(Enter your own psych joke here)
Most licked sign in Europe
No Pussy for you, bad boy!
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Curse of Sabo
Well, Sabo’s been and gone for our annual weeklong festival of sitting indoors glowering about how much riding we’d be doing if it would just stop raining.
This is the third year in a row we’ve been frowned upon by the weather gods. Sabo has the dubious distinction of being able to say that he’s spent 24 days in Germany over the last three summers but he still has yet to see one dry day. All that rain has not only curtailed our riding plans every year, it’s also caused Sabo to miss seeing a lot of great scenery such as the sight of the Alps from my house. The only saving grace in the whole sad story is that, because he’s an airline pilot, he doesn’t have to pay air fare to get here.
Sabo first visited in August 2005 after we’d had warm sunny weather the whole month of July. And that August it rained nonstop. July 2006 was again great, but August, while Sabo was here, set a new record for wet. So this time we all got smart, and said, “Come in July,” and – you guessed it – we had the wettest first half of July on record. Maybe if Sabo lived in Death Valley seeing rain would be a treat for him, but for crying out sideways, the guy lives in Portland and works in Seattle.
He left yesterday morning on the 5:35 train, and by noon the streets were drying under grey skies. By 3 o’clock the sun was fully out, children were playing in the streets, and the sound of lawn mowers echoed through the neighborhood while the Alps stood proudly in the middle distance. I knew then that he’d made it to his flight in Frankfurt and was westbound.
By nature I’m not such a solitary creature as you might think based on how much time I spend riding solo. I do, in fact, like to share quality experiences, such as awesome rides, and on almost every ride I find myself bookmarking a route as a must-share for when Sabo gets here. Here I’d been looking forward since last year to show him this fantastic setting that makes my riding – not to mention my day-to-day life – so amazing, and now I’m going to have to wait yet another year. That is, if it’s not raining the whole time he’s here next.
He left yesterday, and I’m still going through the five stages of grieving. I’m not grieving for his departure, I’m grieving for the death of all that precious time we’ll never get back. I’ve passed through Denial (“Oh no, not again!”) and Anger (“Frickin’ rain!”) and Bargaining (“Please please please stop raining, I’ll be a nicer person”) and now I’m firmly in the middle of Depression (“Ah, what’s the use?”). In a couple of days I’ll come out of it and be in Acceptance, but it was a low blow to have a “Polar Low” dump a record amount of rain on us while my best buddy was here for his once-a-year visit.
A pity for Sabo, too, who had paid $650 for a week’s motorcycle rental, only to have it sit in the garage part of that week. We were hoping he’d exceed the 1500-kilometer allotment that came with the rental. In fact, we were optimistic he’d have to pony up for another 500 or so upon turning it in. Instead, we rolled up after seven days boasting a mere 1100 km on the trip odometer.
He arrived Tuesday July 3rd, and we were scheduled to pick up his bike the next day. Instead, we spent Wednesday –the 4th of July – waiting for the pouring rain to abate. About 3 o’clock we finally gave up and told the shop we’d pick the bike up the next day. No sense paying a full day’s rent for a couple of wet hours one afternoon.
First thing Thursday morning, despite the continuing rain, we picked his shiny new R1200GS with its clever expandable handbags. We went home and packed, and then set out at 11:30 in steady rain. We cautiously rode for five and a half exhausting hours through the Austrian Alps in the rain. We were anything but fast – we only averaged around 40 KPH, compared with my usual average of 60 KPH on dry Alpine roads. The roads finally dried off late in the afternoon and we were able to up the pace a bit, but we were still riding under heavy grey overcast, wiping sporadic sprinkles from our visors.
Like last year, we climbed over the mighty Timmelsjoch pass with a view mostly of clouds and not of the Alps. It’s a spectacular view, I know. I wish Sabo could see it someday. Down the other side of the pass under clearing skies we cruised into San Leonardo Italy for dinner at our favorite organic restaurant (the one by the bridge, if you know it) where we gorged ourselves on “Bio-pizza” and “Bio-hefeweizen”. It tastes better if it’s “Bio”, right?
Friday dawned bright and blue, with only a few fair-weather cumulus clouds poking around the peaks. After a hearty breakfast, we cheerfully packed up the bikes and rode off for what was supposed to be a banner day of eight or ten passes in a big loop through the Dolomites, that grand section of the Italian Alps with the monstrous jutting rocky crags at every peak. We climbed over the Jaufenpass, down the valley on the other side and then up the Penser Joch, and down through the long Sarntal valley south toward Bolzano.
