Post by Iconic944ss on Oct 22, 2012 19:25:37 GMT
WDW2012 (We Did What!) - ‘Countdown’
For ten years now, since I first bought a Ducati, it’s been a dream of mine, just to ride one of Italy’s best, back to the place of its creation. To combine that with the DesmoFeast that is World Ducati Week in 2012, when the chance came up, was simply too good to resist. ‘WebMeister’ Miles from the Scottish Ducati Club dropped the simplest of lines into a forum post to say that a ferry place had become available for the Newcastle to Amsterdam crossing and a series of jigsaw pieces, for me, fell nicely into place. At the beginning of the year, I bought a stable-mate for my neglected 944ss, in the shape of a 2002 ST4s. In typical Iconic fashion, I set about straight away trying to make my own modifications, especially around the riding position.
In preparation for Italy, quite a few more goodies were bought, a laminar lip screen (v. good), high rise bars (v. comfy), Pirelli angel tyres (undecided), Sargent seat (Great quality, but taking a lot of braking in), cheapo top box (v. handy) and ‘custom fit’ huge Givi panniers (v. damn hard to get ya leg over!). A fork rebuild, tyres fitted and service completed, meant that I’d only put 400miles on the bike since making all the Italy mods and thankfully, I didn’t pay too high a price for such little saddle time. Its been 20 years since I last toured in Europe, on a 1979 BMW R100Rs and even now I can still remember the exhilaration of open roads, warm tarmac and happy days, worrying of nothing but simply riding, that holiday was ran by a tour specialist. Our unofficial tour guide, Miles had done some superb planning of routes and hotels, with bookings of the same and the ferries for us all however, there were still many excited emails and posts before the off!
WanderLust..
Sunday 17th June – ‘Hold your Fire’
Especially as the Olympic torch just happened to be coming though my area with attendant road closures and delays. The other four ‘WildDucs’, Miles (M1200s), Neil(S2r), Derek (ST4s) and Norrie (Panigale S), all met before the ferry sailed and got acquainted while sadly for me, I arrived at 4.20pm, with the ship due to sail at 5pm! On the plus side, my bike was ushered into the HGV area, so I had a big tie-down patch to myself. DFDS are obviously used to this and a deckhand gave me purpose made ratchet straps with end hooks that worked really well on my tourer. Along with putting the bike on its centre stand, in gear and with a bungee hook pulling the front brake on, my ST was to have a much better crossing than I was.
I tried to pack my really important things in my tank bag, with items to be worn that night or the next day, handy in a pannier liner bag to carry. It worked reasonably well but I took FAR too much with me and cant imagine that any bag was within its working weight limit, this has led to me mentally re-badging my bike as a Queen Elizabeth (QE4s). I had only just found our cabin, text’ed the group to let them know I was on-board and changed out of bike clothes when I felt the ferry shudder and leave the dock. Miles soon text me back that first rendezvous was in a nearby bar, it seemed the evening scene was being set early. Introductions made and drinks downed, we headed to the general restaurant for a light evening meal before a quick tour of the ship led us to another bar on the upper decks. Sadly, some loud guitar accompanied singing hampered our conversations so, since we knew the next day involved big mileages, a reasonably early night was had.
The last ferry crossing I made was with P&O, Hull to Zeebrugge and I couldn’t of faulted it. While our seas were very kind and calm to us all overnight, the same cant be said of the four bunk accommodation. I likened it to a hot, smelly and vibrating coffin. I thought the booze might have helped but I don’t think anything could have, perhaps its was simply our location in the ship making the vibrations seem worse but, the only sleep I got was after plugging headphones in and tuning out for a full album.
Monday 18th June – ‘Between the Wheels’
The addition of a £10 buffet breakfast was a smart move as it kept us good for a few hours and was tasty enough, eating on-board was better than I had been led to believe by family. All too soon it was time to return to vehicles and the drawbacks of the HGV deck were instantly apparent as the access doors were opened, the stench of various cargo's was awful, diesel fumes were much nicer! However, I was in the first batch of vehicles off the ship but an army of bikers occupying the port entrance meant I ended up parking in the first gas station to wait for the others to catch up. The diesel slicked roundabout and scooters along with cyclists zipping everywhere were a cause of concern to me but being alert is no bad thing when riding on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Having lived in mainland Europe, Miles was well versed in riding while navigating and took a natural lead, followed by the rest of us, with Norrie and myself, hiding at the back – lantern rouge style. Norrie was to prove an inspiration time after time, not only did he appear to breakfast on every touring day in his full leathers but even ate a healthy choice meal each morning: travel light, travel fast!
While the ever tightening exit slip roads around Amsterdam were good fun, and we all managed fine as experienced motorcyclists, I did find the initial first hours riding quite demanding, while we were negotiating cities. At the start I didn’t have my SatNav turned on as I thought I’d simply follow the group while getting used to the roads. This might have been fine if the right hand (slow lane) traffic was not so busy on the major roads. I had to carve up a lorry or miss the exit road at one point, when my view of the group was restricted; thankfully the driver wasn’t the least bit bothered and didn’t even sound a horn. The Netherlands were soon left behind but gas stations on the Autoroutes didn’t seem to be as regularly spaced as in the UK and this was a shame as Norrie’s Panigale was only quoted as having a tank range of ‘around’ 100miles, so vigilant mileage monitoring was needed.
