Nice trip ArguZ ......  I wish I had the chance to do that

Ciao Ragazzi, I am in Milano, its warm and sunny and there are more beautiful girls in the streets than flies on my windscreen

Which brings us back to the topic, right ? THE RIDE !
After enjoying the love and kindness of my mum and blazing my head of a couple of times at this ubercrazy German traditional festival it was time to pack everything back into the Cortechs,check the babe for oil and air and continue the trip back south.
When I got up I checked the weather forecast for Germany, Austria,Lichtenstein, Swizzerland and Italy…and it got more promising every mile down there.
The first 100 km around the Lake of Constance where pretty straight forward and nothing really happened.

I got robbed by the authorities like always by paying toll for the 13km of Austrian highway and of course I needed the Swiss one too…too colourful badges on the fork…yeah
As the weather got worse my only hope was Heidiland…and yes, I made it in time.
Heidiland is just surreal. If you EVER come to Switzerland you HAVE to stop there.
Imagine a four star Bistro where everything is made freshly in front of your eyes, like juices, steaks, fish, salads and so on next to the highway…In perfect swiss quality..Its just heaven..

After the rain stopped I joined a group of other bikers on their way to France and we reached the Spluegen Pass…Ok..I have to admit I chickened out because I never did a pass before.
Also it would bring me to much of course and so I decided to stick to the plan and ride up San Bernadino.
Holy mother of the mountain gods !!!! What a blast !
Forget about fly screens and high speed and all that nonsense !
What you want is a pass !
The monster just flipped trough those curves over and over again…after a while I could do it faster and faster and really got into a perfect flow of accelerating, up shifting, breaking, downshifting, line finding, leaning and again and again…God is was great.

On the top it was freezing cold and I decided to just take a quick picture and continue to the other side.
But down there I saw the tunnel….and I rode back to do it again

This time I stopped on the pass and had a fellow Ducatisto take a photo and I got a little silver shiny San Bernadino sicker for the bike as well…hell, when I am back it will look like a Panini sticker album.

Anyway…Down the valley of Mesocco of course I couldn’t ride without actually stepping inside the old walls and recall memories of one of the best Goa Parties ever.

Taking the old road down to Bellinzona was actually the best ride at all. It runs parallel to the highway and has no traffic at all..for half an hour its just me and the bike and not too slow curves.

A nice lady warned my before the cops and I could wave to them instead of handing them out my budget for beer for a year…Its still Switzerland even if it looks and feels like Italy there already.
The temperature went from 5 to 25 degrees celcius in under and hour…And thank god I brought my summer mesh jacket..
After riding another two hours through the Tessin I arrived at the most beautiful spot on earth…yes…Its where young Darth Vader married his princess and also where James Bond shot Mr. White in Casino Royale …Lago di Como, Lago Maggiore.

This is Lugano, the pearl of Switzerland and the place I need to be when I am old and grey…Just to beautiful to describe.

I am sooo jealous. Great trip!

So I decided to ditch the highway again and ride down old roads to Milan. And it was 5 pm and very very crowded with commuters…well…this was the time to learn something from the Italians .
I am now a fully certified lane splitter  I am sure I passed 500 or more cars the next hour.
After you did it the first times it feels to right and rewarding to let all the cagers behind , melting in their cars 
Traffic in Milan was only half as a crazy as I expected and after 10 hours on the road with an average pace of 63 I know I have a fantastic looking touring bike .

Today we did the full Milano schedule with a lot of Icecream, beer, Pizza, looking at  models passing by and finally, finally watching HELLBOY 2 . Congrats back to Denmark and my fellow Ghosts, you did such a nice job and it made me wanting to come back soon.

Wow…just three more days on the road and its over…
Tomorrow from Milano to Bolzano … stay tuned.

Quote from: ArguZ on July 23, 2008, 11:44:14 AM
Anyway…Down the valley of Mesocco of course I couldn’t ride without actually stepping inside the old walls and recall memories of one of the best Goa Parties ever.

Aaaahhhhhhhhh, Goa parties........ 

Been to a few amazing ones myself back in the early '90's... I miss those days. 

-Beautiful pics + great story though, keep it coming!! 

Amazing roads, pics and story.
So jealous.

Hej hej from denmark,
After packing the bike in the the best summer attitude (rain ? HA HA ! Its Italy !) I started the next morning from Milano to Bolzano in South Tirol.
Moving through the traffic in Milan was fun as tow days ago...everybody honking, but they see it as a sport and do it very fair.
Nobody really steals the place from you, its just a game it seems.
I continued the highway up north to the right side of the lake of Como. George Clooney picked a nice place to live it seems.

So i just needed to have brunch in this calm hidden place and enjoy some more great Italian specialties.

