Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

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bluesman
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:53 pm

Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

Post by bluesman »

Just back from my rideout to Switzerland, Austria and Italy mountains.

Fantastic week, very hard riding, incredible roads.

Few conclusions.
Continental Road attack at the rear did not hold it. Got burned once (Saint Bernardino pass, swiss side), surface ripped on other rides, shavings on surface confirming that tyre not getting warmed up progressively, just kinda cold-overheating-cold-overheating all the time.
Front Sport attack not brilliant either.

Warning for Firestorm owners: small hose that is taking care of coolant overflow in very hard riding may dump some relatively small quantity of coolant, but unfirtunately some of it gets on the lower fairing (stock) and get's sprayed onto rear wheel all over it. Not sure why I did not crash, guess just pure luck. I rerouted hose completely so if worst comes to worst it will dump coolant on kneepad.
Of course easiest is to use racetrack approach - using distilled water.

Regulator Rectifier finally decided to fail on me, it's old 97 type with no cooling fins. Fortunately I managed to ride on fully charged battery for whole day, then we swapped battery with one guy and managed to find new RR in small Honda workshop in Austrian town.

We rode majority of passes in Austria, lots in Switzerland and quite a piece of Dolomites in Italy. Not huge mileeage but extremely challenging roads and we went really too fast sometimes.
Basically we had russian/ukrainian origin riders group of about 6-7 people from Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria and Belgium. And one great German guy on old R100R beemer (special version) that was VERY fast. All different bikes - from FJR1300 to GSXR.
And we were lead mostly by one of my friends, he is demonically fast rider (trackdays regular GSXR man who lives in Switzerland) who managed to ride faster than anyone on old Yamaha Tenere 660 :lol: nobody could catch him in twisties. 8O
Of course we did some "typical" passes too. Grossglockner pass (it was almost empty, Monday evening), Silvretta pass, Stelvio pass (2 times using different approaching roads).
Worst car drivers prize goes to Italians followed closely by Austrians :biggrin not everywhere, but in some areas.
My Firestorm returned average of 6.5 liter per 100 km. No, it is not running lean. It just fine. Of course speeds on those twisties were limited and I found that best approach is to take them at steady throttle at 5500-6500 rpms, at least on my bike. Lot of fun was every time dropping into turn and progressively start opening up right away from entry. Well, tyres were not really up to it, rear Conti just started ripping on surface and slid a lot but in predictable way. Immense fun. Then we had one pass when we kinda been pushing it on really bumpy surface and my rear wheel few times fully lost contact with ground and engine was revving like mad :) Scary, but kinda manageable.
I am not sure about overall mileage, I think about 3500-4000 km including 2X650 km to/back part.
If anyone needs information where to go for best roads etc. - will be glad to help. I will post some photos when my friends with cameras will upload all stuff.
4 wheels moving body, 2 wheels moving soul
steveb
Posts: 224
Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:37 pm
Location: Gloucester

Re: Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

Post by steveb »

Sounds like you had a great trip - I'm very envious as I'm yet to ride abroad. Maybe next year, I'll be sure to tap you up for some info when planning it.

Bad luck with you RR failing - I'm suprised you never changed your RR before you went!! Great luck finding one over there though!!

Cheers Steve
Happy ridin'
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98 Honda Firestorm in black for tarmac grin's
98 Yamaha WR250z for green lane grin's
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bluesman
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:53 pm

Re: Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

Post by bluesman »

