A Day Off? Nah let’s do the Stelvio Pass!!!!

This was a rest day in the itinerary, but as soon as I saw the Stelvio Pass as a possibility, it just had to be done. This pass is a motorcycle mecca, and I had decided I was doing it rain hail or shine. Brenton and myslf were of similar mind from the beginning of the trip. So we left the hotel at 0645 and arrived at the bottom of the pass (via 2 mountain passes and some motorway running) at 1000. The pass divides Italy and Switzerland with both sides equally beautiful for different reasons. The italian side is just full of switchbacks with very sharp corners - in fact you had to slip the clutch at times as first gear had you running too fast to take them. It is hard to describe the feat of road engineering this road was. On the Swiss side it has more straights, but the challenges of construction were multiple tunnels. We went over and back and then back to the summit for the obligatory Tee Shirt before our final descent back to the hotel. We had a couple of hours of rain on the way back, arriving safely back at the hotel at 1730. Got some awesome footage on the GoPro, but here is a sample. Would be a different propostion in wet weather!