Day 6, the day of the chase
Up early again, I went to explore those Splüga galleries again. Tried running up from there as well for a morning workout, but a) only having riding footwear b) rarely doing running of any kind that was cut quite short, as it’s a bit on the steeper side. After a quick shower and coasting down to the campsite to gather up the crew I noticed I was lacking a bit on my supplies (carrots, energy drinks, the usual). So, since no one else seemed to need a shopping stop I set off ahead. I’d need an extra fuel stop as well compared to other people, so I’d just start the day at my own pace.
In a way it was good that I did. Gearing up to go after the shop stop some urgent work mail arrived, just as I was about to turn data off for a day in the Swiss zone. After sorting that stuff out I took one of my three photos of the entire day. And that was just a quick snap to show my co-worker that the street Rossi here still had functioning wheels.
As I have only few photos, I’ll rely on helmut cam screencaps for a storyline. And even that was a challenge. Mount on the camera was getting loose, so much of the day there’s a good view of the dash.. Anyway, quite soon after the border crossing I was greeted by these kind of sights, which was a positive surprise. I was just following navigation and forgot there were some nice bits scattered all along the route
Quite literally a lakeside road
That scenery was nice enough to warrant a stop even. The most scenic refueling stop I’d have.
After that it was time to climb mountains again, to switch to the next valley via Julierpass. That took a couple of attempts to get started, as I first went through the village at the bottom to get to that fuel station and then going through it again saw the signs that you can’t get to the pass through the village anymore, something my navigation knew nothing about of course, But following the main road was clear enough after that.
Red boxes, spoiling the view
Both sides of the pass were nice and open. Good visibility and lovely wide corners. Apparently I forgot how to lean in to corners properly, as my boots got some ground hits a few times.
Good visibility resulted in some questionable overtakes as well
Not too surprisingly another dam lake appeared again. I had suggested a meetup there, so I could catch up. Either this didn’t get through to people, or they just didn’t care. Didn’t hear anybody on radio, but I still thought I had spotted some familiar cars at parking lot, which made for a pointless short stop, putting me in the back of a queue I had just cleared. Continuing down I tagged along with one German Porsche that was keeping up a good pace. I’m sure I spotted him coming the other was the next day as well.
After the initial climb from Albula towards Davos, while admiring nice view (and wondering when it’s going to start raining) I got back to radio range. Only just, but after that I got words here and there for the rest of the way to Davos I love the range of those radios. At one point when I was close enough to hear full sentences, I calculated 3.5km from oncoming traffic being called to said bus making its way past me. And it’s a good thing I caught them when I did. I knew there was a charging stop planned in Davos, but I had no idea where, as I still only had the planned route. Rain started to pour down, just as I caught everyone entering the parking lot where the charge point was. Well executed one stop strategy (as I had been thinking of stopping for rain gear, but decided that it would be fine).
Lunch stop next to the tourist pond was worth it, as the weather at Flüela was much better when we got going again.
Still as nice road as ever, with very little traffic. I think I’ve been there too many times, as it still didn’t make me get my camera out when we stopped there. Somebody had decided to make the eastern side of the pass much less biker friendly.. And that went on for about half of the downhill.
Maybe it was this rat (it wasn’t)
Once again
@Peter3hg and I ended up a bit ahead after the pass, as only he was mad enough to follow my overtaking pace. After the nice cruising road on the Swiss side, Austrians greeted us with a small bit of twisties, straight from the border crossing.
We had a clear shot through most of that, before finally countering too much traffic to battle through. Not that it mattered, we were close to joining the main road and looking for fuel stop nearby anyway.
After border crossing to Italy things got a bit thunderous. I stopped to put my rain gear on, dropping to hang around on my own again. But we were less than 10km away from the hotel anyway, so that didn’t matter too much. Well apparently it did. Fortunately I had looked at the area beforehand, to know that my navigation was pointing the wrong way. With some luck and intuition I managed to get myself to the right spot, but as I didn’t recognise the hotel, or see any familiar cars, I thought I was at a wrong place. Found enough cover to google about a bit and that guided me to the next village 10km down the valley, to a pension of same name. After riding through the same thunderstorm again to the wrong place and then then back up, to go through it the third time, villages in the area were starting to turn in to rivers. Sena is really slow to turn on, so I missed the best bits, but that truck was sending waves up to second floor windows
After I finally found the correct spot I went straight to the sauna, like a true Finn. Pretty much what many expected, but I still managed to hide from everyone at the same hotel for a good while, they needed me to move my bike, as it was blocking in ALL THE CARS, for others to get down to the village for dinner.