Yamaha TRX850-meeting 2003 in Stiege


TRX = T-rex = Tyrannosaur Rex

This page contains my impressions of the TRX-meeting in Stiege, but for the German readers I'll start with the 3-page report that appeared in the August edition of MO-Magazin. I've reduced the resolution a bit so you'll still need the magazin for full-quality. The documents are now 200kb each. Have a little patience! Thomschek, thanks for the superfast delivery!! page1 page2 page3

How I got to go to that meeting and my impressions of the 3 days are what else is on this page. Scanning the Internet for stuff about the TRX I found information about the 3-day meeting that took place from May 30 until June 1st 2003. The German meeting place on the net for TRX-owners is TRX-world.de . They meet in the real world too on a regular basis with regional ride-outs. All there is to know about that and about the preparation for and the tall stories after the event are in the forum. If you understand the German language that is.

The event took place at 'Gasthof und Campingplatz Domäne-Stiege'. Domäne Stiege is mainly a camping site but they do have rooms as well, thank God. So I could travel light. Stiege is in former East-Germany so it is a fair ride to get there. But it was absolutely worth it. The rooms and restaurant are in the buildings you see in the picture on the left, the picture on the right shows that the bikes could be parked right next to the tents.



I was really impressed by the very professional manner that the event was organised in. As it was organised without any profit margin it was dead cheap. Euro 7,50 to attend. But obviously price has little to do with quality. It was so well organised and went so smoothly, unreal. And also in a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Really, if you own a TRX and have the opportunity, don't hesitate and go next time around. As far as I know the idea is to do it in the same area roughly the same time of year. Ill put some info on this page as soon as soon as it is available.
The camping site is set in a very scenic environment. Lots of space and few regulations. Campfires (small one starting on the pic below) are not a problem, chopped wood even at hand! There were some small contests as well, one of them was removing the sparkplug at the right hand side with the standard toolkit. Apparantly (I have no experience on the subject) that is an awful job. Here's the brave contestants at work.



Pints of beer for 1 Euro (!) and enthousiastic owners from really all walks of life make for animated discusions at the campfire. And guarantee long nights, little sleep and a heavy head in the morning. I believe around 70 bikes showed up, 90% of them TRX-es. There was a modest dutch contingent (4 bikes) 5 from Denmark, one or two Belgian and Austrian and obviously the rest were german. I'll specifically state the number of british visitors. ZERO!!! The interest that I thought was there in the Yahoo TRX mailing list hasn't materialised. Perhaps next year?
For anyone who thinks there is no sense of humour in Germany, check this paintjob on Thomscheks bike. Translates roughly in "don't dribble on my paintjob!"



This particular weekend all of Europe was bathing in sunshine. All of Europe? Well, no, there is this tiny area in Germany where.... You guessed. We got drenched on the ride-out. The upside was this, a tunnel filled with TRX-es sheltering from torrential rain. When it subsided and the bikes were fired up.... you needed to have been there. Small hint, I think my bike was the only one with the original cans fitted. All Bos, Laser, Akropovic and what have you. Last but certainly not least a picture that I shot of Theo's Spondon TRX. A Spondon frame, TRX engine, modified R7 fairing, tank and seat. Very light (158 kgs), very racy and the only one of it's kind. I rode with him from the dutch border to Stiege and there was no hope of keeping up with him when we got to the twisty bits. See for much more about the bike on Theo's site on the Spondon TRX..



My admiration and thanks go out to the handful of people that have organised this fantastic meeting. Thomschek, Fezze, TRXRalf, Achim, Jörgel and anyone else involved: congratiulations on a job very well done. It has been heaps of fun and I will absolutely try to attend again. You have my word that I'll try my best to raise more interest for it from Holland and the UK.

For more pictures and a short report (in German) you can also check Elm's homepage.