Last Sunday I called up moto-buddy Manfred (he of the ’02 Triumph Sprint ST) about oh-eight-hundred to see if he was up for a ride, rousing him out of deep sleep. He mumbled something in the affirmative, and then commendably turned up at my place within the hour despite his having hit the hay only a few hours beforehand. We had seven hours before I was due back to fulfill an afternoon promise of social behaviour with the missus, which when you take out an hour for lunch and sundry photo stops, left us about six hours for saddle time.Manfred squinted at the map through bloodshot eyes. “How far can we ride in six hours?” he asked. “I reckon about 360 kay emm,” I answered. This seemed as good a guess as any; I never seem to average more than about 60 kph in the Alps. (In the end we clocked up exactly 362 kilometers – that’s 225 miles to you – proving the formula valid yet again.) We eyeballed the map for a few moments and then picked a point that looked about 180 km away, tracing a gloved finger over a promising route, keeping as close as possible to the squiggly lines.
Departing Lindau at the far eastern corner of Lake Constance (where I live) our Ausflug (out-flight, or excursion) took us on a northeasterly line, skirting the northern edge of the Bavarian Alps. We skipped and dipped along the ridgeline of the mountains-that-are-not-yet-the-Alps for about 100 km before turning due south through an alpine valley as charming as you would expect, the road snaking its way through the grassy pastures and tiny villages that lie between the towering crests.
Winding our way up the Oberjoch, our first pass of the day, our momentum was hampered by the line of auto traffic and the strictly enforced no-passing rule. The Polezei can often be found standing roadside on a high turnout with a view to the hairpins below, scoping for the ne’er-do-well biker who might audaciously overtake. I’ve had occasion to deal with the police here (that’s another story) and have always found them to be polite, friendly and helpful – but the rules aren’t negotiable like they sometimes are in California. You’re not likely to worm your way out of a ticket here if you’re well and truly caught, whereas in California I’ve parleyed my way out of several tickets with the friendly staff of the CHP.
About the time I was getting completely frustrated grinding along in the traffic and was contemplating whether to bust a (criminal) move, we came around a corner near the top and – lo and behold – there were in fact two officers peering over the rim as expected. One of the officers looked a lot like Claudia Schiffer, and our snail’s pace gave me plenty of time to gaze and wonder what a fella has to do to end up in her handcuffs. Ahem.
The traffic thinned at the top of the Oberjoch as the day-trippers in their cages arrived at their destination parking lots, and we transient two-wheelers all upped the pace substantially as we lunged downhill into the Tannheimer Tal. The mighty GS was in its element, torque-surfing headlong over the remaining ridges of Bavaria and onward into the Austrian Alps. The weather was stunningly clear and temps ranged between slightly-chilly-in-the-shade mid-50’s up on the passes and a quite summerish mid-70’s down in the sunny valleys.
If I were to guess, by taking the small fraction of real estate we covered and multiplying it by the whole, I’d say there must have been over 100,000 motorcyclists in the Alps on Sunday. We couldn’t have seen fewer than 2000 during our ride – it was just one after the other going opposite, swarms parked up at every pass and restaurant, and in our own direction we frequently found ourselves part of a larger group of anywhere from five to twenty other riders who just happened to bunch up for awhile. Insane or what? Until you’ve seen it I don’t think you can imagine it. Unless machine control precludes it, almost everyone waves or nods at each other, making sure you know you’re part of the Brotherhood of the Wheel.
Every conceivable machine is on the road. About every fourth one is a BMW, and more than half of those GS’s of post-’93 vintage. You’ve got your occasional Gold Wings with open face helmets and boom microphones, your abundant sportbike guys in colorful leathers, and mostly you’ve got countless middle-aged sport-tourists (like me) decked top to bottom in Cordura that’s still festooned with last year’s bug splatters. You also see plenty of everything else, including step-through über-scooters, custom streetfighters, fringey cruisers and beater enduros with milk crates strapped on the back. Anything with two wheels is on, but sport-touring is the real name of the game for the vast majority, the bikes ranging from the sportier end of the spectrum – say a ZX-9 with a small tankbag – to bikes that are endowed by their creator with the ST title (like Manfred’s Trumpet), up to larger more touring-oriented bikes that don’t shy away from the odd peg grinding, like your humble reporter’s GS. I can’t think of a more apt category for the GS than sport-tourer. I’ve no problem keeping up with the fast group on anything but the fastest of straights, of which there are damn few here in the land of twisty tarmac.