There are some fantastic looking castles on the ridges and peaks overlooking the valley, and I knew Jeff was under orders from the staff of his coffee hangout in Portland (Anna Bannana’s on NW 21st, where he gets his mail) to take more pictures than last year. I spied a nice photo-op turnout on the left, a dirt parking area with two driveways that would make for easy-in, easy-out. A glance in my mirror showed Sabo 50 meters behind me, and a car behind him. I turned on my left blinker and began slowing, paying attention to the two prominent potholes in the driveway of the lookout point.
As I braked and began my turn, I heard a screeching of tires behind me and in that split second thought, “What the hell is Sabo doing?” and, simultaneously, “Why isn’t his ABS working?”
Before I could even complete the thought I was hit hard by a car – the one that had been behind Sabo – and knocked over to my right in a high-side. The bike landed hard on the pavement and my foot was semi-crushed by something, maybe the swingarm of the bike, as it ground to a stop on its side. The woman in the Audi that hit me was getting out and Sabo was parked nearby and dismounting by the time I stood up. I hobbled in a circle to test my foot and found it would hold my weight, so I limped back to my still-running bike and shut it down.
Sabo and I righted the bike and Sabo pushed it into the parking area where we assessed damages. She’d struck me in the left-side hard case and then the bike had landed on the right one, so both cases had broken off the bike and were all scuffed to hell with big gouges in the plastic. The left-side luggage bracket was snapped and a mounting hook had sheared off of the right-side case, which meant there’d be no riding again with either bag. The battery had leaked acid all over the right side of the engine, and a cracked fuel injector nozzle meant that when the key was turned, fuel spurted out all over the side of the bike. Not good. Not drivable.
I asked the driver, a fifty-five year old grandmother of five named Frieda if she’d seen my blinker. She told me, “Yes, but I drive this road every day. I see lots of motorcycles with their blinker on by mistake. I saw your blinker but I thought you had forgotten it.” I said to her flatly, “No, Frieda. I meant it.” I mean, what do you say to that kind of logic? Next time I’ll wave my arms, too?
Frieda may be a horrid driver, but at least she took responsibility. She stayed while we waited for the police for an hour, who after several phone calls admitted they weren’t actually on their way. Then she drove with me to Bolzano to find a tow truck, led the tow truck back to the accident site and drove me to the BMW shop. She stayed to find out what it would cost, and, eyes popping at the initial estimate, drove with me to her insurance carrier’s office twenty minutes away. She never once tried to say it was anyone else’s fault but her own.
When I say she’s a horrid driver, I’m not saying it just because she hit me. I rode as passenger in her car a total of about two hours that day, and she had horns blown at her no less than three times in critical situations which would have resulted in accidents but for the vigilance and abrupt maneuvering of other drivers. Her response to hearing a horn blown at her is to blow her own. Perhaps she thinks the other horns are a signal of merriment. At one point – and this is true – I put on my helmet in her car while she had a horn-blowing contest with a semi that needed to merge. Somehow, no credit to her, it worked out. On a scale of situational awareness she’d score a negative number. If ever there was ever a case for emergency revocation of driver privileges, she’s it. There should be at least be urgent warnings on the radio when she’s out and about.
Martin Bertolin, the frenetic cappuccino-powered service manager of BMW Bolzano proved that we were far enough north in German-speaking Italy that things would actually get done, and done right, yet far enough south into Italy that only the necessary things would get done, without anyone fussing over unnecessary details. [In Germany: “Ja, such pity vee cannot release to you zee machine, but vee do nott haff zee corrrect sticker for zee logbook.”]
The accident occurred at 12:45, the bike arrived in his shop at 15:30 on a hectic Friday afternoon, and he managed to get me on the road by 18:00 with a new fuel injector and new hard bags. I’ll be sending Martin a present, that’s for sure. Maybe some decaf.
Onwards, then. Sabo and I doggedly pursued our plan to see the Dolomites, turning eastbound out of Bolzano up the Eggerstal Valley, grinding along with all the Friday evening traffic. We’d lost six hours riding, but at least we were back on the road. Near 7 o’clock we found ourselves above the traffic, blasting along in fresh mountain air near the top of the Karerpass. We hadn’t gone far from Bolzano when we decided to stop, but we’d missed lunch and it was getting on time for beer and pizza.
