Speedmonkey: A Solo Tour of the Alps by Motorcycle

Why do we ride motorcycles? You get wet when it rains, you freeze when it’s cold, and too hot when it heats up. You have to wear all sorts of gear just to ride one. You straddle a tank full of petrol and an exhaust pipe that would melt skin if you touch it. And you have zero protection in a crash, which is easy to do because you only have two wheels and have to lean over to get round bends.

And, frankly, it’s exhausting. Spend five hours in a car and you’re usually fine. Spend five hours on a bike and you need a shower and a cold beer just to recover.

Hominids have existed for seven million years, and Homo Sapiens for 190,000 years. And until just a few years ago survival was of the fittest. If you didn’t have your wits about you you’d be killed by an animal, other human, or just the weather.

And now we live in an era of welfare state, hospitals, sofas and carpets, worker’s rights and touchy feely everything, where the most pain is caused by someone getting your pronouns wrong. For some people that’s lovely. For others it’s deadly.

Bikers need excitement. We need to be scared, to straddle the thin line between danger and safety, to experience what it means to be human for a while. We need to understand and embrace our evolution. We want to control a dangerous machine and do so with skill and finesse.

Anyway…back to the trip

Day 5 – Bled to Norge (Italy)

I’d woken early. It was too hot to sleep well. 7.30am I was showered and ready and found that the hotel didn’t start breakfast until 8am. Oh dear.

8.30am I was on the road. The temperature had risen to 36ºC as I cruised around the southern part of Lake Bled. I found some lovely spots but nowhere to take a decent photo of the bike in front of the lake.

I knew on my trip I had the opportunity to see the Adriatic Sea at some point. I thought of Venice but that’s not something you do on a motorcycle, and it would take at least half a day. Someone suggested I visit Grado, an Italian peninsula some 50 miles east of Venice.

So by 11am and in baking heat I found a bike parking spot in Grado and headed to an air conditioned cafe for cake and coke.

The road out of Grado is a four mile long bridge. The breeze from the sea was welcome but it was still hot. I’d noticed a lot of the local riders – typically younger men on red Ducatis – rode without their protective jacket.

In danger of overheating myself I decided to remove my jacket. The heat was becoming a genuine cause of fatigue, and fatigue can lead to reduced concentration and reaction times. It wasn’t safer to remove my jacket but it did improve my ability to ride safely.

I then headed west along the southern flank of the alps towards a town called Valdobbiadene. Just north of Valdobbiadene is a mountain pass. I’d read about it in a book, but knew very little about it. It just looked fun. Up and over a mountain.

Initially the land was flat as I skirted south of the alps. I then threaded into the mountain foothills through beautiful villages set in lush green valleys of orange groves and vineyards set on perilous slopes.

I stopped to take a photo of as roadsign – Lago. I was the high plains drifter on my steel horse heading into adventures and scrapes – little was I to know…

And then the valleys closed in and the road became tree lined. I was climbing. The road twisted with long bends. I stopped for a while to drink and eat by the side of the road. In ten minutes not a single vehicle passed me.

I remounted and carried on. Climbing, the road twisting more and more. It was narrow and the surface was poor. Gravel, potholes, crumbling tarmac.

As we climbed higher the road surface got worse, the bends tightened to hairpins, and narrowed more. It was exhilarating. But the vertigo was returning.

My eyes were on stalks as I met a car coming there other way. Too fast, too close to me. I was pushed to the edge, an edge with a steep drop and no barrier. One slip and I would be gone. Would anyone find me?

Two, three more cars. Each one too fast and not close enough to their edge of the road and pushing me out to my edge. My breathing was becoming laboured, my vision ever focussed. I was sweating from the heat and from fear.

I rounded one hairpin, I ran a little wide. Ahead of me was a straight section with a gentle curve to the left. Suddenly a car appeared. A BMW X1. He was in the middle. I was in the middle. I glimpsed daylight through the trees to my right. I saw mountain tops beneath me.

I could not force myself too close to the edge. My brain wouldn’t allow it. All those years of evolution telling me a fall from height would definitely kill me, but an approaching BMW? He was coming towards me too fast. We were going to hit. My front wheel skipped as the ABS kicked in, he hardly slowed.

Bang, we hit. He missed my arm and leg by centimetres. He’d hit my left pannier. Put a dent in it, and a dent in his car.

The driver was out, arms gesticulating. His girlfriend telling him “Non essere arrabiato. Stai calmo”.

I was numb. Nobody had any injuries. The fault was 50/50. He should have been slower, should have got closer to the edge. I should have moved closer to the edge.

We talked and passed details. No Italian from me, no English from them. But we coped. We shook hands and carried on.

