Tag Archives: Softail

It’s a bit Parky!

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(Old British saying for “It’s a bit cold” and a favourite of my old mate Chutney.)

What a lovely alpine morning I woke up to; blue sky, sunshine and what’s that glistening on the grass? Frost!

I took a short walk outside the hotel and the still morning air really made me catch my breath. Gee-wiz it was cold, minus 3°Celsius by the sign on the pharmacy just down the street, was going to be a bit of in interesting morning.

Just before I left home I was prevaricating about whether to take my heated jacket with me, September is meant to be summer after all. The wise-ness that is Mrs Dookes took the decision out of my hands, her suggestion that if I had it and didn’t use it against not taking it and wishing I had, totally persuaded me. Actually, it just took the decision out of my hands, but today I loved that woman just that little bit more, because I stayed lovely and warm.

I’m too tired now to do the math, but -3° in Livigno, bloomin’ colder at Bernina Pass, -5 at Julier Pass and -7° at the Albula; then add in the wind chill even at a modest 40mph, oh yes you’d better believe that I was so much more in love with Mrs D as the heated gear did its stuff!!! What a brilliant suggestion to bring it, thank you darling!

Unashamedly we were Pass Bagging again, well depending on your take, it was either Nature or God that put ‘them thar mountains’ there, so it would be crass stupidity not to enjoy them!

From Livigno we topped Forcola di Livigno at 2315m, and slipped out of Italy;

Swiss side of Forcola Di Livigno, no-mans land!

it’s a bit weird then, as you trundle along for a good five kilometres before you arrive at the Swiss customs point and border which is actually halfway up the climb to Bernina Pass. I pulled Harls over by the summit board on Bernina for the customary photo, what I assumed were puddles were actually solid ice….we were on a mini skating rink!

From the summit, the road sweeps North, like piano wire passing through glorious scenery and with the world famous Rhaetian Railway keeping close company. The swanky resort town of St Moritz lies at the bottom of the hill, but best not say to much about it and just ride on to Julier Pass, at 2284m we were getting higher….and colder!

Julier Pass

Funny that there weren’t many other motorbikes about, I wonder why?

At the Julier we did a ‘U’ turn and cruised back to St M, then hung a left for a few glorious blasting miles on almost empty road before turning left again onto the Albula Pass road.

In contrast to the Julier, which is built on the alignment of a Roman road, the Albula is pure Swiss sheep herder track. Tight, tricky little hairpins catch you out if you don’t pay attention and yes, I was daydreaming when one nearly caught me out…no harm done, the road was pretty much deserted. A pair of BMW bikes caught me up, poor Harls was struggling with the altitude and the cold, her carburetor was icing and I had to give her about 25% choke to keep her happy. The first BMW swept by me, but the second tucked in behind me.

Nearing the Pass I could see that this was hard country, almost a cross between the Arctic and the Moon, I wouldn’t like to get caught out here, even though it was mind boggling beautiful.

Parking Harls outside the Gasthaus at the summit, it turned out that the two BMW’s were a husband and wife from Munich. He had powered by me and she was happy to ride behind me as she though her husband was riding too fast; so did I, but I didn’t say anything!

Spot the icicles!

After taking more photos we continued North towards Tiefencastle, eventually picking up the St Bernadino Autobahn and having a bit of higher speed fun.

Peeling off to cross the pass at St Bernadino was a bit of a disappointment, so then it was back onto the Autobahn and more exhaust rasping mile-munching, oh I love that bike!

We dropped off to bag another Pass that had intrigued me for some time, the Splügen, which straddles the border between Switzerland and Italy. The thing that had captured my imagination as the compact set of ten bends just below the summit at the Swiss side.

Splügen staircase. Totally bonkers!

Compact also equals bloomin’ tight and tricky, especially on the inside bends! They do make a good photo though!

Then it was more Autobahn blasting for about thirty miles towards the St Gottard Pass. I had wanted to stick this one in as a cheeky extra, the main road now goes through a tunnel, but the “old main road” and the original cobble road still exist; today though for some reason they were closed with police blocking them off.

Oh well, back to plan “A” the Nufenen Pass / Passo della Novena, at 2478m / 8130ft this is the highest paved pass in wholly in Switzerland and I think it’s just moved up to my favourite pass in Switzerland too!

Broody mountains, looking North on Nufenen Pass.8130ft.

