Well, we certainly didn’t miss any opportunity to screw things up today. All we had to do was get a train to Moto Mader, pick up the bikes, and ride the autostrada to Arabba, Italy. Piece of cake, right?
I met Jim downstairs at 7:30am, packed and ready for the most exciting riding adventure to finally begin. After much button pushing and head scratching at the machine we finally had train tickets for Aarau, so we headed up to platform (gleis) 2 to wait for our train. I guess platform 2 since that was a prominent number on the ticket (mistake #1). After waiting about 30 minutes, with no trains indicating they were heading in the direction of Aarau. Then the light bulb went off and we figured out we had to just get a train to Zurich HB first, then find the Aarau train. Oh, and that 2 on our ticket had nothing to do with what platform. We switched platforms and got the next train to Zurich HB.
Got to the main station, used the big board to find which gleis our Aarau train was departing from, and made a beeline for it. We got there to see the Aarau train waiting, even though it was 20 minutes before the scheduled departure. Cool, we can board in a few minutes and relax. As we took our time walking to it it started moving and pulled away – damn, that was the earlier train, we should have ran for it (mistake #2).
The next one arrived and we jumped right on it. Called Tommy at Moto Mader with our arrival time, since he had offered to pick us up at the station – excellent! Man, this was a nice train car. Plenty of room to stretch out, nice big table to work on, etc. Much nicer than the trains we’ve been on so far. Wait a second, maybe that 2 on the ticket means something else. Oh right, second class. A quick run outside confirmed we were on a ‘1’ train car, so off with the baggage and move down the train to ride as 2nd class citizens (mistake #3). Actually the 2nd class cars are still very nice, certainly beats the old LIRR cars I was used to as a kid.
My son would have milk coming out his nose if he saw this
The rain started as we got closer to Aarau, which didn’t exactly make us happy. We arrived and were surprised to find the station bigger than we expected. We hadn’t worked out a meeting place with Tommy, so we just followed everyone else to what looked like the main exit to the street. Not quite sure where to go, we looked around a bit and around 15 minutes later a tall guy in a bright red dealership shirt gets out of a BMW wagon and we were off. The Sugar Hill Gang was on the radio, who Tommy pointed out was from NJ (I didn’t know that, not my genre of music). A short car ride and we pulled into the lot at Moto Mader.
Moto Mader, that's the owner in the red shirt
I would have had to pack really, really light
We spent a few minutes checking the place out while Tommy got our paperwork together. They had a stand outside selling snacks (and beer, kind of odd at a dealership), a huge tent sale of gear, and lots of great bikes. KTM SM-T, Yamaha XJ1300, a bunch of bikes we’d never seen in the states. I gave Tommy a NJ license plate (number-plate in Euro-speak) I had brought along, and he got us checked out on the bikes. He only had 1 RT available, so Jim stuck with the 650GS (smart man) and I took the RT. We packed the bikes, stored our luggage, and geared up for the big ride. We were warned not to pass on the right (forbidden!) and not to speed (expensive!). Tommy gave us easy directions to the autostrada, and we pulled out of the dealership around 11am (about 90 minutes later than we had planned, mistake #4). YES! Finally, we are riding motorcycles in Europe!
We're off!
We immediately got lost. Entered the autostrada heading towards Luzerne instead of Zurich (mistake #5). Turned around at the next exit and doubled back. Our first test of European navigation, and we failed. Would it kill folks to put N/S/E/W on a sign?
Weather was not too bad, cloudy but not yet raining, about 55 degrees, as we headed East around Zurich and Winterthur toward St. Gallen. That didn’t last long. Pretty soon the rain started coming down in earnest, which Jim pointed out over the Scala Q2. In preparation for this trip, we had purchased a pair of Scala Q2 bluetooth communicators so we could chat along the way. We tested them on several rides in the U.S. (including the SS1000 we did in May) and they worked perfectly. Since I was behind the big screen of the RT when he pointed out he was getting soaked, my reply was “why, is it raining out?”
Traffic on the Swiss autostrada could put you to sleep. Speed limit is 120km/h, and today no one was speeding. No one passing on the right, no one tailgating, no one zooming across lanes to move up one car length, everyone just cruising along in near-formation. Seriously, it was almost hypnotic.
Getting sorted on the side of the autostrada
At St. Gallen we needed to start heading south, but couldn’t figure out exactly which road to take. Ended up on secondary roads, and on a roundabout with 4 exits, none of which had signs to anyplace we were looking for (mistake #6). Twice around we went (me in the lead, cursing in my helmet) before we pulled into what looked like a border or toll crossing. Big parking lot, lots of guys in uniforms eyeing cars as they drove through. Out came the map, which was no help. We didn’t get a chance to mount the Zumo before we left Moto Mader, so I put it in the tankbag of the GS (which the RT lacked) and set it for Arabba. We switched bikes at this point, Jim on the RT and me following the Zumo on the GS. We headed over the small bridge that the uniformed folks were watching in the other direction, and got to what looked like a toll gate on the other side. Which we rolled right through. Followed the Zumo’s guidance on a bunch of secondary roads, through 3 or 4 roundabouts, and found ourselves on the A14/E60 which is what we needed.
At this point the rain really started coming down, and I’m sure Jim was happy to be on the RT. We passed a tour group of bikes going the other way, which was kinda cool (hey, that’s what we didn’t do, and they’re getting just as wet as us!). I had my Gerbings jacket along with me, but the accessory plug on the GS didn’t work. We rode an hour or two in the rain, then needed to pull off and find some food. First exit we saw that had some sign of life we took, and found a McDonald’s right across from a gas station. This was easily the low point of the trip, standing in the rain, peeling off layers of wet gear, to go huddle in a McDonald’s for crappy food. The place was tiny and packed, with a line out the door and one kid taking orders. No tables to be had, I dropped our gear at the windowside counter while Jim got in line for food.
