Elefantentreffen 2018, reportage from the 62nd edition

And here comes the Elefantentreffen again this year, the most famous winter motorcycle rally in Europe.
This year it takes place in the first weekend of February, from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, in the Loh Thurmansbang forest – Solla, Germany. We from Motorionline also went to tell you about the meeting and the journey we have to face in order to be able to "pin" ourselves with the famous medal that gets motorcyclists talking so much when they see it pinned to a jacket.

Take a lot of cold, snow, salt, ice, shake well and pour on a motorbike and respective rider for 8 or 9 hours, leave to rest outdoors for 1 or 2 two nights in the frost and repeat the operation, here is the Elephant served.

But what is the Elephant?
Born from a group of friends in 1956, its aim was to promote the annual meeting of Zundapp sidecars, nicknamed "Elephants", hence Elefantentreffen. Today it takes place in the Loh forest, and has 3 participants per year, coming from all over Europe, strictly on motorbikes! We left at 4000 on Friday morning from Milan, with a BMW F6GS Adventure, with Anlas Winter Grip Plus tires and with Tucano Urbano clothing and grip covers, Urbis 800G jacket and trousers and Tetris gloves, equipment that allows for high-class tourism even in this period of the year. We have 5+ km of travel ahead of us to reach our destination, and with the uncertainty of the weather we will be able to find, we want to have all the hours of sunshine available.

This year the climate is kind to us, the temperature drops "only" to minus 4, with peaks of even plus 3 degrees, the Brenner pass greets us without bothering us too much with snow and ice, a few pats on the back with a crosswind , which almost moves you from one lane to another, and rises from the road surface to form eddies between the carriageways.

The most impervious stretch of road is found immediately after the Brenner Pass, in Austria, the clouds drop in altitude, almost creating fog, and the snow begins to fall, the helmet visors fog up, and driving becomes more "interesting". Despite the temperatures, however, we don't suffer from the cold, the Tucano Urbano suit does its job very well and manages to keep the body temperature warm enough, so much so that we don't even need to fit the blanket we were supplied with, also from Tucano Urbano.

Particular note of merit goes to the double Tetris gloves, with the soft 5-finger inner glove that warms the hand, while the 3-finger outer shell protects from bad weather and helps keep the hands warm. The housing for the chemical warmers is useful, as they ended up making our hands sweaty with these gloves on!
Another pleasant discovery for the undersigned, who had never tried it before, the F800GS Adventure, an unthinkable long-distance rider, very comfortable even for those who are more than one meter and ninety tall like me and with a range of over 400 km on a full tank, a bike that It has nothing to envy of its bigger sister and, on the contrary, thanks to the 21mm front rim and the long travel of the fork, it allows you to tackle routes that with other "sizes" would be much more challenging.

But why go to the Elefantentreffen?
Why face cold, snow and ice on a motorbike for 1500km in the middle of winter? One might respond like that famous commercial from a few years ago: “I don't know why”. But the why is as clear as day to those who do it. It's a challenge, with yourself, with your bike, for the preparation, for being able to do it, for the motorcyclists you meet along the way and who become your friends after a few words, for the companions you go with and share the experience, for the journey, which remains inside you, when you are at home, and for the moments in the pit and the spirit that envelops the whole valley.

From the road in the forest that leads to the rally, dotted with parked motorbikes, to the entrance to the camp, which more than a camp is a real “Mad Max” valley, where tents and motorbikes of all kinds arrive on the horizon.
There are no extras here, they are all protagonists, all memorable, like the red light that rises from the thousand fires in the evening and melts the snow, the sound of the exhausts that echoes from all sides, the laughter coming from the bivouacs, communicating without a common language, understanding each other anyway. It is the spirit of the Elephant, of the thousands of participants who come from all over Europe once a year to "be there", so that you don't participate in the Elefantentreffen, you are there in the Elefantentreffen. And this year we were there too, proud to be there, only to then have to answer those who ask: "why do you do it?"... "I don't know why", aware that any other answer, to those who have never done it, it wouldn't be understood, it would be useless.