Switchbacks

Nice view of the switchbacks going up the...is it the east side of Passo Stelvio? First person to positively identify the pass wins a self-paid trip to that pass this summer.

[Update 28 Feb 2016: We have a winner! Stefan S. has identified the pic as Gotthard Pass in central Switzerland. Good job, Stefan!]

New Helmets for 2015 Riding Season

Got the Vauxhall GT-Air in the post today. It's fantastic quality. Unbelievably good fit and finish.
The Hornet DS was a present from Sabo for my 50th two years ago when I rode with him in Oregon. I swore I'd come back to Portland soon and use it, but after two riding seasons of it doing nothing more than degassing on a shelf, I asked him to send it to me. I decorated it with a bit of blue tape, which makes it look a bit less like I'm guarding the Millennium Falcon. I'm sure looking forward to the warm summer days when its great ventilation will be a treat. Click on pic to check out these beauties!

New Hat on the Way!

Ordered this lid from Great Britain today. Can't wait for riding season to begin!

Details: It's a Shoei GT-Air, a full-face helmet with a drop-down sunvisor like the Schuberth it's replacing. Slipping it on head is like, as Sabo says, 'putting your head in  a velvet bordello'.

I love the (unintentional) U.S. Coast Guard motif, and I like that it ‘speaks English’ including sporting the name Vauxhall on the back, which is not only the moniker of the German car builder Opel as badged in Great Britain, it is – according to Wikipedia – the name of “an 18th century pleasure garden in New York City.”

In fact, the graphics commemorate an annual 200-mile road race in Northern Ireland. Takes place on public roads through villages and hedgerows a la Isle of Man.

Shoei only made 350 of these, so if you see someone wearing it in the Alps, that'll probably be me.

What's that you say? You don't have a lid with a drop-down sunvisor in it? I’m not kidding you when I say that I will never be without such a lid on hand, and that it’ll be my primary hat for almost all uses. You owe it to yourself to test ride such a lid before you buy your next normal non-sunvisor lid. (and I recommend a GT-Air, of course). Find a store that’ll let you borrow one for an hour (easily done here, if not there) and then go for a ride in changing light conditions. The ideal test conditions are found on a day with the sun poking between scattered to broken clouds, on roads that go in and out of dense forests – a scenario which describes a great deal of the riding over here.

I used to ride with sunglasses all the time on even moderately bright days, even with the drop-down sunvisor installed, because I liked the tint and optical perfection of the Serengetis more that the plastic sunvisor. But the quality of those visors has improved a lot in recent years and now I don’t bother with the Serengetis, I just rely on my integral sunvisor to do the job. As a result the lid is comfier and quieter, and my eyes are never so blinded by sunbright that I wish I had my Serengetis on in addition. It took me years to figure out that the intensity of sun up here at 47 degrees latitude, even on the most perfect cloudless summer day, is far less than what I’d lived with for 40 years down at 32 degrees in San Diego, here. Now my challenge is to remember to bring my Serengetis with me so that I have them when I take my lid off – a mistake I’ve made a couple of times. Checklist, please.

Last ride in the Alps for 2014 -- Furkajoch, Austria

The road is closed now to get to the top and over the Furkajoch pass, the crest of which is about another two kilometers further from where I’m parked. See the bar across the road about 50 m back in picture 2? One nice thing about riding a closed pass road is the near complete absence of traffic.

Check out that little bit of blue sky to the west in the second photo. I started the day with the idea of going east after this and deeper into the Alps, but I elected to follow that bit of blue sky which turned out to be a good idea. Coming back down the hills to the Lake Constance area was stunning under sunny skies.

New skins!

My new tires – Michelin Pilot Road 4 Trails – are anything but knobby, so don't look to my GS to pose for any of those RTW (round-the-world) posters. Michelin says they are "designed for large adventure bikes that spend almost all their time on pavement." That'd be me, then.

 

My first impression is one of pure amazement, as they come out of the mold with no mold-release compound so they’re ready to rock from the moment you roll. Of course, anytime you put new tires on it’s like buying a new bike, so any first impression would have to be positive, wouldn’t it? 

 

I bought them on the internet and removed the wheels myself, taking everything to a nearby auto-tire shop that mounts & balances them for 25 bucks. Total cost: around 250 euros, compared with around 400 euros if I had taken  the bike to the BMW dealer and let them do the job, as they always insist on supplying the tires (at quite a markup) and then charging full shop rates for installation.

To my budget, the 150-euro savings I eked out equals one long overnight trip to Italy. But best of all, I just like the feeling I get from working on my own bike. 

Update: 1000 km on, they are the best, I mean THE BEST, tires I've ever had on any bike I've ever ridden. Result! 

Should I Be Worried About Riding In Switzerland?

Got asked about riding in Switzerland and the Alps in general by an American guy who was worried he'd be overwhelmed by the Alpine experience and swarmed by faster riders as he putters along enjoying the scenery. Here's what I told him:

There’s nothing about the tightness of the roads, the sharpness of the curves or the mountain altitudes that makes riding here a recipe for disaster. Just go ahead and ride slowly – lots of people do – and enjoy the vistas. Set realistic goals for a day’s ride, with lots of time budgeted for photos stops – you’ll want to take one approximately every seven meters. 

Add time for long coffee and meal breaks and you’ll be lucky to ride 200 km per day. A good way to calculate riding times here is that one mile of riding in the States = one km in the Alps. Overall, you’ll be lucky to average 50 km/h in Switzerland. The maximum permissible speed on the backroads is 80 km/h, and the Swiss take speed enforcement to a spectacular level of efficiency, complete with hidden speed cameras and LIDAR armed personnel, all coupled with exorbitant fines. (In extreme cases they may charge one-third of an offender’s annual income. Yes, really.) One must be vigilant for speed limit signs everywhere, as the limit may change for noise abatement in a nature preserve or any other reason, so it’s not always intuitive what the limit of any stretch of road might be as it tends to be here in Germany, or in Austria. 

Anyway, you generally won’t find crazy knee-down riders destroying your confidence while you putter along; instead you’ll find well-disciplined riders sharing the road with you who are also trying to follow the rules while enjoying the scenery. Slightly faster riders will pass you politely, with a wave or a foot stuck out to say hi. And yeah, once in a great while a crazy knee-down rider will pass you. No big. Let it go. 

And speaking of waving, you’ll see a thousand bikes on the roads, and they all wave to each other. And, just like in the States, they pump their hand in a downward motion when they mean for you to ride with caution due to speed enforcement or an accident around the next bend. 

In all, the feeling of solidarity among riders here is very high. You’ll always have the feeling you are among friends. And you are.

Favorite Padfoot picture to date