I decided to go down to the lake and ride the coast line along upwards till the end of the lake and then enter the valley of Veltin.
Driving along the river for one hour wasn't very interesting, especially because of all the trucks making their way trough roundabout after roundabout.
But then the street started to climb back into the mountains and the fun started again...here the view back through the valley

Riding the last hours through this amazing landscape really made me think about life and all and really felt home for a short while.
Maybe I will open a little hostel for riders one day from where you can see the mountains and just enjoy existence

The next POI was the Passo Tonale, a small skying area

Very empty in the summer but you still can do rafting and walking and climbing of course.
I continued downwards the Passo Mendilo and got right into a downhill bicycle race...Jesus ! Those guys were crazy !
I took some of them over with 70-80 kmh and we are talking about small alpine roads with traffic.

Slowly the landscape got less high alpine and huge fruit planes took over.
Here they make the best high percentage fruit liquor too...I´ll buy some for the train 

While the sun turned the Dolomities into a beautiful red our bikes where already loaded on the train.

I met some funny dutch guys I wanted to spend the evening in the train with and we went to buy some perfect Italian picknick things for the 16 hour ride.
No pics from the fest, sorry, but when we arrived in Hamburg I new the journey is slowly coming to and end.

We have outstanding weather here in Scandinavia right now and I looking forward to Sweden and the racetrack tomorrow.

Still one country I have yet to visit.  Thanks for the great pictures.

beautiful!!..enoying your trip , .....     thanks for the pix... & stay safe  [moto]

Here we go...the last chapter of the Iron Butt 2008 saga has been written and I am here to tell you about it.
Packed like the last two weeks , but now also with tent and sleeping bag and my brand new shiny self inflating 150 bucks sleeping matte I drove over the Oeresund bridge from Denmark to Sweden.
The ring lays hidden in the most cute Swedish postcard landscape and is only used for special private events like this one.
http://www.ringknutstorp.com/
When I arrived in the late afternoon a lot of people already had their first track day and the scenery was looking like a camp site somewhere in greece, just with the distinctive smell of gasoline, rubber and dozens of BBQs. I felt home immediately   

Italian Bike Store, the shop I bought my Monster from three months ago, invited us to this event and they organized this cool tent, fantastic food, drinks, snacks and a full blown mechanical area too.

After packing out and erecting the tent the new guys had the possibility to go with one of the racers over the track and get first impressions.
This was the moment when the tingling sensation of the next morning started to build up.

The evening we spent walking the area, watching other peoples passion on wheels and I this is my personal favorite :
KTM 625 engine, Ducati frame, self welded exhaust and a lot of other highly geeky parts I never heard of before.
It was also the loudest bike on the track 

But the bikes we had in the tent where also very very cool, of course...or hot...maybe too hot...so hot one engine exploded the next day in a big column of smoke and oil...

After a very short, uncomfortable, snoring, walking around, cold and hard bottomed night ( ok, I fukking HATE camping  ) the morning looked as fresh as Dr. Best and we got served a good danish breakfast...Sausages , bacon and beer 

The tech people helped me preparing the bike for the races...all glass parts covered in duct tape, mirrors taken off and then I could show it to the inspector and get my race number...yeah !

The whole even consisted of four different classes...the rookies in green with an instructor and three sub levels.
Then red with instructor and action parts, blue was free driving with master drivers on the track and black for the Rossi wannabes....Sorry...Stoner of course...hehe
Each group had 15 minutes track time and 45 min resting time to get cold drinks and cool down after the run..

And , Oh sweet Mother of J. WHAT runs 
This day totally opened my eyes what it really means to ride a motorbike...I managed to get my tire down to 1cm at the edge and it looks like a frying pan full of rubber all over now.
Incredible I survived the last 3000 km without taking curves like we did on the track...or maybe...that's why I survided.
But anyway...it was really thrilling every time we got out and we did it for 6 hours...6 times 8 laps of 2000m
I also met some very nice guys from where I live among the group and at the end of the day we packed everything together and rode back over the big bridge to Denmark.
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.
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And this is where the story ends....This is the verdict of the GPS and I have nothing to add.

Well...just some credits maybe...
i probably had one of the best vacations in my life and this is not only because of the bike and the roads and the weather.
Its especially because of all the great people I could see again and who took me in, helped me out, drove along side and partied hard with me...
Thanks a million to my family, Sabine+Sabine, Klara, Nic, Pattex, Gabriel, Rüdiger, Roberto and the Ravensburgers for sharing time with me.
Kudos to Ducati, TomTom, Apple, Dainese and Cortech who are building just great things to ride with.
I hope you enjoyed reading it too and i just have to say : DO IT whenever you find the opportunity to got away from the RL for week or two.

Ride save , so long and thanks for all the fuel  [moto]

Awesome

Amazing!
Great write up and pictures.
Can't wait to get my sh!t together and do something like this w/ a few friends.

Such an amazing adventure
Thanks for sharing it with us!
I hope to have something to show for my 1700 mile 2 state trip that starts in 6 days 

Okok I know its old news , but I just found this picture on the track days page and needed to share it.
Can´t wait to do it again...there is way to much unused rubber at the sides of my tires