Motorcycle Trip 2017 (Switzerland and Italy)

Well, I am finally home!  It felt really good to sleep in a familiar bed after being on the road for almost a whole month (June 18 to July 13 = 26 days).  I left the Cummins office in Pune around 4:00PM and was to Mumbai airport shortly after 7:00PM.  Although the traffic in Mumbai was heavy there was no rain so it went well.  I felt very lucky with the weather during my time in India as the temperatures were very moderate (70's for lows and mid 80's for highs) and very little rain the entire week during the monsoon season.  However, the people in India really want and need some rain as the water levels in the reservoirs to supply water both for household and agriculture purposes are very low. Once at the airport it was time for the waiting game.  My flight departure was scheduled for 2:00AM. and they suggest being to the airport 3 hours early for international flights from India.  No sense in getting a room so I just hung out at the airport.  I flew from Mumbai to Paris w

Today I will start with a geography lesson for those not very familiar with India to help you understand where I have been traveling.  I flew into Mumbai which is on the west side of India. On the more detailed map below, Mumbai is in the top left corner.  After arriving in Mumbai, the next morning we went to Pune (center of map) which is where the Cummins India Office (CIO) building is located.  That is where we have been meeting/working since we arrived. On Saturday I was at Lavasa which you can see on the map to the left and a little lower than Pune.   Today (Monday) I, Priya (colleague from UK), Pati and Sneha (colleagues from India) went to Phalton (lower right corner of the map) to visit the Cummins Mega Site which is currently made up of 8 separate Cummins factories. We got tours of the 2 plants that build the products that we support.  One of the plants is setting up a new assembly line to support the building of new products in India.   The photo below shows

In this blog, I will share my thoughts about my decision to tour with Moto-Charlie ( alps-tours.com ) both from before the tour and now that the tour is over. When I did my first motorcycle tour in Italy several years ago, I found 5 or 6 companies that I was interested in doing a tour with.  For that trip I used Edelweiss Bike Travels because they had a tour that matched up perfectly with my business trip and it had one remaining spot available.  The Edelweiss tour seemed like a good first trip.  It was 5 days long and was all inclusive (except lunches and fuel) and it was based from one hotel so no need to worry about carrying luggage.  I reviewed the information from Moto-Charlie at that time and I liked his riding approach and his pay-as-you-go approach.  Even though I did not select Moto-Charlie for that trip, I always kept it in the back of mind IF I did another trip. When Cathy and I agreed I could do another trip this year, I went back to my list of possible tour companies

What a great day today was seeing some sites in the Pune area.  Before I explain what all happened, I must first give many thanks to 2 of my Cummins colleagues here: Sneha and Pati. Sneha - I understand it was your suggestion that I visit Lavasa.  THANK YOU!!!!  It was a wonderful suggestion.  I really liked the opportunity to be outdoors and enjoy the beautiful site and fresh mountain air! Pati - THANK YOU for being my guide and for all the assistance with shopping (much more on this further in the blog).  Mission Accomplished!  I hope you got to spend some time with your daughter when you finally got home. At 9:30 this morning I was picked up at my hotel by the driver who then proceeded to pick up Pati and then we were on our way to Lavasa.  On our way to Lavasa, we went by the Cummins plant I visited the last time I was in India and is the first place that Pati worked when he joined Cummins; what a coincidence. Lavasa is a city that was built in the mountains outside of

On Wednesday, July 5 I started the next leg of this journey which is to India.  I got up at 4:30 to do final packing, walk to the train station, and catch the first train back to Zurich.  This required a change of trains in the town of Bern.  All went well and I got to the airport in time to get checked in to my flight, luggage checked, and I even had time for breakfast!  My flight left Zurich at 9:45 and arrived in Mumbai around 10:00 p.m. India time.  By the time I got my luggage (almost the last bags!), through customs, and to my hotel, it was 11:30 p.m. India time.  My colleague (Priya) who is joining me on this part of the trip flew in from London and got to her hotel room about 1:30 in the morning.   At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, we had a car pick us up and drive about 3 hours to Pune India where the Cummins office is located.  I will be staying in Pune through Wednesday evening when we will drive back to Mumbai to get my return flight home. Today, Saturday, I am going with a Cu