Speaking of grinding pegs, I spent the ride enjoying having some slip with my almost-gone rear Metzler Tourance. One nice thing about the Metzlers is that they are very predictable when they are almost off, quite willing to spin up like a GP bike in a friendly way, so I was having a laugh goosing the throttle in the hairpins to skootch the back wheel around the corner, catching grip and launching forward as I took the lean angle out. For one whole passo I was being followed – or was it pursued? – by a guy on a Beull, which is a superb cornering machine. I hope he enjoyed watching my back tire slide as much as I enjoyed beating him out of every corner. First I had to beat him into the corner by braking later – those GS brakes and the anti-dive front end rule – and then, even though I didn’t have the usual level of confidence to go full lean at normal speed, I could instead finish turning faster using this GP technique. He’d come up close in the first half of the corner as I’d tiptoe in, but I’d get done with my one-eighty sooner and put some space between us on the hundred-yard dash to the next bend. It was more fun than a soccer riot.
But riding on a fading tire has it’s downside, too, and I had a few moments in sandy and gravelly corners that reminded me to be very careful if I wanted to continue my streak of not having laid a bike down since 1988. Last time I put one down I was on board a 1982 Suzuki G450L, a nasty little early-80’s vertical twin that was about as cool as penny loafers. I knew next to nothing about riding and managed to plop over in the dusty center island on Miramar Road at just under 4 mph. I tore my favorite white 501’s (hey it was the ‘80’s) and broke my thumb – which required a cast to the elbow – but the worst part was having humiliated myself in front of some of my co-workers who were watching from their car in the line of traffic I was trying to sneak past. The only other time I’d ever laid one down I was 16 and determined to find the performance limits of a Puch Maxi moped while wearing a tank-top, shorts and flip flops. Sometimes looking back I can’t believe I ever lived long enough to reproduce. Anyhow, new Michelin Pilot Road tires are on order and will be installed by the end of the month. Meantime, I’m tiptoeing around and constantly reminding myself not to panic when the back slips a bit unheeded.
To finish off a particularly superb day of riding, I arrived home and found some friends of ours had dropped by for coffee and cake while I was gone, and everyone was in high spirits. To celebrate our good moods, we all piled into a car and drove to a nearby Biergarten which is perfectly situated at a grass-strip airport next to a well-traveled motorcycle road. Oh, throw me in the briar patch! There’s nothing like dinner and a tall Hefeweizen while enjoying the activities of a country airstrip and watching a fair portion of the rest of the 100,000 come by to cap a day of riding. Not to mention gawking at all the good looking girls and yummy mummys who were there…
That’s the Reidman’s latest rant! Life is good! Now get out and RIDE!
About the time I was getting completely frustrated grinding along in the traffic and was contemplating whether to bust a (criminal) move, we came around a corner near the top and – lo and behold – there were in fact two officers peering over the rim as expected. One of the officers looked a lot like Claudia Schiffer, and our snail’s pace gave me plenty of time to gaze and wonder what a fella has to do to end up in her handcuffs. Ahem.
The traffic thinned at the top of the Oberjoch as the day-trippers in their cages arrived at their destination parking lots, and we transient two-wheelers all upped the pace substantially as we lunged downhill into the Tannheimer Tal. The mighty GS was in its element, torque-surfing headlong over the remaining ridges of Bavaria and onward into the Austrian Alps. The weather was stunningly clear and temps ranged between slightly-chilly-in-the-shade mid-50’s up on the passes and a quite summerish mid-70’s down in the sunny valleys.
