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to travel
Winter tour
Winter tour
Caught cold
In winter through the mountains on two wheels ?? a real challenge. And in the saddle of an almost 50-year-old NSU Fox, a very special excursion.
Josef Seitz
01/24/2000
“If you really want to experience the desert, go when it’s hottest. And if you want to know what the cold is, pack your tent and go to the Arctic in the dead of winter. ”I can’t remember where I read these sentences, but I couldn’t get them out of my head. The desert thing will have to wait. And the Arctic? Well, everyone starts small? maybe with a tour through the wintry Alps. Minutes later I’m in the garage. But when I see the Africa Twin I get weak knees. Lift the 240 kilogram Honda off icy roads several times a day and put the sinfully expensive trim parts in the garbage can in individual pieces? Not an edifying thought. Until the look at my old one NSU Fox falls, which is parked in the back of the garage. Year of construction 1951, 125 cubic centimeters, four point five horsepower, 84 kilos, no plastic and the seat height of an office chair. Another plus: The two-stroke engine only really feels at home in the cold. That would probably also get you through the Arctic, a hundred kilometers later. Shortly before Hindelang. It doesn’t look any different at the North or South Pole. During the drive around the Wertacher Hornle it got so lousy cold within a few minutes that the weaker self called in and said I should look for a warm stove. In the mountain shadow of the Allgau Alps, where there is hardly a ray of sunshine all day, it is deep winter. The fingers get clammy and the tip of the nose under the open half-shell helmet is soon as white as the mountain peaks all around. Only after the pass does the sunlight blind your eyes again. And suddenly it’s warm again – the temperature is just below zero. Immediately in the first bend after the pass, I stop and lean against it NSU up to a tree and wait until my fingertips feel good again. Motorcycling in winter is an intense affair. Sometimes too intense, as I found out on the way to Hinterstein: The rear of the NSU begins to overtake itself as if in slow motion. I put my boots on the ground and feel more like a bobsleigh than a motorcyclist, until I’m at right angles to the road and the course of events can no longer be stopped. The load leans to one side and I slide after the NSU on the bottom of my pants. At least it is so slippery that the slide goes without any damage. There isn’t even a scratch on the rubber grip. I decide to take a break from the horror in the next tavern and am amazed when I enter the pub. It goes without saying that such a crazy person who absolutely wants to ride a motorcycle in winter quickly gets into conversation with the regulars’ table. And there it is confirmed to me that I am not only in the Arctic, but already at the North Pole. This is what the locals call the area around Hinterstein. Compared to Hindelang, which is only six kilometers away, there should be a cold gradient of up to twenty degrees. The participants in the Wintermontgolfiade in Hindelang, on the other hand, have no worries about black ice – which has nothing to do with golf. This is about a more aloof sport. The name Montgolfiade refers to the Montgolfier brothers, who invented the hot air balloon a good two hundred years ago and ushered in the age of aviation on November 21, 1783 in Paris with the first manned balloon launch. Nothing has changed in the principle of this mode of transport. Only today, the air in the balloon envelope is heated with gas instead of charcoal, and the whole vehicle is of course made of ultra-modern materials. The fascination that emanates from this silent mode of locomotion has remained the same, when dozens of balloons soar, draw an interesting color pattern in the steel-blue sky and one by one disappears over the white mountain peaks. The pilots have to go to certain points and drop a marker there. But that’s a minor matter, one of the balloon captains tells me, the focus is on the pleasure of floating in complete silence over the snow-covered landscape. However, the balloons are not the only attraction on the wide take-off area in front of Hindelang. My NSU seems to be hardly less interesting for some of my contemporaries. I’m asked about the year of construction at least twenty times. Full attention is then given to the balloons during the so-called “balloon glow”. After dark, the many colorful shells are lit up by bursts of fire with a gas flame. What then looks like giant bedside lamps are on the field. I stay connected to the earth and relax in the soft, spring-loaded saddle of the Fox on the way to Sonthofen and on through the Illertal to Obersdorf. But in order to get to my next destination, I have to bypass this place extensively, as they have dedicated themselves to gentle tourism and the place has been declared a traffic-free zone. I promptly get into a chair lift and then into an inclined elevator to get to the Heini Klopfer ski flying hill. Seen from up here, ski flying takes on a whole new role. What looks so simple and manageable on television suddenly seems frightening. Incredibly steep it goes down to the jump table, behind it the view only falls into the expanse of the Illertal. For a brief moment it must be a leap into nowhere. Dieter Thoma set the current hill record here in February 1998 with a distance of 209 meters. He was only three meters behind the world record of the Norwegian Lasse Ottesen in 1997. They must be kind of crazy, I think to myself, to sail two hundred meters through the air with two boards under your legs. They wouldn’t bring me down there for the largest barrel of beer in the world. Back in the saddle of the NSU, I explore the Kleine Walsertal. It belongs to Austria, but has no access from the Austrian side. I have to drive back a good bit to be able to turn into the dead end to the Walsertal. A hiking trail begins right at the German-Austrian border crossing that leads to one of the most impressive natural beauties in Germany. A narrow descent leads through a magical winter landscape down to the Breitachklamm. The narrow gorge has turned into a strange ice world in the winter cold. Where inconspicuous waterfalls splash down into the Breitach in summer, ice trees meters thick and weighing tons have emerged. At the narrowest point, roughly in the middle of the gorge, hundreds of icicles hang like glittering metal spikes from the rock walls and form a frozen curtain of water. Down here, winter still rules even after there has long been no snow up in the Walsertal: During the day, the rays of the sun only penetrate the bizarre rock gorge, which is one of the deepest in Europe, for a few minutes The last word was in September 1995. A rock fall had blocked