| And the road just keeps gettingn more interesting. Where the workers coulnd't carve a road on the side of the mountain, they dug tunnels right through it. Some of the tunnles are quite modern, hypnotizing riders with a stream of yellow lights, others seem to date back to medieval days, their jagged carved walls infrequently giuding riders with little reflectors, puncuating the surreal feel of driving through a black hole. The next night we are in Switzerland (I think) and it's time to find a hotel. The guys stop at tirst one in the tiny mountaintop town, and it looks too touristy for me. They reluctantly scope out one more, saying that the terrain ahead is a hangout for the rich, and that prices will only go up as the sun and temperature go down. But a kilometer down the road we score a room with four beds at a decent price, and choose the pizzeria across the street for dinner, from the three choices in town. Bike talk is inevttable over dinner: the strong resale of Harleys, my needless worries of the carberated bikes running too rich at high altitude, and the TDM's evolution from duct-tape innovators to the mainstream. Mike misses his daughter, Marie, and calls on the "handy" (european for "cell phone"), where she demonstrates some of her english to me. The next day we are in Italy, amid one of the most colofful parts of the journey. Seems we stumbled in to a trans-Alp bicycle race, and we are riding up the hairpins slowly amid hundreds of sweaty, buff cyclists. Together they make a giant caterpillar threading its way through the serpentines. I am amazed at theri ability to pedal up thise incessant hills. I use safety as an excuse to putt along at a speed only slighty more than theirs, inchng along the half a narrow lane they leave between oncoming traffic. |
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| Mercifully, the uphills eventuate at the peak of the pass, and the cyclists get a break and a breeze. Snow is above us, though mostly everyone is in shorts. Fluids ae being both taken and left with equally casual senses. A lonely wooden cabin sells overpriced trinkets, and the smell of burnt clutch is evident. Riding down the mountin among this throng is even more mesmerizing. Some racers coasted, and vanished behind me like the colorful horses of a merry-go-round. Others pedal at full gate, elbow to elbow with me at speeds up to 100 kph as I grit, waiting for my outboard mirror to scrape on the oncoming cars. The weather is perfect and this other-world bubble of time seems like it will never end, though in time gravity wins, and we all spill out to the hyperactive buzz of an italian village. We park on the sidewalks as part of an entertaing free-for-all amid every type of motorcycle there is, where the watched watch the watchers and ducati riders ride wheelies through the rotaries. On the fourth day, my two riding buddies head home to their families. The German goodbyes are no longer than those of the Klingons, Wolfgang saying I owe him no thianks for serving as the tour guide, and Mike saying simply "stay healthy". At this point I have to explain a thing called the "Espresso Dream". During some of my more drudgerous and useless work assignments of the past, I dreamed up an adventure that goes something like this: I am standing in one of Germany's big train stations, early in the morning. Steam is wafting from grates in to the morning sun, and busy people are walking about hurriedly. I have a passport in my pocket, along with about a hundred bucks in cash for several nearby countries (this is a pre-euro fantasy...). I climb aboard an express train at random, and it motors out of the station. When the conductor comes by and asks "Where are you going?", I answer "I'm going where this train is going--here's money for a ticket to ride". In time the train terminates somewhere like Prague or Sicily, where I get a corner table at the cozy restaraunt of a family run hotel. The lighting is dim and the air is smoky, while locals discuss things like the fall of communism, and local poets. I order coffee and get the good stuff that's so strong it seems to stain the little white cups it comes in. I get lost in stories with scenes of sunlight dappling off the hulls of weathered rowboats in sleepy fishing villages, and Faulkner takes of coffee brewing in a country kitchen, with the wooden stairs creaking as water is carried from the pump, the pop and hiss of the wood in the black iron stove, and the chipped ceramic on the table top. So at the front desk, I'm as close to the Espresso Dream as I've ever been. When the clerk asks me where I'm going, I say in the best German I can muster"Austria, or maybe Italy". This gets a smirk, and she recommends another motorrad hotel in Italy. The brochure has a teensy American flag, showing that they speak english there, so I give the O.K for her to call ahead and book a room. She recharges my phone as I pack, and I'm packed off with a highlighted map. |