NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/motorcyc/39307

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From: [e-mail] (Noemi Berry)
Subject: The European Adventure, Day 7
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Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 05:09:58 GMT
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This is the next installment in the tale of my 9-day
motorcycle adventure in Europe during the summer of '92.
I apologize for its length and .... you know the rest.

noemi
*--------------------------------------------------------*

10/21/92

Wednesday, September 2, 1992
Day 7: The Day of the Pass

    And thus it came to pass, that in the land of the shining path, the gods
    smote Adnoh unto the ground.  Yet he would rise once again, bleeding and
    defiant, in the name of Yahweh.
                                   -Daemonthenese

St. Martin, Italy

I woke up tired, feeling the effects of having ridden all day
yesterday, and having many, many dreams about home and family.
It's like my subconscious was reaching out for reality, since
I was waking up into a dreamworld.

At 7:45, I went out to load up my bike, and was greeted with cold air
on my face and scrapable >>ice<< on my steed's seat.  The tank bag
strap was frozen solid!  Later I was told that the morning temperature
was 6 degrees Celsius.  Brrr!

It was a little warmer after breakfast -- there was not a cloud in the
sky and it was promising to be a beautiful day.  The sun had made its
way into the valley, an encouraging sign.  I did my gas, oil & tires
pre-flight (no troubles there, thank heavens!), and headed south on #244
toward a collection of squiggles on the map: the Dolomites.

In nearby Corvara, I turned "west" on #243, which ascended quickly up
to Grodner pass.  This was a much more open area than I'd been yesterday,
so all the turns were visible.  There were sloped fields on the sides of
the roads; nothing like the stark, steep cliffs of my first pass, Stelvio.

I was not disappointed with the number of hairpins and the spectacular
views of rocky snow-peaked mountains.  It didn't take long to ride
above the snowline, and it was cold enough that I almost pulled over
at one of the frequent ski shops to buy gloves.  The numerous cars and
tour buses, some of them double decker, told me that tourism is a
large industry in this area!

Perhaps the concept of a "pass" deserves explanation.  This is a road
that crosses over a mountain, presumably over the easiest path.  As you
ascend, the twisties get tighter, and some are steep enough to warrant
numbered hairpins.  At the top, there is an area to buy postcards, have
coffee, complain about all the tourists and tour buses, and enjoy
panoramic views before heading back down the other side.

I stopped at the top of Grodner Pass and walked up a mountain a short
way, as always marvelling at my surroundings.  There were lots of
hard-core hikers clad in lederhosen hiking up to the very top of the
rocky peaks, and lots of serious bicyclists too.  There were also a lot
of motorcycles, and I always smiled and returned their hello, regretting
that I couldn't talk to any of them.  I wanted to talk to one solo KLR650
rider in a red Motodress touring jacket, since almost no riders were
solo, but the lack of language kept me away.  He probably wondered why
I was so shy.  As was becoming habit, the way down was faster and more
fun, and my riding was better.

The next pass was Sella Pass (#242 "south"), and the routine was
repeated.  Ride up the hairpins, blast by cars and buses on the
straights, arrive at the top, find as level a parking spot as
possible, take pictures, buy postcards, say hello to the same
riders, take off down the mountain, pass the same cars and buses
again.  At Sella Pass, I motioned hello again to the perplexed,
and no doubt put off, red-jacketed KLR650 rider.

One thing I'll say in favor of the awkward tour buses: they bunch up
the cars in a nice long slow line, making it easy to pass them all at
once.  I'd never passed 10 cars at a time before, and found that my
seemingly altitude-insensitive FT made it tons of fun to essentially
ride in the oncoming "lane" and pass.  The buses held up oncoming
cars, too!  These roads were *made* for motorcycles.

By the third pass (#48 "east", Passo Pordoi), I was finally relaxing
and riding much better.  It had warmed up, I was doing the purest
twisties I'd ever seen, and in spite of the traffic, I had a decent
rhythm going, in between bunches of cars led by a bus.  The views of
mountains in the distance never bored me, and the sunny expanse of
beauty put me in a marvelous mood.  I was blasting by cars (though
I had to pull over once to let an Audi go by, how embarrassing) and
having a great time.

