Another lot of Alps nonsense

[CharlesdeGaulle]

shambolic said:

Sway said:

Two days without update.

Brad is in Switzerland, the most rules adherent and least tolerant place on the planet. Without any papers.

I'm putting money on him currently being interrogated by a very serious dude, whilst the car is being loaded into a vault under Bahnhofstrasse...

Or he’s tanned that extremely lovely bottle of red. Got fed up with the drone and went to bed

I fear Sway may be right, but I'm still hoping to hear tell of a massive 3 day bender with Brad completely off his tits and surrounded by foreign fillies with exotic names.

[Turn7]

CharlesdeGaulle said:

shambolic said:

Sway said:

Two days without update.

Brad is in Switzerland, the most rules adherent and least tolerant place on the planet. Without any papers.

I'm putting money on him currently being interrogated by a very serious dude, whilst the car is being loaded into a vault under Bahnhofstrasse...

Or he’s tanned that extremely lovely bottle of red. Got fed up with the drone and went to bed

I fear Sway may be right, but I'm still hoping to hear tell of a massive 3 day bender with Brad completely off his tits and surrounded by foreign fillies with exotic names.

You say that likes its a bad thing.......

[br d]

Hey guys, my apologies.

I was mentally all over the place on Sunday, after seeing my friends and thinking a lot about Shal I felt a bit of a spiral coming on and it started to leak into here.
It shouldn't be about that this year so I took a break.

Can't do details now but basically had a very long drive to get here on Monday then crashed out. Yesterday was storms all day so I stayed in the room and rested. No booze since I got here, thanks for your continued interest, will catch up in a bit more detail later.

Cheers.

[Sway]

Feel free to reach out buddy - you'll have my mobile number somewhere in your emails..

Glad you're not being 'internally investigated' by a big bloke called Hans.

[spikeyhead]

Brad, thanks for the update, look after yourself, you're more important than keeping this tale up to date.

Sway said:

...

Glad you're not being 'internally investigated' by a big bloke called Hans.

Pah, it would have made a more interesting tale

[br d]

Came over the St Bernardino and the Juliette, possibly the best route in the Alps in my humble, two great passes.

Saw this lovely thing in a garage.








Fully restored, the lady had just brought it over.

Top of the St Bernardino Pass.





Various mountains, gorgeous.

[br d]

I've done some videos, they are rubbish but what do you expect for nothing?

(I keep forgetting to turn my music off so they are all getting copyright claims, I presume this means I won't be able to link them here? I'll try anyway)

Did less than nothing yesterday (apart from spend half an hour working out how to get a ticket from a parking meter in town)

As I was leaving this morning one of the doorman came over and gave me a bottle of water and asked where I was going "Don't know really"
"Try this" and wrote a pass on a piece of paper. The Albula.

I stopped and set up my phone to record video and headed off.

As I came on to the start of the pass I recorded.
I really need a separate camera because using the phone as a camera means I haven't got waze running, I don't know these roads at all so I have no idea when a hairpin is coming, it's all blind driving. That's why I'm very over cautious.
Probably still did enough to get the car crushed though, this is Switzerland.

https://youtu.be/PZMpz4eZ_Hc

Then this one further up.

https://youtu.be/7Rd71udLQes

[br d]

Don't know what happened here, this lady got very flustered with me.

https://youtu.be/YbIPM7uPj8c

[br d]

This is the Juliette, if this tunnel has speed cameras I'm hard fked.

https://youtu.be/-DX5ojLBv2Q

This is Juliette as well.

https://youtu.be/aTDex1bgrPQ

Edited by br d on Wednesday 29th June 18:55

[br d]

Not on it here, just a nice drive down showing some of the great scenery you drive through over here.

https://youtu.be/iHeseDsXbxo

/Edit

Actually, looking at this again, I was on it!
Music works really well here!

Edited by br d on Thursday 30th June 00:02

[br d]

Those vids are just to give you an idea of what the roads and scenery are like out here, the fun you can have pretty much all the time.