I suppose I need to clarify what I like in a good Pass…

Having esoteric tastes in all things mechanical, I don’t conform to any norms. I ride Harley Davidson bikes because I like them, not because I want to be identified as “a Harley Rider,” I haven’t got a beard, ear-piercing, tattoos or a belt overhanging gut! The only trouble with the Harley’s that I ride, compared to other road or adventure bikes, is that they have a longer wheelbase and that means that they don’t like very tight bends much; neither do I! I do like a good gradient, long sweeping bends, nice views, places to stop and take photos, plus not too much other traffic.

On that basis :
Stelvio = Poor.
Nufenen = Excellent!

Here’s another thing to shout from the rooftops, that old Harls of mine has now topped the highest Passes in France, Switzerland, Italy and Andorra. She’s also done eight of the top ten in Europe and 22 out of the top 30 and we have plans for the stragglers!

The star of the show, on to of Nufenen Pass, looking a bit travel-stained, but we’ve been through a lot.

Any wonder why I love that bike?

At the end of today we rolled into our hotel car park in Ulrichen, tired, very happy and quite a bit warmer.

“One day like this a year would see me right for life.”

Catch you later.

Dookes

Kicking Stelvio

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I often think that my life is full of departures, never any arrivals, always in motion and moving on.

Take this morning for example. Sure I’d enjoyed staying in Ritten, but loading up Harls and firing her engine into life, then moving back on the open road; I was never happier.

We hit the Bolzano morning commute traffic right at its peak. It was total fun, street-fighting on level terms with the Italians, Harls growling around the city like she owned the place; I could never have done that with the big Ultra Limited! Then it was a spirited romp along the autostrada to Merano, where predictably everything ground to a halt as the road slimmed down to a normal highway.

On Italian roads you have to get your head around one thing, they are either mad all-out racetracks or you need to predict your arrival by the calendar – all or nothing, that’s just the way it is. Being honest, I put up with the tedium of stop-start traffic for about ten miles before I hit the “Stuff this, I’m on a motorbike” button and started, shall we say, “making progress!”

The weather forecast for the weekend ahead is rubbish. I had planned to spend two nights in Livigno and catch up on some of the local passes, but with snow due tomorrow afternoon and right through the weekend, I’ve pulled the plug on that idea. Instead we are only here for one night and then running away from the weather, before we get snowed in.

As a result, I changed the route for today. I was going to ride Passo Di Gavia from the South and have a play elsewhere tomorrow. Instead we headed into the Mustair valley and at Santa Maria turned left onto the Umbrail pass route. This is a narrow, little used back door road up to the (in)famous Stelvio Pass and until only a couple of years ago was not asphalted throughout. I knew it was narrow, so last year with Big Baby Blue I avoided it; good move, as after riding it today I don’t think I would have got Blue up it! For a large part of the route it climbs up through delightful forest, but of course the disadvantage is that there is no view, only road and trees. Until you hit altitude, but today that was up in the clouds.

The road is very narrow in places and some of the bends a tad tricky. After our exertions of yesterday I found that my dodgy left shoulder, locked up; I have an impingement in the thing and as usual it chose a good time to play silly! What it meant in simple terms was that I couldn’t move my arm far enough forward to push the handlebars through tight right-hand bends.

Time for a rethink, as I was riding like a muppet!

I stopped and did some stretching exercises, took a couple of painkillers, had a drink of water, ate some fruit whilst the pills kicked in and then got on with it! It didn’t half hurt, but at least we got going and soon were back into the swing of things. I got pretty good at going round hairpins one-handed too!

Not bad, one hand!

Soon we got into the clouds, then it began to get really windy and predictably the temperature plummeted to a little over zero. I was every pleased to have brought my heated jacket – doh, heated jacket! Turn up the heat nice and high and “Ping” the shoulder was feeling nearly normal; my heated gloves were nice to!

We paused to grab a photo at the standardly deserted Swiss customs post on the Umbrail Pass border and roared back into Italy. Ciao Italia! – We missed you for the last 30 miles.

On the border, anything Blue can do, I can do better!

Déjà vu / Déjà Blue!

Just after the fronter we turned left and knocked off the last half-dozen hairpins to Passo dello Stelvio. Umbrail is at 2503m/8212ft, Stelvio 2757m/9046ft, poor Harls with her simple carburetor was running very rich through lack of oxygen at these altitudes!

