Fair Weather Bikers

I woke up in my tent fully clothed with a hang-over from hell. I could hear Daz and Nig moving about but there was no way I could do anything so I tried to lay as still as possible for a while.

Eventually I had to get up - the world had become unbelievably bright and everything was really really hard work. After mooching around for a bit I eventually motivated myself enough to pack up and load the bike - this was one of the hardest things I've ever done!

Just as we were finishing loading the bikes, Mr. Bimoto came over and invited us in for coffee. His house was very warm and the coffee was very strong. At first I was really struggling to keep myself together but I think the coffee really helped and I began to feel more normal. After Mr. Bimoto had showed us a few pictures of his biking adventures and other things we got back to the bikes and set off - but not before Mr Bimoto had told us if we were ever in the area then we were always welcome at his house - nice man.

As we set off it started raining, which wasn't the start we were looking for,. but within a few miles it had started to clear and we actually had a bit of sun for a while.

We started getting into more mountainous terrain, my hang-over had gone, and I started to really enjoy myself. We stopped for something to eat just as the heavens opened again. It was at this point that Daz, who had been surprisingly healthy up to now, discovered his hang-over had just started to kick-in, and he wasn't a happy bunny!

We got underway again, but shortly into the journey, one of the caps holding Nig's visor on snapped off, unfortunately on a dual carriageway and we were unable to return to pick it up. We decided to carry on and try and get a replacement cap from the next bike shop.

As it turned out nobody stocked Suomi helmets in the local area, there was one shop which might have been able to help, but it was around 20km out of our way - so Nig decided to push on and try and find a shop on-route.

We were going to do a pass on this day, but we'd been riding through showers all day and it was cold, so we decided heading up to 2000 meters wasn't a good idea. As it was the roads we were on were very nice, until it started raining heavily that was. At this point Daz's bike decided to drop onto 3 and then 2 cylinders.

After another unsuccessful stop at a big bike shop we pushed onto Altdorf where we planned to camp for the next two days. As we got nearer Altdorf the weather really turned rough. It was really heavy rain and visibility was bad. At this point Nig discovered he had more problems with his brakes - his lever was coming back to the bar and he had to pump the brakes to stop.

We decided that, as we and all the gear was wet through, camping wasn't a good idea, so we asked at the campsite if they had any lodges left. They said no (we doubted this as we looked to be the only customers there). We then tried to find a hotel. After a long search we eventually found the only hotel in Altdorf, but unfortunately it was full. They advised us to ride to the next town; Erstfeld.

We arrived in Erstfeld and pulled into the first hotel we found. It wasn't the best hotel in the world, we had a shower but no toilet - there was a single toilet for the entire floor. There was a single meal in the restaurant - you either had it or didn't eat - but it was nice so that was OK.

I got Jane, who was in Greece at this point, to check the weather forecast for the local area and Italy. It turned out that rain was forecast for Switzerland for the foreseeable future but Milan had sun in a couple of days. Nig got Becky to check and she found that rain was forecast in Italy near the Alps.

After much discussion we decided that we could not stay on twisty roads with Nig's brakes the way they were and we couldn't head south with Daz's bike as it was, Daz was concerned that it would make it home at all. As it was forecast rain in Switzerland for the next 5 days at least we decided to jump on the motorway and head north out of Switzerland.- hopefully getting better weather in Germany. We could then slowly make our way up through the Black Forrest and Rhein Valley so all was not lost.

We had an early night because we were all very tired from all the rain riding and I was also a bit pissed off.