Passo Compalongo
Passo Erbe (Wurz Joch)
Passo Valparola
Passo Falzarego
Passo Tre Croce
Passo Cimabianche
Passo Giau
Woke up to another wet-looking morning. Every day we’d ask about the weather at the front desk, and every day we’d get the same reply – “tomorrow will be better”. We didn’t have too big a day planned, all of the passes were fairly close by and we could rearrange our route at a number of points if conditions worsened.
It didn't look too promising looking East
But West looked OK
Our two main goals for the day were Wurz Joch, or Passo Erbe in the North, and something called Drei Zinnen that Jim had read about in Hermann’s book that was supposed to have terrific views.
I debated leaving Jim's L plate out, but didn't know if that could get us in trouble
Up and over Passo Compalongo again, through Corvara and head north on 244 towards San Martino in Badia. There was one seriously slow woman driver on the pass, almost coming to a halt on each hairpin. It stood out because this was really the first slow or nervous driver we’d come across in the mountains. She was quickly dispatched, and then we ran across the other extreme. I was watching in my rear-view as a car was zipping past other cars in impossibly tight passes, gaining on us. The woman in this car was fearless, and hugged my rear fender until she saw the slightest opening and floored it past me. She pulled in right behind Jim, and was eager to get around him as well. It was handy to be able to talk with him – “she’s right behind you, OK, there she goes on your left”. She got around him, then the next few cars, and we never saw her again.
Gassed up just before ascending Wurz Joch, and we noted our mileage since we wanted to see how our fuel consumption was. We had started to notice something odd over the last couple days. We’d fill up, and the RT would show nearly 400 kms to empty while the GS would show around 275. As the day wore on, my distance to empty shrank quickly, and Jim’s didn’t. I’d have 150 kms to go, and he’d have 130 – odd.
Wurz Joch started out with rough pavement (by Alps standards – if it was in Pennsylvania or NJ we’d call it “billiard table smooth”) but terrific views. It was different than the more southerly passes of Pordoi and Sella, much more “pretty” with huge green valleys and tiny towns down far below. It was also very narrow, the narrowest we’d been on so far. Room for a car and a half, perhaps.
Ascending Wurz Joch
Very pretty
Higher and higher we climb
Yours truly
While we were parked for some pictures a truck heading uphill passed us by, and we thought we’d be stuck behind it on the way up. Sure enough, a couple of minutes after we got riding again we came up to it. Then I watched Jim make a pass, with very little room to spare between the truck and the white fog line on the other side of the road. Heck, if he can do it…. This moment was one of the highlights of the trip. I saw the road was clear, and scooted into the narrowest section of road next to the truck and made the pass. There was barely room for him on the road, let alone the two of us. I came out the other side feeling exhilarated. Back in the states, if a situation ever arose that I came that close in a pass with a truck I’d have to pull over and perhaps throw up. Riding over here this kind of close contact riding was a matter of course.
This is the truck we later passed, with about that much room on the side. What a hoot.
Our plan for the day didn’t allow for a full run on Wurz, so we took a short break at the summit and headed back down the way we came. Saw my first Multistrada at the top, an 1100S.
A pair of unusual bikes (the lights on that ST remind me of my Multistrada)
Watch out, I'm getting creative
Fun ride down and then we got stuck in town in the middle of a street market that popped up while we were on the mountain. Lots of folks selling flowers, foods and such, and tons of schoolkids waving at us. Very cool.
This dude was on the side of Passo Erbe
If the wives were along they'd have said "You boys go on with your ride, meet us back here in a few hours. And make room in the saddlebags."
On our way back to Cortina we rode over Passo Valparola. This was a gorgeous pass, once again with a very wild and remote feel to it. The last part of the ascent has you riding through some very rocky terrain, with giant boulders all around you. We stopped for a bunch of action shots before continuing to the summit. Just before you reach the rifugio area, there’s a neat WWI fort, which we had to stop at. Looking at the view just past the fort, your eye catches a glimpse of a pattern down below. Upon closer inspection you see that it’s a whole outpost of stone buildings from the war, with stone trenches surrounding them. They blend almost seamlessly with the surroundings. Given that we were cold up here in June, I can’t imagine how hard the conditions were for the soldiers fighting here year-round.
Passo Valparola
Action shots of me (thanks Jim!)
That's wicked leaned over. For me.
