters and enjoyed themselves, and what's really wrong with that? Nothing!

So from here comes a really good tip. Try it because you get so much more from the experience than at many other places in the EU. The prices are lower, the food and the hotels in the right places are top notch, the roads are good and outside the cities there is almost no traffic.

We will now take the last part I want to show you, it is part 7. which will take us more than 200 km of Hungarian highways from the Romanian border to the big city of Budapest. In the big city, there were still a few places from The Bucket List that had to be ticked off. After which we drove to Lake Balaton's only ferry crossing, which led us safely across the lake and to a relaxation hotel with adult pampering and 31 degrees C in the shade.

You must find Parts 8 and 9 yourself on Tourstart.org, including pictures at the points. A little tip, they are found within a radius of 3 km from where part 7 and part 8 stop.

Thank you very much for now, I will probably return with more experiences as the Old School Man later in the season.

I wish everyone a good MC season.
Sincerely, Sonny

The day's route, part seven looks like this on a map.

There will be no more parts from the tour, the rest of the tour you have to find yourself on Tourstart.org You will get a little hint here, Parts 8 and 9 are found within a radius of 3 km from where parts 7 and 8 stop.

https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_tur_Del_7__66_Torsdag_259444
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_tur_Del_7_221580

07/01/2024

Then it happened, the "Old School Man" finally came because of Tourstart.org And of some beautiful routes created on the PC at home in the living room until Romania, together with wonderful people who share the same interests.

After all, as you saw yesterday, we drove for a few hours on part four also in Romania, we got our first impressions, met the first horse-drawn carriage on one of the very small roads out on the countryside, and that is almost the only place where they still exist.
The new day on, which is part five of the holiday, is of course also created on Tourstart.org

One of the functions of the Tourstart motorcycle route planning program is that you can add pictures, write text and add links in at each of the created Via points (It is shown in the pictures, just like yesterday).
You can also click for yourself on many of the blue points on the routes that are found on my trips, usually a short description, and perhaps pictures directly from the place (Remember that it is only allowed to share your own pictures)

We left the hotel as often before, early in the morning. The thermos flasks were filled with coffee and we were filled with huge expectations for the day. Today will bring us to the long-awaited trip up to Transfăgărășan (The much-watched English program Top Gear named it the world's best road) and then down the other side.

WOW... - what a trip, unfortunately much of the ride up to the pass, was in fog and fine rain, though not all the way up. Anyway, it is another argument for us to repeat the ride in 2024.

So Transfăgărășan is for sure something by itself, built only because dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu had an unnecessarily stupid idea. At the same time, such a stupid idea that no private contractor had the courage to carry out the overall task, with the construction of that road up a mountain. At the same time in an Alpine area where the weather does not allow driving five months of the year due to the large amounts of snow that falls in the area.
So the solution was, Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu deployed his military, then they built it for him as per his order.

Many workers died; official records say only 40 soldiers lost their lives, but unofficial estimates from workers put the number in the hundreds, several thousand tons of dynamite and physical effort later, well, the road was a reality.
A fantastic road, I have to say. And I have ridden most of the iconic roads ones in the European Alps and the Nordics. The nature in Transfăgărășan is of a different type. On the south side where the descent is, we had quite an experience, because suddenly along the road sat a large brown bear and were heated by the sun.

It's one thing to see a big brown bear in the zoo, safely placed behind a fence, it is another thing to sit on your motorcycle less than two meters from one. Now just without a lattice fence, and not only that, further down the south side, we met another brown bear with her two cubs, as well as another brown bear that just thought it could roam the road like another Don Juan.

Well down from Transfăgărășan, we had lunch at Cafe Dracula. You should know that the story of Dracula is valued in Romania in the same way as we in Denmark have our H.C. Andersen fairy tales.
After one more wonderful night in a nice hotel in the town of Râmnicu Vâlcea, where the dreams of the trip over the Transfăgărășan have hardly been put to rest.

Yep, part six was also giving us for another one of the really great experiences, which it is possible to get in Romania. They have another one of the really big stretches of road for us motorcyclists, namely the almost equally famous Transalpina Road. Imagine 148 km without side roads, and driving on Romania's highest road, without traffic and bends - all on a road offering the most fantastic experiences. Especially considering that both the road to and from Transalpina were very good.

Shared by Tourstart. org by user Sonny

Part 7 are follow tomorrow.

Part five is here:
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98ST_TUR_DEL_5_236702?share_key=053a2ade8c0d62fa8d6141e0a49d9c34

Part six is here:
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_tur_Del_6_221536?share_key=4fb5819625a8d341bab7099ad1229122

06/01/2024

As agreed, I am "Old School Man" is back with part four on a different trip to the former Eastern Europe.

When using a GPS together with Tourstat.org, you must be aware that conflicts of interest may arise, which Tourstart have found some good solutions on, making it easy for the users.

A GPS device is basically only interested in getting us from point A to point B.

