After checking the dates of the next few GPs, I realised that I would not be able to go to the German GP at Hockenheim (probably the closest track to where I live) since I would be flying back from a conference in Maui that weekend. So, I told Stef that I would probably be able to go to Salzburg, but only for a few days due to work pressures. After some communication difficulties, exacerbated by the time difference between Switzerland and California and some minor emergencies at work, we decided that I would book a hotel room, and Stefan would ring me from Paris when he had his train booked -- he wanted to travel on the Orient Express, and said it got into Salzburg about 2200 at night. He was due to arrive in Paris on the 11th.
On Monday the 10th, our travel officer at work was able to get a relatively cheap room for us, on the first try, at 1200 Schillings per night (about $US110). I relayed this information to Stefan before he left SF, and started my planning. I was rather surprised that a room would be so readily available at a late date with such a large event occurring nearby, but it later appeared that there were no major cultural events scheduled simultaneously with the races.
I had to get myself a new pair of gloves and a tankbag for the trip. I also made the first of two modifications to Black Kat. The deliberate mod was to install some Grab-On foam grips that I'd bought back in Oz last year; the accidental mod was to back into an unnoticed handle on a dumpster at my favourite bike shop, cracking the rear reflector. Unfortunately, the owner of shop was not in, but I managed to communicate fairly well with the young lass behind the counter, and soon came away with a pair of soft black gloves (SFr. 89) and a magnetic tank-bag (SFr. 199). The gloves were a bit dearer than I expected, though they had more padding than I really expected for summer gloves, and rather long wrists; the tank-bag was cheaper than expected. As usual, I worked a lot of Coachaline leather dressing into the gloves to soften and waterproof them.
By the time Thursday night rolled around, there had still been no word from Paris. On Friday I packed up the tank-bag, plus my old one bungeed to the pillion seat (its straps had been stolen along with my GSXR-750 several years ago in Zurich). I figured three changes of clothes were enough for a four-day excursion. I also had my camera and lenses, and a pair of binoculars. A couple of small Aussie flags went into the bags too. First stop was work, to see if there was any news from Stef, but there was nothing, so at 1005 I climbed back onto Black Kat and set off.
The weather was coolish, with overcast slowly clearing to scattered clouds -- ideal touring weather, as long as the forecast showers and storms didn't eventuate. I planned to take a major road up to Winterthur, then get on the Autobahn to Wil, and take a minor road over the Tobbenburg to Gams and thence into Liechtenstein and Austria. I was then to travel on major roads and Autobahnen to Innsbruck and Woergl. Since the route from Innsbruck to Salzburg passed through a corner of Germany, and since I figured that the border crossings would be clogged late Friday, I then wanted to detour south and east through Kitzbuehel, coming upon Salzburg from the south.
It wasn't long before things started to go wrong. Firstly, the rain didn't hold off, and I went through a few sharp showers. Nevertheless, the road to Winterthur was reasonably good with some nice curves, but a few slow heavy vehicles. The traffic was moderate for Switzerland. I was held up at a roadworks at one point, behind about thirty vehicles, and by the time we got to move (about two minutes later) there were a further twenty behind me. My arms were just touching the side-pockets on the tankbag, and that was enough to deter me from hanging-off in all but the tightest hairpin bends; I adopted a more conservative cornering style than usual, just sticking my knee out in tighter corners.
Once on the Autobahn, I moved up to the proper speed and settled in for the run to Wil. Unfortunately, I was soon confronted with an interchange, and the signs gave no mention of Wil -- I had to choose between Munich and Constance! I figured that the road to Muenchen must go north of Lake Constance (Bodensee), so I should take the southerly route towards Konstanz. Imagine my chagrin a few minutes after doing so to find that the roads crossed and the Konstanz route was the more northerly -- I should have taken the Muenchen road!
After it became rather obvious that I had screwed up, I took an exit and tried to find my way back towards Wil. It turned out that Route 16 that I wanted to take between Wil and Gams extended up to the more northerly route, so after a few false starts, I came upon this road. Due to ambiguous signposting (a real problem in Switzerland) I went past the turnoff at first. At this point it was raining enough that I decided I'd better forsake my leather jacket for my New Zealand rainwear, so I pulled off into a truck depot to make the change. I was halfway changed when a heavy truck pulled in, and proceeded to back straight towards me! I looked around, and realised I had stopped right in front of a trailer that he wanted to hook up to his rig, so a bit of a struggle with the bike in the muddy conditions and I gave him enough room to proceed.