Looking East on the top of Stelvio.

I’ve said it before, I find the top of Stevio tacky, but today was about proving a point to the big lump of a mountain. I’ve beaten you now with both my bikes!

Harls on Stelvio, a touch of class amongst all that is tacky!

The top was fairly busy, very cold and with a bit of snow in the air, so after a quick look around and grabbing a bratwurst for lunch, we headed down into Bormio and then on towards Livigno. Knocking off Passo Foscagno 2281m/7517ft and Passo d’Eira 2208m/7244ft on the way.

Stelvio hairpin, “Going Down!”

Gnocchi and pizza for supper tonight!

I can’t eulogise enough how much I enjoyed riding my Harls up that mountain today. I feel that, despite taking Big Blue up there last year, I can now fully exorcise that beastie that was Stelvio.

Harls came, growled her contempt and kicked it just where it counted and I had the ride of my life!

“Been down one time
Been down two times
I’m never going back again.”

Catch you soon.

Dookes

PS Trip total mileage so far 1584.

Bridesmaids

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Hello Everyone.

It’s been another splendid day for riding motorbikes. Lots of sunshine, a bit of a chill in the air…but best of all, no rain! With all the trials by weather that we have been subjected to, it was the sort of day to savour and do something special and that’s exactly what we did.

Continued apologies for the lack of photographs, hotel WiFi is still being a pain, so I’ll keep this report reasonably brief and save the photos for a longer post in the not to distant future.

Because of the weather issues I’ve rearranged our schedule a bit and dropped some of the lesser Dolomite Passes, actually that’s just an excuse to come back here again….please Mrs Dookes! There were however three passes that I really wanted to bag (that’s slang for riding over them), initially they had been scheduled for our entry to Italy, but yep the weather stuffed that idea. The trouble is that they are all so high that even in the height of summer and precipitation can fall as snow. Over the last week all of them have seen quite a bit of the white stuff and only yesterday snow chains were required on two of them! As you can imagine, there was still a fair bit around today making things look quite superb.

Oh yes, I nearly forget to tell you which passes I’m rambling on about, I’ll give you the German names for them, as we are in the South Tirol after all, in order that we rode them:

Penserjoch 2215m/7267ft
Jaufenpass 2099m/6887ft
Timmelsjoch 2474m/8127ft

I set out with a blank canvas, sure I knew where I wanted to go, but I hadn’t planned a return route. That was good really, because I enjoyed the outward ride so much over the first two that once we had done the Timmelsjoch High Alpine road, I turned around and came back the way we went out! 😎

I’ve got to say that although the Timmelsjoch is supposed to be one of the classic alpine routes, it didn’t do much for me; I much preferred the other two. A case of the bridesmaids out doing the bride!

Yes, I promise I’ll write much more in future about all three routes with, if I say so myself, some really nice photos as well; please stick around for that.

In the meantime, keep the rubber down and the shiny side up!

Catch you soon.

Dookes

Playing Amongst the Clouds

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Apologies before you start reading this dear Blogonaughts; I’m still having trouble loading pictures, so until I can make the technology work, please read on, enjoy and by all means comment or message me. – Dookes

There are times when I find it quite difficult to articulate exactly what I think without reverting to boring superlatives, or even worse, tedious exclamations.

Tonight, I’m enjoying dinner at my hotel which is located in Ritten, just North of Bolzano, Northern Italy.

Well, that’s the first problem.

Look on the map and yes, indeed, we are in Italy. Speak to the local people and you’ll find out that we are in the South Tirol. The predominant language is German and certainly in the restaurant tonight, that’s all I can hear. The food, is pretty Germanic too, some rather nice Schnitzel.

It’s one of those unfortunate situations that history has bestowed on the world. In this case until the early 20th Century the region was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then along came war. The fighting in the Alps and Dolomites during World War One was vicious and protracted, men fought at altitude in trenches dug in rock and snow. The casualty rate was incredibly high and a considerable number from the weather conditions and malnutrition. It became known as “The White War.”

After hostilities ceased, Italy claimed large tracts of the region as war reparations. Then twenty years later along came World War Two and Mussolini tried a further land grab. Once everything had settled down in 1945 new lines were drawn on the map, but unfortunately no-one spoke to the local people…I believe that you can colour a map, but not people’s hearts. The end result is a fascinating bubble of Austrian-ness nestling at the very top of Italy’s boot.

