Rioting Rob's Ridiculous Rideout

Four bikes twelve borders and three currencies, the Grossglockner Stelvio and Passo di Gavia mountain passes, the B500 and Rob’s self-imposed police detention. Brief highlights of Rioting Rob’s ridiculous rideout to the Alps 2011.

Eight days and 2550 miles later, two riders returned home safe and sound having successfully negotiated all the Alps could throw at us. Riding with Rob is never dull and let’s start by recognising the many hours of meticulous route planning / hotel booking and local knowledge from previous trips, all being brought together to provide everyone with a rare opportunity to ride Alpine roads and passes that we Brits can only dream of.

Saturday morning and we met up at Maidstone Services to refuel the bikes and maybe a bacon butty to set us on our way. As well as Rob I met up with Pat and Paul, two Londonbikers I had yet to meet or ride with. Pat is a 20 year experienced rider, though without much continental riding, Paul a relative newbie (like me) with just a couple of years under his belt.

Unfortunately Paul’s bike had needed bump starting that morning and we all quizzed and scratched heads as to what the problem might be. He had had his bike serviced that week with no problems, since adding a Sat Nav charger to the bike for the trip. We guessed that might be the issue and so Paul opted to carry on with the Sat Nav disconnected hoping the problem would be solved. Paul had continental cover with the AA so the worst case scenario was covered and we headed off for the Eurotunnel and France, fingers firmly crossed.

The rest of the day was mainly spent on the Autoroutes as we headed to our hotel approaching the Black Forrest in Germany. Whilst the Alps are rather inconveniently situated a few hundred miles from Calais, the more adventurous rider can head off to ride the twisties in the black forest on route. Upon arriving tired but not beaten at our hotel early evening, we got lucky in finding a bar showing the Haye - Klitchko world title fight and settled down to an evening of celebrating the new British world champion…Haye giving Klitchko a boxing lesson. Ok, so Haye got battered, but you can’t expect everything to be perfect.

I know it’s a bit un-pc, but I can’t not share the young boy in the pub who seemed to be a fusion of an Irish Wolf hound, Joey Deacon on a bad day and a 70’s disco dancer. Laughing at the afflicted young man wasn’t on the menu though, rather sympathy for his long suffering parents who accompanied the lad, my mischievous mind wondering whether they were 1st or 2nd cousins. Still, as we observed on the night, as physically impaired as he was, he seemed happy enough with his carefree lot, which says something about the rest of us and all our concerns.

Sunday morning was the first real chance to go play and Rob’s meticulous planning found us what can only be described as a private race track though a forest. Quite why this road was even there remained a mystery but who cared? Perfect tarmac, lots of bends, good visibility and the chance to ride…would have been rude not too! We headed on route to Austria and we hit the famous B500, a bikers’ paradise of sweeping bends that is a well maintained road very popular with bikers from all over. Whilst the B500 is an iconic road, luckily it doesn’t suffer from the over policing of some roads in the UK, though it certainly wasn’t free from traffic. The centre of the road sees a bitch of a right hander as you come down a hill, made all the harder by a busy restaurant on the bend full of bikers ideally positioned to view any mishaps. What makes it even harder is that your concentration is pulled away from the pending corner that needs all your attention.

My riding was definitely slower that the other guys, but I don’t suffer with too much of a biking ego, and I was happy enough to ride at my own pace knowing the guys would wait at appropriate times. Trying to keep up is a recipe for disaster imho and I would rather take a bit of mikey taking than take an ambulance home. Sometimes when you have a couple of guys in front, you can use their speed and breaking as additional information to the road/bend ahead, but once they are out of sight, it is best to simply ride at your own pace and forget about catching up. You also risk going into a bend at a speed you are not comfortable with, if the rider is of a higher standard or if he misjudges it. So I opted for riding at my own pace and to enjoy the bends and concentrate on improving my lines, something else that suffers when I ride faster that I am used to.

The early passes of the Volkanbergs were testing and I knew more was to come. Riding good lines in hairpins is critical as the room for error is minimal and the price of a mistake can be expensive. With this in mind I was slower than ever as I learnt a couple of tricks that were to serve me well. (More later)

The Volkanbergs also saw Rob’s most amusing mess up when we were filtering past a tailback in a town. The hold up was long and we opted to overtake motionless traffic including some solid white lines. One of those technically illegal but safe manoeuvres that we seek to avoid, but sometimes do rather than join the cager world of sitting in traffic. At the end of a line of cars was a roadabout and so we slowly approached (less than 10mph) past the stationary traffic to be presented with an angry Austrian Policeman pointing Rob to the side of the road. Rob duly obliged and pulled up, turned off the engine and got off his bike. Sensing a Germanic problem with our riding, I held back seeking to distance myself from this despicable act of illegal riding from our leader.