Back on the road again, and I was soon in Wil, following the R16 signs through town. Then, at the last intersection, I couldn't see the magic number and had to proceed straight ahead -- down the wrong road, of course. After several stops to read my map, I finally worked out where I should be headed and eventually came back onto R16, having detoured through some rather narrow rural lanes. At least from here on things were pretty straightforward. The road hits a pass at Wildhaus (1090 m) and it's a rather curvy and nice run down into Gams. There had obviously been a heavy storm here the night before, and the first section was wet and strewn with leaves knocked off the overhanging trees, so I took it rather cautiously. A Yamaha FZ of some sort came up on me very quickly and passed me -- his plates indicated he was from the canton of Basel Stadt (BS). He must have slowed down to have some company, because he was never more than a hundred metres or so in front of me for the rest of the route. It was interesting to see him come out of a shower or wet section and see the track he left gradually peter out as the contact patch dried out, only to have the trail re-appear when he went around corners and leant still-wet rubber onto the road.
The crossing into Liechtenstein was just a bridge across the Rhine. For the most part, the Furstentum is effectively a part of Switzerland so traffic between the two countries is unimpeded. My BS mate stopped for petrol, and I continued alone towards Austria. The border was no hassle as I was just waved straight through. I soon picked up the Autobahn towards Innsbruck and worked up to the legal speed of 130 km/h (and sometimes a bit more). It was all fairly relaxed, although I did have some hassles with a Mitsubishi with Tirol (I think) plates who was travelling at about my pace so we kept swapping places as the fast and slow lanes varied speed with the conditions. Problem was, he was a bit of an idiot and had no idea how to read the traffic. At one point, when there was a minor slow-down due to entering traffic, he even pushed past me still within my lane to gain those precious three metres. By this time I was onto reserve and starting to think about locating a bank to get some Schillings, and a servo to fill up.
Comes a sign that the next petrol is at Arlberg, still within my range, so that became my target. Then another sign saying that the Arlberg pass was open, but there was a 13-plus km tunnel as an alternative. By this time I was wanting not to waste time or petrol, and opted for the tunnel. As the road closed down to one lane for the tunnel, who was there ahead of me but my friendly Mitsubishi? I squeezed past him in the last few metres of the closing left lane and off into the tunnel. I don't like tunnels; I tend to lose the vertical, especially when there are curves, so it was not the nicest of rides with someone whose skills I doubted riding on my tail. I adopted the practice of riding left of centre unless a large truck was coming in the opposite direction, when I swerved to the right side to be away from the worst of the wind gusts. After a few of these manoeuvers, Mr Mitsubishi decided I was as crazy as I thought him to be, and dropped back to a reasonable distance.
The big surprise was at the end of the tunnel, when I found out that it was a tollway! I pulled up to the booth and a sign said to pay 200 S. I said, "Ich habe nur Schweizer Geld," and the sign changed to SFr. 14! After this, I started seriously looking for petrol. One little village off to the side looked promising, but my way to it was blocked by a level-crossing gate that looked like it was already in place for next week's milk train, so back to the Autobahn again. Coming out of a tunnel, I finally saw a servo on the left, and dashed in there. "Nehmen Sie Schweizer Geld?" "Ja!" "Gut. Voll, bitte." It took about 16.5 litres, which was a bit strange seeing as I'd gone 50 or 60 km past reserve, which is supposed to be at 15 l. Back to the road, and I had to wait a bit for a gap both ways to get on my way again. Just before one appeared, my BS mate from Wildhaus went charging past! I couldn't catch him, as the traffic was heavy and slow, and he was passing the slow traffic down the centre-line.
From here, the traffic was very heavy, and very slow, for 20 or 30 km around Landeck. I was a bit puzzled by this, and by the fact that I was off the Autobahn even though my map indicated Autobahn to Innsbruck and beyond. On the return trip, I finally worked out that a major tunnel nearby was closed for roadworks, closing a section of the Autobahn and directing all the traffic through this already-crowded summer holiday resort. Before we were out of it, my left arm and shoulder were very sore, partly because of the way my rain-suit pulls against the arm, and partly due to all the clutch usage I was subjected to. My left arm and shoulder were badly damaged in an accident many years ago, and I don't use the arm much, so it doesn't have much strength. Finally, we were back on the Autobahn, and in short order arrived in Innsbruck, where there were several diversions due to roadworks. There was also a lot of heavy traffic on the road past Innsbruck, which slowed the traffic and necessitated a very alert eye to avoid pileups whenever a truck doing 81 km/h pulled out into the 140 km/h fast lane to pass another truck doing only 80 km/h.