To the credit of the government in Rome, they have recognised that there is a difference and Bolzano is now recognised as an “Autonomous Region.” Travel around the area and you will see many more Austrian flags hanging from houses than the Italian Tricolore. I consider myself lucky to have had a very interesting conversation with a couple of local folk earlier today about both their history and identity. There will be more of that in a future post, but today I rode around their truly beautiful region.

The weather accurately lived up to forecast, changeable. We are in high mountains after all and what we missed from time to time in panoramas, we gained by playing in the swirling clouds and enjoying tantalising glimpses of wonderful limestone crags.

In many ways the lack of distracting views was a bit of a benefit, we rode literally hundreds of hairpins today. If I was rusty on them before, I’m an old hand now!

At the start of the South West climb to Passo di Giau, 2236m/7336ft was a sign, 34 Tornante, 34 Hairpins…after riding 22 I found myself screaming, “No, there’s only another 12!”

It was heavenly, in a totally indulgent two-wheeled petrol-head sort of way!

I am so glad that I brought Harls with me; I really wouldn’t have enjoyed it, or probably even attempted where we rode today, on Big Baby Blue. The more I got into the swing of things, the better my Harls responded, her exhaust seemed to spit contempt at the gradient as she conquered each climb and bend. Yes, she’s a bit of a handful going downhill; the rear brake has a delightful habit of fading as it gets hot or wet, fortunately her engine braking helps out a lot, but hey I’m sort of used to it and wouldn’t have her any other way.

At the top of Passo di Giau is a delightful “Refugio,” sort of cross between a bar, restaurant and hotel. This being the South Tyrol, I went native and enjoyed an “Apfel Strudel und Kaffee” for lunch and very good it was too.

Overall today we topped the following Passes:
Costalungo 1745m
Fedaia 2075m
Di Giau 2230m
Tre Croci 1809m
Falzarego 2105m
Valparolo 2197m
Campolongo 1875m
Gardena 2121m
Sella 2240m
Pordoi 2239m

Not bad for an Old Geezer on a getting on a bit Harley Softail!
Favourites, by a country mile, Di Giau and Pordoi, hairpin heaven.

Was it a good day? You bet is was!

“My uniform is leather
And my power is my age!”

Catch you soon.

Dookes

“You Rode in That?????”

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I can almost hear Mrs Dookes saying that when she gets to see some of the photos in this post!

Let me put the record straight before anyone jumps to conclusions about my sanity; I’m not reckless, but sometimes circumstances develop that you just have to deal with and today was one of those.

I woke to wonderful alpine rain, just like yesterday really…except this wasn’t as heavy and there was no wind driving it. There was quite a bit of hanging cloud but Wet is still Wet though!

Checking out of my hotel in Gaschurn, I had a conversation with the receptionist about, yep, the weather and local road conditions. It’s always good to check out what the locals think.

I wanted to ride the Silvretta High Alpine Road, but I didn’t want it to become either an ordeal or dangerous.

The local view was that it would be fine, if a tad cloudy, “ein bisschen bewölkt!” There was the rider, to speak to the staff at the toll booth…

It was turn right from the car park then. Harls seemed happy enough; she’d spent the night in the underground car park and had dried out nicely, her two cylinders burst into life at the first turn of the crankshaft and she sat burbling away nicely, eager for the off. Or do I give that motorbike too much personality credit?

Off we set; the rain had eased enough that I could actually see where I was going, which after yesterday was a bonus. In addition the road surface was delightful!

After a few short miles we arrived at the toll booth and I coughed up the required €12, but just as I was getting my ticket, a car came down the hill covered in snow! I made a comment about this to the toll collector who said that it was ok, the road was clear! Leap of faith time then, let’s go…

The Silvretta Hochalpenstraße, High Alpine Road, is considered one of the most beautiful panoramic roads in the Austrian Alps. It’s just over 22km long and on the West side has 34 hairpins up to the 2,032m/6795feet Bielerhöhe Pass. We were attacking it from the West, tasty!

Originally the road was constructed to assist the construction of a hydro-electric scheme and dam, after the project was completed somebody thought that it would be a good idea to keep the road and open it to the public, I don’t know who that was, but I like them!