Some more pics.







Saw this parked up, liked it. Took a couple of pics, couldn't see anyone around.





Then this lady popped up from beside the road, frightened the life out of me!
It's her car, she was a photographer, lovely lady.



Switzerland man.



Look at it.



fking amazing.

[br d]

Had to go back for this one, couldn't miss it.

I should live in this town.

[br d]

This is at the hotel, bit of a beast.






And now a story about a tt!
(and it's not me!)

Edited by br d on Wednesday 29th June 14:49

[Percy.]

Enjoying these updates Brad, me and my partner are planning a road trip for my 30th next July.

Ferry to Holland>Munich>Baden Baden>St.Moritz (San Bernardino Pas, Gotthard Pass, Grimsel Pass, Susten Pass)>Zurich>Luxembourg>Brussels and then home.

[The-Wanderer]

br d said:

Had to go back for this one, couldn't miss it.

I should live in this town.

Great reading about your exploits, we’ve been through there too and it made me giggle at the time!

Can recommend the Maloja and Bernina passes in case you need another fix or somewhere else to try and upset the Swiss!

[M1C]

Fantastic Brad, as ever! All the best to you

[spikeyhead]

br d said:

And now a story about a tt!
(and it's not me!)

You can't just leave it there...

[TheJimi]

Brad, the master of the cliffhanger.

Great to see you back on form dude, in general - not just in terms of these threads

[StonedRollin]

br d said:

Had to go back for this one, couldn't miss it.

I should live in this town.

ersurses is my new favourite profanity.

[br d]

Okay, I may be the tt in this one, I'll try to be as objective as possible.
It's really nothing but I'm waiting to eat so I can make a big deal out of it!

On the Juliette pass I'm obviously trying to make progress, getting past anything I can. I came up behind one of those massive touring bikes with 2 guys on it and a load of travel stuff, good on them, get out and do it.

But they were being a bit of a pain, I don't mean bikes should get over just because I'm behind them but they could see I was trying to pass (they weren't going quickly, nor should they have to) and they were staying well out to the central line. It was very twisty so I didn't really want to take a silly chance.

Anyway, after a while there was a wide bend, which I thought was clear sighted so I went all the way over against the opposite side to pass. There was a little kink in the road ahead I hadn't seen and a car did appear about a hundred yards up.
It wasn't desperate or dangerous but I did miss-calculate and had to floor it and pull in early. I am on that side remember and there was still a ton of room as I passed them but being fair about it I did cut in more than I would have liked.
They didn't have to brake, there was no drama at all. I was about to wave my hand in apology when he holds down the horn for ages and gestures.

Fine, but I just thought okay mate and got going. Perhaps I was remiss there but the exaggerated reaction just annoyed me.

So, of course, a few miles later I come up behind a long line of cars behind a camper van and eventually the bike catches back up. By this point I'm thinking I should probably give them a gesture of remorse of some kind. But they come straight up, sit 3 feet behind me and light up all three (or four) headlights.
It's completely blinding me, the car is low and this is blasting directly into my sight if I even glance at the mirror. Yeah well done mate, blind me on a twisty mountain road.

Can't think of much else I can do because I'm proper blinking through blocky sight at the car in front so I just take my foot off the gas, I did not brake.
Car starts to slow, from about 50k we drift right down to about 15, he's still sitting right there. I'm hoping at this point that he will pull round me and stop, I am ready to flick on the video and catch something interesting to put up here (me getting bashed most likely!)

But even at this crawl he's still sitting right on me with everything blaring.

So I've had enough of this st now, roof is open so I throw both hands up and do my best council estate "Wot mate! Woss gonna happen here!" gesture.

Now he switches them off and drops back. I get going again and manage to get past a couple of cars so they aren't behind me anymore.

tt score? I'm going to award myself a point but I think they get two, or three?

Edited by br d on Wednesday 29th June 16:13