By now, I was really wanting to make up time, and decided to forego my detour down through Kitzbuehel, hoping that any delay at the border would be more than compensated by the quicker route. I didn't realise, however, that I still had to turn off at Woergl to take the direct route I'd seen, so I kept following the Autobahn signs saying "Salzburg". I was a bit surprised that I came on the German border sooner than I'd expected, though. I stopped and already had my glove off to take out my passport when the guard waved me through! My constant companion around this time was a little old Renault 4 which continually amazed me with the way it was able to accelerate to and maintain at least 130 km/h. I finally realised that I was definitely on a different road than I had imagined when a signpost indicated that Muenchen was nearby and Rosenheim just around the corner!
Things were going fairly smoothly at this stage, when it all came to a screeching halt -- almost literally! There was still a certain amount of slow traffic, so most vehicles were staying in the fast lane at 120 to 140 m/h. Suddenly, there was just an endless vista of red brake-lights ahead and the cars ahead started approaching at a great rate of knots. I'd only just overhauled a car towing a boat, so I had about 50 m of clear road behind me on the right. I punched into the right lane and hit the brakes hard. The car ahead of me had the same idea, so I had to swerve again to his right. Beyond the first glance before I changed lanes, I didn't have the attention to spare on my rear-vision mirror, so I was pumping on my brakes to maintain my distance just behind the car in front and flash my brake light as a heads-up to whoever was now behind me in the left lane. We all got down to a crawling pace without any contact, and proceeded along at a very-much reduced rate. After a few km, we came upon a wet road and motorcyclists everywhere struggling into wet-weather gear. The panic stop must have been a ripple-back of the slowdown when a thunder-storm opened up over the Autobahn.
Being already in my wets, I just continued on, until a Paris-Dakar replica pulled into the lane beside me and indicated that the rain-cover on my rear bag had come loose and was flapping in the breeze. I pulled off into an emergency pull-out and re-secured it, then had to wait for a minuscule gap in the slow lane to accelerate back into the traffic, being careful not to give too much gas and spin out on the white-painted road edging. Soon afterwards, after a few more sudden slow-downs, many caused by some nerd a few cars ahead of me who had no idea of Autobahn etiquette, we came into a congested area that was the approach to the Austrian border crossing. By this time the place was over-run with bikes, all of whom were ignoring traffic lanes and heading for the customs booths as quickly as possible in the pouring rain. I followed their lead, threading past hundreds of cars to get to the border. Again, we were just waved through, and soon at the entrance to Salzburg.
It turned out that my hotel was on the direct route into town, in Neutorstrasse, just metres before the Neutor tunnel, so although I stopped once to check the route, and again to check what the street numbering was, I was soon at the hotel. Just as well, too, as the storm was raining so hard that it was raising a lather on the streets with all the muck it was dislodging. I was able to book in without any hassle, and park in the lot behind a sister hotel on the opposite side of the street. There was still no sign of Stefan, though. It was now about 1745; total distance was 531 km, time was 7h 40m.
First order of business was to have a shower and freshen up. Due to rather high water pressure in Salzburg, the lack of a shower curtain, and a shower head that was free to move and rotate, I managed to get all my clothes far wetter within the first second of turning on the shower than I had in all the storms to date! Score one for bringing spares...
Next was to try to work out when Stefan would arrive. I walked through the tunnel under Moenchberg into the old town, and over a footbridge across the Salzach. It had stopped raining by now, but there was still enough wind to shake the bridge. After a short walk, I was finally at the Hauptbahnhof. I'd tried to get some money from an automat in town, but couldn't work out which way to insert my card (or it didn't want to recognise the card). I tried again at the station, and was able to get 1,000 S this time. A perusal of the arrivals showed no Orient Express from Paris, although there was an express to Skopje and Instanbul arriving from Muenchen a bit after 2000. I waited for this train, but only a couple of people disembarked, all immediately recognisable as not being Stef. Further reading of the timetables showed that the Orient Express was in fact due at 0510 in the morning, so I walked back to the hotel, and told the porter just to send Stefan up if and when he arrived. I'd made the mistake of buying a cheeseburger, fries, and a beer at a "Euro Snack" outlet near the station, and suffered from indigestion for most of the night. The good news was found on the Teletext pages of the Austrian channels -- Mick Doohan had been fastest in Friday's practice!
