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Kilometers - 366
Passes - Grossglockner
Can you say SUNSHINE!!!? After two days of riding in wet conditions, we were sure glad to say it this morning! Here's Brian with his motorcycle: you can see David's motorcycle behind Brian.
And Paige is working on getting everything attached to her motorcycle, too. Unfortunately her motorcycle had a surprise for us that morning. It must have been unhappy about being dropped, then ridden in the rain for two days :-) We got out of Salzburg fairly early, planning to head over the Grossglockner pass (our first *real* Alpine mountain pass) on our way to Villach. Our route was to jump onto the Autobahn, get around Salzburg, then find the road that leads to the Grossglockner.
After we'd gotten around Salzburg we pulled off the Autobahn to fill up with gas, after which we did the recommended tire-pressure check on all the tires. We had checked all the other tires, and were down to Paige's rear tire. It's pressure was fine, but after we took the gauge off it, it continued to hiss as air leaked out the valve stem!!! To make a long story short: we called Graham back at the hotel and on his advice we filled the tire with air, put a metal cap onto it, and drove 20 km back to a motorcycle shop that the gas station manager told us about (knowing a little German came in extremely handy here!) and got a new valve core (for free!), which fixed the problem. We were now fairly behind schedule for the day, so we hustled out as soon as possible and didn't make too many stops for the rest of the day.
However, we did make the one recommended stop just before getting off the Autobahn at a closed rest area just after a tunnel to take pictures of this castle... very picturesque. The APS pictures came out a bit better since that camera has a bit of a zoom capability.
And another stop because Paige and David were feeling a bit chilly as we got higher into the mountains, so we stopped to put on heavier gloves. We tried unsuccessfully to signal Brian (who was leading) that we wanted to stop, and finally gave up and just stopped. He figured it out quickly and came back, so we had him take a picture.
OK, so we stopped yet again at this scenic overlook. I believe one of the mountain peaks that can be seen in the background in the Grossglockner peak, but it might be off the right a bit, and would thus be in the following picture...
What a crummy place to stop for lunch :-) We're about 2/3 of the way up to the top of the Grossglockner, and the weather is beautiful. The people at the restaurant thought it was too cold to sit outside, but said it was no problem to set a table for us... then as we sat there another half-dozen tables were filled with other people stopping for lunch.
It didn't take long after lunch to reach the summit, where we stopped to buy pass pins and pass stickers. After reading about pass pins and pass stickers in other Beach's tour write-ups on the WWW David was determined to collect as many as possible, and he ended up with stickers from 21 passes (of 31 total.) Follow this link for a picture of the final results with the pass stickers stuck onto the Katana's saddlebags. He basically gave up on the pass pins as many places didn't have them, but he bought some if they were nice. Here David is taking a panoramic picture of the south side of the pass.
The ride to the hotel that evening was fairly eventful. We got stuck behind two buses going slowly, and Brian was determined to pass them, but never managed to make it. We began to dread the "Umleitung" (Detour) signs, which prevented us from getting onto the Autobahn and instead forced us to drive through the VERY busy, crowded city of Spittal at rush-hour at the end of the day. It was quite the cultural experience, as there were several hundred people on bicycles riding out of town on the narrow two-lane road with cars, buses, and trucks whizzing by them at 80 KPH (at least us motorcyclists can give them a little more room!)
When we finally got onto the Autobahn we had more fun... The battery pack for Paige's helmet radio popped off her belt and flailed behind her for a time before bouncing on the pavement at 120 kph and bursting open in what Brian described as the most perfect explosion pattern (of AA batteries) he's ever seen.
Then finally there was the fun finding the legendarily difficult-to-find hotel in Villach. Let's just say that we were thankful when the woman walked up to us and offered help as we were stopped in downtown Villach and David and Paige were screaming at each other ;-) Once again knowing a bit of German was extremely useful. In fact, when the last gentleman gave David directions he understood every word of the directions *perfectly* which was a relief.
This was the evening that Rob's group showed up at the hotel around 8 pm after the rest of us had given up waiting and started eating without them.
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