Club Florian Motorcycle Ride – June 2007 - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

**inspiron** · 06-16-2007, 04:10 PM

Saturday, June 16.

I really didn't think this was going to be much of a ride. It has been raining every day for more than 2 weeks. Sometimes it's nice in the morning, with heavy thunderstorms forming in the afternoon, or it's just been raining all day. Yesterday (Friday) was no exception – it rained all day. At 4:00am, it was still raining. But when I climbed out of bed at 6:15am, it had stopped raining.

We met on the playground of my town at 7:00am. Sadly, several "regulars" weren't able to participate – some are traveling, some have to work, and one has a non-functional bike. So, there were only 5 of us there this morning.

The original plan was to head down into the Alps, but due to the unusual weather this year, there has been a number of rockslides recently. One rockslide last night closed one of the most popular Alpine pass roads, so we decided to head south-west into the Swiss Jura mountains.

We headed out, looking for the "route less traveled". We rode small mountain pass roads in Canton Soloturn, then crossed the Passwang pass before heading west towards Moutier. Here we stopped for some coffee and sandwiches. We had been riding for about 2 hours and had ridden over 100 km (60 miles), but were just 35 km (21.5 miles) from home.

We continued on through the Jura region, and as we rounded a corner, there were warning signals – police / accident. Around another bend (we are riding through a canyon with high cliffs on both sides and a raging river next to the street) there was a parking lot … with the rescue helicopter parked there! The police, ambulance and mountain rescue were all there, and from what I can tell, they were trying to rescue someone (or something) that had fallen into the river.

Our ride continued west toward the French border. We crossed into France at Goumois, and continued on toward Maîche, then south toward Charquemont and back toward the Swiss border at Blaufond. The road, Les Cotes Du Doubs, is definitely an "E-Ticket" ride. This road has some incredible hairpin turns. On one turn, I scraped my peg (I wasn't expecting this to happen!) and reacted wrong. I took my foot off the peg. Fortunately, I was not moving very fast and there was no opposing traffic, so this remained a lesson learned without any further consequences. A few minutes later, I came around a curve where water was flowing across the street, and lost traction on my rear tire. Another pucker-second. After these two experiences in short order, I decided to be a bit more prudent and took my speed and aggressiveness down a notch.

The end of this road was in the city of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. We passed through Neuchâtel and headed north-east, along the shore of the Lake Neuchâtel. We stopped for lunch in a wonderful restaurant in the town of Twann, overlooking Lake Biel.

After lunch, we crossed the city of Biel/Bienne, then headed north towards Reconvilier and back towards the town of Court and on towards Gänsbrunnen, where we headed south (on another one of these "route less traveled" roads) toward Soloturn. After crossing Soloturn, we turned off to head up the Balmberg, stopping at a restaurant on the top for a snack (mmmm, ice cream!).

The road down from the Balmberg is … frightening. I guess the signs showing that cars with trailers are forbidden, and that there is a 20% to 25% grade should have been a clue. This road is about 3 meters (16 feet) wide, and has SHARP hairpin turns that have a 2 to 3 meter drop (6 to 9 foot) in altitude IN THE CURVE. As I reached the bottom of this hill, there is a small underpass. In this underpass, there was the familiar smell of burning brake pads. For a second, I thought that it was from my bike, but I had been using a lot of engine braking (riding down in 1st or 2nd gear) and using the brakes sparingly. I realized that it was the car just ahead of our group – they had been riding the brakes all the way down the hill.

We headed back up the cantonal road towards Balsthal, and were on the way up over the Hauenstein pass as we had a déjà vu experience - warning signals – police / accident. Around the next bend, and there stands the rescue helicopter again. This time, it looked like a vehicle (not sure if it was a car or bike) went off a cliff. There were bikes parked there, and the mountain rescue was securing something below the road.

Seeing the rescue helicopter twice in one day is a bit of a wake-up call. For me at least.

We ended our ride back on the playground of our town, 11 hours after we started. The ride covered 337 km (210 miles).

More photos are published on Club Florian '94 - Fotos - Töffausfahrt - June 2007