In Tourstart.org we can set a lot of "Drag"points" (the green ones) and via points (the blue ones) to drive on the roads we want.

When you creat a tour containing Via points and Drag points, you challenge your GPS in its normal way of calculating routes, and this can cause challenges, so to be absolutely sure that your route will be exactly on the roads you want to ride, it is recommended to do as follows.

Make a lot of Drag points, turn on the function show "Shaping points" in Tourstart Tour optimizer (instructions are in the pictures below). The Shaping Points are added using an advanced mechanism developed by Tourstart to further ensure the GPS takes exactly the roads you have selected.
Only in this way will your trip be exactly as you want it.

Our part four of the tour around Eastern Europe started in Slovakia, continued with "Transit" through Hungary, and finally ended in Romania in the afternoon.

The day gave many experiences. We started the day with a short drive, then moved into Ukraine by foot. The trip was originally planned to go through Ukraine and into Romania, rather than the route through Hungary. Unfortunately for us, the whole world and in particular the Ukrainian people, Putin wanted it quite differently, therefore Ukraine became only an experience by foot.

After the stay in the border area between Slovakia and Ukraine, we continued on the MC for many kilometers along the border between Slovakia and Ukraine, before driving into Hungary.
And again we just saw the blue EU sign, welcome to Hungary and could continue without stopping when crossing the border.

The north-eastern part of Hungary is not as hilly as where we came from. There are good roads with curves, and again almost no traffic until the border to Romania.

At the border crossing from Hungary into Romania, we got some of the memories refreshed about how it has historically been to cross a border.

Everyone was checked for everything, passports, insurance papers and registration certificates. Unfortunately for one of the participants on our trip, he was missing a registration certificate, with the result that no exemption is granted. So our fellow motorcyclist was involuntarily left alone in Hungary for three days. We were sorry about this, but of course respected that those were the conditions to enter Romania, as it was clearly stated beforehand.

We were now only four participants on three machines who got the fantastic experience that Romania gave us.

From the Romanian border to the hotel, the good winding roads slowly returned, the asphalt quality surprisingly good, and again almost no traffic.

Again and again all prejudices about Romania were put to shame from day one, no currency challenges as everything in Romania could be done with a card, kindness and a smile.

Be ready to the exiting part five and six tomorrow, because here it starts, Transfăgărășan and brown bears are on the program

The route we followed on day four is here:

The route we followed on day four is here:
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_Tur_Del_4_221440?share_key=56e8c39ef644b57134a530068a9d0d5e

05/01/2024

Hi, I'm here again, exactly as promised yesterday.

I am back as the "Old School Man" because planning all my trips on Tourstart.org seems to work best for me on my PC.

I have started to work with the app and found it works 99% exactly in parallel to the web page, so use the app if you are not an "Old School Man" like me.

All of us have big smiles on our faces after riding the our motorcycle ride. On Tourstart.org you can copy and adjust other people's routes freely, which is a huge advantage, as there are many well-planned trips on Tourstart.org, so do not hold you back to use other routes as inspiration.

Part three that we have reached in our trilogy, starts in Poland and ends in Slovakia. We have again chosen the smaller/smallest roads with asphalt on this leg of the journet.

These are the most most fun, the most beautiful and with a guarantee also the ones without too much traffic. The day on the motorcycles starts really well, as we already from the morning got off to a good start.

On day three we descend into the mountainous part of Poland. The roads provided some wonderful challenges for the motorcycles, man and our driving skills, because the road are twisted and have many turns, like roads many of you know and love from areas such as the Harzen, Wesserbergland and Sauerland.

The day's ride also included a change of country, because we have now come so far south that the blue EU border sign said welcome to Slovakia. Unlike when I crossed the border for approx. forty years ago, a border crossing could take many hours.

Now it was just to ride crossing the border. Many thanks to J.F. Kennedy ("Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963 in Berlin), Roland Reagan (The repetition of the call in Berlin with the speech to "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" in 1987) and all the work of L**h Wałęsa. L**h Wałęsa worked on the shipyard, which we visited, and his work was the motivation for us to go there and see where an important part of our modern world took place. We were there in part 1 of our Eastern Europe trip.

All those mentioned and many many other wonderful freedom loving people, have made our part of the world as we have it today. Slovakia welcomed us with the same type of roads that southern Poland had just pleased us with for many hours.
Motorcycling in areas like these is highly recommended, and yes, our own prejudices about the old Eastern countries were also not true on this days ride.

No problems with currency in Slovakia, everyone friendly were and very accommodating. And at the Country Hotel that was chosen for the night, they were able to cook some good food, as well as the possibility of getting our motorcycles hand washed for those who now wanted this.

Just for your information, "Old School Man" always signs up on the MC-washing team.

Posted by Sonny part four coming tomorrow have a nice day.

Part three is here:
https://tourstart.org/tour/folders/%C3%98st-Europa-tur-2023_636/list

04/01/2024

Hello again.
As promised yesterday, I'm back as the "Old School Man".

