Under perfect blue skies, it was time to leave Mieming in the morning. Never seen a group so motivated and excited to get going. We could have left way before any coffee place would have been open.
After morning briefing and the first tiny hidden roads in the Alps, we arrived just at five past Strudel here in Kühtai.
And Strudeltime it was, straight into the deep end! Well, when in Austria...
And if you ever wondered why this place has the German for "cow" in its name...
Just before lunch, Pierre and Wim took all the guests to Hochimst. But hang on, aren't we supposed to be riding bikes?
Well, a skilift may be very slow, but it does get you to see some views you can not reach on a motorcycle.
So how do we get back down the mountain then? Well... the FAST way! Using nothing but gravity and some very funky Austrian engineering. Some tourguides were rumoured to carry a serious advantage on the gravity-aspect...
The noise may not be anywhere near that of a growling Ducati, but still... pretty exciting ride!
After sliding down a mountain in a luge, time to walk off one. Well, on a spectacular viewing platform, that is.
And then on to the last highlight of the first riding day. Kaunertal Gletscherstrasse, 25 kilometres of pure driving extasy, all the way up,to the glacier on the Austrian-Italian border. Riding heaven, is what it was.
Mind you, the views riding back down the mountain aren't exactly shabby either... look at our group go!
Hairpins you said? We're doing those! Mind you, this is just a very small warmup for what awaits us tomorrow...
Some nice fast sweepers left coming down the hill, and then...
... you end up in a place like this. These Alps have a habit of throwing one gorgeous view after another at you. The mountain village of Fiss welcomed us with a wonderful summer's evening. With a Belgian and a German tourguide on board, there may be some beers involved. Cheers guys, thank you for a wonderful first day on Alps Extreme!
Sure enough... didn't take long to find a beer! (Or two)