Sorry my posting to this blog have been delayed.  After we were done with the tour, the next day I traveled to India for work and have been busy.  It is now Saturday morning in India and I am getting caught up on my blogging. July 4 was the final day of riding.  The Andermatt area (where we stayed last night) has some great passes to ride.  The Nufenen Pass is the second highest pass in Switzerland at 2,478 meters (8,129 feet).  Below are a couple of the views from the top. We got to spend a little more time at the top of the pass than we expected.  As we were about to leave, Joe was unable to find the keys for his bike.  He thought he left them in the ignition but they were not there.  He searched all his pockets and still no keys.  Other people searched his pockets and still no keys. We retraced his steps thinking maybe he dropped them somewhere and found nothing.  Joe went into the two stores at the top of the pass to see if anyone turned them in and nothing.  We search the bik

We left our hotel this morning with clear blue sky and only a few puffy clouds and it stayed that way all day.  I think it was the best weather day we had on the entire trip! Based on what happened yesterday, our first order of business was to get Patrick to the rental car place in St. Moritz which was just a few miles away from our hotel.  I again gave Patrick a ride on my motorcycle.  Martin, who is Patrick's friend, was going to follow Patrick back to Thun as well so we will only have 7 motorcycles for the rest of the trip.  When we left them, they were still working on getting the car but things seemed to be in order so we move on. Our next stop, and the highlight of the day, was going to Corvatsch which is over 10,000 feet high and has the highest gondola in Switzerland.  Charlie really likes these gondolas and he had not done this one yet.  When we had checked into the hotel we stayed for the last 2 nights, they gave us a card they said provided free train rides.  Charli

As I was thinking what to name my blog today while we were riding, I decided I was going to use "Conquering Stelvio".  As the day progressed, I realized I needed a new title.  Here is what happened. We left at 9:00 as planned.  On our way, we went through a very long tunnel.  It was much longer than the previous tunnel I mentioned.  I would guess this tunnel was 5 or 6 miles long.  Charlie mentioned the tunnel saves about 1.5 hours of driving. It took us a little over 1 hour to drive back into Italy and get to the bottom of Stelvio pass.  For many of us on the tour, this is the highlight of day and of the trip. Other than Charlie, no one else had ridden Stelvio.  As I have shared before, Stelvio is the most popular pass in the Alps.  It has 50+ hairpin corners on just one 1 side of the pass.  People (pedal bikers, motorcyclist, car drivers) come from all over to drive Stelvio.  As we approached the pass it was a mad house.  People and vehicles of all sorts were everywher

This morning before we took off from our hotel, I took 1 last photo of Lake Garda.  Notice the perfectly blue sky! As we were leaving town, we went through a very long tunnel.  There was no indication it was going to be so long tunnel so I did not check the distance but it must have been 3 or 4 miles long.  Wow! One of the early roads on today's ride was at the bottom of a river ravine.   These roads are usually really good because they are always changing directions, just like the river.  The mountain walls where towering several hundred feet straight up on either side of the river.  Another great road. In Italy, we have seen signs along some of the best roads with a photo of a guy dressed in motorcycle gear holding a baby.  We don't know for sure what the sign says but we believe it has something to do with driving responsibly.  Our translation is "Great Road Ahead!"  The river ravine road mentioned above had one of these signs! The first couple of pas

Today we went on 2 different rides.  The first ride left at 9:15 with 6 of 9 bikes.  Alan, Martin, and Patrick (and Alex) decided not to do the morning ride.  As we headed north from our hotel, the city is in the valley with mountains on both sides.  It is obviously the right weather to grow many crops including grapes, fruits trees of various types, corn (sweet corn I am assuming), strawberries, potatoes, cabbage and others.  On some of the grapevines and some of the fruit trees, you could see the produce developing but not nearly ripe yet.  One interesting thing was there are no wineries in the area.  Either the grapes are for eating or must be shipped somewhere else for processing into wine. The ride continued until 12:00.  We went over several passes and also did several more high valley roads.  Some of the roads were only one lane wide.  You had to be careful if even 2 motorcycles met going in opposite directions.  Needless to say, we were very cautious on these roads and took