Like a lot of alpine roads there’s no mucking about, the climb started almost straight away, just round a bend from the toll booth and “Bang,” welcome to the mountain. Up we went and then the bends started, we were nicely getting into the swing of things when around one of the hairpins we caught up a coach. At first I cursed the thing, particularly as the driver insisted on staying in the middle of the road, no surprise there it was a Swiss coach! Just as I was starting to get a bit impatient about passing this bus, we rode into falling snow and things suddenly got “interesting.”

The bus, that only a turn or two earlier had been a pain, now became very useful. I could ride behind, take my own line through the corners and not have to worry about any oncoming traffic as they were pulling aside to let the bus through! Neat eh? As we got higher the snow got heavier, but with each numbered hairpin passing by I just kept the old girl ticking over and we carefully negotiated the climb.

At the summit we pulled into the car park adjacent to the dam and literally slid to a stand. It did cross my mind that I’m getting too old for all this adrenaline pumping excitement, it only lasted a second though, then I thought …”nah, bring it on!”

Ok, I know that there will be some folk with “Adventure” type bikes reading this and slightly scoffing. Yep, I suppose with your knobbly tyres and “ride on the pegs” approach this little ride would have presented no problem at all, but this is a Harley cruiser we are on, it’s different, very different!

In the way of things these days, the summit has a hotel, restaurant, visitor centre and gift-shop, but hey you can’t pass up the opportunity to use a high altitude loo, can you?

Photos taken, souvenirs purchased and Harls checked over, I started her up and headed on down the Eastern side. We dropped out of the snow pretty quickly, it’s to do with the foehn effect, which I tell you about in another post.

I had thought about riding into Italy via the Timmelsjoch Alpine road, but as this is at 2,474m/8,117ft a fair bit higher than the Silvretta, I exercised caution and chose the Reschen Pass route, which is a mere 1504m/4934ft. Unfortunately, so had most of the other traffic in Austria, Italy and Switzerland and then it rained again.

Just over the top of the pass is the village of The village of Reschen. In 1950 a reservoir was built that flooded part of the old village, all that remains is the bell tower of the old church that rises defiantly from the water. I quite like that.

Dropping down from Reschen would have been great, it’s a brilliant engineered road, but today it was choked with traffic. Further on, near Merano, things really did grind to a halt. It took half an hour to cover four kilometres and half of that was in a tunnel, even more reason to hate tunnels; it was hot, smelly, slippery, fume filled and noisy, but we survived! No chance of a cheeky bit of motorcycle filtering there today either.

Then after a nice blast down the Autostrada to Bolzano, we had another bit of climbing and hairpins to enjoy on the road up to Ritten, where we are staying for a few nights. More about that later, but wow, that road up from Bolzano was fantastic and as its local I’ll be doing it again and again, and maybe once more!

Catch you soon.

Dookes

Only 152 miles today, trip total 1089 so far.

Crazy Photos

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Regular Blogonaughts may be wondering just what’s going on with some of the photos that I’ve slid into the last couple of posts.

Just to reassure, old Dookes hasn’t had a sudden rush of blood to the head and isn’t going round riding his motorbike with a camera in his left hand and his right on the throttle!

No it’s a bit more dull than that.

Ages ago I got hold of a nice little Sony video camera, with the idea of capturing some video of my mountain exploits. The original plan was to slot in the odd video on the blog, but to be honest it hasn’t happened for a couple of reasons; I find even my own ride videos a bit boring and I wasn’t over happy with the results without a load of editing…something I haven’t the inclination to do! BUT, I’ve recently been playing around with the little camera and found that it takes semi-reasonable still photos, if a tad wide-angle. Best of all is that I can just press a button and the little thing happily snaps away at a pre-set interval, leaving me free to ride the road and download later.

Hopefully we will get some decent weather to see some real nice shots!

In the meantime, if you see a picture of the road that looks a bit leaning over….it’s because we were and you get to see it as it really is.
So welcome on board and please sit still.

Catch you soon Dookes

Wet Stuff

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Last night when I telephoned Mrs Dookes, back at H.Q., I commented that the Vosges Mountains reminded me of my beloved Welsh mountains…bad move.

Looking out of the bedroom window, it’s wet.

This morning they took on the mantle even better, low cloud and rain, lots of rain. This was a real shame, as I had been looking forward to seeing more of this intriguing corner of France, oh well I suppose I’ll have to come back again some day, as I saw sod all today!