If I were to guess, by taking the small fraction of real estate we covered and multiplying it by the whole, I’d say there must have been over 100,000 motorcyclists in the Alps on Sunday. We couldn’t have seen fewer than 2000 during our ride – it was just one after the other going opposite, swarms parked up at every pass and restaurant, and in our own direction we frequently found ourselves part of a larger group of anywhere from five to twenty other riders who just happened to bunch up for awhile. Insane or what? Until you’ve seen it I don’t think you can imagine it. Unless machine control precludes it, almost everyone waves or nods at each other, making sure you know you’re part of the Brotherhood of the Wheel.Every conceivable machine is on the road. About every fourth one is a BMW, and more than half of those GS’s of post-’93 vintage. You’ve got your occasional Gold Wings with open face helmets and boom microphones, your abundant sportbike guys in colorful leathers, and mostly you’ve got countless middle-aged sport-tourists (like me) decked top to bottom in Cordura that’s still festooned with last year’s bug splatters. You also see plenty of everything else, including step-through über-scooters, custom streetfighters, fringey cruisers and beater enduros with milk crates strapped on the back. Anything with two wheels is on, but sport-touring is the real name of the game for the vast majority, the bikes ranging from the sportier end of the spectrum – say a ZX-9 with a small tankbag – to bikes that are endowed by their creator with the ST title (like Manfred’s Trumpet), up to larger more touring-oriented bikes that don’t shy away from the odd peg grinding, like your humble reporter’s GS. I can’t think of a more apt category for the GS than sport-tourer. I’ve no problem keeping up with the fast group on anything but the fastest of straights, of which there are damn few here in the land of twisty tarmac.
Speaking of grinding pegs, I spent the ride enjoying having some slip with my almost-gone rear Metzler Tourance. One nice thing about the Metzlers is that they are very predictable when they are almost off, quite willing to spin up like a GP bike in a friendly way, so I was having a laugh goosing the throttle in the hairpins to skootch the back wheel around the corner, catching grip and launching forward as I took the lean angle out. For one whole passo I was being followed – or was it pursued? – by a guy on a Beull, which is a superb cornering machine. I hope he enjoyed watching my back tire slide as much as I enjoyed beating him out of every corner. First I had to beat him into the corner by braking later – those GS brakes and the anti-dive front end rule – and then, even though I didn’t have the usual level of confidence to go full lean at normal speed, I could instead finish turning faster using this GP technique. He’d come up close in the first half of the corner as I’d tiptoe in, but I’d get done with my one-eighty sooner and put some space between us on the hundred-yard dash to the next bend. It was more fun than a soccer riot.
But riding on a fading tire has it’s downside, too, and I had a few moments in sandy and gravelly corners that reminded me to be very careful if I wanted to continue my streak of not having laid a bike down since 1988. Last time I put one down I was on board a 1982 Suzuki G450L, a nasty little early-80’s vertical twin that was about as cool as penny loafers. I knew next to nothing about riding and managed to plop over in the dusty center island on Miramar Road at just under 4 mph. I tore my favorite white 501’s (hey it was the ‘80’s) and broke my thumb – which required a cast to the elbow – but the worst part was having humiliated myself in front of some of my co-workers who were watching from their car in the line of traffic I was trying to sneak past. The only other time I’d ever laid one down I was 16 and determined to find the performance limits of a Puch Maxi moped while wearing a tank-top, shorts and flip flops. Sometimes looking back I can’t believe I ever lived long enough to reproduce. Anyhow, new Michelin Pilot Road tires are on order and will be installed by the end of the month. Meantime, I’m tiptoeing around and constantly reminding myself not to panic when the back slips a bit unheeded.
To finish off a particularly superb day of riding, I arrived home and found some friends of ours had dropped by for coffee and cake while I was gone, and everyone was in high spirits. To celebrate our good moods, we all piled into a car and drove to a nearby Biergarten which is perfectly situated at a grass-strip airport next to a well-traveled motorcycle road. Oh, throw me in the briar patch! There’s nothing like dinner and a tall Hefeweizen while enjoying the activities of a country airstrip and watching a fair portion of the rest of the 100,000 come by to cap a day of riding. Not to mention gawking at all the good looking girls and yummy mummys who were there…
That’s the Reidman’s latest rant! Life is good! Now get out and RIDE!
