In the snow with my motorcycle

A cold November day, in the middle of the South Tyrolean Alps. The temperatures are around zero, the landscape is covered in snow. Crystal clear visibility, empty roads and a dusty, yellowed photo print in my desk force me onto my motorcycle.

Before you read, please note: this post was translated with the help of Deepl.
If you find any errors – please have fun first and then give me a hint.

I dare not exhale. My helmet has a lot of features, as ventilation all around and a two-phase PinLock visor, but my glasses remain unimpressed of that. Half a lungful later they tarnish and I can’t see anything anymore – and that’s before I even leave the underground car park. It’s going to get a bit chilly ..

My Ducati 748s, steaming out of the exhaust and clattering badly with its clutch, makes its way through the frozen, shady Laas. It doesn’t have a temperature display that could dissuade me from my plan – and the hopefully warming rays of sunshine are not far away.

Breathing shallowly, I head west. The destination is my favourite photo spot on the Malser Haide, the largest alluvial cone in the Alps, with a crazy view of the mountain peaks of the Ortler group. Until then, the road offers a few fun opportunities to drive a little temperature into the Ducati’s tyres.

I roll through Schluderns, my hometown at the foot of the Churburg, and release the reins at the village exit. More than 25 years ago, I chrashed my first “real” motorcycle here, my beautiful Suzuki RGV 250, into the crash barriers after a too hard braking. Painful memories, especially in the wallet .. With my small, two-stroke Suzuki, I felt like a top racer on the way to Mals, the next village, leaning into the corners with insane speed. Today I smile about it, take the bends at least 20 km/h faster and feel very comfortable.

In Tartsch, the village behind the shady Bühel, I feel a little chill before the spirited ride towards the Reschenpass can begin.

Not at five-digit revs, but serious revs nonetheless, I ride up the Malser Haide, laying deeper, turn after turn. I get through the bends of my first knee grind, I get through the bend of my “Am I Rossi?”- question. Modern motorcycle tyres probably don’t care by now how cold the tarmac is there – the creative mix of Pirelli and Metzeler rubber bites into the tarmac. Soon there is snow on the edge of the road, but fortunately the sun has not yet melted it.

On the way
 towards the snow

I don’t find time for the numerous birds of prey staring hungrily at the snow cover in the surrounding fields for mice – I’m too captivated by this addictive play on the throttle, gearshift and brake lever, the gymnastics in the saddle to save a few degrees of lean angle and the concert of the Ducati: an Italian chapel with thundering exhaust pipes and roaring airbox, underpinned by a mechanical sound carpet of a high-revving engine. The intake noise alone, which gets louder, duller and more aggressive as the revs rise, justifies every single start of this motorcycle.

About halfway across Lake Haid, which is shining steel-blue in the snow, I turn right onto a narrow single track. It leads me uphill, then across the Plawenner alluvial cone back in the direction of Mals, to the place where I stood in the ice with my Ducati back in 2001 and placed my camera – analogue at the time – in the snow for a few self-timer photos.

One of these photos keeps falling into my hands as I rummage through my desk – I’d like to take one again exactly like this, today, almost 19 years later. Whereas in 2001 I placed the camera on my gloves in the snow and hoped for the best, now I set up a proper tripod, look for a suitable standpoint for it, connect the camera with the smartphone and, after minutes of preparation, pack everything back to the side, because several cars want to pass me on the track that has not widened ..

I notice that the asphalt is still the same – scarred, cracked, humpy, rough – and the 10 seconds to release the shutter are still as short today as they were then. The field, however, in which I once took the photo from very far down, has been filled in, levelled in the meantime.

I can’t get the perspective of 2001, not even with the camera lying directly in the snow.

Next stop:
 Lake Reschen

During the last drive past in the car, I spotted a path coloured dark red by the fallen needles, right by the lake’s shore. A picture of my Ducati in the red autumn leaves of the Gampen Pass is also buzzing around in a drawer – so I sneak past some prohibition signs, over the partly frozen bicylce path, to the desired photo spot.

If you say Reschensee, you have to show the tower. In summer, there is almost no space left on the square in front of the sunken church tower because of unbelievable crowds of tourists, but today I don’t disturb anyone when I park and repark my Ducati several times.

View
 to the Ortler

My last photo wish: a shot of the highest mountain in the Eastern Alps, the Ortler. As a child, I always had a clear view of the giant from my room – today I would like to photograph the almost four-thousand-metre peak across Lake Reschen. Over the last few years, when returning from my motorcycle trips, I always looked at it as my home mountain, which seems to emerge from the lake. I saw it as I did when I was a child, when I looked out of the window in the morning, and I feel at home at that very moment, even though I still have 30 kilometres to go.

After manoeuvring the Ducati and climbing the stones of the lake Reschen shore, I am well warmed up, whereas the 748 has cooled down again. I fill up in Nauders – probably for the last time this year, meet a few like-minded people there who are going to eat pizza on the Reschen Pass by motorcycle, and notice once again: up there they simply have the best pizza, pasta (sic!)!

On my ride down into the valley the sun is still high, keeping temperatures within the bearable range and allowing me unexpected cornering fun. In this one long right-hand bend, at the exit of St. Valentin, it’s always a unique pleasure to lay the Duc with the throttle wide open and then to accelerate along the lake, in fourth gear, with slowly rising revs and increasing rumble from the airbox ..

Downhill the Malser Haide, all my weight – now 20 kg more than during the photo session in 2001 – lays on my wrists when I brake hard. Nevertheless, riding the Ducati is much easier for me after 18 years. It stirs easily on cold bitumen strips, but doesn’t leave the desired line despite a worn rear tyre. This is simply still an ingeniously designed motorcycle ..

At around 2 p.m. I park the crackling Ducati 748, which smells like a lot of work, a lot of burnt petrol and well-heated engine oil, back in the garage.

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