I got up early Friday to make a ride. One has to work hard on tour. I had resolved to get an early start. The club had prepared several tours, complete with very exact directions as well as maps. I was torn between going deep into the Italian Dolomites and just dipping into them but hitting the highest pass. Both had warnings about being strenuous and were both around 400Km of mountain roads, but I settled on the highest pass. I filled up the tank and was ready to go.
But going out of town, I got distracted by the International Bikermeeting show. This was actually much more elaborate and much better funded by BMW than the Club Europa meeting. Much better. We were supposed to park in a lot - there was traffic control by police (one riding an airhead) - and pedestrian paths set up to go back and forth between the sites. But it was hot, so I parked the bike slightly illegally with some others under a bridge for the shade and left my leather pants in the bike. The official parking lot held some very nice vehicles including one stunning tri-wheeler.
There were information booths everywhere staffed by friendly young women handing out brochures. The program was an elaborate spiral-bound professional production, much more expensive than the folding paper brochure for the club meeting. I went to one site were there was an exhibition of how the Berlin assembly line worked. It was very well done but I had done that factory tour in the Berlin meeting, so I went on to the main tent.
The main tent had mostly clothing and accessories, very smartly presented, and I was prepared to give it a perfunctory pass through. But it was amazing. They allowed in folks like Weudo and other accessory manufacturers and there was some amazing stuff. I am not a cruiser fan, but there were some customized cruisers that were fabulous. One from an outfit in Switzerland, with a Eurotech connection, was seemingly smaller than normal with an artistic instrument display on the gas tank. There were also terrific clothing accessories sales - BMW goods were only perhaps 1/3rd of their US prices. I got some BMW and event caps for everyone at home, some summer rain gloves for Rik and me, and delayed.
And then I went up the hill and took a ride on a C1. I had to persuade them that that my CA license was really valid for motorcycles, but then I got to ride a C1. It's like a motorcycle with a heavy weight on top. But once you learn to look through the windshield instead of around it, you can run a slalom course fairly well. There were also F650s available.
This was all to introduce riders of other marks to BMW and it was very well-organized and entertaining. Later in the day there were going to be other events, including some motorcycle stunts ala 007. That night was a "Chill Out" party and then more events on the weekend. They had hired an army of attractive young women to man all of the booths and induce people to fill out questionnaires for sales followup later. On the one I filled out, they asked me if I had trusted relationship with any particular BMW dealer and I put down Cal BMW. Maybe Kari will get a notice to follow-up on a C1 sale to me.
What with all of this, I did not get underway until almost 11am. I had bought a detailed map of Austrian roads in the exhibition also, so with the BMW Club instructions and maps, I should have no trouble.
If you want the tour instructions and routes, I can copy them for you (they were on sale in the exhibition). (Well, the instructions burned up later.) In principle, they are wonderful in two respects. They tell you exactly which way to turn on what road in the direction of what town after so many hundred kms, in both German and English. And they take you on roads that are on few maps. In practice, they are not to be followed explicitly.
To start this tour, one takes the little roads out of Seefeld to Mosern and then Telfs. Then you have to get on the Autobahn (the same E60/A12 I had arrived on) about 20 km down to the Haming exit. Then on the state roads, you head for Roppen and Arzl and the south to Wenns. At one point the instructions clear say to turn left when one should turn right. In Wenns, it says to stay on the road but then after 300 meters, turn right onto the road to Kauns. Well, it doesn't say 300 m after what. And the road is not marked as Kauns. And it you miss this turn, you continue out of town on a very nice motorcycle road through the high mountains that deadends in Mittelberg.
In Wenns, in the middle of town, there is a right turn to Pillner, which is not even on some maps. Now you are on a really small road. It gets smaller. And prettier. You are in the deep mountain forest where the locals picnic and swim. The narrow road really is curvy with oncoming traffic. I had one close call with a truck that appeared around a curve taking up most of the road. Take these curves more slowly than you might think to do. At the next fork, the map shows that one could get to Kaun by turning left, but that seems to peter out in a campground. Right takes you down into Fliess via an extremely narrow road. This is really a paved path with occasional wide spots so cars can get around one another. With the bike, I just ride in the ditch a bit. You are really in the country now. And I was already tired. The narrow curvy roads, and the roads I should not have taken, had taken their toll on me.
Fliess is a very small charming village. At the crossroads here, turn left and this will take you down to the main road in the direction of Pfunds/Landeck. At the main road, you want to go towards Pfunds, not Landeck. (I had given up the tour by this point - I was tired of the small roads and the inexact instructions.) When you come out on the main road, you are just on the other side of the tunnel that bypasses Landeck from the E60, as I discovered later.