After a couple of minutes of chatting Rob said he had been told to wait 30 mins as a kind of punishment for the illegal overtaking / queue jumping. This didn’t sound very likely to me, having previously received speeding fines (when working in Germany) for going just 20kph over a speedlimit. I approached the copper and asked if we could go left (the right hand fork being completed blocked by the police…turns out we could go left and that we were in traffic waiting to turn right after a cycling roadrace had finished. We jumped back on the bikes from Rob’s self-imposed "time fine" and headed off as planned off to the mountains.

The early days also sadly saw our demise as Paul’s bike finally gave up the ghost. He made it about 500 miles before the AA came to the rescue and his bike was diagnosed as needing a new generator. In other circumstances we might have held on and re-planned the trip, but hotels were booked and we had to press on. Paul flew back to the UK. a week delay in obtaining parts ruling out any chances of his re-joining the rideout. Most comical moment was Paul's tongue in cheek response to the telephonist “Are there are distinguishing features near where you are stopped?”…”Yeah, I can see a mountain or two”

GrossGlockener was the first of the main passes and we pulled up full of anticipation and trepidation at what the mountain could throw at us. There is definitely a technique in riding hairpins and making progress is often hindered by cars / campervans and even lorries and buses on some passes. The GrossGlockener has something like 28 hairpins, as I observed by the helpful signs at each hairpin. The tunnels offer a different challenge with a sudden change of light and those with dark visors quickly throwing up their visors. The views are spectacular, the drops fearsome and unforgiving, though the GG was well maintained compared to some of the later passes, a good road surface and warning signs on the corners in part justifying the £25 toll fee that seemed a little over the top.

The next four days saw a routine of breakfast at 8, departure 9.30 followed by a Jets like run out at a reasonable pace but with plenty of fag / coffee breaks. Some days we “only” covered 180 miles, but when 100 of them are technically demanded climbs / descents there is no “only” about such a days riding.

A beginners guide for riding the hair pins for those new to these blighters:

Always get your entry line right , as wide as possible is always best. This gives you lots of options and reduces the risk of overrunning a tight bend into the oncoming traffic.

Check out what’s coming the other way and if it is clear you can go for it, if a big bus is approaching and the bend is tight, you can opt to wait before the hairpin and let them go before riding on.

Taking a wide line (and using the other lane) also enables you to cut off the corner early, assuming it is clear to do so.

Things to avoid: (Three F ups from yours truly worth sharing)

A: On a tight right hander, I would frequently take from the left side of the road. This is fine, but don’t do as I did on one and forget you are riding on the right and so need to get back on the right if anything is coming. The look of “Fecking idiot” I got from the bikers coming the other way said it all.

B: If a camper in front stops, whilst you might think how polite it is of him to let you past, it might just be cos there’s a fecking huge lorry coming down the hill a bit fast. I can report that quickly swinging back in and then stalling your bike isn’t an ideal way of getting out of this mess.

C: Not so much a F up, but a beware….I had a Swiss car reverse onto the road on hair pin turn. Luckily I was taking it easy but if you are going flat out this sort of thing is going to end up in tears. The passes are fun but also full of dangers, so riding within your limits makes a lot of sense.

The most technical pass by far was the Passo di Gavia. Riding this requires good visibility, good bike control, good lines and a sensible attitude to speed. So riding this in the wet was always going to be difficult and so it proved. Perhaps the biggest surprise were the tunnels without any lighting. Other passes had much better surfaces, wider roads and proper warning signs, this pass was a matter of survival rather than fun, but survive we did, to agree on a new “We rode the Passo di Gavia in the wet” massive, Rob, Nick and Pat being the founder members!

The famous and panoramic Stelvio pass was riden too, in damp gear and I managed to get the arse ache with a robbing hot dog seller at the top…£5 for a hot dog? You are taking the piss mate! The route down from Italy to Switzerland saw a less maintained road covered in parts with cows, cow shit and gravel, including one bend totally gravelled up. Thursday was our toughest day, half a dozen passes, in crappy weather in parts, but we had ridden all the Alps could throw at us, and on a personal level, I was keeping up for most of it, a bit improvement as my confidence rose on the passes.

Friday saw more passes in Switzerland before on one of the last descents of the day, Pat took a low speed tumble on a hairpin. Luckily I wasn’t tight behind as the risk of running in the back would have been very high, rather I was 30 secs behind and was able to slow the traffic going down before jumping off the bike and getting to Pat just as he was getting his bike up. He took 15 minutes to check the bike, get his head together and take some deep breaths before we carried on, within 5 minutes his back to his winding best.

The trip finished with Pat heading off as planned to Strasbourg whilst Rob and I headed for Cockem before the run to the Tunnel and run home. Pat texted on Saturday night to report he has broken his hand (He had ridden with it for 2 days) and was now in plaster! Amazing how the adrenalin kicks in and hides the injuries.

So a trip with some amazing roads, probably not for a newbie rider, but if you can ride a Jets rideout with confidence you’ll be fine. I tried working on Rob’s plans for next year (for the Pyrenees) but I suspect he’ll stick with the Alpine roads, his having invested so much time and effort to planning his routes and distances, it would be an ideal rideout for any aspiring Londonbikers wanting to sample some amazing roads.