Basically we did not had "base", we kinda ride through with some rounds :) I think on map our route will look totally mad :)
To be honest hairpins as such I do not like and I am not very fast in them, I mean like real hairpins 180+ degrees with drops etc.
I just do not know proper way of riding them fast, best I can is second gear slow..
But hairpins that can be ridden fast it's my favourites, some just corners too...
I think we will need some days to put together GPS tracks and paper maps to properly see routes we did
I think one day we went down via Grossglockner to Italy via some passes I think SS52 then up from Tolmezzo in Italy and via Kotschach-Mauthen in Austria and I for sure remember hitting Villach and somehow getting up to Bad Ischl but I totally cannot remember how we did it. I clearly remember ss52bis, ss335 but not much villages. It's topographical inability to remember routes :) but I will get it back together with Michelin atlas I carried. I must admit that getting to Grossglockner on Monday evening was excellent, very few bikes there and on top we only saw about 10 people riding up and then down. But I did not ride there as hard as I wanted because one of guys still been wrestling with his FJR trying to understand it better (new bike) and he left stop in front of me halfway up. He was all over the place, so I did not want to crash into my own friend and was mostly playing behind, like let him go on straight - FJR is uncatcheable in straights, then ride up to him in corner, brake, let him go again :wink:
4 wheels moving body, 2 wheels moving soul
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benny hedges
Posts: 6110
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:09 pm
Location: Warrington

Re: Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

Post by benny hedges »

bluesman wrote:I did not ride there as hard as I wanted because one of guys still been wrestling with his FJR trying to understand it better (new bike) and he left stop in front of me halfway up. He was all over the place, so I did not want to crash into my own friend and was mostly playing behind, like let him go on straight - FJR is uncatcheable in straights, then ride up to him in corner, brake, let him go again :wink:
sounds like a great trip - i'd love to see them roads :thumbup:
i was behind a guy yesterday on a '10 fireblade - looked gorgeous, but he rode it as though he had a coffe balanced on the tank & didn't want to spill any!
a few times i tried to get past him but i don't think he knew what mirrors are for, or white lines - every time i went to pass he moved over :redface
looked like a nooby to me with all brand new gear on as well :roll:
but got to agree on the 180 bends - sometimes you expect it to be just a curve and then get taken by surprise 1/2 way round when it comes back on itself - i'd rather go slower and get to know the road than have to stand it up 1/2 way round & stray into the other lane...
all that & riding on other side as well 8O
You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when posting something which you later rely on in quote. Anything you do say may be ripped to sh*t.
bluesman
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:53 pm

Re: Switzerland, Austria, Italy 8 days ride

Post by bluesman »

Timbo, we did not go to Bolzano - we avoided all towns we can avoid. But we certainly been close.
Basically on Saturday June 26 we been riding Swiss mountain passes, leaving Zurich area in the morning and ending in Bregenz late evening.
Then from Bregenz we went east-south, then to Italy, then back to Austria, then approximately to Graz level, then...mmmm...anyway, west-ish, getting closer to Innsbruck, then got close to Italy again, then crossed Stelvio from Austria and Switzerland north to south, then somehow back to Switzerland via Stelvio, then went to several more mount passes in Switzerland, then Davos, then back to Zurich on Saturday july 3rd. On the way we used every twisty bent road we could reach :lol: Oh yes, I will go back there. I want to try take my DR800 with supermoto-sized wheels kit there. To be honest Fstorm was excellent but some of areas I sooooo wished I'd have 2 times more suspension travel and upright position.... :wink:

Benny, I know what you mean! I even developed something like "look over corner" style :)
On Stelvio I had to slowly crawl up at one part behind guy in all-cool Rossi-like suit with aerodynamic hump on 600rr and he was soooo...oh well. Let say he rode behind something like VTX cruiser. And every hairpin he was all over place.
I mean - I am not that fast, more of "reliable" rider, but I can't stand so-racey-looking boys who can't ride despite spending fortune on gear :lol:
My biggest problem turned out to be part of my gear and my height. I have good Arai helmet, quite old but I like it. Turned out that my leather jacket I usually use on DR800 had collar that on Firestorm pushed back of lid up when I tried to look up leaning into hairpin. Because of leaned position. So, when hairpin is uphill steep I totally unable to see further than few meters ahead of me, even missing cars going down! :wtf: I tried to look up by turning my head and probably looked like an crooked idiot :) but it did not help much :lol:
So - next time I won't be using that jacket. It was so bad that collar of jacket peeled rubber siding off lid lower edge :(
4 wheels moving body, 2 wheels moving soul
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