When we left the UK, the temperature was a cool 10°C and damp. Our first food stop of the day was on a nice grassed picnic area in Königswinter, on the bank of the river Rhein and the heat was already turned up to 20°C and rising. After a drink and some snacks, it was time to run south-east instead of the due south that dominated the morning, Frankfurt came and went as the big jets roared overhead until just south of Wurzburg where we knee-scraped off the E41 and headed for our first overnight stop of the small town of Bad Mergentheim. The Hotel Deutschmeister is a clean & functional business users haunt and non the worse for that, the selection of high end Mercs and BMW’s in the car park being proof enough of popularity. A covered area was kept for our five Ducati’s, which was very much appreciated in helping keep them secure. I’ve never seen such a clean town in all my life, even though we arrived and rode through the active market place, full with stalls, not a scrap of waste was evident once the traders had left. We ate handsomely that evening at a nearby public house that the Scotsmen found served a very adequate local bier! Even the singularly German speaking hosts were not too much of an issue after we dissected the menu, word by word. My first taste of schnitzel was very good, along with the drinks that washed it down but, the establishment closed early for our needs, so we took our merriment to a small and very relaxed cocktail bar, nearby before retiring for the night.
Tuesday 19th June – ‘The Camera Eye’
I awoke at 6am to the sounds of recycling trucks but excited at the prospect of being in a strange land, I decided to dress & take a short walk before breakfast. Full wheelie bins and hundreds of carefully tied refuse sacks were all stacked neatly for collection. The only sign of discontent I managed to find was a broken Jack Daniels bottle in amongst streets full of monuments and historic buildings. Continental breakfast downed for continental travellers, we had a slight delay after poor Miles sliced his thumb doing running bike repairs but, plasters applied we hit the road again. I found it an interesting counter point as our Italian through-breds reverberated down high walled historic cobbled streets. A detour was decided upon to visit a nearby Ducati dealer in the same town; Alex’s bikeshop welcome for us couldn’t have been friendlier for an unscheduled arrival of five bikes. Free diagnostics, free bottled drinks and a great attitude from all of the staff, soon has us on our way again. Putting an alloy rear sprocket on a touring bike and then tensioning a chain before checking the tight spots is not a good idea when doing some big miles and high speed, the sprocket shedding metal being the result, with adjustment needed on the dealers forecourt, thanks for turning a blind eye
The sun shone its approval of our route south and a magical morning’s riding was enjoyed by quite a few bikers that were out on the ‘romantic road’ of the E43. At the first fuel stop of the day I decided to take a few photo’s while waiting for the group to get sorted, this led to the idea of placing my camera in the see-through map pouch of my tank bag for easy instant access. Two problems then cropped up, one of over coming a lifetime phobia of riding without gloves, overridden by both the heat and the need to capture as many photos as possible at every stop but, a later problem of foolishly thinking my fairing would shade my hands, which resulted in sunburnt backs of hands the next day – lesson learnt.
Neil requested that I carry his Kilt, that would be used for devious means later, on my bike to try and keep it in as good a condition as possible. This was easy to accommodate on the empty pillion perch and it was decided that this, along with my love of Single Scottish Malts, elevated me to the esteemed position of ‘Honorary Scotsman’, even if I didn’t actually know how to pronounce a fraction of the whisky names that I’d been sampling recently.
The first rest stop of the day south of Augsburg, in the delightful town of Weil proved another entertaining language problem until the English speaking daughter of the host turned up and helped us get yet another very welcome and filling meal. Some of the lakes we saw as we dipped ourselves in and out of the Germany / Austria boarders were stunning with waters of mesmerising green. The bend swinging finally started in earnest when we suddenly descended on billiard smooth roads to a welcome coffee stop just before the town of Ettal. At the Ettaler Mühle we were served under the shade of trees, at wrought iron tables by lovely buxom ladies wearing traditional dress.
After some good road fun that turned out to only be a private road where a toll had to be paid, we ended up on the most peculiar road that we later christened the G.O.A.T. track (Gnarliest Of All Time), the very start of which, where cows were wandering freely across the road should have been warning enough but then the ‘L133’ degraded in single narrow lane tarmac before disintegrating into broken black top, strewn with pot holes and severe damage. I struggled keeping up the pace on board the QE4s, while poor Norrie on the Panigale was apparently swearing inside his helmet, without even knowing his home made alloy GB rear hanger plate was being beaten to a pulp.
The very best section of the G.O.A.T. track!
Hotel Gasthof Hirschenwirt, Mittersill came up next, after roughly 300 miles for the day. The hotel was large & rooms quite functional however, having arrived late we had to ask for a recommendation for the evening meal, this wasn’t a problem and a nearby hotel/eatery coped admirably with the chasms of five bikers stomachs! Especially since it had its own micro-brewery at the rear. After taking a stroll around the immediate area, another bar was found for nightcaps and I believe it was here that I was introduced to the charms of ‘Jagermeister’. My instant impression was of a combination of cough mixture, aniseed and rocket fuel and after some extra ‘research’ in the UK, I don’t think I’m too wide of the mark. Since the rooms being booked here were two doubles and a single, I took the opportunity of claiming the single room and leaving the ‘flying Scotsmen’ to their own devices.
