I'm here to try and crush a stereotype; the road pictured here is not a good road.
It's the kind of image that gets shared by bikers who fawn over its postcard-perfect switchback bends. The comments that flood under pictures like these are all positive, with everyone desperate to find out where this stretch of tarmac is, so they can - maybe one day - go and worship it. And then there's me, reading the comments, thinking to myself: 'have they actually tried to ride a road like this?'
In my many and varied years of being a motorcycle-hack, I've been lucky enough to ride some great roads and none of them have looked like this. I've also been sent to go and ride roads like these, to get pictures like this one. Why? Because we once did a feature on Reader's Dream Roads. Most of them looked like this.
This is what riding one of these roads is really like: Just as you approach the first hairpin on your way down the valley, you're in 2nd gear, the tarmac is typically continental: lots of tar, not much mac. It's hot and the surface is slightly greasy. You pitch in, in second just as a huge lorry appears coming the other way. You stand the bike up to give him room and hold your breath as you make your way through the cloud of diesel smoke he's left behind. Close one but nevermind, 25 more of these to go.
Second gear being too sluggish, you change back down to first for the next right-hand hairpin. You like right-handers. Applying a bit of front brake to scrub off speed, but the polished tarmac doesn't look like it offers much grip. You tip-toe around in first gear, tickle the power on and hook second. Then you brake for the next hairpin, back down to first. Just as you pitch in you see the massive drop over the other side of the foot-high concrete barrier. Lose the front here and you're in trouble. You hook second, then brake and back down to first. You can't really commit to the corner as it's a left-hander that goes right back on itself and there could be something coming the other way, so you edge around it, looking as far ahead as possible. You make it 'round, hook second again. Then back to first for the next one.
Can you see why these types of roads aren't good roads? When you look at the picture you might envisage yourself flying down it, scraping your right knee, then flicking over and dusting up the left, over and over. That's just not the reality. A tight grip of the bars and a lot of fifty-pence-pieced corners is closer to the mark. If you travelled half-way across Europe to ride a road like this, you'd feel hugely disappointed. Either that or you'd ride it, not get it but feel you ought to tell everyone how great it is.
If you think this is a good road, stand up for it and make yourself heard.
