[inspiron]

I’m back after a weekend motorcycle tour. There were 5 of us – Tom, on his Buell, Daniela on her BMW R1150R, Wolfgang on his new Kawasaki GTR 1400, me on my Suzuki GSX 1400, and Domenico on his 1952 Motobécane (which he has fitted with a 150ccm MZ motor).

We left on Friday evening around 5:00pm, heading first for Olten (crossing the Hauenstein pass), then continuing down country roads towards Lucerne. In Lucerne, we got onto the Autobahn and headed towards the Brünig pass. We stopped in Hasliberg for the evening.

After breakfast, we headed south, first over the Grimsel pass, then down towards Brig and over the Simplon pass into Italy. We continued on along a twisty mountain road, and met up with Renato, a former neighbor who now lives in Tessin. We had lunch at a little restaurant along the way, and then continued back into Switzerland and entered Locarno. We had to stop so that Domenico could buy a new clutch cable since his was beginning to fray.

We then continue down the eastern side of Lake Lago Maggiore towards Luino, and then turned east, back towards the Swiss border. We followed the western side of Lake Lugano south (again entering Italy), then headed east back towards Arzo, a small town right on the Swiss/Italian border. We stayed the night in a hotel in Arzo, since Renato didn't have space for all 5 of us in his new house.

After breakfast on Sunday, we mounted up and headed up the eastern side of Lake Lugano, crossing the bridge at Bissone. We wanted to continue on country roads, but they were closed due to a bicycle race, so we had to take the Autobahn up towards Lugano. At Rivera (north of Lugano), we exited the Autobahn and got back on the surface streets (which run parallel to the Autobahn) first heading through Bellinzona, continuing on towards Airolo, the southern entrance to the Gotthard pass. Looking in Google Earth, you can’t begin to appreciate this road. We took the “old” Gotthard pass road, which is, for the most part, still made of cobblestones rather than pavement.

We had lunch at the top of the Gotthard pass. As we headed down into Andermatt, we hit some heavy fog. From Andermatt, we continued north towards Wassen, then headed west over the Susten pass. This is a long, long pass. There was fog most of the way up, sometimes heavy (limiting visibility to about 100 feet), and other times lighter. We stopped for a coffee before reaching the peak, then continued over the pass back down towards Meiringen in “Berner-Oberland”.

From Meirignen, we took a country road towards Interlacken. Along the way, Dominiko’s bike started to sputter a bit, finally cutting out completely in the middle of nowhere. He assumed that the problem was a bad spark plug, so he replaced the plug and we were on our way again in a few minutes. As we approached Brienz, the bike died again. This time, he found some debris that had made it past his fuel filter into the carburetor. On short notice, he took the carb apart, cleaned it, and put it back on the bike. Within 15 minutes, we were on our way again.

We continued through Interlacken and into Thun, where we decided to take the Autobahn because it was getting late. As Dom’s bike tops out around 90 kmh (60 mph), we let him set the pace. We had an uneventful ride back towards Niederbipp, where we decided to exit the Autobahn again. We rode up to Balsthal, over the pass to Waldenburg and back home to Ramlinsburg.

Over all, our tour was 767 km (476 miles), with just about every possible riding experience – wet and dry roads, pavement, cobblestones and even some unpaved roads, foggy conditions, sunny conditions, peaks over 2,200 meters (7,200 feet), down to just a few hundred feet above sea level.

The most impressive part of the ride, for me, at least, was the thought that the cobblestone pass road was laid by hand. When you ride in the Alps, you realize how truly small humans are. These mountains are massive. Absolutely huge. And yet, people have been crossing them for thousands of years. And some even laid down roads so that others have it even easier.

Now, for those that need a laugh, I also discovered that Switzerland has some more really funny town names. We didn’t ride into the Jura region this time (so we didn’t pass Moron), but we did ride through Bitsch, which is on the way to Brig. And on the way home, we passed a ski lift called the “Tallibahn”.

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