Around 0600, the phone rang; it was Stefan, who had arrived on the Orient Express and taken a taxi to the hotel. He had a shower and a short nap before we got up for breakfast at 0800. The reason I hadn't heard from him became clear when he told me that he'd assumed that the .ch in my e-mail address meant the Czech Republic, and he'd been phoning there all week! He'd finally realised his mistake on Friday, but by then I was on the road and obviously not in my office.
Our main problem was to somehow get Stef a helmet so he could come out to the track on my bike. All efforts at hiring a bike, or even a helmet, drew a blank. Finally, the hotel clerk said I might be able to find something at a service station "just down that street". Stef, being American, was quite prepared to let me take off to try to solve his problem -- just the first example of several such contretemps over the weekend. Before I found a servo, I came across a small bike shop, selling Ducatis, with a cop car out front and the cops admiring an obviously-new BMW 1100. Again, there was no possibility of renting a helmet, but as I went to ride away I noticed that they also owned the shop next door, which held a display of helmets of various quality and price. This time, I asked the shop assistant for a cheap helmet, and we went next door to find an open-face Uvex helmet for just 850 S; it was large enough that I was sure Stef could fit in it, and I had that much cash on me, so I took it. Definitely cheaper than the alternative of his renting a car!
Back at the hotel, Stef accepted my decision and paid for the helmet. Our next problem was to get across town to the track. My first choice of route had to be quickly aborted when I found out that the street I wanted to take was one-way -- against me! I then tried driving on instinct, but with overcast skies and an irregular street system, I was soon lost. By the time we consulted the map, we were well away from where I thought we were, but eventually I homed in on the main route through the city centre and made it out towards the Salzburgring. Stefan was already complaining about the comfort of Black Kat's pillion seat. As we were making our way out of town, I finally ran onto reserve, at 330 km from the last time I'd done so. Given that I'd taken on 16.5 l at the last fill, this gave consumption of 20 km/l, much better than the 17 km/l I normally get, despite the much higher Autobahn speeds I'd been indulging in. Obviously a constant pace returns better economy than the short trips to and from work that I normally drive. The other interesting thing was that the extra weight on the pillion, even though Stef is considerably bigger than me, made no discernable difference to the handling, and very little to the performance (I must admit that I've been wanting to reduce the damping and maybe springing from the stock settings, but have never found the time to work out just how much plastic I have to remove to get at the relevant items). He was, however, a fidgety passenger and I eventually had to ask him not to move around so much, as he occasionally steered the machine a bit off the line I preferred to take.
Our next surprise, when we tried to get to the track, was to find that the entry fee for practice and the races was 880S ($US80)! At first I misunderstood and thought that was just for Saturday, but then realised it was for the two days (actually, it also included Friday as well), so it was more reasonable. The problem was that neither of us had that much in Austrian currency. I finally asked how much in Swiss money, and it came to SFr 116, so I struck a deal with the ticket guy of SFr 100 + 150 S for each ticket, leaving Stefan with the problem of how to repay me.
It turned out that the road we'd gone down came upon the track just opposite the pits, so we took a rather muddy path through the woods to our left, and eventually came into the open near the chicane. We stopped here for a while, and I found it noticeable that the riders were not cutting the kerb as they seem always to do during the races. We saw the final free practice for the 500s, and a couple of sessions of 125 practice, one of them making up for the lost session on Friday which had been curtailed by the thunderstorm.
I was a bit puzzled about how soon the riders were coming around onto the other side of the track, as I'd recalled that there was a long climb uphill after the chicane. After a while, we moved on, through a tunnel to the other side, and I saw that the uphill section was actually opposite the pits. Finally, when I saw the TV coverage of the events, I realised that a low camera angle gives the illusion that the hairpin soon after the chicane is part of the uphill section. We continued to walk around the circuit, stopping from time to time to watch as the various classes went through their final timed practice. The best place to view the circuit seems to be part-way around the uphill section, where you can see some of the uphill section, the Fahrerlagerkurve (paddock bend), the esses after that, and the pit straight down to the chicane. Naturally, every man and his dog had the same idea...