Stopping to enquire for rooms at one hotel turned up the interesting fact that while there weren’t actually any rooms, there was a stunningly beautiful barmaid. We went up the road and found a falling-down hotel called, ironically, the Savoy, and took rooms for €40 each. Sabo graciously let me have the one with the double bed, an act of sympathy I was later grateful for as I thrashed around all night with a swollen foot and bruised body. Naturally, we went back to the first hotel for dinner, and it was a great move. The view was great – of the mountains, I mean – and the food was superb. Man, one gets spoiled eating anywhere in Italy. The food’s great, and there’s natural beauty in abundance everywhere you look.
Saturday we finally got to check off one big box we’ve been wanting to check for three years: Riding the Dolomites. The roads are serpentine and the vistas breathtaking. That’s true of all of the Alps, pretty much, but just somehow more so in the Dolomites. Being a gorgeous summer Saturday, there were droves of bicyclists and cars to contend with, but therein is one of the more satisfying aspects of being on a motorcycle: the ability to dispatch such moving obstacles one by one, and blasting on ahead. Sabo improved his passing techniques exponentially this trip, and emerged a far better rider than when he arrived, and way better than he was last year. We talked about it at length, and he expressed a deep sense of satisfaction for having taken his Alpine riding skills to a new level.
It would be wondrous to ride the Alps without any other road users, but that’s a pipe dream in summer. They’re there, so instead of wishing for something that’s not, one should use every opportunity to pass as a whetstone to hone one’s riding skills. I wouldn’t recommend doing this on Palomar mountain or the Capistrano Highway. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s only possible here in the Alps where the drivers are better trained, better disciplined, motorcycle conscious and generally very good at moving over to allow bikes to pass. You never see anyone full of resentment hogging the road. Drivers are happy to have you go past and get on down the road, they don’t want your headlight in their mirror for one minute more than necessary. Can’t say the same about my experiences in California, sadly.
By mid-afternoon Saturday we’d traversed five Dolomite passes and crossed back into Austria. Sabo led the way on a route we’d picked to skirt the traffic of Innsbruck. He memorized the route by using village names as fixes, and if you ask him today he can still cite them: Natters, Mutters, Götzens, Axams, Zill. The road we chose was but a small squiggle on the map yet it turned out to provide some of the most awe-inspiring vistas of our whole trip, looking across the Inn River valley north to the Bavarian Alps.
Northbound into Bavaria the road was thick with BMW motorcycles headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the big BMW Motorrad Days Biker Meeting. There were also BMW-sponsored tour groups coming the other way from Garmisch, easy to spot as each group was comprised of one or two of each of the new models in BMW’s 2007 lineup being led by a guy in a green day-glo vest. We saw maybe ten such groups in the hour it took to approach Garmisch from the south.
Our hotel wasn’t in Garmisch but in Oberammergau about 20km away. After getting cleaned up finding a café to order our (much needed) nightly repast of beer and pizza, we found we’d missed the last shuttle bus to the show. Rather than get a cab we decided to just skip the BMW beerhall for the evening in favor of trying out a few sidewalk cafés there in Oberammergau. My foot was still pretty sore so I had no complaints about keeping the walking to minimum. Oberammergau is a tourist town, it’s exceedingly charming, quaint, and picturesque. There might have been a big party going on in Garmisch, but we were having a great time right where we were and just didn’t feel the need to try and trade up.
Sunday we rode to the show about ten and stayed until about three. The show is free and there are dozens of booths with all the after-market goodies you’d associate with BMW motorcycles plus lots of food, beer, demonstrations and activities. Next year I’ll bring the family, there’s even a tent for kids. The day was warm and sunny, except for one huge thundershower that soaked the place for an hour about lunchtime. Was it nature or just a crafty plan on BMW’s part to get everyone into the mess hall for lunch? Whatever, it worked.
Leaving the show, the sky was clear overhead but we could see some weather moving up from the south. Half an hour westbound out of Garmisch the sky went to dark grey, then to sprinkling, then to really raining. It’s a two-hour ride home in dry weather from Garmisch, but more than three when it’s pouring. So our trip ended on Sunday just as it had begun on Thursday, with us going on tiptoes into the corners, puckering at the limits of tire grip and silently thanking BMW for the GS’s wide tiller that’ll pick it up in a corner when it loses its footing.