Wednesday 20th June – ‘Finding My Way’
The day started so optimistically. A hearty breakfast followed by a quite early start. The wooden Mittersill fire station next to the imposing mountains looking so quaint as we set off. Then another magical eerily-still early morning ride, only spoilt by queuing for a series of roadwork’s and traffic lights that each repair seemed to require. Finally the toll booth was reached for the start of the GrossGlockner pass, made famous in the UK by the Hairy Bikers for cooking at the ‘Bikers Nest’ at the very top of the Edelweiss Peak as part of 48Km of roads collectively known as, Bikers Heaven. I hoped the title wasn’t literal as I couldn’t resist giving my ST4s its head at last, even if both the bike and rider were probably grossly overweight! The road surface and layout are excellent but the hairpins and sometimes blind bends demanded maximum concentration. I did have a genuine reason for pressing on and overtaking the others as I wanted to try and get photo’s of them climbing the passes, which worked out pretty well. One unexpected issue was that my bike was at such an incline that once parked, I really struggled to get it back off the centre stand then, in my haste to catch the group again, I didn’t realise they had pulled into the parking point below the Bikers Nest and blasted past them. Thankfully, I noticed them by looking back at the next stopping point only a half mile or so further on at one of a myriad of magnificent viewing points. Apparently my Ducati sounded good when wound up between the rocks – cheers Neil! Next it was the quite tight switchback climb to the Nest on cobbled road as well but, it was so worth it. The backdrops of the awe-inspiring mountains are at times, too surreal as most photographs look like painted backdrops but, the ‘top-of-the-world’ feeling was very heady. Views admired, it was time to descend and continue into the numerous tunnels that awaited us.
I’d decided to go with a light reactive ‘hyper-optics’ tinted insert for my visor that was very good outside but couldn’t react quite fast enough when going into darkened tunnels, flipping the visor and ducking behind my screen proved effective when needed. I was surprised how warm the ride up had been with even the road surface being lukewarm to the touch however, on the way down the weather deteriorated slightly leaving the hairpins wet and slick with a big helping of respect required to negotiate safely. After a quick drink to steady the nerves and back down on dry roads, we all crossed the deserted Italian border crossing where very oddly the mileage on my trip counter clicked over to 888 miles just after the checkpoint!
First problem of the day were the Italian petrol pumps on the smaller roads that we were riding, they were fully automated with frequently no attendants present at all. They would not accept any of our credit cards, only local fuel cards or cash that we were trying to hold onto instead of withdrawing more cash unnecessarily. We soon cottoned on to using a bigger bill Euro note and filling two bikes from one pump but it was an unwanted complication. Lunch simply had to be pizza from an authentic restaurant in a typically Italian plaza. The huge pizzas were delivered to the tables even before we had finished our first glasses of water and a helpful waiter seemed overjoyed to take a photo of us with Miles’ camera. The air temperature had been rising rapidly ever since entering Italy and was now at 30+ degrees according to one outside thermometer, any jacket and trouser liners had long since been abandoned and any vents, zips and even flies were open to try and cool down by any means, sorry, maybe that was too much information.
The day’s main plan was to shoot down towards the coast via the E55 and then west, on the E70 motorways with the possibility of a trip into Venice that had to be missed out due to the time the ride took. Sadly, even worse was about to happen in roughly the area between the two motorways. I think I ended up riding to the front of the group to indicate I needed fuel and when drifting rearwards, I settled into the middle of the group rather than at the back. From a series of interesting and cooling tunnels we pulled into a motorway service station only to discover poor Norrie was missing in action. After taking care of nature and peeling off sweaty bike gear, phone calls and texts were sent to Norrie with no reply. We hoped that this meant he was still riding but the flip side was he might still be in a tunnel and out of signal, or worse! I walked down the motorway slip road but could see no sign of Norrie or the Panigale, I even ran back to the filling area when a Ducati rider came in only to be told he had not seen any broken down bike. I think we all felt tortured in the energy draining heat while we waited. I bought a three litre bottle of Gatorade, drank half and threw the rest in my topbox for later, which was to prove a blessing. After waiting an extra 30 minutes or so and not being able to contact Norrie the decision was made to press on in the hope he was ok. I cant say I was enamoured with Italian motorways from what I’d seen so far, restricted views, marginal driving and toll booths at every major junction that I came across only made me long for the roads of Austria. As we set off, the traffic density seemed to be at its peak and the inevitable happened in that a car undertook and boxed me out (in the fast lane of a three lane road) and I lost sight of the other three Wild Ducs….
