Day Seven
We were now on our last full day in the Dolomites and I was fully aware of how you need more time here, just to ride the "main" passes four full days would be the minimum and five or six days preferable to explore off the beaten track and / or do some of-bike tourism, although some have other solutions*
I wanted to get in a good chunk of the remaining passes on my "list", I had a ten pass route that would do the trick and cover some passes already ridden, I reversed this to cover the previously ridden passes in the other direction - you really need to ride a pass both ways to appreciate / judge it, something I have rarely had the time to do.
We set off over Pordoi again, a great pass, but does suffer some traffic, this had cleared by Costalunga, a nice pass which is not so tight and then turned off onto Passo Lavaze, which by memory was also pretty decent.
We then started up the San Pellegrino, but seemed to get to the top without experiencing any corners, the road sort of meandered left a bit, right a bit, but had no sharp bends, all rather crap I initially thought, then the descent down the East ramp provided some fantastic tight switchbacks, all well surfaced and smooth - normal service had been resumed.
Next up was Valles, as far as I remember this was also a good stretch of road, but more open, just before the bottom was the turning for Passo Rolle, and we were back to much tighter corners...
This was another great run to test tyres and brakes, and I was happy to still have straight discs having warped a set on the GS, and two sets on my old ZZR on roads like these, it really does test the bike, especially two-up, I was starting to worry I should have fitted new pads just for this trip.
The surface was excellent pretty much everywhere on this trip and this pass was no exception, most roads were this good, smooth with decent tarmac, apart from the tightness of many corners well suited to all bikes, and most the tight bends were still fast enough to hold second on the S10, and very few required clutch slipping tactics.
At the bottom of Rolle you enter a small town, but within a couple of minutes we had started the climb up Cereda, we had come along the other way the day before on the way to Brocon and Manghen so would be riding Cereda and Aurine the other way.
Both Cereda and Aurine are twisty with some tight hairpins, but well surfaced and off the beaten track, not that we had come across much traffic whilst on the more major roads, but these passes are pretty much deserted, the ride seemed as good as yesterday, but I think the views were better this time (heading South to North)
We still had Duran and Stualanza to cover, but the storm clouds were gathering so we decided to shortcut through Alleghe back towards the Hotel - not a bad ride in itself, certainly much better than most UK roads, but it meant missing two of the major passes off the list.
Just before we got back the skies opened, within seconds the road was a river and the rain so heavy visibility down to almost nothing, my speed was about 20mph (just off idle in second) and at this pace I caught and passed a couple of cars!
Aquaplaning was the main concern as the road seemed about an inch deep in water, by the time I thought I better pull my trousers out of my boots I also had an inch of water in them - never mind only a few miles to go.
* Upon our return a few of the AR mob had already started on the beer, now I had mentioned needing 4,5 or 6 days, one of the regulars had left after us and ridden 17 passes and was already sat drinking, you probably think it must be some fast dude on Supermoto, but it was in fact a sixty-something fella on a GS1100G, somewhat annoyed the weather had stopped him riding his planned 20 passes.
169 Miles
30mph Moving Average
5:40 in the seat
7:20 total
52 mpg