Jim: “um, due coke, una grande um…..”
McD’s kid: “You can just use English sir”
Not exactly what we had in mind for this trip
Nor was this
We switched bikes again and filled the bike up (couldn’t pay at the pump, no cards worked) and headed back to the autostrada. At this point we started to enter the land of the tunnels. Man, the Swiss must love tunnels. I think we had went through 20 or 30 of them (including one that was cooking at over 75 degrees) before we hit “the big one”. The entrance sign said 9km to the other side. Wow, a 5.5 mile tunnel. We got 8km in and came to a line of stopped cars on our side, with people milling about. Oh, this doesn’t look good. Come to think of it, not many folks were going the other way as we rode through the tunnel, and one guy did flash his lights at us. We got off the bikes, stretched a bit, happy to be at least temporarily out of the rain. Eventually Jim rode up to the front of the queue to see what was what. He came back with reports of a car flipped over, and the police saying we should turn around and go back the way we came (mistake #6). Which we did, 8km backwards and exited back out to the rain with no idea where to go. Most of the cars were heading up a side road to a pass, so we tagged along. Our first European pass, and we were doing it in the rain with no idea where we were going. There were some easy hairpins, and a small village to ride through, and eventually we merged back with the autostrada. This had definitely eaten up some time.
Time for a leg-stretch
Time to turn around
Back on the road again, rain on and off, and another tunnel closure. Fortunately this was before we entered, and fairly short to get around. By this time we were getting pretty tired. It was cold, raining, we were behind the schedule we had set for ourselves, and getting very frustrated at trying to find our way efficiently from one point to another. Then suddenly we came to a toll plaza saying “Italy” – wahoo! Jim got into a conversation with the toll taker, who turned out to have gone to college in South Carolina. Maybe 5 minutes passed, and while there were cars and trucks behind us, no one so much as tooted their horn. On the NJ Turnpike shots would have been fired by now.
Leaving the toll plaza our spirits were lifted as we saw signs for Modena, Trento, Balzano, and other Italian locations. It became quickly apparent that the Italian autostrada was a different animal than the Swiss one. Folks had no problem zooming past us in the left lane, often riding right up our tailpipe for a while. We didn’t know what to expect enforcement-wise, and since it was our first day riding in a new country (new continent for that matter) we were sticking pretty close to the speed limit.
After a while we exited onto a service plaza to figure out where we were and how we should proceed. Our original plan had us going over Timmelsjoch, but we had give that up a while ago. Thunder and lightning accompanied our map-reading in the little restaurant at the rest area, where Jim had his first experience with the teeny-tiny European version of the espresso. He also informed me that his new Sidi Rain boots were perhaps misnamed. You would think something with Rain in the name would be able to actually repel some. We made a plan to continue down the autostrada to Val Gardenia, thinking we’d be able to find a room on that road. If the weather cleared we could even try pushing on to Arabba.
I took the lead as we headed south, keeping my eyes open for signs for St. Ulrich or Rt 242. The weather cleared a bit, and we were treated to the best scenery of the trip so far. Pretty hillsides, castles, forests, not too shabby a view from the slab. When I saw the signs for Bolzano I feared I might have gone too far. Jim rode up and said he saw ‘val Gardena’ about 15 miles back (mistake #7). We backtracked up the autostrada, and the weather turned even nastier. Heavy rain, wind, thunder, lightning, you name it we had it. We could barely see the road as we exited onto val Gardena.
Decision time. Jim and I have been known to suffer from get-there-itis, but it didn’t look like getting to Arabba was going to happen. We had maybe 30 minutes of daylight left, and while the weather had let up a bit who knows how that might change. We were only about 45 kms from Arabba, but those kms included Passo Sella and Passo Pordoi. With the threat of lightning I had no desire to go higher up and face exposure.
Part of riding safe is minimizing your risk factors. We were already riding tired, and in a foreign country, so we had a few strikes against us. If we continued we’d be riding in the dark, up twisting narrow mountain roads, possibly in the rain, and possibly even in a lightning storm. We decided to find a hotel and call it a night.
Came around one turn and in the distance saw my first glimpse of the Dolomites.
The first town we passed through looked completely deserted, but on the outskirts of Ortesi I spotted the Gasthof Pontives on a hill behind us. I can’t tell you how inviting it looked, with lights in the all the windows, flowers on the balconies, and the promise of warm, dry rooms. We rode through the roundabout and up the hill to the hotel. Jim went in, and came back with the hotel owner, who didn’t seem to speak any English. They had rooms, no problem, and they would keep the restaurant open for us. He also insisted we park our bikes under an eave out of the way of the rain. All this was communicated with very few actual words in either direction, just lots of hand motions and nodding.
Very warm and inviting after a long day in the rain
The owner insisted we tuck the bikes safely out of the rain
We dumped our gear in the room and headed down to the dining room for a great dinner of pasta for me, weiner schnitzel for Jim, and beer for both of us. Got a phone call from the Hotel Mesdi, where we were supposed to be staying for the night. They were wondering if we were going to show up, as they were holding dinner for us. I can’t say any hotel in the states has ever kept dinner waiting for me.
The dining room, just for us
Mmm, pasta
Sleep came quickly.
Roughly our route for the day