The Polenta Riders: ADVRIDER European Rallye 2005

[Joerg]

Hi All,

This thread should probably carry a subtitle like how wet can it get in sunny Italy. Or perhaps, how much Polenta can you eat in 24 hours .

This is not a complete ride report yet; I'm starting this thread since I hope the other Polenta riders will chime in in the meantime ... I still have to rework most of the pictures myself. So, just a very short preliminary summary:

We had one day (uhm ... let's call that "a part of friday afternoon") with truly good weather, like you would expect it from the Italian Alps :

Saturday morning, it got a tiny little bit worse ... fog. Breakfast in the fog, Assietta in the fog, mountains in the fog, the whole landscape in the fog. Foggin' fog. It came in the morning, and it stayed like this until early afternoon:

... then the fog converted into foggin' rain :

But moral was fine, and we were even thinking about those of you that are sitting in their warm office:

... more to come, stay tuned : !

(PS. The pictures are, still wildly unsorted and also without text, on my homepage - see signature)

[GiorgioXT]

Just few seconds to thanks ALL the partecipants...You were a REAL bunch of friends!
and AdvRider may be really as well be a nation ...as SpanishBob's stickers tell!

Report & pics will follow soon...But I have to make my excuses for Saturday Valle Argentera's ride , there I substimated the difficulties of that track ...

[jdiaz]

That Saturday morning downpour was unbelievable. You guys are truly hard-core.

Jon

[rallybug]

Looks pretty darn wet

Shame I couldn't make this one (had to cope with 25-30C heat here instead ), but hope to make the meet next year, if possible

[Drif10]

Originally Posted by jdiaz

That Saturday morning downpour was unbelievable. You guys are truly hard-core.

Jon

Naw, just European. If you don't get good at riding in the rain and fog, well then you ain't gonna be riding. I was in Belgium for 6 years, rain riding was a daily thing, damn near.

[jdiaz]

Originally Posted by Drif10

Naw, just European. If you don't get good at riding in the rain and fog, well then you ain't gonna be riding. I was in Belgium for 6 years, rain riding was a daily thing, damn near.

Actually, we've had a hot dry summer, until last weekend.

Jon

[Dukegirl]

So, where are the pictures of the polenta?

[Joerg]

Originally Posted by Dukegirl

So, where are the pictures of the polenta?

[Dukegirl]

[Spanish Bob]

Originally Posted by Joerg

you´ll find it easier to see the polenta if you ignore the Scotsman with the sausage ruining the picture..

[Joerg]

... so here comes the real ride report !

The weather forecast for this weekend, at least in Switzerland, was not too nice, but I was hoping for a time like we had it in 2004: Rain until the very last moment, and then lots of sun throughout the whole weekend. Indeed it started not too bad ... friends from southern Germany turned up at our place on thursday evening, and on friday morning the sky was seriously overcast but it was dry.

We started from my home (near Lausanne) on friday morning, and even the huge black rainfront over Geneva withdrew while we were coming closer. We managed to cross the city on a Friday morning around 08:30 without any traffic problems (was this really Geneva?) and into France. Still overcast, some occasional light rain but mostly dry, and temperatures were fine for riding.

GiorgioXT had set a meeting point at the Col de l'Iseran around lunchtime, which is almost exactly 250 km from my place. Starting at about 07:30, this gave us an ETA of 12:30 if we would stick to the route suggested by ViaMichelin. Of course we didn't, and the occasional gravel road, smoker's stops, a loose steering head bearing on one of our bikes, roadworks, and a flock of cows crossing the street near Bourg-St Maurice made us arrive at the Col around 13:30. Still in time, since the whole bunch of AdvRiders (who did not yet know they would soon become PolentaRiders) was assembled in the café.

This is where the "official" part starts.

As usual, Col de l'Iseran is a cold and windy place (2770 m, what did you expect?), so - after picking up Capnopol's Caponord, who opened the "drop your bike" competition - thirteen bikes with fourteen people headed south. The recommended way to Susa is the Col du Mont-Cenis, which presented itself as a turquoise-green jewel embedded in a green-and yellow landscape under an alpine-blue-white sky.


Following the road on the west coast of the lake ...


... we made a stop at the Refuge du Petit Mt.-Cenis (2110 m). The Crêpes are recommended :-)


Next step
Down to Susa, yet another stop. I briefly started to ask myself if this was an old man's party since we seemed to stop every few minutes ... but it turned out that someone merely needed to pull money from a wall to be able to buy some, uhm, "throat disinfectant".