One of the Austrian riders, Andy Preining, has a long-time sponsor in a lady of ample charms called Dolly Buster, who is also involved with "Europe's largest contact magazine". Naturally the press made much of this, with Ms Buster attending the riders' golf game and presenting the prizes for the teams mountain-bike race on Saturday after practice. During practice there were two very scantily-clad ladies circulating amongst the crowd, handing out advertisements for the magazine. Many of the guys in the crowd took the opportunity to be photographed with these (almost) lovelies, but when Stefan offered to take a shot of me with them for the cerritos archives, I declined. I'm not that fond of cellulite.
We finally made it around to the exit from Fahrerlagerkurve, where we were dumbfounded to find a betting tent with various odds. If I recall, it was 6:1 against three Aussies in the first 5 in any race. As we continued further, I nudged Stef to point out a Police officer half into the bushes with his back to the crowd, draining the last of a bottle of beer. Apparently this didn't escape his younger companion behind me, who brusquely demanded to see my entry ticket.
We climbed, with some difficulty, up a steep bare hillside just at the exit of the curve where there was a spectacular view down onto this section of the track, but a very limited view elsewhere. At this point it was obvious that another storm was coming up fast, so we wanted to get back to the bike and away. Stef was reluctant to go back down the other side of the steep hill, as he was travelling light and only had one pair of jeans and one pair of shoes which he wanted to avoid muddying. However, I pointed out that I was pretty sure that the bike was not very much further around the track, and gave him no option but to follow me. It turned out I was right, and we soon made the parking area and I was able to get off the grass, out of the mud, and onto the paved area for Stef to mount up. In what was to become our catch-phrase for the weekend I told him, "Remind me I've got mud on my tyres!"
Sure enough, we started getting rained on before we got back to the city, and sure enough I missed a critical turn, and we ended up heading into the downtown section. A map check showed us how to get to the main bridge across the Salzach, but when we got to the intersection opposite it, I found that one could only turn right rather than continue straight across the bridge. I was so amazed by this that I stopped on a green light, only realising my mistake when it turned to red. Luckily there was no-one behind me... We took the right, and I did a U-ey further down the street to get back to the bridge. At the end of the bridge was another surprise; the right turn had been blocked off and I had to turn left away from the Neutor. It later transpired that the old city section is closed to most vehicles from early Saturday to late Sunday, I guess to give the visiting pedestrians a bit of space. The problem was that I was looking to get back to the right for the Neutor tunnel, but all the roads into the street we were on were one way against a turn. One that wasn't turned out to be the entrance to a parking station...
At one T-junction before I got lost, I was lined up behind a car waiting to turn left, when an RZ-500, two-up, pushed to the front on our right, with the obvious intention of sprinting through the intersection as soon as the lights changed. I was interested in seeing if he would get into the power-band and slide out on the wet road. In the event, he didn't get into the power-band and must have stalled it, as he was nowhere to be seen behind us when we were 50 metres down the street. Suzuki 1, Yamaha 0! Stefan also made some DoD-approved gestures at a German driver who did a U-turn in front of me to get to a parking spot on our side of the street, forcing me to brake suddenly.
I tried following signs towards the airport since the main route away from our hotel was in that direction, but eventually had to admit defeat and look at the map again. At this point Stef was, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed on and pissed-off. Luckily there was a fairly straightforward route from the map-check back to the hotel, so I made it without being garotted from behind (Stef thought he was doing the navigation at this point).
Stefan had a guide book which listed four restaurants in Salzburg, two of them closed on Saturdays. One was at the top of Moenchberg, associated with a small hostel, so I looked at my map and told Stef it was only a 30-metre climb and off we went. Before we reached the top, Stef was disputing my claim, and I must admit that I had rounded-off the altitudes, and it was actually closer to 40 metres. There were great views from both sides of the hill, but especially over the old town and the river. The restaurant was tucked into a corner of the old defensive wall across the hill, and was not easily seen from the side we came up. It turned out to be right on the edge of the cliff, with a fantastic view, and good and reasonably-priced food. Surprisingly, it was almost deserted. Definitely recommended.