Here’s the rest of the diary:
Monday, July 9th: Rain. Feeling pathetic and ashamed, we take the car (gack!) to the Held moto-apparel shop, which is an hour away on what are fantastic motorcycling roads in the dry. But Sabo comes away happy, with a new riding jacket, riding trousers, and two pairs of gloves from the bargain bin. Score!
Tuesday, July 10th: Mostly rain, but just enough clearing in the afternoon that we manage to sneak in 120 km in the farm-and-fruit country above Lake Constance.
Wednesday, July 11th: Steady rain. Sabo returns the rental bike in semi-defeat.
Thursday, July 12th: Sabo departs, weather resumes a spectacular summer.
Some critics might say we should just bundle up and ride no matter the weather. If there’s a mission involved, especially one with some reasonable expectation of better weather at the other end, I’d agree. (In fact, that’s just what we did.) But to launch for a day’s pleasure ride in crappy weather is, in my opinion, just inviting trouble, plus it’s not really fun. The concentration required and the lowered speeds make it feel more like work. Obviously, the likelihood of an accident is much higher because the roads are slippery. But even doing your best on a slippery road isn’t always enough, as car drivers can’t see (and don’t look for you) through rain-streaked foggy windows. Rain washes dirt and gravel into corners that you can’t see through your own rain-streaked foggy visor. So before you’ve even set out you’ve lost your ability to mitigate some of the most crucial risks of riding.
My idea of fun riding is all about relishing the performance and capabilities of the machine, savoring the great scenery, and arriving somewhere you can sit outside in the nice weather admiring the bikes while lying about getting your peg down in that last big sweeper. So when I complain that we got rained out, in reality I mean that we made a decision not to expose ourselves to undue risks for what would have been a minimal amount of riding pleasure.
Riding all day in the rain does teach you some important lessons, though, the main one being that it can be done and done safely. In southern California one seldom gets the chance to put wet weather riding skills to the test, much less improve and refine them. If any good came from all the time we spent in the downpour, it’s that we’re both better riders for it.
As far as securing Sabo a sunny ride, maybe we’ll try again this year in late September. That’ll fool the weather gods. And Sabo won’t launch from the US until I’ve got a positive high-pressure good weather forecast. Or, if that doesn’t work, we’re already well-practiced in saying, “There’s always next year.”
Until then, that’s the Reidman’s ride report. Now get out there and ride!
See photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=590554460208&ownerId=59372270808
This is the third year in a row we’ve been frowned upon by the weather gods. Sabo has the dubious distinction of being able to say that he’s spent 24 days in Germany over the last three summers but he still has yet to see one dry day. All that rain has not only curtailed our riding plans every year, it’s also caused Sabo to miss seeing a lot of great scenery such as the sight of the Alps from my house. The only saving grace in the whole sad story is that, because he’s an airline pilot, he doesn’t have to pay air fare to get here.
Sabo first visited in August 2005 after we’d had warm sunny weather the whole month of July. And that August it rained nonstop. July 2006 was again great, but August, while Sabo was here, set a new record for wet. So this time we all got smart, and said, “Come in July,” and – you guessed it – we had the wettest first half of July on record. Maybe if Sabo lived in Death Valley seeing rain would be a treat for him, but for crying out sideways, the guy lives in Portland and works in Seattle.
He left yesterday morning on the 5:35 train, and by noon the streets were drying under grey skies. By 3 o’clock the sun was fully out, children were playing in the streets, and the sound of lawn mowers echoed through the neighborhood while the Alps stood proudly in the middle distance. I knew then that he’d made it to his flight in Frankfurt and was westbound.
By nature I’m not such a solitary creature as you might think based on how much time I spend riding solo. I do, in fact, like to share quality experiences, such as awesome rides, and on almost every ride I find myself bookmarking a route as a must-share for when Sabo gets here. Here I’d been looking forward since last year to show him this fantastic setting that makes my riding – not to mention my day-to-day life – so amazing, and now I’m going to have to wait yet another year. That is, if it’s not raining the whole time he’s here next.
He left yesterday, and I’m still going through the five stages of grieving. I’m not grieving for his departure, I’m grieving for the death of all that precious time we’ll never get back. I’ve passed through Denial (“Oh no, not again!”) and Anger (“Frickin’ rain!”) and Bargaining (“Please please please stop raining, I’ll be a nicer person”) and now I’m firmly in the middle of Depression (“Ah, what’s the use?”). In a couple of days I’ll come out of it and be in Acceptance, but it was a low blow to have a “Polar Low” dump a record amount of rain on us while my best buddy was here for his once-a-year visit.