You almost enter Switzerland at Pfunds, but follow the signs for the Reschenpass via Nauders (where you will see an small old fortress directly by the side of the road). Shortly after the road becomes a fun mountain road with great scenery, you will come to a small village and you cross over into Italy. It makes no difference. This part of Tirol was Austrian before WWI and the language is still German. Italian names have been added on to all the signs. They take Shillings too.
At Curon Graun, along the Reschensee (lake), you will see a clock tower rising out of the water. I didn't stop to get the story, but I imagine that the water rose over a village here.
Out of the mountains, this becomes a country road with increasingly Italian styles. The road starts to swoop around farms. On one curve, there is a very strange circular monument to something. In another little town, there is what appears to be a large bomb shelter, with ruins of another building on top of it, left over from one of the wars. Further down, one sees a heroic statue of a large naked man holding two wild horses by their manes.
This part of the country is very Mediterranean. The weather is warm and the road goes through vineyards, with plenty of opportunities for tasting. It is a unique valley in the midst of snow-topped mountains.
Don't turn at Malles Ven./Mals. Nor at Sluderno/Schluderns. Wait till Spondignal/Spondinig. Just before that town, you will see a left turn to Pso.'d Stelviol/ Silfser Joch. That's where we're going today: the highest pass on the club tours.
You cut across the valley and then finally start going up the mountains on the other side. There don't seem to be any gas stations. My bike has a range of 240 kms before reserve, and I am already over 150. A group of sport bikes pass me just as we exit the valley and start to go up hill and I hang with them. About half way up, there is one of those traffic lights that let traffic through one lane at a time because of road construction. One of the lead riders spoke with a worker and he told us to ignore the light and just wait - a construction truck was completely blocking the road and it would be about a half-hour.
So we all pulled off our helmets and waited. The view of the adjacent mountains was great and there was even a little house about half-way up the next mountain over, that my map said was a ski school. Some more bikes and cars showed and we had a long line now. All of the bikes ran up front (as is legal in Austria and practiced elsewhere) and it was getting pretty crowed. One guy ran up full-speed on a KTM wearing one of those jackets with a wolf head on the back and seemed to think he was special. He finally realized he had to wait with the rest of us. I went over to him later and let him know he had left his light on when he parked.
When we finally started off again, he was nice enough to fall back behind the first group. I continued to ride sweep, so I followed him. The road quickly became real honest-to-god hairpins. Each one is marked with a number. I believe this is the number of degrees of angle between the two sections of the road that makes up each hairpin. Frequently, it was only one or two degrees. And then straight up for a very short run. This road is now my new candidate for twistiest steepest mountain road. Heck, it's a hands down winner.
These guys all approach the right-handers by going way to the outside, to try to keep their speed up. But this is dumb. This is my personal opinion - I've been told that I am the dumb one and that this is somehow a safer technique. I disagree. First, one wants to keep that side of the road free for oncoming traffic. Second, there are so many bikes and it's so steep anyway, that one comes almost to a stop and uses first gear to make the 179 degree turn. I just went way to the inside and turned the bike at a nearly dead stop to avoid running into the side of the other bikes. Of course, when we started up each straight section, I was at full-throttle and dropping back, but that's ok, because I caught up on every turn. Some of the guys at the front were pretty good riders, but the wolf's head guy really wasn't. He passed a few guys going up one section, but he really wasn't making the turns well, especially the left-handers where you keep to the outside and can keep some speed up doing so. But we all made it up together in a pack.
On one turn, an RV was stuck. It was longer than the turn and was wedged in front. There was about a foot in the rear, over broken rock, so all the bikes went through while the cars waited for whatever it was going to take to unwedge the RV, which should not have been on this road. There weren't any others, although there were a few light trucks, which had to back and fill on each corner.
This pass is about 2800 meters high. It is like a super Alices' at the top. I had a wurst sandwich with a beer and sat around and enjoyed the view. And bought a pin with a picture of a motorcycle and a stylized picture of the last stretch of hairpin curves. The very nice young lady who had suggested it to me and staffed that souvenir stand spoke only English and Italian, as she lived further south. But everyone else there spoke whatever and took whatever for currency. She agreed that it was wonderful up here, for about a week, but then it got old.
