The Elephant's Travels 2010 - 2011

Like most things in our lives, dinner at the Ace Cafe in London happened in a pretty haphazard way. We were at a bar-b-que on the Gold Coast with our friends Greg and Kerrie Lane (inveterate bike travelers who have ridden all over Europe and the US) to discuss the possibility of a catch up at the Isle of Man for the 2011 Tourist Trophy races when we discovered we would both be in London for a few days in late May.

The annual motorcycle races on the Isle of Man known as the Tourist Trophy or TT are legendary. First run in 1907 and won by Charlie Collier on a Matchless, the race was for many years the most prestigious motorcycle race in the world championship. It was and remains, however, extraordinarily challenging and dangerous. The difficult 54 km course takes years to learn. It runs on public roads along country lanes and through towns and villages with no safety run-offs and no room for error. More than 260 racers have died in the TT and many hundreds of others have been seriously injured.

Our hotel room overlooking Douglas Bay was pleasant, large and full of late afternoon sun.  While Jo unpacked and checked emails, I opened a window and lent out to look down the promenade, along the line of hotels and guest houses and on to the centre of town a few hundred metres away.  I knelt on the floor, leaning out of the low window, too excited to do anything useful.  The sight amazed me.  There were bikes everywhere; bikes parked in every available space; bikes so thick that pedestrians had to wait minutes for a break in the flow to cross the road; some said there were 10,000 bikes o

continued – Part 2

... Continued Part 3.

Our decision to leave the Isle of Man before the end of the TT race week was made almost a year ago when we booked our accommodation and ferry tickets.    And, while we may have allocated our time differently with more experience, the arrangement worked well and provided the advantage of allowing us to attend a round of the MotoGP at Silverstone on our way back to London.  We had heard that the Silverstone circuit had just had a major overhaul and that the facilities were very good.  It was located on the route back to London so it was too good a chance to miss.

With the important business of family and beer complete, our aim for the next part of our adventure was to spend some time in the Alps and ride some of the high passes.  The inspiration for this came from our off-spring who, some five years before, had given us a guide to motorcycle rides in the Alps.  As I write this, Jo is sitting on the bed with that well-worn guide, making margin notes and tagging pages for the journey ahead.  I am sure that Sarah and Nick are pleased their gift has been both inspirational and practical.

After our wet and chilly return from the Isle of Man and Silverstone, Jo and I had ten days in London for some grandparentals and a refit of the bike.  Our granddaughter was a delight as always, but the bike presented a somewhat less uplifting and more practical problem.  In short, the volume of wet and cold weather clothing we felt we needed was so bulky that it made packing a job for an origami master, and the load ended a little unbalanced.   Most bikes distribute the weight roughly evenly between the front and back axle, often with a slight bias towards the front axle.  Fully loaded we

As we twisted and turned across the Dolomites (or Dolomiti for the Italians and Dolomiten for the German speakers), we started to get a better understanding of the region and its history.  However jaded a traveler you might be, and Team Elephant can be a little jaded at times, you will find the Dolomites stunning.  Here, the mountains soar, the villages cling to hills, the roads defy common sense and the stunning vista is so commonplace that it hardly warrants a photo stop.

This blog jumps from central Switzerland to Western France without much in between.  It happened that way because of family and weather and, as usual, idle curiosity.  It is a story that has its start on the Isle of Man with the idea of Celtic heritage but ends being about philosophy or, at least, the philosophy of riding motorcycles.

We had positioned ourselves at San Leonardo so that we had a straight run at the famous Timmels Joch early in the day. Our experience in the Alps up to that point was that the days started out clear and fine and deteriorated in the afternoon.

Having found the cabin, we were full of good will towards the world and rode south again towards the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, Grossglockner for short.  This famous alpine road is 48 km long with 36 bends and an altitude ascent of 2 504 metres.

It was an easy ride south from Plzen into Austria.  We had changed only 100 pounds Sterling into Czech crowns when we crossed into the country thinking that we would get more later in Plzen.  As it turned out, 100 quid was enough to get us a good hotel, dinner, the brewery tour and a tank of fuel.

By the time we crossed into Switzerland we found ourselves running to a deadline for the first time in a few weeks.  We had arranged to meet our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter in western Switzerland for a few days and we needed to be at the place in three days.  This was plenty of time provided the weather remained good.  Our schedule would allow us to have a day in St. Moritz on the way.