Later we walked down the steps on the other side of the hill, to Toscaninihof, and wandered around the old town for a while before going back to the hotel. The rain had long-since cleared, but was to return very heavily later in the night. For some reason I couldn't sleep, and the hotel turned out to be noisier than the previous night. The barricade blocking off the old town was just up the street and for several hours there was the noise of traffic (mainly bikes) pulling up, talking to the policeman on duty, then roaring off down the side-street. I was able to get a few hours' sleep, but was still rather tired Sunday morning.
It was still sprinkling when we set off for the track, so I wore my wets. I also wore a long-sleeved shirt, as I'd picked up a bit of colour from the sun on Saturday. I chose a different route this time and that, coupled with less traffic than on Saturday morning, got us through the city quickly and with no fuss. I stopped for petrol, and Stefan tried to get some plastic pants, as he didn't want to sit on wet ground, but was unsuccessful. Getting into the circuit was a pain, with police everywhere, and I was not able to get much further around than I had the day before.
It turned out we were near the top of the steep hill above the Fahrerlagerkurve, and after we'd made our way partway down the hill, Stef decided he didn't want to go any further as he didn't want to get his shoes and jeans muddy. I shrugged and continued around the circuit in search of a better view. Even though it was only a bit after 0900, the circuit was already packed, with all good vantage-points long occupied. I ended up not going as far around the circuit as I'd wanted, stopping above the braking area into the Fahrerlagerkurve, where I could see most of this curve, all the esses onto the straight, and the last of the climb up the hill. There was a convenient pole, carrying power to one of the many refreshment stands, that I was able to lean on, and during the next few hours of untimed practice, the crowd gradually spread out across the hill and engulfed me. From time to time, I used my binoculars to look across the circuit and check that Stef was still there. I'd printed out a colour copy of the more radical DoD daemon, and put that in the map window of my tank bag. Several people noticed it, but no-one recognised it or commented on it.
One problem I had, which turned out later to be a _real_ problem, was the weather. The overnight rain had cleared to drizzle, and now the drizzle cleared to sunny weather. I'd taken off the top portion of my one-piece wets, and tied the arms around my waist to keep them up. The long-sleeved shirt was protecting my arms. However, the sun was coming from pretty much directly behind me, and I knew I had to do something to protect my ears and neck. The natural thing to do was to tuck the larger of my Aussie flags into the back of my Suzuki cap to shade the sensitive bits. I'd tried to use the flag as a neckerchief but it just wasn't long enough to stay tied up. The problem was, that the flag material seems to be transparent to UV light! I'd turned up my collar, so my neck wasn't burnt, but my left cheek, and especially my ears, were terribly sunburnt. Both ears blistered along the edges, and are still sore and somewhat bloody a week later. It's hell pulling the helmet on and off!
The racing was great! It started out with the 250s, and the girl in front of me was somehow closely associated with Helmut Bradl, so I could watch her emotions as he traded places with Capirossi and Romboni for the entire race. These three were in a tight contest for first, with a further threesome of Harada, Biaggi, and Reggiani not far behind. Okada had been up with the leaders, but bailed in spectacular style coming onto the straight and was very lucky not to be hit by following riders when he picked himself up and ran to the wrong side of the track. None of the leading trio could get away from the others, and the winner was always in doubt. In the end, Romboni managed to stay in front when it counted, leading Capirossi and Bradl to the line. I managed to get a few shots of the leading trio with my telephoto lens -- it remains to be seen if any come out well.
The 500 race was eagerly awaited. Kevin Schwantz was by far the most popular rider and there were cheers and fireworks every time he appeared. I was looking forward to seeing Mick do well, as he'd ended up second in final timed practice. Doug Chandler and Luca Cadalora featured early in the race, to the delight of the Italian contingent at the bottom of my hill, but soon faded back as Doohan, Barros, Schwantz, and then Rainey started to get into their stride. Barros was doing well, but eventually succumbed to Mick's bike, and Mick led for much of the race, hounded all the way by Barros and Schwantz. Finally, just a lap or so from the end, Schwantz was able to get past Mick and used a group of back-markers to get a bit of a break, and in the last run out of the Fahrerlagerkurve put another between them, so that Mick had to wait until the straight to pass, and thus missed out on a drag to the line. Unnoticed, Rainey managed to get past Barros on the last lap to take third. It was all so exciting that I completely forgot to take any photos! Daryl Beattie and Shinichi Itoh had both slipped back during the race and didn't make much of an impact. Niall Mackenzie managed to make up a few places by the end. It was interesting watching Mat Mladin battling with a couple of Frenchmen for much of the race. He could obviously get past Laurent Naveau somewhere on the track, but couldn't get around Jose Kuhn. Then, at the braking area below me, Naveau would just shoot past Mat every lap with much later braking.
