Artist’s impression of how the BM Eurobike HQ could look. Toilet-emptying rota not pictured.

As you’ll doubtless be aware, the life of the mountain bike journalist is one of the greatest luxury. No expense is spared in our efforts to bring you, our readers, all the latest happenings from Planet Bicycle.

Er, no actually. This week we’re (and that’s an actual “we”, not the royal we to which your editor seems to have become accustomed, when he’s not referring to himself in the third person again) off to Friedrichshafen, Germany for the Eurobike trade show. Publisher Simon and RoadCyclingUK.com editor Richard thought it would be a good idea to ride their respective motorcycles the 650 miles to the show. In Richard’s case that probably is a good idea – he’s got some big, upright touring device with huge panniers, heated grips and all that kind of thing. Simon, though, owns a Ducati sportsbike, is therefore presumably travelling with just a spare pair of pants and a toothbrush and we expect it’ll take until Saturday for him to return to a fully-upright posture.

The rest of us, though, are travelling with Ryanair. Speaking personally, I’d probably rather ride pillion with Simon, and the Ducati doesn’t even have a pillion seat.

And upon arrival? Well, Friedrichshafen is legendary for having one of Europe’s largest exhibition centres but no actual hotels – last year our correspondents were staying in another country. It’s the only trade show we know of that offers a campsite as an accommodation option. One step above that on the scale is the Hymer Village, which sounds like something faintly membraneous and slightly rude, but is in fact a load of caravans from the eponymous manufacturer all lined up in one of the expo car parks. No, it’s not a swanky hotel (although people who know these things tell us that Hymer make a quality caravan…) but it does have the distinct advantage of not being two hours from the actual show. Which means less time faffing about travelling and more time reporting.

All of which brings us, eventually and circuitously, to the point that we’re trying to get across – Bikemagic reports, perilously close to live, from a caravan, from Eurobike all this week. Stay tuned…