Climbing to Col de Schlucht, in the mist.

From the hotel we climbed through gossamer cloaked pine forest to the summit at Col de Schlucht, 1139m/3737feet above sea level. A mere pimple in mainland Europe terms, but impressive by UK standards; Yr Wyddfa, Snowdon in English, is the highest mountain in Wales (and higher than any upstart English peak!) at 1085m. Hey I’ve ridden higher than Yr Wyddfa today, diolch yn fawr!

Nearing the Rhein and the border into Germany, the rain relented for a while.

It’s funny but for some reason, the River Rhein strikes some sort of resonance with me. Perhaps it’s because we are both perpetual travellers, or maybe because I remember drifting off to sleep in the Night Lorelei express as we passed through the Rhein gorge with the whistle of the steam loco up front echoing off the rocky cutting walls…

Anyway, we paused at Île de Rhine (French spelling) and I caught a couple of smaller boats rising in the lock. You can just make out one of the larger bulkers waiting it’s turn upstream. The Rhein waterway is a busy place, lots of freighters ply these waters as well as passenger and pleasure vessels.

We then slipped quietly into Germany; well as quiet as you can be when sitting on a Harley with shotgun pipes!

Up ahead was the Schwarzwald, The Black Forest. I have begun to think of the place as “The Wet Forest” as every time I’ve ever been there previously it has rained, so today why change the habit of a lifetime? Yep, it rained, mostly!

The Black Forest, between the rain.

Ok, hands up, for about 15 miles it didn’t actually rain, much, and as a result Harls and I enjoyed our best part of the day. Lovely twisty stuff, with a fair bit of grip…if you ignore the resinous pine needles, fir cones and falling leaves. Actually it was fun, lovely Harley-Snarly fun, then it started raining again and we rolled into Switzerland….where it always rains!

I’m still making up my mind about Switzerland. They certainly can build railways, tunnels and bridges, but when it comes to roads they haven’t got a clue what to surface them with! We hit the Autobahn, it rained, then rained some more, then poured down, then it pretended to be a European version of a hurricane, then it opened the tap some more! I hope you get the idea; it was wet, very, very, very, WET! So wet, that the road surface was obscured by a mist of bouncing rain and vehicle spray; I knew it was bad when even the Swiss were slowing down. But the road…..oh Lordy, because those Swiss drivers in their big Mercs, BMW’s and Audi’s like a smooth road, I think that they surface it in marble…whatever it is, it doesn’t have any grip!

Harls had a new set of Michelin tyres before we set off and I must say I’m more than impressed with the way that they have behaved. True, we had a couple of “moments.” One was on the Autobahn when the front end went very light as we slightly aquaplaned, it was only for a millisecond, but it felt like a mile passed by; the other was passing through a town when we went over a manhole cover that I had failed to spot and the back end kicked out…actually that was quite fun! So well done Michelin, those new tyres are great!

We floated through little Lichtenstein, it’s the first time I’ve ever passed through a country without putting my foot down on the ground and then reached Austria, where we are tonight, Gaschurn to be precise.

Still raining in Austria!

I like Austria, the petrol is cheap, the roads have grip, the beer is good and the flammekueche, delightfully tasty! In reality flammekueche really hails from Alsace, but it’s been adopted all over Southern Germany and Austria; I think that the Austrians do it particularly well. It’s sort of like a pizza, but with a thinner crisper base, topped with crème fraîche, thinly sliced onions and thin strips of bacon. It goes very well with a cold beer.

Best of all, although the Austrian’s speak German they really are a friendly bunch!

So there you have it, a day of 246 miles, which around 220 were spent impersonating a submarine.

On the plus side, all of my riding gear performed faultlessly; apart from round my neck not one bit of the Dookes form got wet or cold and neither did anything in my luggage. I guess it just shows that if you get the right kit then it pays you back.

Not looking for sponsorship, but hey that would be great and with the usual disclaimer…

Thank you to :

Richa, for the rain suit.
Gerbings for the heated gloves and jacket.
Sidi, boots.
Schuberth, helmet.
Harley Davidson, FXRG leather trousers and jacket.
GIVI, luggage.
Highway Hawk panniers
Trespass and Mountain Warehouse, base layers.

I’ve had happier, less tiring days on a motorbike, but you know I’ve not had many more satisfying looking back at the end of the day; I guess it’s that sense of survival!

