EDIT: ADDED MAPS
So you want piccies. Ok have some piccies
The night before the off
Day 1
Eurotunnel
Day 2
The Ibis hotel in Bethune with a few other people turning up
When we finally got into the hills towards the end of day 2, a lake somewhere near Annency
Some more lake and mountain views not long before arriving at the hotel for night 2 near Albertville. Camera can't give the sense of the size of the view
Day 3 morning at the hotel near Albertville
On the way to Baveno, this is the Hospice du Petit St Bernard
This is the hotel at Baveno and the lakeside. Very good. We now had a full Old Gits crew with a real mixture of bikes
Day 4 we went off to do some more passes - the Simplon, Grimsel, Furka and Gotthard.
This is the Simplon Pass which wasn't too full of hairpins, a nice break in for what folllows
This one is just over the top of the Grimsel, where they are building a new dam. You can take the civil engineer into retirement but...
This is typical of the approach to the passes. Looks all very nice and then you suddenly see the road going up the side of those slopes...
They've done an amazing job bridging and tunnelling the motorways up into the mountains. This is typical and not unusual
On day 5 while Matt and RT went boating on the lake I went and did the same route again but in the other direction. The first time I'd nearly lost the front twice on the Grimsel but managed to avoid that second time around.
No space for a hairpin? No problem sir, we'll just hang one out over the edge for you (Gotthard)
Looking back down the Gotthard. There's an old road which has cobbled sections, I did a bit and decided to cross back onto the new one after getting rattled and bounced for a few miles.
Rock and snow protection over the road
Looking off the Furka down the valley towards the Grimsel, far down on the right
Note the edge protection here, just a line of concrete posts, more like a Welsh mountain pass than what you might imagine an Alpine pass would look like. Just keep your eyes on the road and stop thinking about the drop...
Practice improves things but its mentally and physically taxing. I was basically remembering how to ride properly again after 5 years sitting like a sack of potatoes on motorways or clogged UK roads. The empty roads, very variable surfaces, learning how to ride hairpins, and in my case avoid tractors (with luck a Matt video on its way), learning Italian driving riding and cycling styles, tiring but I was mostly happy (honest, I know its hard to tell). Having comms made life a lot safer as the front man could call clear or traffic to those behind. Going up hairpins is harder as you cannot see who is coming down, going down you can look over the edge and see whats coming up. The edge varying from barriers, concrete walls, the odd standing stone, or nothing...
Day 6
This was our lunch stop on the way from Baveno to Fondo on day 6.
Its all salad officer, those fries are not mine
This was the hotel in Fondo. Manager was kind of an Italian version of Basil Fawlty. You had to eat your food fast because theyd have your plate off you before youd finished otherwise. And you HAD to sit in the same place every night or they couldnt work out whod ordered what. Not that here was that much clarity anyway.
On day 7 we did a loop including the Stelvio Pass. It was rammed. We continued over the pass and found a very quiet smaller pass further North, so we went down it and back up again.
Then we headed off and did the Gavia Pass with a coffee stop. Very pleasant with a glacier view. Catch one while they are still here
Then Matt went in and said we were eating out on the 3rd night... next morning i had no chair for breakfast
Weather forecast on day 8 said rain. Didn't know whether to be happy or sad and a week of stewing gently in the textiles at 30C plus was beginning to lose its appeal. Top of the mountains was nicely cool even though you were working hard on the bike, but dragging through all the continuous Italian villages in the valleys at 30 to 50mph was torture. Anyway we set off towards the Gardena Pass and got 30 odd miles before it did rain. Fortunately we found one of many abandoned farm buildings with large eves to shelter under
Then we found snow/hail lying everywhere. Cleared up shortly after though
Not all the cafes were particularly scenic. In this case RT had stopped to take a picture or something so me and Matt stopped for a sandwich and a drink. After 20 mins or so RT appeared, Having been about 100m back the way doing the same assuming we'd got separated. You see RT , if you had comms it would be sooo much easier...
Day 9 we parted company with Matt as he set off for his own expedition, and headed off North over the Timmeljoch Pass into Austria. Had I known that was where the rebuilt motorcycle museum was I might have tried to plan a bit more time there. As it was the Austrians charged us €16 for the privilege of riding past it...Was pretty cold up there, coldest part of the trip.
After that it was down the mountains into Austria and a not so exciting run to Gomaringen. Motorway services provided the most expensive petrol I have bought since the stupid prices a year ago.
Very hot in the sun and no cool; mountain passes to run to. Derestricted motorways and some very fast estate cars...
After a very enjoyable 100miles or so across the mostly rural,empty and super smooth sweeping roads of southern Germany there was a long slog back up the motorway on day 10, although with no HGVs on a Sunday it wasn't too bad. Final night back in Bethune but this time different hotel and a wander into the square. Interesting place with some notable buildings. Not sure what Bethune had going for it but it must have been a major centre in the past.
Last day was a bit of a slog as the wind was against me nearly all the way along the A303 and A30. Although RT and I did have a nice run through the south downs area from Ashford going west along roads like the A272 which were surprisingly empty for the most part. Beats the crap out of droning around the M25.
And seeing as I was passing I just had to go in...
Back home 3259 miles later, 49.2mph average , and surprisingly 51.7mpg average. Astonished at the fuel economy thrashing the wossnames out of it up and down the mountains. The grinding along the valleys at 30 must compensate. The only time I opened my toolkit pannier on the whole trip was in the shuttle on the way back to get the pump to put a couple of psi in the tyres, which given the battering they got on the road surfaces I'm not surprised at.
Looks like I prefer left handers marginally to right handers
Organisation was excellent, many thanks to Dave. The craic was good. The peage tags from Fulli and Bip and go were somewhat erratic. The memory of the man in the little speaker at one booth shouting "TICKET" so loudly at Matt as he tried to explain he had a tag that I could hear it inside my earplugged helmet 20metres away will last. Never had the K against the stop before, never lost the front end before. The howling exhaust sounds great and when its hot on the way down it starts crackling and banging quite a bit. The local crazy riders, well crazy until midweek when we decided if you can't beat them join them. The scenery is massive and cameras cant do it justice, and there are so many pictures that if you stopped to take all of them you'd never ride more than 500metres before stopping again. My neck more twisted than a twisty thing that's been twisted after trying to look up the hairpins. The parade of classic Bugattis worth millions. Bloody cyclists. The heat and traffic in the valleys. Never ending valley villages with 30 limits. The number of Italian speed cameras in the valleys while up in the hills its no holds barred, and other than the weekend, mostly empty roads. The endless sat nav and route discussions, and the ability of the little boxes running the same software to give us different arrival times and simultaneously tell each of us to go in different directions. I could go on. It was bloody good
Can we go back again please?
