Guest Kakugo Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 Maybe not so thin but it was surely cold. I went for a three days blast between Switzerland, Austria and Italy with two friends of mine. Due to coming from completely different directions we agreed to meet in the evening at the chosen hotel in St Anton am Arlberg (Tyrol, Austria). During the first day I had to contend with the bane of the Alps during this season... traffic. There's a reason I usually postpone my holidays until late September. This is the first stop of the day: down the Bernina Pass (Graubunden, Switzerland) and in front of the Morteratsch Glacier: Despite the traffic I was running early on schedule so I decided to take a detour and ride the Fluela Pass (same as above). Despite the scenery it was not a very pleasant ride. Not only the traffic was heavy )it was much better going down) but the road was in bad shape, so much I had to put the ESA in "Comfort" mode for the second time since buying the bike (shock swap excluded ). Kermit stopped by to say hi. never seen such a tame frog in my life. As I was leaving after having a Red Bull a huge thunderstorm started building up on top of the Schwarzhorn. It was a shape of things to come. I had already decided to take a detour to Samnaun, a zollfrei (duty free) enclave nested between Austria and Switzerland to fill up. The ride up from Vinadi was miserable. The road is in very bad shape, there was an interminable traffic light due to some works and as it started to rain the traffic ground to a halt. However cheap, high quality fuel made it all worthwhile. The ride down towards Pfunds (Tyrol, Austria) was much, much better: the road is well kept, there are plenty of nice hairpins and the road is wide enough to overtake slower traffic (before you say it: unless differently specified you can overtake everywhere in Austria). The road towards Landeck (same as above) is straight but wide, well kept, with an acceptable speed limit and normal traffic. I finally started to breath. As I left Landeck for the Arlberg Panorama Road, traffic melted away completely. A stop at the renown Handl factory in Pians to stock up on local ham (a true delight) and off I was towards my final destination. The Panorama Road is nice and well kept. As I arrived at the hotel it was starting to rain heavily. My friends arrived about an hour later under a veritable downpour and had some nice things to say about my "luck". The bikes were garaged for the night, we all had a shower followed by a cheap and hearty meal of goulash, Groetschl (a local speciality made with baked potatos, ham etc) and local beer, an after dinner chat and then we hit the sack to prepare ourselves for the next day. Continue...
Paul Mihalka Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 Beautiful country and roads, even if it rains. I have been on some of those roads. On the sign on the wall, I understand the German side. What language/dialect is the other side?
Guest Kakugo Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 Beautiful country and roads, even if it rains. I have been on some of those roads. On the sign on the wall, I understand the German side. What language/dialect is the other side? That's romancio, the Rhetic language spoken in the eastern part of Graubunden and scattered pockets in the Italian Alps. It's the (little known) fourth official Swiss language after German, French and Italian. The next day I woke up to do my usual "on road" training routine and had a look outside the window. It was raining but that wasn't going to stop us... in fact I looked forward to it. Rain = no traffic, The temperature inside the hotel's garage. We started to make our way towards the Arlberg Pass (Vorarlberg, Austria)and immediately run into some pretty dense fog. On the Flexen Pass the situation was this: In the background is my good friend friend Toni on the CB1300 I convinced him to buy... We arrived in Warth and took the left towards the small Faschinajoch road. As is usual in Vorarlberg the road is great and absolutely spotlessly kept. Not a single pothole or bump. I rode point all day (as my usual) but here I moved at the back: I wanted to see for myself the difference in behavior between the Dunlop Roadsmart 2 fitted to the VFR and the PR3 fitted to the CB1300. Needless to say the PR3 drain about four times the water... impressive. We rode under water until we arrived in Bludenz. Here rain gave us a break as we entered the Montafon valley. We stopped in Gortipohl to have lunch. A hearty meal of Kaesespatzle (cheese dumpling) and green salad. Austria is the gardener's paradise... and Edelweiss are becoming increasingly popular as potted plants. Sadly I lacked the means to take anything home and I forgot to stop by at a gardening center to see which seeds they had available. Yes, that was our destination: the little known Silvretta High Alpine Road. Like the much more famous Grossglockner it's a private toll road. Differently from Grossglockner