Pass rate, 9 Today! But there's more...

Any morning when you wake up in a storybook hotel halfway up the Furka Pass is the start of a great day. It's a tiny room, no curtains, and a full height window. From the bed I can see that there's low cloud, and that it's dry. Passes today, Mandello del Lario tonight. I have waited a long time for this.

Breakfast doesn't start until 8.00, so it's almost 9 by the time we head out. The roads are wet, and it's cool, about 10*, and we've planned a circuit of 7 passes.

24 hours later as I write this, the passes have all merged in my mind. All were different, all quite stunning, and most had different weather on the ascent and descent.

First off we finish climbing Furka. and drop down the other side to pick up the St Gotthard and climb into ridiculous fog. Visibility is less than 10m at the top; enough to see two white lines on the road. Not much point in photos. From St Gottard we sought the Nufen, which was tricky to find, because it was generally signed as "Passo del Navone", although not exclusively.

We did find it, and it took us back to Gletsch for the Grimsel, a stunning series of switchback hairpins that agin took us into fog, though not so thick this time. Stopped for coffee at top, where they had a strange menagerie that included native beaver-ish things.

From there the Susten, a great combination of everything alpen, into Andermatt. This looks like a scale model town with natty little Triang trains, but is real. Trains cart endless tourists to the Matterhorn in carriages with glassed sides and roof, and we follow the line for a bit. Tourists gawp. Dead jealous, I reckon. We leave them to go under while we go over the Oberalp. This is an unusual pass, because it is through grassy farm land. Damned steep grassy farmland, but not precipitous rock like the others. This brings us to Luckmanier Pass.

Luckmanier climbs along the flank of a long spur, much more open than the other passes, lots of fast sweepers, a great ride. Roaring through a long gallery at about 70MPH, enjoying the reverberration of the exhaust and well in the groove, the fun is suspended without notice. It's mid afternoon, clear and dry, good visibilty, a near straight section with no traffic and I'm leading. The front slides, the rear slides, there's a nanosecond of reflex correction and I'm dumped hard on the road. The bike's ahead of me, which is good, on it's left side, showering sparks prettily as it spins it's way down the road. I'm flat on my back in the gutter following it. Some would suggest that I've been flat on my back in the gutter before, but I deny it!

I don't think I'd even come to a halt when I saw that Og had gone down as well, and his bike was also on it's left side spinning down the road with an equally pretty show of sparks, thankfully far enough away not to worry me.

By the time I got up Og was getting up too. Neither of us were hurt, there was no blood. We picked up the bikes and looked at each other. What? Og found the cause. Through the concrete road surface was leaching groung water which left a slime deposit so slippery that Og almost fell when standing on it. The slick was about 10m long, and barely visible, we had no chance.

The damage count is pretty modest. Both bikes have crash bars. These and the panniers took most of the punishment. Both bikes have a bit ground off the front mudguard stay, an abrasion mark on the screen, and tiny grind off the front left indicator. Og lost the left mirror, but mine was loose and so twisted rather than broke. My bike must have slid against the guard rail, because the top box has had a hiding.

My BMW touring jacket is wrecked. The fabric has rubbed through to the back protector in a couple of spots, but more annoying is that it has rubbed right through on the left forearm. While I was sliding down the gutter I had my left arm bent at the elbow, so my hand was up in the air. My forearm was running along the kerb edge, and that wore through the jacket. It's a deficiency of these synthetic jackets that there's not much protection in the non-armoured bits. Leather would have been better. Scuffing on my leather pants and boots will blacken and vanish.

Og's waterproof trousers have a hole worn through near the knee, and the Draggin jeans a tiny rub mark. We got off very lightly.

Somewhere along the way we came to the realisation that we'd never make Mandello (the Guzzi factory) for the museum open hours of 3.00PM to 4.00PM, so we added San Bernardino and Splugen. San Bernardino was a foggy climb, visibility down to 20m in places, but gloriously clear on the Swiss side. The fine weather held while we climbed Splugen, but only just. Cloud was tumbling in rapidly, and I think we were lucky to get our photos. Splugen is a great string of first gear hairpins, most so close together that second gear is not an option.

Cresting Splugen, now in soupy fog, we came to the Italian border. We slowed, but didn't stop as the signs directed. The border guards in their office did not even turn to look at us....

And so the descent. More hairpins, it seems to go forever, right through Chiavenna to the Como shore, clearing as we go, but getting dark.

Eventually we arrive in Lecco, having passed within a few hundred metres of that holy of holies, the Guzzi factory at Mandello del Lario.

It's been a long day. We're knackered from fun overdose, compounded by pride injuries. Find a hotel. 2 nights please. Dinner, couple of bottles of cheap red, then bed. Tomorrow is the Big Day.