I mustn’t forget to mention the star of the piece, my beloved Harls; as usual, she, like me, just got on with it, but she did it with a lot more class than me!

That’s it gang, I’m off to have “noch ein Beer!”

“I can live without the rain
That’s falling on my head.”

Catch you soon.

Dookes

Hard Miles

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Some days the miles seem to fly by, blink and that’s a hundred gone, other days it can seem like you are getting nowhere very slowly. Today had elements of both!

I said “au revoir” to Claudine and Jacques this morning and hit the road. I wanted to fill Harls with fuel and decided that a convenient supermarket on the outskirts of Bourges that I knew would be ideal. For some reason I thought that it would be fun to stick to “normal” roads and avoid the Péage, after all it was only 25 miles away….BIG mistake! That 25 miles took an hour, with road works, heavy traffic and speed limits.

I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t a very happy Dookes. When I started this trip, I resolved to chill and definitely cut down on the swearing…good job I haven’t got a swear box with me then, I was even going at it in Welsh!!!!

Then we got on the N151 and things got a whole lot better.

Normally I avoid “N” roads, or Route National to give them their proper title. These days they are often poor relations to the toll roads and suffer from toll-road-avoiding trucks beating them to pieces.

The 151 is different though.

Enjoying the N151.


First up it’s an old Roman road, so it’s almost dead straight, but occasionally enjoys some wonderful sections of multiple curves. It passes through delightful towns, like Charité sur Loire, Vézelay and Clamecy and crosses from the Val de Loire into Bourgogne – that’s Burgundy to the non-French speakers.

Passing through small town France.

I love Bourgogne, it’s so “me” and like me it seems to burst into life in the autumn, I was an Autumn baby so maybe that’s got something to do with it! The list of wonderful Burgundy produce reads like an encyclopaedia of high quality foodstuff. There’s some of the most delightful (and expensive) wines in the whole of France, nuts by the tonne, grass reared beef, mustard, cheese, Marc de Bourgogne brandy and of course all kinds of game. Its reputation for fine gastronomy is well deserved. Unfortunately, today, we were only passing through, drat!

Then after Avallon we rode onto the A6, Autoroute de Soleil, or to coin Chris Rea, “this is the road to hell!” To be fair, it doesn’t go to hell, but it’s purgatory travelling along it! The A31 and A36 that follow are pretty “merde” as well. These were 150 hard, hard miles, just grit the old teeth and get on with it. No-one can hear you scream in space, or inside a motorcycle helmet.

Finally after Besançon we turned off and began to pass through small towns and villages as we climbed towards the Vosges. Along the way we had crossed the line where water drains towards the Mediterranean Sea rather than the Atlantic and had bridged the river Saône; I always feel sorry for the poor Saône, it’s a mighty river in its own right, but normally it’s just dismissed as a tributary of the Rhône.

Seeing the Vosges Mountains rise up around us, it occurred to me that France is big, really big. Not in the space sense as The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy once said:

“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

Well, when you live in Cornwall, a county about 70 miles long and only around 40 miles at its widest and where the Sea is only ever 20 minutes away tops, France might just as well be Outer Space!

Then we hit the mountains and the smile returned!

Smile time, mountain roads!


Ok, the Voges isn’t the Alps, but hey after the day we had just endured you gotta cut me some slack! We rode past our B&B for the night and on to Gerardmer to cross off some Cols, just because we could and also because I needed to get the old head straight on a few hairpins!

“Wheels spinnin’ round my brain, driving you insane.”

Catch you soon.

Dookes

Today’s mileage 329; Trip 691 from Roscoff..

Each a Glimpse…

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…..and gone forever.

Sometimes, when I’m out on the road I catch a brief fleeting glimpse of something that grabs my attention. Often I just keep on going, but keep the image in my mind to investigate at a future opportunity.

With the interests that I have this stuff frequently falls into the category that Mrs Dookes calls “Rusty Junk!” To me it’s industrial archeology.

Near the small town of Segré, a few miles North of Angers, the D775 road negotiates a roundabout. Perched on a low hill to the East is the rusting head-gear of an old mine. I’ve seen it loads of times, but yesterday I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go investigate.

From what I’ve been able to discover, this is the last remnant of a once thriving slate mining industry. It’s unusual in that in the rest of the world slate is usually quarried, not mined. It must have been very good quality to have gone to such trouble to dig it out from underground.

