Hi everybody, nice to meet you again on our Blog. I’m in Kortrijk, a Belgian town next to the french border. Here does the trade show MATEXPO take place, a well known exhibition for the construction industry. Continental showcases there not only the five Topic Worlds of our showtruck but also big specialty tires for construction machines like big excavators and dump trucks. And what can I say – here in the exhibition hall we are in the dry – completely independent of the weather. No trickling rain anywhere. Also nice…

Little mishap on the ferry from Trelleborg to Travemünde

My way to Belgium was comparatively circuitous, because I came from the far north. So it went from Trelleborg in the southern tip of Sweden on the ferry and across the Baltic Sea to Travemünde. Unfortunately, there was a small mishap during this crossing: We got stuck on an edge with the trailer’s pallet box, which is mounted between the wheel sets and the lowering supports. We were able to cross the highway safely, but we wanted to have the damage repaired before the next station of the roadshow. So we drove via Hannover and made a short pitstop at our trusted workshop…

Then we continued on the A2, through the Ruhr area (one of my favorite regions, as I already told you in one of my first posts…), on the A40 towards the Netherlands, in Venlo over the border and via Eindhoven to Belgium. There I had to cross again, because Kortrijk is in Flanders, on the border with France. From Travemünde, that was another 760 kilometers.

Continental also presents itself in high gloss at MATEXPO

But now we are there. The set-up for MATEXPO is a bit slow, everything is going too slowly for me. I’m impatient now, because we at Continental are such a well-coordinated team at the roadshow. But here we are at a trade show and, for the first time during our entire roadshow, in a large exhibition hall. All the other stops were outside – in front of Continental sites, at race tracks like the Nürburgring or at other large open-air events. So now here, in the big black box, with other trade show builders and event technicians. With our combined efforts, we finally manage to present our show truck, the booth and the other exhibits of Continental in high gloss in time.

During the show I even have time to look around Kortrijk a bit. The city is really beautiful, historic and very well maintained, like Tartu in Estonia or Vilnius in Lithuania. Flowers everywhere, canals, pretty house facades. Here you can stand it…

After the MATEXPO is for me of course already before the next tour, because the roadshow must continue… Denmark and the Contidrom test track near Hanover will be the next stops before the big adventure in Turkiye begins for me in October. I’m excited – and hopefully you’re reading along here in the blog.

Your Ronny