Hey everybody....it was a cool meet in grindelwald!!! Laurens, thanks a lot for organise it! The mood was very good and it felt like a family with all of you. Today, we traveled over the freezing cold and wet sustenpass, oberalppass and the albulapass to the small town of bergün. After the sustenpass, the weather changed to sun an nice 16° :-) Gonna have a nice hot pizza now, jummy Hope, all of you had and will have a safe trip home!!! Cheers Andy
Well Saturday was a bit wet, but the hardy went ahead and were rewarded with dry weather the other side of Thun. Great farewell dinner organized by Rinneke & Laurens on Saturday night. This morning brought sun so a sporty drive over Sustenpass, Furkapass & Grimselpass finished off a great trip. Tomorrow sees the 11 hour drive back home. Great to meet Chris99, Dab of Oppo, Thorsten, Spelunx & KWB in the flesh - hope your onward journeys were uneventful!
Now for the facts.. 16 cars Friday, 19 by Saturday but rain stopped play.... And the bit you've been waiting for.... One faulty rectifier!
Laurens & Rinneke, thanks again for fantastic organization, the first week of September 2016 is in my diary as I'm sure it's in every one else's who attended. Look forward to seeing all Grindenwald friends again next year and hopefully welcoming some new ones!
At time of writing most of the participants are back on the way home or already home after a fantastic M3W meeting in Grindelwald. This year we had all together 20 M3W's during the three days and it could have been more if the weather forecast would have been better.
I'm very happy that I can write that we almost had no technical problems this year. The second day, just before the end of the route, one M3W had a dead rectifier (he had still the older configuration so it was a problem to expect). One of our participants had a spare one with him so in a short time the problem was solved. Looking back and comparing with other years it looks like that we all getting slowly a bit more reliable M3W with all the upgrades.
The first day,Thursday, we had good weather and we drove the beautiful area west of the Thunersee. Including the hill climb road Gurnigel. This first day not all participant were arrived so we had a small group of 11 M3W's When we checked the route out two weeks before all was OK, but we didn't knew there would be a farmers market on the road in one of the villages on our planned day. But with some help we managed to get through the mass of people (all admiring our strange cars) on this street market. After a very pleasant day we got the last 10 miles some rain but nothing to get really wet.
Due to the nice weather on Friday and the bad weather forecast in the mountains for Saturday we changed the program and went over the famous three mountain passes Grimsel 7100 ft.- Furka 8000 ft. - Susten 7300 ft. This turned out to be a very good choice because the weather was perfect on Friday and almost no other traffic on the road.We could do any speed which the M3W's and their drivers could handle. Down the Grimsel and up and down the Furka we had not one car in front of us ! Really exhilarating !! After the ride we stopped in Interlaken for a beer and put the cars up for show at the Höhenmatte promenade. All of the participants agreed that this was a one of a kind day and we all enjoyed their M3W to the max (including the one with the breakdown).
Next Saturday morning pouring rain. Only some brave M3W drivers went for a ride. The others stayed in the hotel, which turned out to be the wrong choice. Out of the valley the sky cleared and we could enjoy again a wonderful day in our little toys. This time the route was via small very curvy inland roads and we got many times a stunning view overlooking the Thunersee from high above. “Awesome” is what the participants from the UK told us. Back in Grindelwald we told the ones who didn’t go with us that we had nice and dry weather. They couldn’t believe us.
In the evening we had a farewell dinner in one of the nice restaurants in Grindelwald and we all promised each other that we would see each other next year again.
Looking back I’m sure we all had a great time with very good camaraderie.
My thanks as well to Laurens and Rinke for a wonderful few days. The effort they had put into planning such a range of scenic and off the beaten track routes was evident and appreciated
I headed out over the Jaunpass to Lausanne and onto Le Puy. Next stop Toulouse
Dab of Oppo called - he made it to Zeebruges Ok after his second marathon journey in 4 days and was safely on the ferry.
It was great to meet everyone and to put faces to some TM names.
Next year is in the diary for the 1st weekend of Sept and it would be great to get more of us from the UK. One idea is to meet up with Laurens and Rinke somewhere in Northern France and make the journey to Grindelwald part of the Treffen. Anyone up for this?
ps: black adder have you seen the waterproofs in the for sale section
