CRUNCHTIME !!!
Tim and I meet outside before 6…we can’t sleep with the “Big Day” finally on the doorstep...
It’s a bit grey up there…but fairly mild. Brecky is a somewhat quickish affair… then the first tentative steps on the “wrong” side of the road…this is
WEIRD!!
Around the backblocks of Muhen and straight onto the A1-Autobahn, the going is good…we settle quickly at the 120kmh limit. The sun breaks through as things get badly choked around Zurich for a while…after all, this is Monday morning rush-hour…and the sweat starts running.
No use cracking the shits…straps get loosened, jacket-zips come down….eventually the bottleneck dissolves. A quick stop at the Thurau Roadhouse on the A1 Autobahn…the mission is still on track: Gasthof Schoenblick in the Ziller Valley tonight….a major push east.
NOICE !!
Planned are 2 days of heading towards Slovenia, sprinkling in a few “choice bits” for fun.
Thankfully the bikes came with Swiss Autobahn Toll-Stickers….we’ll only have to buy the 6Euro/A$10-for-10days Austrian equivalent when we swap from the Swiss side of the Rhine Valley to the Austrian side at Diepoldsau.
An hour later, now in Austria, it’s east again across the Arlberg Pass….not the old road, but the quick option of the 7Euro per bike Arlberg Tunnel….and the first lot of “decent” hills.
Yep…7 Euros!!...A$12 !!....which makes it about 90c per kilometer of tunnel…
this dark pipe is a whopping 14k’s !!!
More quick progress past Landeck…more tunnels…and finally off the ‘bahn at Imst for a couple of frustrating laps through town until we had the right exit into the Oetz Valley.
By now, Germany is only a lousy ~35k’s to the north…we tack south through, the steep-sided valleys becoming impressive. A quick tack east in Oetz
…and Dave misses the boat completely!!
The
very first few hairpins....and he’s still in Autobahn-mode, while the rest up front of the pack gets wide-eyed and twitchy.
LET’S ROCK!!
EVERYWHERE!!! Signs welcoming riders….just imagine something like THAT in Oz!!
The fun is too short-lived though…the Kuhtai-Saddle tops the stretch, time for a break…and greeting some locals.
Down the other side towards Kematen/ Innsbruck and back to the ‘bahn for a final short stretch.
First fill up…”who the hell’s got some Euros?? I only got those Swiss Whatevertheyare, mate”
Late afternoon, the sun still giving its best, we tack south at Jenbach into the Ziller Valley…
….now, that’s rather like it!
The roads narrow a little, traffic thins out, everything’s a
LUSH green, and the slopes are getting steeper, the mountains higher.