Not having my SatNav turned on, it was a slip road too far when I realised I’d missed the exit I needed around Padua and was headed for Vicenza. Then I felt my phone vibrate for a text message which I hoped was from Norrie, so I decided to exit the motorway, pay the dreaded toll and try and back track to see if I could find him. Wrong! On both accounts, text message was from the UK and going back down the motorway and trying to look to the opposite side was a stupid idea given how wide the central reserve was and the hectic traffic conditions. Needless to say, I didn’t see Norrie. My cup of tolerance for the motorways was now well and truly empty, so with a nearly full tank of gas I decided to try and get onto nicer roads and follow the coastal route down to our WDW base of Cattolica. The HTC phone I’d bought to use as a Satnav had been playing up ever since day 2 of the ride, the CoPilot software is amazing but the phone would randomly reboot for no reason at all, causing obvious navigation problems but, it guided me part way to the coast until it decayed into continuous rebooting. The poor phone was actually HOT to the touch, mounted above my handlebars, it was in the firing line of the heat being blown from the Ducati cooling fan and simply couldn’t cope. A cloud of dust around me was surprising but welcome, when I realised a truck had pulled up behind me at the side of the road and I was able to ask directions. The driver seemed to think I was crazy at first wanting to drive down the coast instead of the direct route and kept repeat the main city names I should follow to get to Cattolica. A good few minutes were wasted before he was able to tell me at last that the road was actually closed ahead and I needed to go back to the motorway……Goddamm it!
I had nearly got to the coast and Chioggia and had to turn back to Padua and the dreaded Tolls and Blacktop. An hour later and I was 80 miles away from my previous stop and I think the bike actually enjoyed being given its head once again. Darkness was falling as I stopped to refuel tank and rider and I sent a text out explaining I was ok to our group when a text came in during coffee, ‘No word from Norrie, starting to get worried’. I felt wretched thinking I might be riding away from Norrie, if he had been involved in an accident and needed help. Unbeknown to us, the major part of our ignorance was that Norrie’s mobile had NOT been enabled for international calls and texts as the warehouse that was tasked with doing so, had failed to do!!! Ambient temperature: 32+ degrees the sign said as I left the service station, the only way to keep cool, was to keep moving. In the right direction would have been nice! Yes, dear reader, its time for another pilot error, at a multiple motorway intersection, I got confused and took the wrong road, I knew instantly with the only saving grace being that I got to ride briefly through Borgo Panigale, Norrie would be impressed.
An overview of some of the 'Wild-Ducs' route!
Annoyingly, this left me on the wrong side of Bologna but I managed to get my phone working again for a few minutes at a time by putting it in my tank bag map pouch and getting a route that took me into the heart of the city by way of thanks, I guess. Then, of course, at the worst possible time, the phone died completely, battery out, still no good, red hot. So I pulled into a gas station and contemplated the situation for a while, I figured my luck had finally changed when a police car pulled up, across the forecourt but, not quite yet, as in my haste to talk to them before leaving, I managed to knock my helmet on the floor, wincing at the resounding ‘crack’ as the back of the lid, struck concrete.
Not to worry, at least the nice policemen sent me in the wrong direction!
Hard to believe it wasn’t deliberate but I had a local on a super-scooter pull up alongside me at the next junction and offer to lead me, in the opposite direction, to the motorway. I never realised a Yamaha T-Max 500 was quite so fast, red lights were ignored, red-light districts came and went along with entire families begging in the streets and poor leaflet distributors and windscreen washers, standing in the middle of multi-lane roads, in the dark, trying to earn a few coins. I guess its no worse than any other city of the world but when on holiday, tired and stressed, it was hard not to be affected by such sights. T-Max man was now at 100mph, no not, kph, miles per hour and for the only time, I didn’t care about the huge width of my bike with outrigger panniers fitted, I did worry for a split second if this might end badly, in more than one way but was mightily relieved to see the correct road signs appearing and a friendly wave and pointed hand in the right direction. My faith in humanity and friendly, perhaps Clockwork Angels were restored...
Thank god, I’d done a full coolant refresh and added water-wetter before the trip, Coolant temp: 110 degrees, rider temp, probably a bit higher and the speed on the E45 road down past Forli, a little higher again in mph. Maybe the heat had driven me a little stir-crazy but the H.I.D. headlight I’d also fitted before the off, was literally, brilliant. The cooling night air made the bike feel like a turbine and the traffic simply moved out of the way to let me through, road works became chicanes and all I needed was a Tron riding suit and the game would have been complete. I was so relieved to finally see the go-kart track at the Cattolica exit that I’d spied at home via Google street view, even the Batphone decided to play ball and led me straight to the Hotel Senior, where I believe I finally arrived at about 11.30pm. Unusually for me, I didn’t even want to talk to anyone, I was so drained that all I wanted to do was jump in a cold shower, which was exactly what I did. Then, thankfully, while getting changed I heard the characteristic sound of a Panigale thundering away outside. So while a cold beer was thrust into my hand on my return downstairs, I got poor Norrie a cold drink as he told us of his tale of woe. It seems the high speeds and temperatures had gotten the better of the tiny Panigale fuel reserve and the tank was down to bone dry, expiring just 5 miles before the service station where we waited. Worse still, the first police car simply ignored him and drove away when told of his plight! Norrie managed eventually to get sorted but only after he scared some staff into thinking he was about the expire himself after the exertions of pushing his bike, off the motorway, through the toll area to a gas station, in ridiculous heat while wearing a full set of Dainese leathers! He then discovered that his mobile was almost useless to him and couldn’t contact anyone nearby but at least the rest of his journey was relatively uneventful, as I recall Norrie didn’t get to the hotel until near midnight, both of us had been on the road for around 14 hours but with my continuous cockups, I covered a little more ground at around 500 miles.
