The Panniers…
In my previous bike I had the BMW original bags but they are quite small (35 litres I think?) so now I was thinking to get bigger ones. These are the bags I got:
Since I don’t have the bike yet I didn’t unpack all from the boxes but I took 1 picture in my carage:
These are 45 litres each. I was very surprised how light they are!! Almost lighter than the plastic BMW-boxes. It will also take some time to be comfortable how these look… The BMW-boxes have some design and shape… These are just boxes!
Then I will also have a new topbox. That I will show you when I have it.
Here is another video about SW Motech Trax adventure boxes installation (This one is in German):
My old bike is for sale as you’ve seen from the previous posts. I also ordered the new bike already… I will have it maybe in february 2018.
I’ve been buying some stuff to this new bike already! The first package I got from Italy 2 days ago.
It’s the same aluminium plate for the top box that I had in my previous bike, Givi SRA5119 is the name of the part!
I will add more “bling-bling” here always when I recieve the new package!
We will leave the alps today… Kind of makes me sad but actually we’ve had so much nice alpineroads that I’m waiting for everything that is about to come…
We started riding from our hotel in Davos and filled the tank in Davos Wolfgang (it’s a kind of mountain pass near Davos).
Then we took the road 28 to west and finally arrived to Maienfeld. From there we took the nice road (St. Lutzisteigpass) to Lichtenstein.
We took a short break there in a gas-station and then we continued back to Switzerland.
The route we took is not possible to put in the google map, but it was a nice ride! A very narrow road through mountain-countryside in the westside of Grabs (if you just look the map you’ll get the idea!).
Then after some more riding to west it was time for our last mountainpass: Schwägalppass -This road doesn’t have too tight hairpin corners and for the locals it really was the route to check the limits of the bike and the rider!
But not us, we were ridig easy and smooth…
After Schwägalp it was about riding the countryside roads first in Switzerland then in Germany. And just about 50km’s left we got some heavy rain too… But even before we found the place to stay for the nigh (In Hotel Gut Lauterbad near Freudenstadt) the roads were already dry. This hotel and restaurant is very much recommended for those who are very hungry!! The portions were huge!! This is for 2…
The route for the day was about like this (Google maps will not show the route on the westside of Grabs)
This was about to come one of the hottest days in our tour so it was definately right decision to ride north via Autostrada! And after 2 hours of riding we’re already northside of Milano and riding the shores of Lago di Garda!
In Autostrada we only took short breaks to fill the tanks and riders…
In Garda we had 1 route to ride… The very special “Caveroad of Tremosine” in the westside of the lake. This was amazing short route where the road was sweeping inside the mountain. Here you can see the video of the ride:
And one photo too:
We needed to ride few more miles before our destination…
The Hotel is very much recommended by me and the whole group! (Hotel Residence Panorama di Forca)
The weather was so hot that you couldn’t see the Garda Lake… only some blurry/ foggy view.
But in the night the situation was better!
Also the restaurant in this hotel is very good!
Route for day 10 was like his:
This day is impossible to show in the map! Googlemap doesn’t simply show any routes that follows D81b (From Galeria to Calvi) but this is the route we took and we really enjoyed it!!
First we stopped for a swim in the lonely beach! There were other people too but really not too many! Then we kind of separated… I found a castle that was very interesting!
There was a group of tourists listening on a guy who was talking and talking… But finally I got some information that this was a castle of Pierre Bonaparte who was a “ruler” of a Corsica for awhile.
Little bit north from this castle there was also a Chapel in a very beautiful area. There was also a beautiful road to this chapel with a huge helmet!
Besides these the road D81b offered very beautiful views to the sea in many places!!
In Calvi we chose pizzeria to eat something -it was one of the best pizzas is this tour. In the evening we choose a restaurant near our hotel -it was a beautiful place but for me the salad was very bad choice! (Restaurant Grill Ponte Vecchiu is recommended by my friends but not by me!)
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get to know the city of Ravenna -I bet it would’ve been beautiful!
We took the big road to south and San Marino. The streets of San Marino are full with very expensive cars! We stopped on the “Other side of the mountain” when we saw some possible places to park the bikes. But there was no cafe or even a grocery store!
The roads on the westside of San Marino… OMG! They are nice! There’s a corner after corner, twist after twist and some very nice views all the time!
Ducati Monster went straight to Ducati service in Ravenna. They couldn’t fix the starter but they did fix the rear brake! (Not the brakedisc though…)
From motocaching we marked “as found” these: San Marino from southwest, Passo dei Mandrioli and SR70 Consuma
But the whole route from San Marino to Livorno is excellent riding!! There’s not much traffic, the scenery and views are great and you will certainly enjoy riding! I really recommend these roads!
The pink decorations are there because it was the 100th Giro d’Italia this may.
Video compilation of the day 5:
Now we’re getting in the business! We’re in the middle of the mountains and at least half of the days route is mountain passes! Videocamera was on many times. First time was already from the yard of our guesthouse… this was very narrow and twisty road down to Tristach village like this:
After few kilometers there was also police checking the speed before we were in Italy and one of us got the ticket (35€ for speeding 94@80)! Then after the country changed to Italy we had nothing but mountains ahaed!
Lake Misurina, Passo Tri Croci, Passo Giau… Here’s compilation of these rides:
Ducati Monster rearbrakes are getting quite hot… in 02:30 -Check it!
Finally in the top of Passo Giau we had some time to enjoy the views:
We still had some very nice rides to do! Passo Staulanza (it was raining while we’re riding this) and Passo Duran.
Up in Duran there was a bar with a fireplace inside… We could make ourselves cozy and warm!
The previous video ends in a roadwork that we couldn’t ride through. But after waiting few minutes the workingmen said that there is detour so we can continue without waiting… And we found this detour (or a shortcut)!
Then we had only the very beautiful route of Lago di Mis and then mountains were gone… and our day had just begun!
Couple hours later in the village of Castagnole the Ducati Monster didn’t start anymore!! The starter engine was broken! Also my BMW had problems with the temperature, it went easily over 105-107 degrees and that is not ok!!
We try to figure out what to do with Ducati and there was some local who called to some guy who had a mc-service. And finally Ducati was pushed to start it and it went alone to this service.
My BMW’s overheating was worse all the time since it was about 5 in the afternoon and the traffic in Italy is very slow! If you really don’t have to ride the small roads in the north side of Venice… it’s better to choose autostrada!!
Soon I said that lets go straight to autostrada so we will not waist more time… I also said that everyone can ride their own speed and tempo but I saw other bikes many times in the way to Ravenna (except the Monster wich was in the service).
Finally about 9pm I was in the hotel in Ravenna (about 12 hours of riding!) and in 5 minutes all the other bikes were there too! Also the Monster arrived because it had chosen the fastest possible route to Ravenna. After this evening we had to push to start the Monster everytime! (They couldn’t fix the starter in the service)
The route for the day was supposed to be like this… But depending on a bike it was probably different.
Mostly they’re selling too short chains!! If anyone of you is thinking about buying new chains? And looking anything but the originals. Here’s a warning!
It seems that there is wrong information about the length of the XR’s chains! Quite many marketplace is selling 118-links chains and the XR has 128-links!! I was very lucky to find D.I.D. 525 chains that has 128 links but they are maybe too weak (X-ring).
As far as I know there’s not too many aftermarket chains that are long- and strong enough -I would prefer XW-rings not the X-ring.
And it starts in 7 days. I’ll try to add the text about each day soon after it’s done… But there can be some delays.
This year we’ll visit the Corse island!
GoZa Mite 