From there, up to the Colle delle Finestre. Those who did not know the area were greeted by this sign, which is Italian and means "motorcycle paradise ahead":


A part of that road has been re-paved recently (Giro d'Italia), but this did not reduce the riding fun since several of the lower hairpins were decorated with a fine layer of dust or gravel.




After twenty-something of the thirty hairpins in the lower part it started to get slightly boring, but the upper part of the Colle (with another 24 turns) is a gravel highway anyway:


On the way up, Bavarian was so fascinated by the landscape that he laid down his GS even before we reached the summit (he was not the only one undergoing increased gravity, but at least I had my camera ready ;-).

Since this happened in the shadow, he was so kind to repeat the figure in the next turn, which was in the sun and scratched the valve covers on the other side (think symmetry!). Unfortunately no photo here.


From Colle delle Finestre - 2176 m - it was just a short jump to the Agriturismo Plane dell'Alpe where GiorgioXT had arranged for diner and sleep. This was where we had the first Polenta, of course preceded by a series of appetizers and accompanied by sufficient amounts of red wine. Three friends of Giorgio joined us during the evening, two of them on real motorcycles: An 1981 R80 G/S, and a difficult-to-date XLV750.



Outside, a few clouds were coming up, and the rifugio was soon in the shadow of the setting sun. I postponed the compulsory picture of the site for the next morning, when I thought we would have a bright sunny morning sky with a gorgeous view.

Nobody knew that this was going to be an error.

[bavarian]

I have not uploaded my pics yet but for me it was a real fun ride despite the bad weather. I just loved the company of all of you participants and I hope we can do it again soon!! Giorgio you designed a great route, next time we definitely have to appoint someone to take responsibility for the weather so we can blame someone.

I travelled with Bicyclephil, Rob and Spanisbob down to France and ended up in St. Chamas near Marseille on Sunday eve. Had a real blast despite the fact that I changed in and out of raingear about five times during the trip. After arrival in St. Chamas I got a real treat by a real chef, appetizers, pastice, rosé, espresso, the whole program. What a perfect day.

I just arrived here in Munich, so stay tuned, I took a lot of pics down and back but it will take a while to load them.

My hat is still off to Ella who made the trip on her heavy pig and handled it like a pro!!!

Thanks for your company!!

[Joerg]

Waking up on Saturday morning, it was clear that I did not have too much wine the evening before, since the only cloud that I saw was still rather far away. And outside.


A "certain" lack of sleep was present, but this was due to Tim's huge resonating body that had filled the room with impressive snores .


Bavarian and myself went downstairs, got some coffee and started breakfast. A faint memory of the evening before was that GiorgioXT had suggested an early breakfast and to start the engines at about 08:30. I finally dared to have a look into that room whose door was still closed, and found the following wild scene. Note that this was 08:23, seven minutes left


In the meantime, the weather was degrading. Instead of a light morning gaze, serious fog was coming up and started to cover the landscape. At the time we got ready to ride, the fog had mutated to thick fog with rain.


Since we were in the "middle of the mountains", we engaged on the Assietta. It's a gravel road - like many others in this region originally built for military purposes - that follows some spectacular summits of the region, over about 36 km.

A road sign just after the rifugio said that the road was blocked due to roadworks, but who in Italy works on a Saturday?

We should soon find out.

After a few km, we crossed a small truck whose driver explained us that the road was chiuso. Well, not a problem: if a truck comes through, we would certainly come through, too.

Still a few minutes later, we passed a concrete mixer.

Yet another few minutes later, we ended up behind an excavator that was taking up the whole road.

And the concrete mixer soon closing behind us.


The workers at the excavator insisted that the road was definitively chiuso, chiuso, chiuso!, but in the meantime Giorgio's italian friends - riding a few minutes ahead - had somehow managed to pass. And after long, very long minutes of arguing, Giorgio indeed managed to have the workers move their excavator about one meter to the side ... which was all we needed. A second obstacle was a compressor, nicely positioned in the middle of the road but only of minor importance. Better a few meters of mud than turning around:


... and yes, there was also that story with the shepherd's dog who chased (and got!) the KTM950, since the rider ignored ATGATT ... but that's up to someone else to describe, since I did unfortunately not witness this event

The fog did not disappear, though. A few times there were moments when the rain stopped and the clouds got brighter ... that's where I was hoping to break through the upper parts of the cloud and to get one of those famous "above the clouds" sights. It should not happen, though.