For ten years now, since I first bought a Ducati, it’s been a dream of mine, just to ride one of Italy’s best, back to the place of its creation. To combine that with the DesmoFeast that is World Ducati Week in 2012, when the chance came up, was simply too good to resist. ‘WebMeister’ Miles from the Scottish Ducati Club dropped the simplest of lines into a forum post to say that a ferry place had become available for the Newcastle to Amsterdam crossing and a series of jigsaw pieces, for me, fell nicely into place. At the beginning of the year, I bought a stable-mate for my neglected 944ss, in the shape of a 2002 ST4s. In typical Iconic fashion, I set about straight away trying to make my own modifications, especially around the riding position.
In preparation for Italy, quite a few more goodies were bought, a laminar lip screen (v. good), high rise bars (v. comfy), Pirelli angel tyres (undecided), Sargent seat (Great quality, but taking a lot of braking in), cheapo top box (v. handy) and ‘custom fit’ huge Givi panniers (v. damn hard to get ya leg over!). A fork rebuild, tyres fitted and service completed, meant that I’d only put 400miles on the bike since making all the Italy mods and thankfully, I didn’t pay too high a price for such little saddle time. Its been 20 years since I last toured in Europe, on a 1979 BMW R100Rs and even now I can still remember the exhilaration of open roads, warm tarmac and happy days, worrying of nothing but simply riding, that holiday was ran by a tour specialist. Our unofficial tour guide, Miles had done some superb planning of routes and hotels, with bookings of the same and the ferries for us all however, there were still many excited emails and posts before the off!
WanderLust..
Sunday 17th June – ‘Hold your Fire’
Especially as the Olympic torch just happened to be coming though my area with attendant road closures and delays. The other four ‘WildDucs’, Miles (M1200s), Neil(S2r), Derek (ST4s) and Norrie (Panigale S), all met before the ferry sailed and got acquainted while sadly for me, I arrived at 4.20pm, with the ship due to sail at 5pm! On the plus side, my bike was ushered into the HGV area, so I had a big tie-down patch to myself. DFDS are obviously used to this and a deckhand gave me purpose made ratchet straps with end hooks that worked really well on my tourer. Along with putting the bike on its centre stand, in gear and with a bungee hook pulling the front brake on, my ST was to have a much better crossing than I was.
I tried to pack my really important things in my tank bag, with items to be worn that night or the next day, handy in a pannier liner bag to carry. It worked reasonably well but I took FAR too much with me and cant imagine that any bag was within its working weight limit, this has led to me mentally re-badging my bike as a Queen Elizabeth (QE4s). I had only just found our cabin, text’ed the group to let them know I was on-board and changed out of bike clothes when I felt the ferry shudder and leave the dock. Miles soon text me back that first rendezvous was in a nearby bar, it seemed the evening scene was being set early. Introductions made and drinks downed, we headed to the general restaurant for a light evening meal before a quick tour of the ship led us to another bar on the upper decks. Sadly, some loud guitar accompanied singing hampered our conversations so, since we knew the next day involved big mileages, a reasonably early night was had.
The last ferry crossing I made was with P&O, Hull to Zeebrugge and I couldn’t of faulted it. While our seas were very kind and calm to us all overnight, the same cant be said of the four bunk accommodation. I likened it to a hot, smelly and vibrating coffin. I thought the booze might have helped but I don’t think anything could have, perhaps its was simply our location in the ship making the vibrations seem worse but, the only sleep I got was after plugging headphones in and tuning out for a full album.
Monday 18th June – ‘Between the Wheels’
The addition of a £10 buffet breakfast was a smart move as it kept us good for a few hours and was tasty enough, eating on-board was better than I had been led to believe by family. All too soon it was time to return to vehicles and the drawbacks of the HGV deck were instantly apparent as the access doors were opened, the stench of various cargo's was awful, diesel fumes were much nicer! However, I was in the first batch of vehicles off the ship but an army of bikers occupying the port entrance meant I ended up parking in the first gas station to wait for the others to catch up. The diesel slicked roundabout and scooters along with cyclists zipping everywhere were a cause of concern to me but being alert is no bad thing when riding on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Having lived in mainland Europe, Miles was well versed in riding while navigating and took a natural lead, followed by the rest of us, with Norrie and myself, hiding at the back – lantern rouge style. Norrie was to prove an inspiration time after time, not only did he appear to breakfast on every touring day in his full leathers but even ate a healthy choice meal each morning: travel light, travel fast!
While the ever tightening exit slip roads around Amsterdam were good fun, and we all managed fine as experienced motorcyclists, I did find the initial first hours riding quite demanding, while we were negotiating cities. At the start I didn’t have my SatNav turned on as I thought I’d simply follow the group while getting used to the roads. This might have been fine if the right hand (slow lane) traffic was not so busy on the major roads. I had to carve up a lorry or miss the exit road at one point, when my view of the group was restricted; thankfully the driver wasn’t the least bit bothered and didn’t even sound a horn. The Netherlands were soon left behind but gas stations on the Autoroutes didn’t seem to be as regularly spaced as in the UK and this was a shame as Norrie’s Panigale was only quoted as having a tank range of ‘around’ 100miles, so vigilant mileage monitoring was needed.