A pity for Sabo, too, who had paid $650 for a week’s motorcycle rental, only to have it sit in the garage part of that week. We were hoping he’d exceed the 1500-kilometer allotment that came with the rental. In fact, we were optimistic he’d have to pony up for another 500 or so upon turning it in. Instead, we rolled up after seven days boasting a mere 1100 km on the trip odometer.
He arrived Tuesday July 3rd, and we were scheduled to pick up his bike the next day. Instead, we spent Wednesday –the 4th of July – waiting for the pouring rain to abate. About 3 o’clock we finally gave up and told the shop we’d pick the bike up the next day. No sense paying a full day’s rent for a couple of wet hours one afternoon.
First thing Thursday morning, despite the continuing rain, we picked his shiny new R1200GS with its clever expandable handbags. We went home and packed, and then set out at 11:30 in steady rain. We cautiously rode for five and a half exhausting hours through the Austrian Alps in the rain. We were anything but fast – we only averaged around 40 KPH, compared with my usual average of 60 KPH on dry Alpine roads. The roads finally dried off late in the afternoon and we were able to up the pace a bit, but we were still riding under heavy grey overcast, wiping sporadic sprinkles from our visors.
Like last year, we climbed over the mighty Timmelsjoch pass with a view mostly of clouds and not of the Alps. It’s a spectacular view, I know. I wish Sabo could see it someday. Down the other side of the pass under clearing skies we cruised into San Leonardo Italy for dinner at our favorite organic restaurant (the one by the bridge, if you know it) where we gorged ourselves on “Bio-pizza” and “Bio-hefeweizen”. It tastes better if it’s “Bio”, right?
Friday dawned bright and blue, with only a few fair-weather cumulus clouds poking around the peaks. After a hearty breakfast, we cheerfully packed up the bikes and rode off for what was supposed to be a banner day of eight or ten passes in a big loop through the Dolomites, that grand section of the Italian Alps with the monstrous jutting rocky crags at every peak. We climbed over the Jaufenpass, down the valley on the other side and then up the Penser Joch, and down through the long Sarntal valley south toward Bolzano.
There are some fantastic looking castles on the ridges and peaks overlooking the valley, and I knew Jeff was under orders from the staff of his coffee hangout in Portland (Anna Bannana’s on NW 21st, where he gets his mail) to take more pictures than last year. I spied a nice photo-op turnout on the left, a dirt parking area with two driveways that would make for easy-in, easy-out. A glance in my mirror showed Sabo 50 meters behind me, and a car behind him. I turned on my left blinker and began slowing, paying attention to the two prominent potholes in the driveway of the lookout point.
As I braked and began my turn, I heard a screeching of tires behind me and in that split second thought, “What the hell is Sabo doing?” and, simultaneously, “Why isn’t his ABS working?”
Before I could even complete the thought I was hit hard by a car – the one that had been behind Sabo – and knocked over to my right in a high-side. The bike landed hard on the pavement and my foot was semi-crushed by something, maybe the swingarm of the bike, as it ground to a stop on its side. The woman in the Audi that hit me was getting out and Sabo was parked nearby and dismounting by the time I stood up. I hobbled in a circle to test my foot and found it would hold my weight, so I limped back to my still-running bike and shut it down.
Sabo and I righted the bike and Sabo pushed it into the parking area where we assessed damages. She’d struck me in the left-side hard case and then the bike had landed on the right one, so both cases had broken off the bike and were all scuffed to hell with big gouges in the plastic. The left-side luggage bracket was snapped and a mounting hook had sheared off of the right-side case, which meant there’d be no riding again with either bag. The battery had leaked acid all over the right side of the engine, and a cracked fuel injector nozzle meant that when the key was turned, fuel spurted out all over the side of the bike. Not good. Not drivable.
I asked the driver, a fifty-five year old grandmother of five named Frieda if she’d seen my blinker. She told me, “Yes, but I drive this road every day. I see lots of motorcycles with their blinker on by mistake. I saw your blinker but I thought you had forgotten it.” I said to her flatly, “No, Frieda. I meant it.” I mean, what do you say to that kind of logic? Next time I’ll wave my arms, too?