We safely continued the Assietta down to Sestrieres, stopped for a quick shopping, and watched the rain converting into a heavy downpour.

We already knew that we had lots of fun together, and that we were spending a great day. Who cares if it rains?

We did not yet know about the little test that GiorgioXT would impose on us, before we would merit some lunch.
We did not yet know the menu either.
We did not even dream of the dessert that composed the way back.

It was going to be a remarkable day!

[Dukegirl]

[Joerg]

The rain got a bit weaker, the dog-bitten-and-now-stitched KTM rider joined us again, and Giorgio got the confirmation that the next rifugio was indeed waiting for us. Thus we made our way from Sestriere to Valle Argentiera. It is a beautiful, wide valley, stretched along the river Ripa, and is used by the locals for hiking, camping and relaxing. The road is an easy gravel road, albeit with a number of huge-but-late-to-see-bumps


We did not have the blue sky that we were hoping for, but at least the rain ceased ... until the moment when Nighthawk lost the water bottle that he had loosely attached to his luggage. The bottle broke open, water poured out, and the rain started. Simultaneously.

Foggin' weather. I should have taken the RT.

Only a few km more until rifugio "Alpe Plane". Let's just get there and eat.

From the wide, flat gravel road we switched onto a narrow gravel thing, and virtually without transition we found ourselves on a steep path upwards, covered with a mixture of blank rocks, fine mud, and gravel. And all that soaking wet.

I was too occupied to keep the GS going, so no photos here. In the lower gears the rear wheel spun, in the upper gears I did not have enough torque. And I did not have the intention to stop in the slope. The following picture was taken on the way back - it is almost impossible to visualize the steep path, but perhaps the trees can give an idea.


The path finally ended on a small open stretch, giving us some time to breathe ... and to hope that Giorgio had another, alternative way back in mind. The ideas of going down that slippery slope with street tires (most of us had Tourances) was not truly appealing. Anyway, from that stop it was just a short way to the rifugio, and at least the way there was not as steep as the path we just made.

It was only mud.

After a short gravel path, the final 700 m (or something like this) was fresh, creamy mud, distributed in and around grooves that had been created by 4x4 tracks. Sliding towards rifugio "Alpe Plane", the first thing I did on arrival was to reduce the pressure in the rear wheel. By the way: most of the crew made this section without dropping their bike ... well, most ;-)




A well-merited break ...


... and guess what we had for lunch!


During the lunch break, the rain stopped for a short while and left its place to some hail. Imagine the scenery: You are sitting inside a warm hut, heated by a copy fire, enjoying good company, red wine and Polenta . Outside, the rain changes with hail, and that foggin' fog is coming up again . Errr ... can't we simply stay here?

Digestion of the Polenta raised our moral again, and after a while we got ready for the way back. It turned out that there was indeed an alternative way down ... it just had a few minor disadvantages: It was steep, it was narrow, it was exposed ... if one of the Boxer engines would hit the rocks on the hillside, it would not be too funny. It's the small diagonal line leading to the lower-left part of the picture here:


It was obvious that we would take the same path back that we had come.

And we dit it. With lots of Adrenaline, but without major problems.

The main thing is to go one by one, and very slowly. Controlling the speed with the clutch and front brakes, we all made it. If the bike starts sliding, do not try to stop it but just steer it. And the grooves filled with gravel turned out to be wonderful "guides" if everything else was slippery.

Nobody hurt, all very proud Here are a few impressions from the final meters (back on gravel):

(I possibly confused a few of the nicks. Please PM me for corrections!)

Ela and GiorgioXT:


Possu:


MiG and Nighthawk (getting penalties on the "B" note for using his feet):


Nighthawk and LOZ (?):


Tim on his rolling house:


The "italian fraction" ... XLV750, GiorgioXT, Tano, Francesco (on the G/S):


More real bikes:


Tim found out that his Jesse topcase was going to fly, so he improvised a little repair:


... and from there we got to the next rifugio. There is still one Polenta left, one full
evening, and the next morning.

And nobody knew that the night would bring snow.
And nobody knew that the next morning would bring a bicycle race.