We left on a drizzly day and headed for Dover and got there without any trouble, but as we sat down for a coffee Dave G (BMWGS1200) slaps his forehead and raises his eyes to the heavens, forgot my passport he mumbles into his cheese roll.
Now Dave is a seasoned traveller, which makes it all the funnier (for the rest of us anyway)
. A couple of phone calls later and the plan is for Chris's (BMWGS1200 adventurer) wife to get the passport from Dave G's brother and Russ, who is joining us in a couple of days in France, will bring it over. Dave G is a police officer so his driving license and warrant card is plenty to get him into France.So into Calais refulled and off on the long trip to Chamonix.
Pretty uneventful, just bleeding wet. Everytime we stopped for gas it wasn't raining so I declined to put my waterproofs on, but no sooner had we left the services it would start again
.I was surprised to see both the BMW riders squirming about more than I was and even more surprised to see Dave S (Yamaha FJR1300) not, given he’s the old man on tour (late 50’s). Apparently as a plumber he’s spent so many years kneeling that it’s not a problem.
We eventually climb up into Chamonix and it’s pissing down. I was soaked and had a major sense of humour failure when we couldn’t find the apartment. After finding it getting showered and changed off we went to discover the highlights. There were none, well none that were open. Apparently we were between the skiing season and the mountain bike season.
Grabbed a bite to eat and found a dodgy bar that didn’t seem to close, woohoo. Alas we were all a lot less than woohoo the following morning. I spent an hour hiding in a laundrette trying to dry my leathers and boots in a tumble dryer. The noise resembled some sort of deranged garage band on beta blockers and didn’t improve my headache at all.
Still leathers wet, but warm, sun shining and we’ve got 2 full days to play in the Alps before Russ arrives. What a couple of days! Excellent weather, quiet roads, more bendy bits than you could poke a stick at. No idea where we went, but the squared off back tyre was nice and round again by the end of it. There were some good high speed sweepers some narrower, but fast gorge and some sphincter twitching hairpins with about 500m runoff’s (straight down). Certainly improves your “you go where you look” skills. We found one gorge that was as close to biking nirvana as you could get, if only you could be sure that there was no oncoming traffic. It was so good we went back and did it again.
Some photos on Day 1
Waiting for the Von Trapp family – could probably fit them all in the panniers on that GS12 adventurer
Yodellers anonymous
Posing outside a lingerie shop!
Lunch stop – couldn’t go any further as that’s Switzerland in the background.
Snow joke – the Falco’s idle dropped dramatically at this altitude just on the edge of stalling.
No I’m not taking my helmet off it’s too cold.
Captain intrepid – minus passport – TWAT!
Day 2 and Russ joins us and ceremonially presents Dave G with his passport. Then takes us to a Chalet belonging to a friend of his. Unfortunately the chalet maid would not be photographed and believe me it would be the best one here.
Russ’s mates Chalet
Fed and watered with Mont Blanc in the background.
Left to Right - Me; Dave G; Chris; Russ; Russ's mate; Dave S.
Chris’s BMW broke – screen bolt fell out.
Chris’s BMW fixed – using bolt from Aprilia – there goes his warranty
Then I got roped into fixing the kids bikes
The trip into Italy the following day was very very wet, which was a pity as the scenery we could see was awesome. I’m not sure which tunnel it was, we went through millions of them, but I went into it soaked, but by the time I came out I had dried out. I think it was about 12Km long and according to MrflashBMWAdventurereI’vegotathermometeronthedash it got up to 34C in the tunnel.
If you’ve never driven in Italy beware, apart from all the drivers being mental and ignoring all rules of the road and common sense, the roads authority have cunningly placed the motorway sings that say “you really want to exit here to go to there” after the exit you want! So while Dave S was looking at the pretty scenery we all made a last ditch attempt to dive for an exit slip. Unperturbed, Dave S simply turns off on the on slip and nonchalantly drives against the oncoming traffic until he finds a hole in the barrier to rejoin us. And not one person hooted, shouted or gesticulated at him!
Got lost on the outskirts of Milan and while trying to figure out where the hell we were Russ’s VFR popped a rad, oh how we laughed – NOT.
We made it to our hotel in Milan with Russ’s VFR making some odd noises, so we dropped it down to the local Honda dealer the following morning (Saturday), about 200m away and sanctioned by his roadside assistance. Fortunately Russ speaks Italian, unfortunately not the same sort of Italian spoken by greasmonkeys in Italian garages. After a lot of arm waving it appears that he needs to put on a new radiator, but doesn’t have one in stock, he closes at 11am and nothing in Italy works on Sunday. Stoically Russ absorbs this information, stands tall with his shoulders back and stomps off towards the garage reception. That was the last we saw of him for 45 minutes. We looked for him after about 5 mins, but he’d disappeared. We tried calling him, but got no answer so we went back to the hotel. Still no sign, so like true mates we got kitted up ready to go to the circuit to watch some practice. Luckily we bumped into him in the hotel garage. He’d had a major hump, but was feeling much better and jumped on the back of Chris’s bike and we all went off to the track.
In an attempt to fix his bike remotely Russ consumed copious amounts of lager. This seemed to work ‘coz he forgot all about his bike, he also forgot his name and how to speak Italian and English, fluent gibberish was now his favoured tongue.
Have you noticed how top heavy BMW GS’s appear? Think about how much this would be exacerbated by having a drunk person standing up and trying to fly every now and then. Hat’s off to Chris for getting him home.
So a cold shower, coffee and food and Russ is able to talk to his people who talk to their people and it’s arranged. He can fly home on Eazy Jet on Monday and back the following Friday. The Hotel were happy to keep all his bike gear safe for him. Nobody dared point out that it meant a bloody long lonely trip back on his own.
Sunday at the race was excellent good racing, great weather, there was even good food to be had and only a couple of beers honest. The brolly dollies had to be seen to be believed, hence the ugly brawl that ensued for the only pair of binoculars, briefly won by yours truly before a fat bloke sat on my head.
We headed off on the trip home from the track. Dull motorway munching for the next two days back to blighty and the pissing rain and fog so thick we were down to 30mph coming out of Dover.
Would deffo do this format again though. Long boring bit to get to somewhere fun, do the fun thing without bags, then long boring bit home again.