Frieda may be a horrid driver, but at least she took responsibility. She stayed while we waited for the police for an hour, who after several phone calls admitted they weren’t actually on their way. Then she drove with me to Bolzano to find a tow truck, led the tow truck back to the accident site and drove me to the BMW shop. She stayed to find out what it would cost, and, eyes popping at the initial estimate, drove with me to her insurance carrier’s office twenty minutes away. She never once tried to say it was anyone else’s fault but her own.
When I say she’s a horrid driver, I’m not saying it just because she hit me. I rode as passenger in her car a total of about two hours that day, and she had horns blown at her no less than three times in critical situations which would have resulted in accidents but for the vigilance and abrupt maneuvering of other drivers. Her response to hearing a horn blown at her is to blow her own. Perhaps she thinks the other horns are a signal of merriment. At one point – and this is true – I put on my helmet in her car while she had a horn-blowing contest with a semi that needed to merge. Somehow, no credit to her, it worked out. On a scale of situational awareness she’d score a negative number. If ever there was ever a case for emergency revocation of driver privileges, she’s it. There should be at least be urgent warnings on the radio when she’s out and about.
Martin Bertolin, the frenetic cappuccino-powered service manager of BMW Bolzano proved that we were far enough north in German-speaking Italy that things would actually get done, and done right, yet far enough south into Italy that only the necessary things would get done, without anyone fussing over unnecessary details. [In Germany: “Ja, such pity vee cannot release to you zee machine, but vee do nott haff zee corrrect sticker for zee logbook.”]
The accident occurred at 12:45, the bike arrived in his shop at 15:30 on a hectic Friday afternoon, and he managed to get me on the road by 18:00 with a new fuel injector and new hard bags. I’ll be sending Martin a present, that’s for sure. Maybe some decaf.
Onwards, then. Sabo and I doggedly pursued our plan to see the Dolomites, turning eastbound out of Bolzano up the Eggerstal Valley, grinding along with all the Friday evening traffic. We’d lost six hours riding, but at least we were back on the road. Near 7 o’clock we found ourselves above the traffic, blasting along in fresh mountain air near the top of the Karerpass. We hadn’t gone far from Bolzano when we decided to stop, but we’d missed lunch and it was getting on time for beer and pizza.
Stopping to enquire for rooms at one hotel turned up the interesting fact that while there weren’t actually any rooms, there was a stunningly beautiful barmaid. We went up the road and found a falling-down hotel called, ironically, the Savoy, and took rooms for €40 each. Sabo graciously let me have the one with the double bed, an act of sympathy I was later grateful for as I thrashed around all night with a swollen foot and bruised body. Naturally, we went back to the first hotel for dinner, and it was a great move. The view was great – of the mountains, I mean – and the food was superb. Man, one gets spoiled eating anywhere in Italy. The food’s great, and there’s natural beauty in abundance everywhere you look.
Saturday we finally got to check off one big box we’ve been wanting to check for three years: Riding the Dolomites. The roads are serpentine and the vistas breathtaking. That’s true of all of the Alps, pretty much, but just somehow more so in the Dolomites. Being a gorgeous summer Saturday, there were droves of bicyclists and cars to contend with, but therein is one of the more satisfying aspects of being on a motorcycle: the ability to dispatch such moving obstacles one by one, and blasting on ahead. Sabo improved his passing techniques exponentially this trip, and emerged a far better rider than when he arrived, and way better than he was last year. We talked about it at length, and he expressed a deep sense of satisfaction for having taken his Alpine riding skills to a new level.
It would be wondrous to ride the Alps without any other road users, but that’s a pipe dream in summer. They’re there, so instead of wishing for something that’s not, one should use every opportunity to pass as a whetstone to hone one’s riding skills. I wouldn’t recommend doing this on Palomar mountain or the Capistrano Highway. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s only possible here in the Alps where the drivers are better trained, better disciplined, motorcycle conscious and generally very good at moving over to allow bikes to pass. You never see anyone full of resentment hogging the road. Drivers are happy to have you go past and get on down the road, they don’t want your headlight in their mirror for one minute more than necessary. Can’t say the same about my experiences in California, sadly.
By mid-afternoon Saturday we’d traversed five Dolomite passes and crossed back into Austria. Sabo led the way on a route we’d picked to skirt the traffic of Innsbruck. He memorized the route by using village names as fixes, and if you ask him today he can still cite them: Natters, Mutters, Götzens, Axams, Zill. The road we chose was but a small squiggle on the map yet it turned out to provide some of the most awe-inspiring vistas of our whole trip, looking across the Inn River valley north to the Bavarian Alps.