Although the site was fenced off, with a few very fierce and loose guard-dogs, I did manage to grab some photos. I just love the beautiful desolation of the place!

How many faces can you see?


Rusty, yes.
Junk or beauty?


Blowin’ in the wind.

Catch you soon.

Dookes

Looking For The Loire (Back in Black)

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Well, my beloved “Harls” and I are back on the Continental roads again!
Today we’ve just reeled off 360 miles, (600 kilometres sounds more impressive though!) since rolling off our overnight ferry at Roscoff in Brittany.

For those who like checking our progress on the map, we travelled via Rennes, Angers and Bourgueil to our overnight stop with my old friends Jacques and Claudine, just East of Vierzon.

I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty knackered tonight, that’s “tired out” for those of you not used to my colloquial English! I absolutely adore every second that I ride Harls, but I’d forgotten just how much effort she demands, compared to cruising on the big blue Ultra Limited. Harls is safely tucked away in Jacques’ barn for the night and here I am sitting on the terrace, sipping a glass of rather splendid local red wine, watching the sun drop in the western sky as a warm breeze rustles the Autumn tinted leaves; tinnitus is screaming in my ears, my wrist aches from holding the throttle open (oh yes, I do mean open!) my backside is. . . tender, but I’m happy, very very happy. The old team is back doing what we do best, having fun on the open road.

Now a little observation; I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three types of French Dual carriageway/autoroute:

Dull.

Dangerous.

Delightful.

Today we sampled all three, I’m not going to dwell on the bad bits, but those wonderful French road builders have been stealthily rebuilding the D775 between Rennes and Angers and it’s a beaut! Lovely sweeping curves, enough gradient to make it interesting and smooth as can be!

Somewhere along the road we slipped from Brittany into the Loire valley. It’s strange, but for however many years it is that I’ve been travelling in this part of France I’ve never been able to spot exactly when the transition takes place. It’s like…”Yes, this is nice familiar Brittany.” Then a bit later, “Oh, this must be the Loire Valley!” I really have tried to spot the dividing point, but no, not managed it yet.

I always find the River Loire a bit difficult to define. Yes, it’s France’s longest river and it’s also one of the great rivers of Europe, but it’s a lazy old thing meandering around like a big question mark from the Massif Central to the Atlantic.

The whole concept of the “Loire Valley” is a bit baffling, as for most of the time the landscape to me resembles a prairie with a river running through it and it’s not just the Loire that’s included, its tributaries such as the Cher, Indre and Vienne get lumped in as well!

I’m not complaining though. The Loire valley is a veritable treasure trove of some of the best things France has to offer. It’s largely temperate climate and fertile soils have brought great wealth for centuries, it’s a big wine growing region and as a result there are over a thousand stately châteaux of all shapes and sizes.

Today I wanted to look in on one of the most famous, Château de Chenonceau. This place has been intriguing me from a distance for years, so I had to go check it out.
Oh dear, what a disappointment.

Now I’m sure that if I could swallow my pride and elevated view that I am a traveller and not a tourist, when actually I’m really a leather clad motorcycle riding tourist, then I might get along fine with the thousands of folk swarming between the car parks and the Château…but just one glance at the sandal wearing, short-clad hoards and I did a graceful U-turn and carried on East! Jacques roared with laughter when I told him.

Thanks to Ra-Smit for the use of the photo and yes, the Château really does partly sit out on a bridge over the river!

So back to the “terroir” of the Loire valley…the soils are largely sandy and calcareous and that generally means one thing….wine! Famous appellations such as Touraine, Saumur and Bourgueil, are known the world over; indeed some say that Saumur sparkling wines are better than Champagne.

It’s not just grapes that they grow here, the area produces thousands of tonnes of arable crops. All over the place you can see grain elevators, known as “Prairie Skyscrapers” in Canada and the USA. The grain harvest is long over now, but the farmers are still busy; currently it’s maize that is being cut. Next will be the sunflowers, with the start of Autumn their bright yellow petals have withered and fallen. Where once their happy little faces looked up and followed the sun, now they hang their heads sorrowfully looking for their lost petals and contemplating the turning of the season. In French the sunflower is called “tournesol” – “turns to the sun,” I like that!

“Yes, I’m back in black.”

Catch you soon

Dookes