I got the name because I have not got rid of using my PC when I create tours here on Tourstart.org, but is in progress of getting more familiar with the app.

Today you will get Part 2.

Today is a full day on Poland's amazing lightly trafficked small country roads, where all prejudices were that they all drive like crazy, drive like we see in the videos that abounds on YouTube.
All of this was was put to shame.

Because that is absolutely not the case, they help you get forward when merging from side roads, as well as when they can see that we ride in a group, well then it is the group that is helped as a unit, which we also experienced in both Norway and Sweden. People are very kind to each other in the traffic. Thumbs up from here.

The day started with a short stretch of motorway out of Gdansk, because as it was noticed in Part 1, we are a group of very motorcyclists who ride many km per day. We succeeded in riding many kilometer each day, because we are early birds, and start from the morning, approx. at 08h00. The length of the breaks we have are always adapted to the extent of the attractions, and we refuele synchronously, and not least, we ensure all the participants have the same agenda and approach to riding the motorcycle.

After approx. After 95 km of the boring highway - all highways are boring - we approached the first Point of Interest. A visit to the impressive engineering company, Kanal Elblaski, wigh further description in today's pictures.

After the very exciting experience at Kanal Elblaski, we continued our journey through some of the forests where so many Jews hid during the Second World War. Due to the Germans' thoroughness and quality, unfortunately many of their remains are still in nature, namely their many concrete military bunkers.

From the sad memories of war, today's route continued east of Poland's capital Warsaw. We didn't find the big citys noise and heavy traffic interesting on this tour, so we skipped visiting Warsaw. It is always possible to have a stay and enjoy a day in this historically beautiful city, but not for us on this tour.

The last 1½ hours ride for us were on small scenic roads southeast of Warsaw - and it was a fantastic way to end this day.

It was 497 km, and again we arrived at our hotel just before 18h00

On trips to the former Eastern Europe, it is possible to find cheaper accommodations than which were our choice, however, you should not expect a high standard with the cheap places. Some of our choice in Poland was, in my opinion, only just on the level as being acceptable, so make your choices careful.

This is the route we followed:
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_tur_del_2_221251?share_key=c5bf750896642462dcdc3dc714827b8e

Part three is coming tomorrow

03/01/2024

Happy New Year to all users of Tourstart.

I have previously posted in the group under the synonym "Old School Man" since I haven't quite let go of my PC when I create tours on Tourstart.org, but now I have to admit that I have created a few on the App, so the world is changing.

That the world is changing also applies to what I will share with you in the near future. Namely the fulfillment of an old dream of revisiting many of the countries in the former Eastern Europe. As I earlier drove to the countries as an export truck driver before the fall of The Wall in 1989, the interest in revisiting the countries and see how their their infrastructure have developed, I had looked forward to this motorcycle tour.

I convinced/forced some really good MC friends to come along, so we were four motorcycles and five participants.

As said, then we done, and it was a 4.832 km round trip with many fantastic experiences over a total of ten days.

Part 1. This was mainly a transport route from Rostock, Germany to Gdansk in Poland.
The day started with a ferry crossing to Poland, and it was with the expensive Scandline connection Gedser – Rostock, the only mitigating circumstance is their morning buffet. The ride towards Gdansk gave all experiences in terms of roads, a surprise that a long-awaited tunnel at Swinoujscie had just been completed, as well as the expected road work and the associated detours.

After the hard first leg of the trip, we reached one of the Points of Interest on the trip.

This was the gate to the famous shipyard where L**h Walesa initiated the start of the end for the totalitarian communist regime, unfortunately not without loss of life.

The events at the shipyard, as well as the start of the trade union Solidarność, which in my personal opinion, is still today the reason for The Wall's subsequent fall, democracy comes from within and L**h Walesa knew exactly that.

Part one is here:
https://tourstart.org/tour/%C3%98st_tur_Del1_2023_197208?share_key=9950458ff3f03da1182b3b0045c56b23

PS - part two is coming tomorrow
Sincerely, Sonny

02/01/2024

Again in 2024 NAF MC offers free access to Tourstart. We are very happy working together with www.naf.no/mc and wish all NAF members some fantastic rides in 2024.

NAF = Norwegian Automotive Foundation

NAF
NAF MC

Turforslag, ruteplanlegger og veihjelp er bare noen av fordelene du får som medlem i NAF MC. Klikk deg inn for å få inspirasjon til de beste motorsykkelturene, tips og råd og for å lese de siste sakene fra NAF MC!

30/12/2023

It is now time to look back and being grateful of all the memories 2023 have brought us riding our motorcycle.

Thank you to all of you for sharing your best memories with us and we wish you a New Year filled with extraordinary and memorable experiences for you and your motorcycle friends.

Happy New Year and may 2024 make your dreams come true.

26/12/2023

What did Santa bring you to your motorcycle?
-please share with us 🎅🏍

23/12/2023

Merry Christmas - hoping Santa brings you the favorite christmas gift for you and your motorcycle