Naturally, the crowd went wild when Schwantz won, and there were fireworks going off everywhere. A very popular win!
I started back around the track as the 125s came out, and watched some of the race from the middle of the Fahrerlagerkurve. Dirk Raudies wasn't able to get away this time and was battling with Sakata and Gianola for the lead. I climbed up to where Stef was to see the last of the race. Tsujimura had been some way back at the start, and when I saw him up with the leaders I though he must have been lapped, but then he was holding station with the others and I realised he must have caught up. In the end he took the race by the slimmest of margins, from Sakata I think. Towards the end of the race someone on a Malboro machine crashed very heavily in the braking area for the Fahrerlagerkurve, The rider appeared to be still immobile when he was carted off (in very short order, I must say) in the ambulance. The machine was very quickly stashed away behind hay-bales, so I didn't see the race number, but I'm fairly sure it was Ueda (again -- sigh) since Waldmann and Petrucianni were still circulating.
At this point we decided to head home, and managed to get a fairly good run into the city once we were out of the circuit proper. I didn't take the wrong turn this time around, and we made it to the hotel without having to consult the map at all. We walked into town again, this time investigating the far side of the river. We found a restaurant that served the Knoblauchsuppe (garlic soup) recommended in Stef's guide book, but it was only 1700, so a bit early to dine. We walked down to the railway station, as it was the only Bureau de Change open, and Stefan was able to replenish his supply of Schillings. We took a bus back to the city centre, and had a reasonable meal at the restaurant, washed down with two half-litres of beer apiece.
A not-so-savoury experience was to share the bus with a Sweet Young Thing (tm) who had stuck to her handbag a publicity sticker from a campaign against the racism that is such a problem in Europe these days. Originally this sticker read "Gib Nazi's keine Chance" (or something like that; I read German much better than I write it!). This means "Don't give Nazis a chance". However, SYT had carefully removed the "k", which totally reversed the meaning -- "Give Nazis a chance"! Stefan, who has a smattering of German, noticed it too; no-one else seemed to care.
A bit more wandering around, and we stopped at a small pub playing rock music. Stefan decided he could only handle a small beer (0.3 l), but got me another half-litre. I think he might have got ripped off, as they charged him 72 S, whereas half-litres elsewhere had been 28-32 S depending on the beer and the place. We then wandered back to the hotel, to sleep, perchance to dream. Or snore, as Stef woke me up a few times since I was keeping him awake. Oh well, it's a rare experience for me to sleep in the same room as anyone else, so these habits aren't well known!
Well, actually, first we watched the re-broadcast of the TV coverage of the races by the Eurosport channel. Unfortunately, the TV in our room didn't have stereo so I wasn't able to activate the English commentary, but it was still good to see the things we'd seen that day unfold again in front of us, plus things we hadn't seen, like the passing manoeuvers down the pit straight, and the antics of many of the machines as they took less-than-tidy lines across the kerbing at the chicane. There was no mention of Ueda's accident, however. After the 250 and 500 races were over, Stef went to sleep, leaving me with strict instructions to turn off the light and the sound while I watched the 125 race!
Although I'd set the alarm for 0800, it was bright enough to wake us around 0700, so we got up and went for breakfast. We solved the problem of paying for Stef's entry ticket by splitting the hotel bill on our credit cards with the appropriate benefit to my account. Stef didn't want to carry his new helmet with him, the possibility of hiring a moped in Florence notwithstanding, so I managed to secure it to the back of the seat with the bungee cords holding my rear pack, and promised to send it to him when I have his address. I did try to use it one day to alleviate the pain associated with pulling on a full-face Arai over sunburnt ears, but it was large enough that it came too far down on my head and pressed on the sensitive bits with the edges of the ear cut-outs in the foam.