The bright sun made the smooth pavement look almost slick.  In fact,
it looked almost shiny, which concerned me a little, but I said, hey,
it's asphalt, not ice!  Don't be silly.  It was time I pushed it a
little and saw what the FT could do on lean angle.  Remembering the
line Herr Hesh had described on taking the hairpins, where he scraped
the sidestand on a R100G/S, I experimented with various ways around the
curves.  Some of the hairpins were paved with cobblestones at the apex;
there was nothing to do about that!  Also, many of them had water in
them due to melting snow.  Prudence was the plan of attack on these.

[Parental Editing ON]

On the way up to Arraba, toward Passo di Campolongo, it turned out that
the road was indeed as slippery as I thought.  With no warning, on
right-hander hairpin #18, I leaned and the rear tire slid out to my
left.  Lowside!  Since it was uphill, the rear end only slid around a
little, and gravity stopped it quickly.  I just about stepped off the
bike, with my right knee first, and was standing before the bike stopped
sliding.

The first thing I did was to hit the kill switch, grab my camera and
take a picture of my moto in its undignified state, before anyone came
by!  Then I saw gas leaking everywhere and realized it MUST be picked up --
though it was facing downhill.  A woman bicyclist passed me and said
something; from her tone of voice I got the feeling it was something
like, "serves you right."  Fine, I'll try it myself, even though I'd
failed four other times and this time it was downhill.

Easy!  Adrenaline is a wonderful drug: I righted the FT myself for the
first and only time and wheeled it toward the inside of the turn.  Just
then, the solo KLR650 rider rode by, and when he saw me wheeling the bike
in a strange direction, he pulled over immediately.  Gosh, these people
are nice!  I indicated all was OK, embarrassed by my mishap, and relieved
his curiosity about why I hadn't said hello.  He didn't speak a word of
English.

An Italian man appeared and came to check up on the situation.  I found
the Italian phrase for "slippery road", and he vigourously indicated
"yes" and said, pointing to the road: "multi moto kaput!".  After
verifying all was well, he took off.  Uncharacteristically undeterred,
I dug out the tool kit to adjust a mirror, started the FT with no regard
at all to the mechanic's long-forgotten "touch-start" instructions, and
continued with much more caution.

Why did I slide out like that?  There was nothing on the road at
all, I hadn't been riding hard or making unreasonable demands on
the tires.  I was riding so slow that I could step off the bike,
with little more than a tiny scratch on my leather Temper-foam
kneepad (which nicely protected me from the expected bruise).
Maybe they use a different kind of asphalt?  But the road was
indeed slippery.

[Parental editing OFF]

#48 "east" took me through Arraba and Andraz toward Cortina D'Ampezzo,
on another 20km of roads dancing across mountains.  My riding wasn't so
good: I was abusing trail braking and taking only a few turns even worthy
of criticism for mistakes; the rest were just awful.  I needed a break
after only 90km, and stopped in Pocol, a town which consisted of one hotel.
I sat in the warm sun in the back of the hotel, ignoring stares and looking
out over the beautiful view of trees beneath me and mountains behind me.
After a map check, I changed my intended course, wanting to find small
bus-eluding roads.

I headed "south" on #638 toward Passo di Giau, a reasonably obscure road
that turned out to be a milder pass, but delightful nonetheless!  This one
was unusually heavy on excellent tight, banked S's, and I found myself
regretting my lack of riding skill and time to practice.  Occasionally
I felt the suspension unload between the curves in an S, and decided
that was the best and most rewarding feeling in the world.

The downhill hairpins came one after another and were *very* banked
(my guess was 30 degrees?).  The road was slightly bumpy and full of fun
challenge -- everything was visible and the roads were lined with
long fields.  I thought I was in the movie Heidi!  But this was
really Northern Italy.

Heading south on #251, crossing over Mte. Pelmo, everything got less
and less German looking.  The occasional town was not as picture-perfect
kempt, and the traffic as such was annoying.  It occurred to me then
that I had not seen a traffic light in days!  Not since I had left Imst.
One, maybe two lifetimes ago.