"The Place of the Great War"
It take you a few seconds to notice the buildings
Next time through I'm going down there for sure
Strange blue boulder
Tre Sassi Fort
We continued to the gift shop area, and bought ourselves some Passo Falzarego pins. We were happy to find them, as we’d come up empty on many of the passes yesterday. Standing outside, drinking my $6 bottle of coke, I started looking at the cable car station. Something was familiar about it….wait, we’ve been here before! It was foggy and cold last time instead of the sunshine we were basking in now, and we’d come up to it from Arabba instead of down to it from Passo Valparolo, but we’d done Falzarego on day one in the Dolomites. Even had a pin to prove it!
So that's where the cable car goes (couldn't see the summit last time through)
We got a good laugh out of that, and I went back and asked the man at the register if he had a pin for Passo Valparola. The response I got wouldn’t have surprised me if I had asked for, say, a pin with a naked picture of his little sister instead of one for a pass he could see out his window.
We were surprised (in a good way) at seeing kids wearing gear and riding with their parents
Back down Passo Falzarego again and into Cortina for lunch.
Cortina’s hopping today compared to our last trip through on Sunday. Cars, trucks, busses, you name it all negotiating the narrow streets. We were looking for a restaurant from the road, which for Cortina was not the best way to do it. Cortina, like many larger European towns, has a system of one-way roads surrounding a central pedestrian zone, which is where most of the shops and restaurants are. We didn’t know this at the time.
Coming down to Cortina is always breathtaking
Quicky panorama
Neat little tunnel on Passo Falzarego
We settled on the Ristorante Al Passetto, as there were some other bikers already there. Not knowing how parking works in bigger cities, we found an open place near a curb and hoped for the best. All of the outside tables were taken (not even 2 empty spots to crash), so we were shown to a table for 2 inside by the window. No one attempted English with us, which was fine, and I even managed to order a pizza that was not on the menu using my very limited Italian vocabulary - which by now certainly extended into more than a dozen words! My pizza buffalina (when I find something that works….) was very wet but very good.
Finally saw the car that Top Gear loves to hate, the Fiat Panda
I bet these are fun on the passes
Our lunch stop
I thnk this was for the bicyclists
Mmm, my last pizza for a while
It was time to embark on an adventure of sorts. After the debacle of trying to navigate our way from Oberentfelden to Arabba, we knew the GPS was sorely needed for the later part of our journey. Jim had brought the RAM mount for it, but that meant the Zumo would only run on batteries. He also brought along the car suction-cup mount with cigarette lighter adapter, but the aux power port on his GS was dead. The RT’s power socket was good, but I had no place to mount a RAM arm. After taking a good look at the framework on top of the RT’s tank, I figured we could use the car mount – if we could find some zip ties.
But where to find them? We hadn’t seen anything that resembled a hardware or auto-parts store on our rides, and service stations didn’t seem to have anything. We asked the counterman at the restaurant, who spoke a little English, and he said we should head to the “zone industriale” just south of town by the ski jump. Okey doke.
A 10 minute ride later and I thought I had found it, but the road turned out to be a bust. Stopped a very nice lady and asked for further directions, and she helped us out with a street name. All in Italian. Another minute or two down the road and we were turning into the “zone industriale”, which did not look like someplace a pair of motorcycle tourists should be. Dirt/gravel streets, big warehouse-looking buildings, and dusty trucks darting about. No signage that we could make sense of, so I stopped the first person I saw and tried to ask where to find zip ties. Of course just saying “zip ties” doesn’t help, you have to mime the purpose of them and watch while the person tries to decide if you’re deranged or looking for help. He directed us (in Italian) to one particular building, which turned out to be a machine shop. We walked in the only open door to find a couple of old Italian men working at benches and then staring at us. We went through the zip-tie pantomime again, and one of the older gents fetched the young kid from the back who spoke (a very tiny amount of) English. He suggested we try the auto repair building a few doors down.
Once again we walk right into the middle of the action amongst the service bays, and a woman who’s way too attractive to be working under a Lancia comes over to help us. I start looking under the open hoods of cars trying to find a zip-tie to show, but Jim has success with his theatrical performance and she seems to understand what we mean. She disappears and returns in a few minutes with a half-dozen long zip-ties. THANK YOU!
Only took us 45 minutes to find zip-ties
Yes, I know I just wrote 4 paragraphs about finding zip-ties, but it turned out to be quite a fun exercise. It’s one of the little things I’ll really remember about the trip. I really enjoy interacting with people and figuring things out. My only previous experience with this was a trip to Mexico City about 15 years ago, and that was a lot of fun as well.
