rb's Free Rider's Motorcycle Memories (2 / oo)
On the Route des Grandes Alpes (Maritime Alps, France) – and some thoughts on the age of 60
First picture: Me and my Triumph Tiger Sport 1050 on a pass on the Route des Grandes Alpes towards Nice via Valley of Isere (Val d'Isere): Col d'Allos.
With my type of motorcycle clothing 8-) , it was also possible to hike up to the managed lake d'Allos (Lac d'Allos) without any problems. It's about 30 minutes (one way) from the parking lot further up, which is subject to a fee in the high season. The path runs partly on a rocky track next to the meandering stream bed. The path is marked with information boards explaining the formation of the stream and the peculiarities of the lake and its surroundings.
However, I don't want to give a description of the Maritime Alps (discover them for yourself!), but rather make a few comments on how traveling by motorcycle has changed for me with age.
So, let's go back to the first picture: A good 10 years ago in a somewhat freer and simpler world (also for motorcyclists): less complicated, less regulated, more light-hearted than today.
When I was younger, I wished the journey would take forever, and I could well imagine living in this fantastic mountain world: right on the spot, so to speak, without the tedious approach route of hundreds of kilometers.
The latter is still the case today, although in view of developments in Europe, the question arises as to whether I am far enough away there from growing madness …
In the early years, I also savored the trip to the hilt and always returned well after midnight or in the early morning, usually in pouring rain.
Nowadays, at the beginning of my 6th decade of life, it's the growing feeling: "I'm here and it's still nice, the routes are still fantastic to ride; I've seen a lot again and also new things, but now it's also good to go home again". Today I usually stay overnight again on the route back - due to my age. One positive aspect of getting older is that the feeling of being back home becomes stronger. By "home" I mean the people and the landscape: the environment in which I grew up. People and landscape are interwoven in a special, almost mysterious way; a realization that takes time.
The last two pictures: So I usually come back in the early evening nowadays. If the weather is not too bad, I take off my luggage and immediately cycle up a few more 10 kilometers to our "small" mountain and forest landscape here; in good weather bathed in the almost golden light of the evening sun in late summer and early autumn. And I am enjoying our narrow mountain roads through our mixed forests, our green meadows and our gentle to rugged (steep) slopes of the vineyards.
Here it is the south of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, not the "far" south of europe. It is not the fantastic mountain and rock world of the Alps with its (drivable!) passes up to over 2700 m altitude, its deeply carved gorges, its mountain lakes and streams, its alpine farming areas, its often grotesque and "dangerously" narrow roads, with their different people, their slightly different way of life. (You see, I'm already starting to miss that again.)
But it's my home and it feels good to be back.
And to get ready again for the next trip.
(Tanslated from German with DeepL - free version.)
