Adria day five

Breakfast in the hotel in Interlaken was in a room with a fantastic view and the weather was fine once again. Today we planned to do a few mountain passes on rout to Davos.

Interlaken breakfast view

We had been watching a website which gives info on pass closures because most passes are just opening after the winter closer at this time of year. To get to Furka pass from Interlaken we had to do Grimsel pass but Grimsel wasn’t open yet. We had to take the contingency route which headed north to Lucerne to get on to the A2 motorway which would take us under Gottards tunnel and then exit the motorway and climb up Gotards pass. this would bring us back on rout just after Furka pass. The plan was to get to there early so we could travel in the wrong direction for a few miles to do Furka pass.

It wasn’t to be 🙁

Before we got to Gottards tunnel I had a phone call to say that Warren had stopped again, this time due to a stator problem. Warren had been having problems everyday and nothing anyone did sorted it, we found out later at the hotel what the problem had been all along, more on this later.

We pulled into a services to wait for them, after nearly two hours sitting in the baking sun we set off again heading to the tunnel. The tunnel is over 10 miles long and the most striking thing about it is how hot it is in the middle of it, its hard to describe but anyone who has rode under it will know what I mean.

When we got out of the tunnel we took the next exit and started to climb Gottards pass, a few of the group were missing so we pulled over on a section of road that overlooked the motorway exit to wait for them. we saw them and phoned them to tell them the way to get up to us but it took ages for them to find the correct road, by this time the weather was turning and starting to rain. we headed off up the pass to Gottards museum.

Warren, Curt, Nathan and Lynsey had still not caught up with us so we told them to meet us at the top of Gottards Pass at a petrol station I had saved in my satnav, the problem when we got there was that it was just one single pump. The road to our left went to Furka pass and to the right was the way to Davos. As we were there late we reluctantly decided to miss Furka pass and continue to Davos. the rout was amazing with incredible views over the spine of the Alps, it took in many ski resorts.

Warren never did catch up with us because he had chosen to get recovered and the plan was to meet us in Davos, more on this later too.

Then the rout turned off the main road onto a road I had found while planning the route, we ended up doing some off roading through a closed road before realising there was a diversion in place.

This road was stunning, very narrow on the side of the mountains with views to die for. While up there we saw a helicopter fighting a huge fire in the valley below. Great road off the beaten track!

When we got closer to the hotel near Davos my satnav was determined to take back roads for some reason. At one point while I was leading Brad overtook me and my satnav immediately told me  “turn right on unpaved road”. I turned off and ended up in a farmers field on the steepest hill ive ever tried to ride on. It was so steep the scooter gave up and stalled. The funny thing was that I could see Brad parked in the middle of the road down below throwing his arms in the air as if to say WTF? One of the funniest moments of the trip for me.

Soon after we arrived at the hotel, it was a ski hotel and very nice, off season they are cheap and great value for money. Not long later we heard from Warren, he told us he had hired a van at huge cost and that he was on his way to us, he arrived after 10pm. He had to get the van back to them the next morning to avoid more costs and asked a guy at the hotel if he would give him a lift back, he agreed to, but Warren hadn’t told him it was hours away. This became a problem the next day.

After a few drinks we decided to try and fix Warrens scooter, we had to find out what was wrong with it first. Reeds was the first thing checked, we had to drop the engine to get the reed block off but no one had a hammer, we ended up using rocks and lumps of wood to knock the engine bar out, but the reeds were fine so we put the engine back in and thought again…. By now it was getting late and dark. Russ noticed that the engine would fire up fine and sounded normal until it was revved, then it would choke and die, but the main thing he noticed was that the tone of the exhaust changed. We took the exhaust off and found that the baffle had come loose and when revved the baffle was blocking the exhaust. We now knew what was wrong but the baffle was too big to get out, we resorted to cutting a hole in the exhaust big enough to get in and pull the baffle out and then repaired the hole with Gum Gum and exhaust bandage. With the exhaust back on the engine revved and was good for the next days ridding.

Day five track (broken track due to bad reception)

Day six

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