Italian TET Day 1

Motorways in the sky.

It was bright day and the sun was out. Heading south from Annecy took us over the border into Italy and to the Italian Alps.  We stopped for coffee and petrol and to pay 30Euro to use a 13KM road tunnel, but nothing else hindered our progress. (im still stinging from paying that)

At the point we joined the dirt tracks in the Alps it was busy with tourist and walkers the area being a skiing resort in Winter and popular hiking destination in summer.  It felt wrong to be riding along the tracks they were rambling on, but we took it steady and gave a hearty 'thank you' or 'grazie' to anyone we passed

The very first track ascended steeply and we headed skywards, it was immediately challenging and loads of fun. Below shows the first route.

Finishing this first section of track my GPS was acting up and Jasons GPS ran out of charge, then his wouldn't even charge on the bike.  The end result was us passing through the same small town three times. it was nice enough, but  still slightly frustrating.

After the 'lost' town we picked our way along the route and ended up in another skiing resort.  There were offroad bikes everywhere and i could see we were not on route again.  Jason suggested using google maps to track our own route to the top of the mountains to try and meet the TET.  It was a great idea and paid dividends as you can see below - us at 2500 meters. 

Maybe it was due to it being sunday and hot or maybe due to the growth in adventure biking, but whatever it was, it was busy up here! There were 10's of bikers on massive BMW GS's and 4x4's everywhere. It was like we'd found a dirt road motorway in the sky.    Unperturbed we had to press as we had another 65miles or so cover at this point.  The dirt track in the sky emptied as we headed south covering the miles in the clouds.

The KTM was brilliant and Jason was covering the miles with ease.

The clounds kept closing in and then opening up, sometimes you'd be in perfect summer sun, the next minute youre riding through a pea soup with a 3km drop to side.  At around 2000m altitude we passed two caravans, perhaps a two or three KM apart, parked up at the side of the tracks. They looked like they'd been stetted for some time and our intercoms buzzed with chat about who would live there!?

  

Passing a lonely Shepard we think we had our answer.    He must really love his palm, theres little else to do up here at night!

Jason had been telling me about the 'Slow Food' movement, born in Italy in the 80's in demonstration to the first McDonalds opening in Rome

 'Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and tradition' 

You gotta love the Italians!

As it happens Turin was one of  the Cities mentioned in many Slow Food websites and the 'Eataly' restaurant and was only 34 miles from where we stood.   Thus we headed into the massive industrial city, found a biker friendly hotel (pushed our bikes into the hotel) and ate some amazing food. 

165 miles covered, a good day. Amazing crumpet too.