It didn't get old for me for that hour. The views are really fabulous, you're up high in snow, and new bikes show up all the time. There is a funny little restaurant a bit higher called "Tibet". If you ride up there via the little gravel road, the view is even better. I didn't understand until I came back with my daughter why no one was eating up there on the terrace. I went back down to the main scene, but then climbed a short way by foot up to the ski lift and then to the little chapel that overlooks the restaurants and souvenir shops. I climbed down via a different route in the snow. Given that I couldn't do much on this trip because of my unhealed leg, this was a big deal for me.
MAP from Nauders to Stilser Jock Pass
I can't really say why being up high in the mountains feels so great to me, but I hated to leave. But the club dinner was at 6pm and it was already 4pm. Time to go. And the road down the back side is also wonderful, if you take the little right that leads back out of Italy into Switzerland, via the Umbrail Pass. The border crossing is this funny old largely abandoned building, and the guard could care less. The road down is not quite as steep but is fun and the views continue to be beautiful.
At the bottom, you cross a small bridge and then the road across the valley is hard-packed dirt and gravel. The sport bikes coming the other way seem not to have a problem with it and it is really almost like pavement, which starts at the other end when you climb over the side of a small mountain.
At the next village, Sta. Maria, take the right fork (28 in direction Mals) and there is gas just a few km out of town. I had gone 225 km. It was getting late, so I took the most direct route back, crossing back into Italy on the 28 and catching the main road at Mals, running back up through the Reschenpass, passing back into Austria, and then using the E60 again to get back to Telfs. I gassed up back in Seefeld - another 135 Km, totaling 360 km, a pretty good ride in the mountains.
In gassing up, I also discover that I had lost my main credit card at some point during the day. And the gas station didn't have it from the morning. OK, I will do something about this later.
It was now 6:30pm and I was already late for dinner. I went back to the hotel to check the program to see exactly where the dinner was. Uh oh. There are several dinners at different, unspecified restaurant. I must have signed up for one, but which one? All I remember is "33". So I head back out on the bike. The Bikermeeting is really gearing up so I stopped to ask for information there. It was already very crowed and the "chill-out" party was happening. I went to the information desk staffed by very helpful young ladies, but they professed not to know anything about the Club Europa event. But along the way back I saw a oilhead hack fitted for cross-country.
So back to that headquarters. There are no more notices about the dinner and I have passed it up in any case. It's now almost 8pm, which is the time for the prize ceremony, which I don't want to miss. Of course, that wasn't really when it happened. But it was a nice reception.
Inside, they had some antique BMW cars and motorcycles on display as well as a driver training car where one could test one's reflexes, but I decided to drink. I sat down at one of the cocktail-style tables and quickly received a beer. There was also a faux Rolling Stones band playing a bit loud. I saw Andrea and mentioned the picnic to her, and she seemed so distraught by it already and was so generally busy, that I didn't mention the Tyrolean evening. But I will say here that this evening's festivities and the award ceremonies were organized by Andrea (rather than the local club) and it was all fabulous (and probably fabulously expensive). So thanks, Andrea.
Then Rauf and Ute came by and we had a great time talking and drinking. BMW was circulating very nice snacks too. I had told Rauf and Ute that I hadn't eaten, so the joke became that they made sure they got the attention of every waitress so that I got the maximum number of snacks. And they were pretty good.
Eventually we got to the prize ceremony. They have a long-distance award for clubs and individuals. It seems kind of random how this is judged, but especially for us overseas participants. In 1998 in Berlin, I got a silver cup for 1st place "Special Award for Non-European Participants" because I was from San Francisco. Not only did this not make sense, but there were actually four other people from SF who got no prize. This year, they had a prize for "Overseas Participants". I got a third place cup. The first and second place winners were from Japan. The prize ceremony is very formal. One goes up on stage and is greeted by Andrea and two BMW officials in suits, and there are publicity pictures taken. The engraved silver cups are super and I am very happy to have these lovely momentos.
We noticed that they had a special woman's award for the auto slalom. Ralf and I teased Ute that she could have take first, second, and third places in the woman's motorcycle slalom. Then they got to the motorcycle awards and I got my silver cup for 4th place. There, they give the first place first and then work down. So as I am coming up, the guy who won third place is coming down. And he is making a big deal about it. He stops on the steps, in his suit, and poses for the cameras, holding his cup aloft. We looked at each other for a second and I still didn't like him, but I clapped for him. Personally, my gratification was mostly that I had attempted this in the first place and it was fun to get a prize. But I didn't wear a tie for the event.
Ralf and Ute and I continued to have a good time and exchange silver cups with other tables, with everyone congratulating each other and having fun. I finally said good night and went off to sleep as I was leaving in the morning. Ralf and Ute went off to enjoy the Bikermeeting party.
Part 5: The Road to Augsburg