is much cheaper (bikes pay 11€ vs 22€ for a daily pass), much less trafficked and, in my opinion, much, much better. I person I took there with me two years ago called it "the finest road I ever rode in my life". I do not exaggerate in saying this road has the best tarmac this side of a track. The grip is phenomenal even under the heavy rain expecting us. Toni and me quickly lost Davi, our VFR riding friend. He's no slouch (actually he's pretty fast) but we were riding on PR3 and our bikes are better suited to tight yet nice hairpins than his VFR. We overtook a German guy in an Audi who was driving pretty fast and must have wondered who were those two idiots... As we approached the climax we stopped under the torrential rain to wait for Davi and snap some pictures: Surely it cannot get colder than this, right? It surely can and riding down I saw the temperature drop to 4.5°C. On top of the Silvretta, at the artificial lake which feeds massive hydroelectric power stations miles and miles away. Honestly I expected more people at the top. Even the parking lot was spotlessly surfaced and had a great grip. Despite the weather (or perhaps because of it) we were really enjoying ourselves. What a fantastic road, well worth the admission price... had weather been better we would have taken full advantage of the daily pass and ride it until dark. I have a personal and professional interest in selective breeding so I had to snap this picture. These are Dzo, a hybrid between a domestic bull and a Tibetan Yak cow. Very, very sturdy beasts, probably overkill for the Alpine climate. We decided to ride back to the hotel, parked the bike and had a stroll through the town. In the evening we had a hearty meal of goulash, kaesespatzle and local beer and bumped into an Australian guy who was riding to his hotel after dark under a torrential rain on a GS-Adventure. It couldn't get any better, and it didn't. Continue.
NCStephen Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 WOW!! Thanks for sharing this with us. Glad to see you find great times even if it is raining. Great pictures and narrative. NCS
Guest Kakugo Posted July 29, 2012 Posted July 29, 2012 Thank you all for your kind comments. So day three dawned and it was time to part ways: both my friends have small children and wanted to spend the rest of the day with them. I rode for a few miles with Toni before parting ways at the Flexenpass junction. Fog, drizzle and cold... I like that. The Arlbergpass is simply stunning. Even under a downpour. I made my way through a peaceful and sleepy Austrian Sunday morning towards Feldkirch where I filled up with cheap premium unleaded, bought a Red Bull and crossed the custom checkpoint into the much maligned Lichtenstein. I'd like to say this impression is wrong but as soon as you enter Schwaanwald you get 8 speed cameras in less than a mile. A world record for sure and the locals must know something we foreigners don't because they drive like complete lunatics... Anyhow I survived the onslaught and took the Swiss highway the other side of the border (I have a yearly pass, a steal at 40 ChF) and made my way south as the traffic grew and grew towards Heidiland (the region around Bad Ragaz named after the world famous novel by Johanna Spyri set there). I left the highway at Thusis to ride the Via Mala. Good call. Excellent riding road, incredibly well surfaced by Graubunden standards. Plenty of bikes on the road. Can you guess which famous European river is this? It's the Hinterrhein, which merges with the Anterrhein near Chur to form the mighty Rhine River. A couple more pictures before entering Splugen and starting the climb towards the Splugenpass. I have no problem telling this: it was a bad call. The place was literally packed. The road is narrow, hence overtaking is not a joke and on the very tight hairpins on the Italian side I had to stop frequently to let big Dutch Winnebago's climbing from the other side through to avoid getting squeezed. I should have taken the long route through the Julierpass and the Maloja: even if equally packed it's much wider and traffic isn't a big problem. As I descended towards Chiavenna, I had the occasion to mingle with a crazy German on Suzuki GSX1400. Good fun, I like riding fast with Germans: they are out of their rocker but usually clean riders. Sadly his venerable machine was no match for superior German technology. Now it was all a matter of riding through long straights and highways to get home. And rain, lots of it. Apart from the bad call on the Splugenpass it was a nice ride out. All my gear performed flawlessly, except for my boots which are starting to let a bit of water through. As I said before I wouldn't have taken any other bike I have owned over the RT for this trip. It performed perfectly, it was economical, gave excellent weather protection (something my companions envied) and felt like a million bucks on the new Wilbers shocks.
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