When we left the UK, the temperature was a cool 10°C and damp. Our first food stop of the day was on a nice grassed picnic area in Königswinter, on the bank of the river Rhein and the heat was already turned up to 20°C and rising. After a drink and some snacks, it was time to run south-east instead of the due south that dominated the morning, Frankfurt came and went as the big jets roared overhead until just south of Wurzburg where we knee-scraped off the E41 and headed for our first overnight stop of the small town of Bad Mergentheim. The Hotel Deutschmeister is a clean & functional business users haunt and non the worse for that, the selection of high end Mercs and BMW’s in the car park being proof enough of popularity. A covered area was kept for our five Ducati’s, which was very much appreciated in helping keep them secure. I’ve never seen such a clean town in all my life, even though we arrived and rode through the active market place, full with stalls, not a scrap of waste was evident once the traders had left. We ate handsomely that evening at a nearby public house that the Scotsmen found served a very adequate local bier! Even the singularly German speaking hosts were not too much of an issue after we dissected the menu, word by word. My first taste of schnitzel was very good, along with the drinks that washed it down but, the establishment closed early for our needs, so we took our merriment to a small and very relaxed cocktail bar, nearby before retiring for the night.
Tuesday 19th June – ‘The Camera Eye’
I awoke at 6am to the sounds of recycling trucks but excited at the prospect of being in a strange land, I decided to dress & take a short walk before breakfast. Full wheelie bins and hundreds of carefully tied refuse sacks were all stacked neatly for collection. The only sign of discontent I managed to find was a broken Jack Daniels bottle in amongst streets full of monuments and historic buildings. Continental breakfast downed for continental travellers, we had a slight delay after poor Miles sliced his thumb doing running bike repairs but, plasters applied we hit the road again. I found it an interesting counter point as our Italian through-breds reverberated down high walled historic cobbled streets. A detour was decided upon to visit a nearby Ducati dealer in the same town; Alex’s bikeshop welcome for us couldn’t have been friendlier for an unscheduled arrival of five bikes. Free diagnostics, free bottled drinks and a great attitude from all of the staff, soon has us on our way again. Putting an alloy rear sprocket on a touring bike and then tensioning a chain before checking the tight spots is not a good idea when doing some big miles and high speed, the sprocket shedding metal being the result, with adjustment needed on the dealers forecourt, thanks for turning a blind eye
The sun shone its approval of our route south and a magical morning’s riding was enjoyed by quite a few bikers that were out on the ‘romantic road’ of the E43. At the first fuel stop of the day I decided to take a few photo’s while waiting for the group to get sorted, this led to the idea of placing my camera in the see-through map pouch of my tank bag for easy instant access. Two problems then cropped up, one of over coming a lifetime phobia of riding without gloves, overridden by both the heat and the need to capture as many photos as possible at every stop but, a later problem of foolishly thinking my fairing would shade my hands, which resulted in sunburnt backs of hands the next day – lesson learnt.
Neil requested that I carry his Kilt, that would be used for devious means later, on my bike to try and keep it in as good a condition as possible. This was easy to accommodate on the empty pillion perch and it was decided that this, along with my love of Single Scottish Malts, elevated me to the esteemed position of ‘Honorary Scotsman’, even if I didn’t actually know how to pronounce a fraction of the whisky names that I’d been sampling recently.
The first rest stop of the day south of Augsburg, in the delightful town of Weil proved another entertaining language problem until the English speaking daughter of the host turned up and helped us get yet another very welcome and filling meal. Some of the lakes we saw as we dipped ourselves in and out of the Germany / Austria boarders were stunning with waters of mesmerising green. The bend swinging finally started in earnest when we suddenly descended on billiard smooth roads to a welcome coffee stop just before the town of Ettal. At the Ettaler Mühle we were served under the shade of trees, at wrought iron tables by lovely buxom ladies wearing traditional dress.
After some good road fun that turned out to only be a private road where a toll had to be paid, we ended up on the most peculiar road that we later christened the G.O.A.T. track (Gnarliest Of All Time), the very start of which, where cows were wandering freely across the road should have been warning enough but then the ‘L133’ degraded in single narrow lane tarmac before disintegrating into broken black top, strewn with pot holes and severe damage. I struggled keeping up the pace on board the QE4s, while poor Norrie on the Panigale was apparently swearing inside his helmet, without even knowing his home made alloy GB rear hanger plate was being beaten to a pulp.
The very best section of the G.O.A.T. track!
Hotel Gasthof Hirschenwirt, Mittersill came up next, after roughly 300 miles for the day. The hotel was large & rooms quite functional however, having arrived late we had to ask for a recommendation for the evening meal, this wasn’t a problem and a nearby hotel/eatery coped admirably with the chasms of five bikers stomachs! Especially since it had its own micro-brewery at the rear. After taking a stroll around the immediate area, another bar was found for nightcaps and I believe it was here that I was introduced to the charms of ‘Jagermeister’. My instant impression was of a combination of cough mixture, aniseed and rocket fuel and after some extra ‘research’ in the UK, I don’t think I’m too wide of the mark. Since the rooms being booked here were two doubles and a single, I took the opportunity of claiming the single room and leaving the ‘flying Scotsmen’ to their own devices.