Passo Tre Croci
Back up through Cortina to Passo Tre Croci. Nothing stands out about the ride up, but the scenery at the top was quite nice. A big lake surrounded by distant peaks, with some large hotels lakeside.
The lake at the top of the pass
There were a lot of other riders there, and one guy I recognized. Yesterday at our hotel I was checking out the underground parking area, and there were a few bikes there. One was a BMW R1200GS (no surprise) that had a lot of Touratech accessories on it. Just standing next to it was humbling, the thing really looked gigantic perched on its centerstand. Walking to our rooms that night, we saw a very tall guy going into the room opposite mine. “That’s got to be the GS guy” I said to Jim and we chuckled.
Well, here was the GS and the tall guy. I approached him and asked him if he was staying at the Hotel Mesdi. I don’t think he got what I was saying, then Jim mimed putting his head on a pillow while saying “Mesdi?” This made things click, and we ended up chatting, sharing pass suggestions (they loved Pordoi as well) and laughing for a while. There were 4 of them, on holiday from the Netherlands. When I asked them how long it takes to get here from the Netherlands, they pointed at Ralph, the tall GS rider, and said “him riding? 2 hours!” Ralph joked he was hoping for more rain, the wetter the better – his friend Peter doesn’t have rain gear and Ralph enjoyed knowing he was getting soaked.
Jim, Peter, Chris, Albert, and Ralph in the front
The weather was getting rapidly worse, with clouds rolling in and rain certainly in the future. We decided to scrap the plan to ride up to Drei Zinnen since the view would be shrouded in low-hanging clouds. We instead rode up north through Passo Cimibianchi, which was pretty uneventful. Lots of forest, some glimpses of valley views but no good places to stop for pictures.
By the time we got back down to Cortina the rain was coming down. Our choices back to Arabba were over Falzarego or over Giau. Having done Falzarego just a few hours ago we went for Giau. I told Jim I’d meet him at the top, since in this rain I was going to be in full “tourist” mode, taking it easy and stopping for pictures if the mood struck. On the way up I saw a bike coming down that I’d seen before– a sportbike with a leopard-print gas tank, ridden around a hairpin by a guy in an open-face helmet smoking a cigarette. Interesting. A whole line of Moto Guzzi Stelvios were also working their way down to Cortina.
On top of Giau again, worst weather we'd had for days
Saw a lot of Hypermotards
That's a pretty serious brush guard
Loved the paint scheme on this K-bike
Weather was downright nasty at the top, with strong winds, rain, fog, and cold. We decided not to stick around too long, and agreed to meet at the bottom. The rain stopped about ½ way down, and I took a break to get some pictures as there are a couple of hairpins stacked on top of each other on the SW descent.
The tornanti coming down Giau
Some riders descending Giau
On the run back to Arabba we found ourselves at the Belvedere overlook in the town of Colle S. Lucia. Would have been nicer if it wasn’t so overcast, but the view was still spectacular. We could see the lake near Piazza Kennedy from yesterday, and 3 or 4 towns running down the valley between the mountains. We made phone calls home, and spent a while just enjoying the view. We were in no rush to get back to Arabba, so we decided to seek out a small road leading from Rocco Pietore – Rt 563.
The Belvedere Panorama
You are here
The view from the Belvedere Overlook
Jim
Me
It was easy to find, and quite an excellent little ride. The road was very narrow, tight hairpins, tunnels, lots of wildflowers and an Audi wagon chasing me the whole time. We came out of it near the very-narrow town we passed through days ago, so we stopped for some pictures there.
Pretty narrow road to deal with busses
These little 3-wheel trucks were everywhere
Jim coming through
My turn
Back at the hotel we jury-rigged the Zumo with our hard-won zip-ties and some rubber bands before heading inside to clean up for dinner
It was hard to transcribe my notes from dinner, since I ended up fairly toasted by the end.
We went down to dinner to find our friends from the Netherlands at the table next us. We spent the next three hours eating, drinking, talking, and laughing quite a bit. Ralph’s English was quite good, and the others did OK, with Ralph translating occasionally.
Some highlights:
Peter, Me, Jim, Ralph and Albert (thanks Ralph for the photo!)
After dinner I called home, and my little boy sounded so grown-up on the phone. He was asking me interesting questions about my trip, and when I finally hung up I missed him terribly.
Tomorrow’s our last day in the Dolomites and we’ve got 3 new passes planned.
Today's route