To say I am enamoured with my 2012 Ducati Multistrada would be a bit of an understatement. Razor sharp handling a demonic powerplant very light weight and a class leading electronics package make it the best adventure/touring mount available today.
Once you have ridden a bike of this calibre - there arguable being nothing better, the issue switches from finding the best bike to finding the best roads. You can only ride your local rides so many times a year before you start getting bored. So for many years I have wanted to ride in Europe, where the roads are arguably the best in the world.
The Edelweiss Ducati tour through the European alps has been on my b-list for a good couple of years. With a European conference to soften the cost burden, this trip suddenly became doable. Alpine roads are what the Multistrada is all about. The Majestic Alps Tour is a Ducati only tour; Multistrada's or Monsters. You choose. You fly in, pick up your bike and can ride either with the group or do your own thing, arriving at prearranged accommodation at the end of the day. The daily reccommended routes avoid major highways and have been properly planned to pack the best riding on the best roads into the fewest number of days.
The tour starts in Seefeld, a small Tyrollean tourist resort town not far from Innsbruck, Austria. I flew into Frankfurt and planned to train my way down to Seefeld the next day. A summer heat wave with 35+ degree weather was waiting for me the next morning as set out on the last leg, arriving at 3:45 pm on Friday.
I met the 9 other tour participants at the Saturday afternoon briefing; mostly "mature" blokes with a fair bit of riding experience. All very nice. Two American guys, a father and son, both named Charles are Harley riders, looking for something different. Everyone else was either a Ducati rider and in one case a KTM rider. The tour guides, Marko and Mathias, both German, are excellent. Very good riders and hosts, and full of local knowledge.
No comments:
Post a Comment