Wednesday 20th June – ‘Finding My Way’
The day started so optimistically. A hearty breakfast followed by a quite early start. The wooden Mittersill fire station next to the imposing mountains looking so quaint as we set off. Then another magical eerily-still early morning ride, only spoilt by queuing for a series of roadwork’s and traffic lights that each repair seemed to require. Finally the toll booth was reached for the start of the GrossGlockner pass, made famous in the UK by the Hairy Bikers for cooking at the ‘Bikers Nest’ at the very top of the Edelweiss Peak as part of 48Km of roads collectively known as, Bikers Heaven. I hoped the title wasn’t literal as I couldn’t resist giving my ST4s its head at last, even if both the bike and rider were probably grossly overweight! The road surface and layout are excellent but the hairpins and sometimes blind bends demanded maximum concentration. I did have a genuine reason for pressing on and overtaking the others as I wanted to try and get photo’s of them climbing the passes, which worked out pretty well. One unexpected issue was that my bike was at such an incline that once parked, I really struggled to get it back off the centre stand then, in my haste to catch the group again, I didn’t realise they had pulled into the parking point below the Bikers Nest and blasted past them. Thankfully, I noticed them by looking back at the next stopping point only a half mile or so further on at one of a myriad of magnificent viewing points. Apparently my Ducati sounded good when wound up between the rocks – cheers Neil! Next it was the quite tight switchback climb to the Nest on cobbled road as well but, it was so worth it. The backdrops of the awe-inspiring mountains are at times, too surreal as most photographs look like painted backdrops but, the ‘top-of-the-world’ feeling was very heady. Views admired, it was time to descend and continue into the numerous tunnels that awaited us.
I’d decided to go with a light reactive ‘hyper-optics’ tinted insert for my visor that was very good outside but couldn’t react quite fast enough when going into darkened tunnels, flipping the visor and ducking behind my screen proved effective when needed. I was surprised how warm the ride up had been with even the road surface being lukewarm to the touch however, on the way down the weather deteriorated slightly leaving the hairpins wet and slick with a big helping of respect required to negotiate safely. After a quick drink to steady the nerves and back down on dry roads, we all crossed the deserted Italian border crossing where very oddly the mileage on my trip counter clicked over to 888 miles just after the checkpoint!
First problem of the day were the Italian petrol pumps on the smaller roads that we were riding, they were fully automated with frequently no attendants present at all. They would not accept any of our credit cards, only local fuel cards or cash that we were trying to hold onto instead of withdrawing more cash unnecessarily. We soon cottoned on to using a bigger bill Euro note and filling two bikes from one pump but it was an unwanted complication. Lunch simply had to be pizza from an authentic restaurant in a typically Italian plaza. The huge pizzas were delivered to the tables even before we had finished our first glasses of water and a helpful waiter seemed overjoyed to take a photo of us with Miles’ camera. The air temperature had been rising rapidly ever since entering Italy and was now at 30+ degrees according to one outside thermometer, any jacket and trouser liners had long since been abandoned and any vents, zips and even flies were open to try and cool down by any means, sorry, maybe that was too much information.
The day’s main plan was to shoot down towards the coast via the E55 and then west, on the E70 motorways with the possibility of a trip into Venice that had to be missed out due to the time the ride took. Sadly, even worse was about to happen in roughly the area between the two motorways. I think I ended up riding to the front of the group to indicate I needed fuel and when drifting rearwards, I settled into the middle of the group rather than at the back. From a series of interesting and cooling tunnels we pulled into a motorway service station only to discover poor Norrie was missing in action. After taking care of nature and peeling off sweaty bike gear, phone calls and texts were sent to Norrie with no reply. We hoped that this meant he was still riding but the flip side was he might still be in a tunnel and out of signal, or worse! I walked down the motorway slip road but could see no sign of Norrie or the Panigale, I even ran back to the filling area when a Ducati rider came in only to be told he had not seen any broken down bike. I think we all felt tortured in the energy draining heat while we waited. I bought a three litre bottle of Gatorade, drank half and threw the rest in my topbox for later, which was to prove a blessing. After waiting an extra 30 minutes or so and not being able to contact Norrie the decision was made to press on in the hope he was ok. I cant say I was enamoured with Italian motorways from what I’d seen so far, restricted views, marginal driving and toll booths at every major junction that I came across only made me long for the roads of Austria. As we set off, the traffic density seemed to be at its peak and the inevitable happened in that a car undertook and boxed me out (in the fast lane of a three lane road) and I lost sight of the other three Wild Ducs….