I was alone with my thoughts. I was near the top of a mountain pass and I had no choice to carry on and descend the other side.

Ten minutes later I reached the summit. 1400 metres above sea level. An entire world below me.

I descended cautiously. I could not afford a repeat of the incident. I had to get home in one piece. I enjoyed the ride. I was super focussed. I had to unlearn fear and learn control of my brain – the part that put me in harms way.

It was another two hour ride to my hotel. Mainly autoroutes but the final half hour was another climb, into Trento and up a mountain pass towards a ski resort called Norge. The hotel was beautifully located. The view was spectacular.

Once unpacked and in my room I reflected on what had been a challenging but also thrilling day. I enjoyed an amazing four course dinner that night, and slept well.

Day 6 – Norge to ~~Bönigen (Switzerland)~~ Rickenback (Germany)

A lazy, late start. On the bike at 9.30am. A beautiful crisp, clear day. Views of an entire country, sculpted over millions of years. The satnav took me north and up to yet another summit. I dug deep and improved my skills with every ferocious bend.

This was going to be a long day. 300 miles westward and into Switzerland. Autoroutes and mountain passes. The most beautiful, wonderful place. Hot again but cooling ever so slightly with every mile.

The fields once again were littered with alpine barns. The writing on the signs turned from Italian to…German? Was I in Switzerland already? In this part of the world it’s easy to cross international borders without even realising.

I stopped for lunch at the place in the first photo in this article. A wine shop in Schluderns. I walked in to find three people speaking what sounded like German. They all stopped. A man said “Ahhh motorcycle.” He pointed to my bike parked outside. I nodded. He beamed.

I said, “Sandwich?” and was greeted with puzzled looks. “Pane? Prosciutto? Formaggio?”

“Ahhhh” said the jolly lady behind the counter. She walked to a plastic bag on a shelf and pulled out a bread roll.

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry, ja”.

“Käse?” she pulled out a huge block of Emmental.

“Ja”

“Schinken?” A massive slab of ham. I nodded.

Sandwich made and paid for I headed outside to a single table in the shade. The jolly German lady sat with me, lit a cigarette and stared as I ate.

I pointed at the ground and said, “Switzerland?”

“Nein,” she said. “Das ist Italien, aber wir sprechen Deutsch.”

I understood. I’d heard about this place before and that memory suddenly flipped into my mind. In South Tyrol there is a German speaking Italian community. It had been part of Austro-Hungary but after the First World War became part of Italy. Mussolini agreed with Hitler that it would not be subsumed into Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It’s remained Italian since, to the chagrin of the locals.

I carried on and into the most beautiful town. Called Glorenza, and still in Italy, I stopped to take the photo below. As I did a BMW M1000XR passed me.

I carried on and headed in the direction of Switzerland and a famous road called the Flüela Pass.

I passed the BMW, who’s rider had stopped to take a photo. He waved, I waved.

Minutes later the BMW passed me. And after he did he undocked his phone from its satnav mount and started filming the countryside around, one handed. I passed, he nodded, I nodded.

A while later I stopped for fuel. The BMW was parked at the next pump. We sat, drank cold cokes and talked for half an hour about travel, families, motorcycles. His bike had 200hp, mine 95hp. I wasn’t so upset about him passing me.

We carried on and arrived at the Flüela Pass. We rode hard and fast. My fears vanished as I chased the lunatic on the BMW. It was awesome fun. The road was well paved and absolutely spectacular. It rises and flows up and over and descends down to Davos, where the internal elites and plot and scheme ways of making our lives worse.

That was possibly the single best ride I’ve ever experienced.

By 4pm I was exhausted. I continued to ride. The BMW rider was going gone and I was headed for Zurich. I rode through a three mile long tunnel. Once out the other side it was raining. A complete surprise. It had been a beautiful sunny day at the start of the tunnel.

I stopped to change into my waterproofs. I checked my satnav and came to an awful realisation.

I’d been heading to the wrong hotel. I was two hours north of where I needed to be.

I had no choice but to cancel. It was 5.30pm and I had very little energy. I realised I was mistakenly heading towards the hotel in Rickenback I’d stayed at on my second night. It cost me £100 but I couldn’t ride another two hours.

Luckily the Rickenback hotel had space. I headed there in the pouring rain. Arrived at 6.45pm, thankful of some familiarity.

After a good meal and some more cold beer I slept well.

Day 7 – Rickenback to Manderen (France)

I won’t go into too much detail with the remaining journey. I’ll just post some photos. The fun parts were pretty much done. It was all motorway work from hereonin. Nevertheless I did have fun, even on the motorway. I enjoy riding my motorcycle, even in adverse conditions.

Why? See paragraphs one to five.