Road trip - chapter 6 - sonic booming down the autoroute like thundergods

The Tl road train was in full flow. Nothing had the energy to challenge us, we ruled supreme, we were kings of the road laying down hot rubber and filling the air with noxious gasses, sonic booming down the autoroute like thunder gods. We had a mission to accomplish.

We stopped briefly in Kempton (I think) and soon we were across the southern German border heading for Innsbruck in Austria

We swept into Austria driving all before us in a three man motorcycle blitzkreig. There must have been some sort of weekend rally going on. As we progressed down the picturesque byway, because we came across throngs of bikers heading in our direction. There were trikes, chops and streetfighters all heading south. The only problem was that they were fannying about getting in our way, even the sports bike riders were taking it easy and were not up for it!

The twisty mountain roads, oncoming traffic and general dawdling of Johnny foreigner were slowing our progress to what seemed like walking pace, it was very frustrating. We had to keep moving at a pace alien to these bikers. They were obviously not professionals.

We were booming in low gear down the road, it was a little damp and we were heading steadily upward through the mountains. The road was open on both sides with no trees or hedges, we needed this extra vision because we were all surging past moving traffic, cutting back in etc just to get some progress on and to get to that open road again.

Phil was in the lead, slicing trough traffic with Ed and I following. I noticed a coach on the other side of the road ambling towards us. Phil pulled out at that moment from behind another car to overtake. No problem, he had the legs on the coach easy and there was plenty of room for a skinny bloke and a slim V-twin to traverse the middle of the road riding the white line.

What Phil hadn't noticed was a parked car on the coach side of the road. The coach instead of stopping or slowing down just veered into the middle of the road around the car approaching Phils intended airspace. Phil thankfully saw this moments before it actually happened and gunned the TL past his car whipping smartly in front of it.



I swear Phil was 2-3 inches away from having his head smashed in by the leading quarter of the dastardly coach, but he did make it around and carried on accellerating up the noe clear road. we followed a little more circumspectly. Phil shrugged it off later in the bar as obviously the actions of an amateur coach driver.



There seemed to be an increasing number of bikes about. I guess some of them were attending the GP though most were on trailies and customs/cruisers and seemed in no particular hurry. Sportsbikes appear to be a bit of a UK phenomonon, most of us UK bikers aspire towards this type of bike though not many of us embark on long distance high speed touring on them. All over the rest of europe it's trailies and tourers as the preferred mount. I guess they have got the european road network which is far superior to our bleak island roads. Any way each to their own, theyare on two wheels and enjoying themselves. Fair play I say.