Not having my SatNav turned on, it was a slip road too far when I realised I’d missed the exit I needed around Padua and was headed for Vicenza. Then I felt my phone vibrate for a text message which I hoped was from Norrie, so I decided to exit the motorway, pay the dreaded toll and try and back track to see if I could find him. Wrong! On both accounts, text message was from the UK and going back down the motorway and trying to look to the opposite side was a stupid idea given how wide the central reserve was and the hectic traffic conditions. Needless to say, I didn’t see Norrie. My cup of tolerance for the motorways was now well and truly empty, so with a nearly full tank of gas I decided to try and get onto nicer roads and follow the coastal route down to our WDW base of Cattolica. The HTC phone I’d bought to use as a Satnav had been playing up ever since day 2 of the ride, the CoPilot software is amazing but the phone would randomly reboot for no reason at all, causing obvious navigation problems but, it guided me part way to the coast until it decayed into continuous rebooting. The poor phone was actually HOT to the touch, mounted above my handlebars, it was in the firing line of the heat being blown from the Ducati cooling fan and simply couldn’t cope. A cloud of dust around me was surprising but welcome, when I realised a truck had pulled up behind me at the side of the road and I was able to ask directions. The driver seemed to think I was crazy at first wanting to drive down the coast instead of the direct route and kept repeat the main city names I should follow to get to Cattolica. A good few minutes were wasted before he was able to tell me at last that the road was actually closed ahead and I needed to go back to the motorway……Goddamm it!
I had nearly got to the coast and Chioggia and had to turn back to Padua and the dreaded Tolls and Blacktop. An hour later and I was 80 miles away from my previous stop and I think the bike actually enjoyed being given its head once again. Darkness was falling as I stopped to refuel tank and rider and I sent a text out explaining I was ok to our group when a text came in during coffee, ‘No word from Norrie, starting to get worried’. I felt wretched thinking I might be riding away from Norrie, if he had been involved in an accident and needed help. Unbeknown to us, the major part of our ignorance was that Norrie’s mobile had NOT been enabled for international calls and texts as the warehouse that was tasked with doing so, had failed to do!!! Ambient temperature: 32+ degrees the sign said as I left the service station, the only way to keep cool, was to keep moving. In the right direction would have been nice! Yes, dear reader, its time for another pilot error, at a multiple motorway intersection, I got confused and took the wrong road, I knew instantly with the only saving grace being that I got to ride briefly through Borgo Panigale, Norrie would be impressed.
An overview of some of the 'Wild-Ducs' route!
Annoyingly, this left me on the wrong side of Bologna but I managed to get my phone working again for a few minutes at a time by putting it in my tank bag map pouch and getting a route that took me into the heart of the city by way of thanks, I guess. Then, of course, at the worst possible time, the phone died completely, battery out, still no good, red hot. So I pulled into a gas station and contemplated the situation for a while, I figured my luck had finally changed when a police car pulled up, across the forecourt but, not quite yet, as in my haste to talk to them before leaving, I managed to knock my helmet on the floor, wincing at the resounding ‘crack’ as the back of the lid, struck concrete.
Not to worry, at least the nice policemen sent me in the wrong direction!
Hard to believe it wasn’t deliberate but I had a local on a super-scooter pull up alongside me at the next junction and offer to lead me, in the opposite direction, to the motorway. I never realised a Yamaha T-Max 500 was quite so fast, red lights were ignored, red-light districts came and went along with entire families begging in the streets and poor leaflet distributors and windscreen washers, standing in the middle of multi-lane roads, in the dark, trying to earn a few coins. I guess its no worse than any other city of the world but when on holiday, tired and stressed, it was hard not to be affected by such sights. T-Max man was now at 100mph, no not, kph, miles per hour and for the only time, I didn’t care about the huge width of my bike with outrigger panniers fitted, I did worry for a split second if this might end badly, in more than one way but was mightily relieved to see the correct road signs appearing and a friendly wave and pointed hand in the right direction. My faith in humanity and friendly, perhaps Clockwork Angels were restored...
Thank god, I’d done a full coolant refresh and added water-wetter before the trip, Coolant temp: 110 degrees, rider temp, probably a bit higher and the speed on the E45 road down past Forli, a little higher again in mph. Maybe the heat had driven me a little stir-crazy but the H.I.D. headlight I’d also fitted before the off, was literally, brilliant. The cooling night air made the bike feel like a turbine and the traffic simply moved out of the way to let me through, road works became chicanes and all I needed was a Tron riding suit and the game would have been complete. I was so relieved to finally see the go-kart track at the Cattolica exit that I’d spied at home via Google street view, even the Batphone decided to play ball and led me straight to the Hotel Senior, where I believe I finally arrived at about 11.30pm. Unusually for me, I didn’t even want to talk to anyone, I was so drained that all I wanted to do was jump in a cold shower, which was exactly what I did. Then, thankfully, while getting changed I heard the characteristic sound of a Panigale thundering away outside. So while a cold beer was thrust into my hand on my return downstairs, I got poor Norrie a cold drink as he told us of his tale of woe. It seems the high speeds and temperatures had gotten the better of the tiny Panigale fuel reserve and the tank was down to bone dry, expiring just 5 miles before the service station where we waited. Worse still, the first police car simply ignored him and drove away when told of his plight! Norrie managed eventually to get sorted but only after he scared some staff into thinking he was about the expire himself after the exertions of pushing his bike, off the motorway, through the toll area to a gas station, in ridiculous heat while wearing a full set of Dainese leathers! He then discovered that his mobile was almost useless to him and couldn’t contact anyone nearby but at least the rest of his journey was relatively uneventful, as I recall Norrie didn’t get to the hotel until near midnight, both of us had been on the road for around 14 hours but with my continuous cockups, I covered a little more ground at around 500 miles.