Northbound into Bavaria the road was thick with BMW motorcycles headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the big BMW Motorrad Days Biker Meeting. There were also BMW-sponsored tour groups coming the other way from Garmisch, easy to spot as each group was comprised of one or two of each of the new models in BMW’s 2007 lineup being led by a guy in a green day-glo vest. We saw maybe ten such groups in the hour it took to approach Garmisch from the south.
Our hotel wasn’t in Garmisch but in Oberammergau about 20km away. After getting cleaned up finding a café to order our (much needed) nightly repast of beer and pizza, we found we’d missed the last shuttle bus to the show. Rather than get a cab we decided to just skip the BMW beerhall for the evening in favor of trying out a few sidewalk cafés there in Oberammergau. My foot was still pretty sore so I had no complaints about keeping the walking to minimum. Oberammergau is a tourist town, it’s exceedingly charming, quaint, and picturesque. There might have been a big party going on in Garmisch, but we were having a great time right where we were and just didn’t feel the need to try and trade up.
Sunday we rode to the show about ten and stayed until about three. The show is free and there are dozens of booths with all the after-market goodies you’d associate with BMW motorcycles plus lots of food, beer, demonstrations and activities. Next year I’ll bring the family, there’s even a tent for kids. The day was warm and sunny, except for one huge thundershower that soaked the place for an hour about lunchtime. Was it nature or just a crafty plan on BMW’s part to get everyone into the mess hall for lunch? Whatever, it worked.
Leaving the show, the sky was clear overhead but we could see some weather moving up from the south. Half an hour westbound out of Garmisch the sky went to dark grey, then to sprinkling, then to really raining. It’s a two-hour ride home in dry weather from Garmisch, but more than three when it’s pouring. So our trip ended on Sunday just as it had begun on Thursday, with us going on tiptoes into the corners, puckering at the limits of tire grip and silently thanking BMW for the GS’s wide tiller that’ll pick it up in a corner when it loses its footing.
Here’s the rest of the diary:
Monday, July 9th: Rain. Feeling pathetic and ashamed, we take the car (gack!) to the Held moto-apparel shop, which is an hour away on what are fantastic motorcycling roads in the dry. But Sabo comes away happy, with a new riding jacket, riding trousers, and two pairs of gloves from the bargain bin. Score!
Tuesday, July 10th: Mostly rain, but just enough clearing in the afternoon that we manage to sneak in 120 km in the farm-and-fruit country above Lake Constance.
Wednesday, July 11th: Steady rain. Sabo returns the rental bike in semi-defeat.
Thursday, July 12th: Sabo departs, weather resumes a spectacular summer.
Some critics might say we should just bundle up and ride no matter the weather. If there’s a mission involved, especially one with some reasonable expectation of better weather at the other end, I’d agree. (In fact, that’s just what we did.) But to launch for a day’s pleasure ride in crappy weather is, in my opinion, just inviting trouble, plus it’s not really fun. The concentration required and the lowered speeds make it feel more like work. Obviously, the likelihood of an accident is much higher because the roads are slippery. But even doing your best on a slippery road isn’t always enough, as car drivers can’t see (and don’t look for you) through rain-streaked foggy windows. Rain washes dirt and gravel into corners that you can’t see through your own rain-streaked foggy visor. So before you’ve even set out you’ve lost your ability to mitigate some of the most crucial risks of riding.
My idea of fun riding is all about relishing the performance and capabilities of the machine, savoring the great scenery, and arriving somewhere you can sit outside in the nice weather admiring the bikes while lying about getting your peg down in that last big sweeper. So when I complain that we got rained out, in reality I mean that we made a decision not to expose ourselves to undue risks for what would have been a minimal amount of riding pleasure.
Riding all day in the rain does teach you some important lessons, though, the main one being that it can be done and done safely. In southern California one seldom gets the chance to put wet weather riding skills to the test, much less improve and refine them. If any good came from all the time we spent in the downpour, it’s that we’re both better riders for it.
As far as securing Sabo a sunny ride, maybe we’ll try again this year in late September. That’ll fool the weather gods. And Sabo won’t launch from the US until I’ve got a positive high-pressure good weather forecast. Or, if that doesn’t work, we’re already well-practiced in saying, “There’s always next year.”
Until then, that’s the Reidman’s ride report. Now get out there and ride!
See photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=590554460208&ownerId=59372270808
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