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Hi there, my name is Hans Boender and I would like to share with you my experience with my Intruder 1500 LC, when I went on an amazing trip to the French Alps, from which I have just returned. I can't really explain the thrill of riding this bike, you can only get that by riding it yourself... So I will have to explain what we did on this wonderful 3 week trip.
Friday July 10: My wife (Anneke) and I packed all the camping-stuff, and some food for the first couple of days and so on. We slept every night in our tent, so we had to pack and load our things every time, again and again, off and onto the bike.
How many bags did we use? Well let me see, I used the 2 standard Intruder LC studded-bags, a very big sports bag, a big army-bag which were tied on the luggage-rack and 2 rucksacks tied onto the saddle-bags. The 2 sleeping-bags and some towels and my rain-clothes were tied onto my handlebar.
Are you still curious what was in those bags? Ok, it was a tent, air-beds, clothes, boots, 2 little gaz-tanks, a lamp, drinks, cleaning-stuff for the bike, plates, mugs, forks, knifes and so on... wash and shaving stuff, books, the brick-game, puzzle-books, reading-books, carts, pans and so on, and so on. The total weight of the luggage was about 45 - 50 kg. The engine of the bike had to pull about 300 kg of itself, 82 kg of me, 57 kg of my wife and lets say 45 kg of luggage. That makes a grand total of about 484 kg!
Unloading the bike was a piece of cake, most of the time we had installed everything in half an hour, but packing and loading the bike took us mostly more than an hour. We had to do that 8 times, on 8 campsites.
The trip went through Belgium, Luxembourg to the Lake of Annecy. Through Belgium and Luxembourg we took the highway but once we were in France we took the B roads. Annecy is the beginning of the Alps. The mountains and nature were beautiful but it was nothing compared to the high Alps.
From Annecy we went to Val d'Isere a famous winter-sports place. We climbed that day from about 950 meters to 1840 meters. We stayed there for 3 days. The wind was very cold, so the warm clothes we brought were not a waste. We did walk through some mountains and I might say I got pretty tired from that. We also made a short trip to the Col de l' Iseran - 2770 meters high. Its the highest mountain which can be ridden. Its a long climb on a small road with very many sharp turns in it. The climbing / slope was in some places about 10%!
After those 3 days we went to the village La Grave. The only way to get there was to ride over the highest mountains in the Alps. As there was the Col de l' Iserean, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Calibier, and Col de Lautaret. The Col du Calibier has even a climb of about 15% just before reaching the top.
We stayed in La Grave for 9 days. From there we made some day-trips to some other famous mountains like Les deux Alps and l' Alpe-d'Huez. We also did some very long mountain walks of more than 4 hours. (again I was very tired after that).
Well it was time to go further to the north direction back to the Lake of Annecy where some friends of ours were on a campsite. They invited us before the vacation started. We stayed one night and the next 3 days we rode home. The last 2 days over the highways. It was very easy to ride the highways after riding so much in the mountains.
The average speed in the mountains was about 30 km p/h. It was absolutely not possible to ride any faster. Those sports and touring-bikes did faster than I did, but hey it is not my style to ride like that.
How the bike handled this trip? Well I was amazed about its handling, it was great as you can see on the picture it was heavy loaded and I had to ride on a different way I was used to do. But when I rode with luggage tied on the handlebar I felt that I had to make the turns in an other way a bit slower more careful.
The riding in the mountains went great, better than I expected. The engine was hot but not to hot. The breaks reacted exactly the way I wanted. I never had the idea that the bike wouldn't handle the way I wanted. It was great to feel how the engine was working when we were climbing a mountain. For me going down the mountains was more difficult, because of the weight the bike would go down faster than I wanted, so I had to use the breaks a lot, besides slowing down by the engine.
On the highway with a speed of 120 km p/h the engine used 1 liter for 16 km. But here it comes. While climbing those very high mountains it used 1 liter for 18,9 km.
Is that great or what.!?
It was very nice to ride my Intruder 1500 LC everytime I climbed on it I got this great feeling that I was out in space. You know what I mean.
There were a lot of other bikes in the mountains, but most of them were sport-bikes or touring-bikes. The only other customs or cruisers were a couple of Harleys and some Shadow 600s. But only the Harleys, and my Intruder, had that much luggage. The riders of those bikes stayed in hotels.
Here is a nice anecdote of a father who was talking to his 4 year old son about my bike:
Father: Wow look, son, a Harley Davidson! Those are the best bikes ever made... Look at its color don't you think its a beauty?
Son: uh-huh.
Father: When you sit on that bike, you never want to get of.
I said: Well you're right about that, the moment you start to ride it, you never want to stop... But you're wrong about the Harley, because this is a Suzuki!
Father: Does Harley own Suzuki too?
- What could I say? The man just loved my bike! So, I just let him think it was a Harley. -
There wasn't a day that I didn't get compliments on my bike. Mostly they started by asking me if it was a Harley. But, hey, for me, there is only one bike that is more beautiful than my Intruder... and that is the Harley Davidson Heritage, and this bike does look very much like it!
See you ...on the road
Hans "TheRoad" Boender eMail
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