So, at 0830, I rolled out in search of a quick trip home, while Stef waited for a Number 1 bus to take him to the railway station, the nearby laundromat (to wash his one pair of pants) and a ticket to Venice. I'd studied the map and felt I knew where to go to find the most direct route to Innsbruck -- and I was right! I resisted the urge to take a detour about 50 km NNE from Salzburg to send everyone postcards from the little village called -- Fucking! I kid you not, it's on my map! [I later discovered another little village nearby in Bavaria called Petting. My (German) boss quips that this shows that the Austrians are more advanced than the Bavarians!]
The trip back was pretty uneventful. The direct route to Innsbruck was over some fairly interesting twisties that would have been better taken somewhat faster than the general limit of 80 km/h, although there were a number of delays due to roadworks. The closest I came to being inspected at a border crossing was on the way back into Austria, when the border guard checked out my rear plate before waving me on. There were a lot of bikes heading back with me, most with Swiss plates, but a few with French and Italian registrations. Most were travelling less conservatively than I, and in some tight spots I started to emulate them. This was especially true in the permanent log-jam of Landeck, where for the most part there was a stalled lane of cars trying to go west, a slow-moving lane of cars coming east, and a river of motorcycles threading their way west between the cars. The only police officer seen in this melee was directing traffic at a roundabout in the middle of the madness, furiously urging cars to take their right of way against the flow of bikes into the roundabout.
I was starting to think about petrol at this stage, it being patently obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it back to Switzerland without filling. I'd taken on 150 S worth of lead-free in Salzburg, perhaps 16-16.5 l, and was expecting to get a bit more than my normal 285 km-since-reserve, given the better consumption that open-road touring had proven to show. In fact, at 295 km the bike started to splutter, within sight of the same servo I'd filled up at on the trip across! The attendant put in 140 Ss' worth, 14.14 l; I was tempted to ask him to put in another 7 S, as this was the sum total of the coins in my pocket.
Soon after, I came upon the Arlberg tunnel. It turns out that the alternative pass is less-well signposted from the east side. The turn-off is just metres before the toll-booths into the tunnel, and easily missed. Being determined not to experience the tunnel again, and also to save myself the toll, I didn't miss it! The road up the east side is nothing special, much of it through built-up areas or indifferent road surface. Around the top, there were still snow-banks at the side of the road. There were many bikes in evidence at various watering-holes, eateries, and viewpoints, but I'm no tourist and just kept chugging along. The road on the west side is much nicer, with some long flowing switchbacks and a very good road surface. Unfortunately, the speed limits are far too low to do it justice. I can see that one must be very careful here in winter, but surely they can implement summer speed limits for when it's not so dangerous! I was wanting to flow at 100 km/h or more, and the limit was 60 or even 50. :-(
Still more uneventfulness as I passed into Liechtenstein and thence Switzerland. There was a white car that wanted to try to keep up with me from Gams up to Wildhaus and I speculated that it might be a cop, and reacted cautiously. Very weird behaviour; when it could catch up to me it would come right up to my tail, but then drop right back for a while. Naturally, it couldn't keep station in the twisties even though I was barely exceeding the 80 km/h general speed limit. Not long afterwards, I picked up a boxer twin as a companion, though I must admit I gave him a hard time to keep up with some of my new-found confidence in passing slow-moving traffic. I've always said I need either a good long trip or a good practice session on a race-track to regain the skills dulled by all the bikeless time I've spent here. Salzburg and back was a start; watch out for me after my trip to Trondheim in July!
I lost my tail when he went his own way at Wil and I took the Autobahn to Winterthur. Swiss signposting struck again; even though I knew the town I wanted to get off at, and that the road was the main non-Autobahn route to Basel, all I got was the name of the exits! So, I went several kilometres past my intended exit and had to stop and look at a map at last. The clue that I'd gone too far was that the Autobahn suddenly jumped from two lanes each way to three, a sure sign that you're getting close to Zurich! Fortunately, I'd pulled off at a rest area, and was able to get back onto the east-bound side quite quickly and find the appropriate exit. Another few dozen kilometres of twisty secondary road, and I was back at work, at 1520. Total distance 494 km; time 7 h 50 m. The weather had been kind to me, as it had been fine all the way across. A little bit warm, but that wasn't a problem except where I was was slowed by traffic or roadworks.