Well, now the winter break was long enough. It starts to tingle already and in a few weeks from now the next Elefant season starts.

That's why, as promised, even with some delay, we wanted to send our final report now that the elephant colleagues from Bavaria take over and invite all of us in their 2018 meeting Inzell.

First of all, we would like to thank you all. You were really great and you contributed a lot to the success of the Internationnal Cagiva Elefant Meeting 2017 in Luxembourg.

We received a lot of nice mails from you, so that our work was really worth it. It was a lot of fun.

Here a small summary of the event 2017:

145 participants from 12 different nations found their way to us. The registration was reasonably satisfactory. We were sometimes overwhelmed when a couple of Elefants arrived together but everyone had a lot of patience and nobody complained.

In the afternoon, all the participants familiarized themselves with the campsite and later met for the Luxembourgish evening. Even if there were some technical difficulties in the beginning, Mikel was finally able to handle the official welcome.

The people that didn’t like Van Morisson had bad luck because his music was selected as background music for the slideshow of 18 years of Elefant Meeting pictures. There were several requests to make that movie publicly available. Even if the video is quite huge we will find a way to share it with you before the next Elefant Meeting 2018 . Apparently “bastelfred” was in favor of the soundtrack because he texted in realtime on the German forum:

“RE: Cagiva Elefant Meeting 2017 in Luxemburg, 23 Jun. 2017 21:05

Toller Empfang, klasse Essen und im Hintergrund läuft Musik von Van Morrison.

Besser geht‘s nicht.

Und das ist erst der Anfang!! :-D”

Translated:

“Nice reception, great food an background music from Van Morrison.

it does not get any better.

And that’s just the beginning!! :-D”

There was Bouneschlupp and Spaghetti Bolognese and on the first evening the staff from the kitchen was a bit overloaded with the number of people.

Most of you enjoyed it anyway and with patience on both sides (Elefantisti and camping staff) everything went reasonably smoothly. Then we had a leisurely beer in the Cagiva Elefant Village (tent on the horse meadow), before everyone went to sleep tired of the long journey.

The next morning we met for breakfast. The breakfast buffet had great success and people had the opportunity to choose between different tours.

As a small group of organizers we apologize for the lack of tour guides. After much back and forth, all those who wanted to sign up for a tour guide decided to go for the big tour of 200km.

Arm and Mikel, who were supposed to do Route A and B, could therefore team up as tour guides and ride most of the 200km route together with the group.

The group had a lot of fun.

Lunch was in Bastogne (Belgium) and only the off-road parts and the final part of the ride did separate the group.

Unfortunately Arm lost a couple of you just a few kilometer before the arrival, but that wasn’t really an issue.

Many others of you explored the smaller prepared Routes on their own. Some of you had already enough kilometers from their journey to Luxembourg and simply did prefer to enjoy the day in Larochette.

We had organized questioners for each route but that did not speak to many people. At the end we found a winner for the Elefant Rally 2017 and that was the final goal of the effort. Most important was that we had fun.

After the tour we met in the village center in Larochette. All elephants stood pose "Op der Bleech" for the traditional annual picture.

At 20.00 o'clock we met for dinner. This time a bit more generous: A fine buffet with different salads, meats and desserts. We even had a hard time ripping off some of you from the buffet to follow us to the Cagiva Elephant Village for the highlight of the evening:

With free beer, we did open the annual speech and turned to the trophies.

In total we had 8 trophies and the jury that was build by advice of the oldest did help us to take the decision:

Longest journey: Giuliano Chicarella

Giuliano came from Rome on his Elefant which went up in flames after a few hundred kilometers. Thus, he had to return to Rome and made the 1300 km journey again on his African twin! That was a worthy story for the longest journey trophy.

Most beautiful modified Elefant: Allan Long

Allan was there for the first time. He came from the UK. The precision of details while he build up his Lucky Explorer was making him a winner of the trophy.

Most original Elefant: <Unfortunately we didn’t document the name - PLEASE INFORM US THAT we can document it here>

A blue Elefant form Switzerland did finally receive the trophy but it was a long struggle for the journey because two blue Elefant where exactly on the same level.

The most extraordinary elephant: Reinhard Schneider

There isn’t a lot to say about this trophy. Only one Elefant did show up with a sidecar. The project was nicely done. There are only a few who did add a sidecar to an Elefant, which is already a rare species. For that reason it was a clear decision for the journey.

Elefant Rally 2017: <Unfortunately we didn’t document the name - PLEASE INFORM US THAT we can document it here>

The event team was worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to evaluate all the questionnaires and define the winner during the event therefore it was decided to select the winner on stage. There was no reason for worries. Most of you did enjoy there ride but had not motivation to search for secrets on the road. After a long Q&A session on stage we finally found our winner. The Elefant Rally 2017 trophy went to Germany but we had to ask multiple questions until somebody could respond with a correct answer.

Elefant Rally 2017 - Offroad Part: Per Asjes from the Netherlands

There was one single question that decided the winner of the Offroad part: During the first Offroad trail in Belgium, uphill in the Forest there was an impressive Object build by animals. What was that?

Female Rider of the International Cagiva Elefant Meeting 2017: Corinna

After riding her Elefant the long way from Switzerland, she did not only ride with us the 200km route A, but also participated in the off-road track. She is definitively a worthy candidate for the trophy.

Most beautiful non elephant motorcycle: Sanne Sayer

Do you have to award a trophy to a non-Elefant bike? Convince yourself:

Elefant with the most riding kilometers : Rebecca Kleis  and Markus Bähr

Its every year the same story. Rebecca and Markus compete for first place without any further competition. They are both around the 400 000 km mark and it is each time exciting to figure out who is ahead. We simply thought for that impressive result they both deserve the trophy.

Unfortunately the slides of the event and the notes that where made, didn’t survive the closing party. If you, unlike many others still remember that night, then feel free to enlighten us! We are happy for any further details. If anything in this report should be not correct or incomplete, please let us know.

The Alex Fischer Prize was handed over from Gege to Michiel Durante. Gege was on stage and delivered a moving speech.

Finally we announced the location for the International Cagiva Meeting 2018. The announced location was Inzell in Bavaria. There is something special about Bavaria. In the past they had their own stamps, they have their own political party and they have their own International Cagiva Elefant Treffen. Some team member from the Cagiva club of the “Free State of Bavaria” came on stage to give everybody some details about the meeting in 2018. We are happy to join them in 2018 and really looking forward to it.

After the trophy ceremony we let the evening comfortably end with a lot of free beer and campfire.

Sunday, was the last day. It was a bit tough for some Elefant Riders to get up early. The breakfast buffet was the main driver. It was again absolutely gorgeous.

After that a lot of riders did join the final trip to the castle for a couple of farewell photos. It was a beautiful scenery to see all those Elefants in the middle of this hundreds of years old place high up over
Larochette - unfortunately with a light drizzle, which motivated most of the riders early to start their journey on the way home.

It was really a very nice weekend, the weather played until the end and almost everyone came home without major problems. Unfortunately a Swiss couple had to go home by train and let the elephant follow and Gege had an accident in France.

Our target to return the maximum budget back to the members was apparently very successful and highly appreciated. After all the deductions and a joint closing dinner for the organizing team IRENE, Mikel, LAURA, TUN and ARM, we still had 400 EUR in the cash register and we divided it into two organizations for children in Luxembourg: “SOS Kannerduerf” and “Kriibskrank Kanner”

We look forward to seeing you again in Inzell

Kind regards

Irene, Laure, Tun, Arm and Mikel