After one such town, I followed a K1 and Intruder rider up toward
Passo Cibiana, another small road with promising kinks on the map.
They lost me after about 10 minutes, but it felt great to be riding
"with" other riders!  This made a tremendous improvement in the riding
as I told myself to take the corners smoother to keep up with them.
After they lost me, I had my first real regret that I was riding solo.

This road was a little more forested and the curves tended to be blinder,
but it was great fun.  Some of the huge 180-degree turns were as I'd
never seen before, with tremendous elevation changes from one leg of
the curve to the next, and bent enough that they seemed to be more than
180.  I'd never seen roads like this!  The road went over another easy
mountain pass and made for great motorcycling.  This one took me into the
SudTirol area, aka the Tirolian Alps.

I ended up in Valle, Italy, a miserable traffic-choked little town.
Humanity turned me off after my time in the mountains, but my fun
riding was over for today and I had to crank to tonight's goal: Lienz,
Austria.  It was about 5pm by then and I'd learned not to underestimate
the time it takes to get from one place to another on non-autobahn roads.

I dragged my way up 51bis "north" to Pelos and #48 "north" toward Auronzo.
A short 14km jog on #532 took me to Padola.  Though I thought my fun
riding was done today, this road cut through a mountain from one big
road to another, and turned out to be a nice little treat of bends and
some views.

In Padola, I picked up #52 "northwest," fully prepared for an annoying
series of 3km straights followed by 10 minutes through a little town.
As it turned out, #52 was a marvelous road, and quickly became my second
favorite!  It had sweeperish turns, then climbed up and became an easy
mountain pass (Kreuzberg).  I had to stop to take a picture of a double
waterfall, where a huge boulder in the middle of the fall split it into
two, making it look like synchronized movement.  It was so pretty, and
the riding wasn't difficult enough to require too much attention to the
road, though it was plenty interesting.  My mood was great and I could
feel my riding start to come together again.  I relaxed and remembered
to grip the tank with my knees and that countersteering works way better
when my non-steering hand isn't opposing the movement.  What a nice
surprise this road was, considering I'd given up on the day for fun
riding!  I made a mental note while passing through the town of Moos
to mark it as a town to come back to someday.

The road ended in Innichen, at a crossroads with a larger thoroughfarish
road, #100 which I took "east" into Austria.  This road ran along fast,
and was very pretty since it ran alongside a river.  Somehow, getting
through towns on a non-autobahn route works better in Austria.  What
could have been drudgery turned into a really very pleasant ride, and
I made excellent time.

Still wanting to avoid humanity, I decided to find a hotel in a town
outside of Lienz, and randomly chose Assling on the map.  A curvy 3km
ascent to Assling was a nice way to top off the day, and I found a room
in the small town for the bargain price of 180 oS (about $18).  I took
a nice, long hot shower when I arrived: it was getting cold again and
my room didn't have heat.  There was no facility for heat, either.
Apparently, the rooms are for sleeping and not hanging out, so they
don't bother to heat them!

I spent the evening in the empty restaurant area, talking with the hotel
owner's daughter.  Her English was excellent, and it was nice to have a
conversation with someone.  She explained to me that in "former times,"
the part of Italy where I'd been had belonged to Germany and that's why
so many people spoke German there.

I took some hot tea and a homemade plum pie to my cold but cozy-looking
room with a gorgeous view of a mountain and quickly scribbled the day's
events.  I pondered that I was still very nervous about dropping the bike
(there was not one level spot in the whole town!) and that considering
the horizontal duty it'd done, my FT dropped pretty well.  I was glad
in every way I had the FT instead of the Suzuki GS500.

I piled up two short but thick featherbeds (I don't know HOW tall
people fit under those things) and fell into deliriously happy sleep,
filled with anticipation about tomorrow.  My ride was in full swing
now.  Tomorrow's goal was GrossGlockner, Austria's highest peak!

End of Day 7.

noemi
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
[e-mail] (for now)                     KotSBL
DoD #443                          '82 KZ 305 CSR
                            (R.I.P)
    Next Motorcycle (NM) countdown: one R65LS to go!
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*