the Breitachklamm with tons of rocks and rubble. The path could not be walked for months, and the water of the Breitach did not find an exit: The mirror rose by 30 meters until the rock plug could no longer withstand the masses of water after six months and after the breakthrough it caused considerable devastation in the gorge came. I drive a little further into the Kleine Walsertal and get to the ski area of the Hohe Ifen, which is one of the most striking peaks in the German Alps due to its sloping rock slab. When I stop at a gas station on the way back, the NSU attracts attention again. The gas station attendant comes out of his ticket booth with beaming eyes and it is clear to him that my Max awakens memories in him. “Yes, I once had an NSU like that,” he gushes, “back in the sixties. It lasted ten years, then unfortunately the engine was down. ”Then he threw it away because nobody wanted it anymore, he remarks with a wistful tone in his voice. I see scenes like this again and again on the tour. Traveling in a vintage car creates a completely new relationship between the driver and the rest of the world. People who wouldn’t turn around after an MV Agusta or Honda Gold Wing suddenly come up to me. Like the gentleman who spoke to me this afternoon during dinner and wanted to know if this was my motorcycle. He had seen the NSU driving past the restaurant, immediately parked his car and walked back – only to tell me that he once had an NSU. The “98, the one with 98 cubic capacity”. Of course, it is mainly people of the older generation who stop, ask about the year of construction and then tell me where they had already been on the road with this or a similar vehicle. My little Fox brings back memories, the old two-stroke engine purrs like a sewing machine. The cold seems to suit him a lot better than my fingertips. The tiny engine even develops something like revving. The Riedbergpass, which takes me over to Austria, masters it without a murmur. I change the valley one more time and chug over Schwarzenberg to Bodele, which is high above Dornbirn. Shortly after the top of the pass, suddenly a completely unexpected panorama: I am standing above the clouds. The valley seems to be filled with a huge cotton ball. It’s hard to believe that bad weather can be so beautiful when viewed from above – the nearby Rhine and Lake Constance are responsible for the milky soup. A little further I find a room and learn from the landlady that the fog has been in the valley continuously for a week and that it should be freezing cold there. A good reason to change the route. The next morning I drive back to Bodele, where skiers are already cavorting on the slopes, and finally follow the course of the Bregenzerach towards the south. The valley floor of the river is in the shade for most of the winter. Hoar frost as thick as a finger has formed on the bushes and trees, creating a winter landscape like something out of a fairy tale book. In Au I leave the Bregenzerach valley and tackle the climb up to Damuls. As soon as I’m away from the river, the cold is more bearable again – the display on the thermometer slowly moves from the deep cellar back towards the zero degree limit, panting heavily, the NSU struggles up to the snow-covered Faschinapass, from which the road descends steeply into the Grobe Walsertal falls. I have certain concerns as to whether the NSU drum brakes are up to the gradient. I can’t rely on the supporting braking effect of the engine? this is practically zero for a two-stroke engine. Once at the bottom, the smell of hot brake pads rises in my nose, but the cold gets the drums on the way to Sunday ?? the village is actually called that – the necessary cooling again quickly. The sight that is presented to me at the end of the valley does not bode well. A thick carpet of clouds is coming up from Switzerland, clearly threatening bad weather. So I turn back a second time, drive back over the Faschinapass to Au for lack of an alternative and steer the NSU in the direction of the Hochtannbergpass. Even if the incline often forces first gear, I am always surprised how determined the old iron with the four and a half horsepower carries my ninety kilos up the 1679 meter high pass. This slow way of traveling has its own qualities. Thoughts of lean angles and tire grip are as far away as summer. I feel like a leisurely hiker in a quiet winter landscape, but after the pass, the leisureliness is over. Shortly after Warth in the upper Lech Valley, the road has only been poorly cleared. The NSU unwillingly lurches down the mountain in the forced guidance of tire tracks and piles of snow pushed together. There is hardly any time to marvel at the ice-armored rock walls. In addition, it gets lukewarm again in the long valley, which is almost always in the shade in winter. My thermometer shows minus ten degrees, and Stanzach doesn’t change much about that. Maybe I should have invested a few marks in good winter gloves after all. So I invest the saved glove money every fifteen kilometers in a warm-up visit to a pub. Only when the land behind Pfronten merges back into the hilly Allgau does it get a little better. I stop at the roadside and admire the snowy Alps one last time. Then the idea of a warm stove finally drives me towards home.
Info
A motorcycle tour in winter has its own charm: Snow and ice have the land so firmly under their control that even well-known routes get a completely new face when the weather is good, top-class panoramas.
Getting there: If you want to follow the route described in the text, you can either drive via Lindau am Bodensee to Dornbirn or to Fussen am Forggensee. The route can be used all winter. Short-term closures are only to be expected after extreme snowfalls. Information about winter closures is available from ADAC or on the Internet from the Austrian Automobile Club: OAMTC.at.
Stay: There is absolutely no shortage of accommodation in this region – and where there are ski lifts, you can always find a place for the night. Bottlenecks can only occur between Christmas and New Year. Private rooms are the cheapest. An overnight stay with breakfast in a double room usually costs between 35 and 40 marks per person. Further information: Kurverwaltung / Verkehrsamt Oberstdorf, phone 08322/7000, or from the spa administration / guest information Hindelang / Oberallgau, phone 08324/8920.
Worth seeing: In Oberstorf, a visit to the Breitachklamm is particularly worthwhile. In one of the deepest gorges in Europe, a grotesque world of ice forms in winter. The opening times are daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you want to know how ski flyers feel shortly before the jump, go to the Heini Klopfer ski flying hill, which is located between Oberstdorf and the Fellhorn. Daily from 9.15 a.m. to 4.15 p.m. One of the great attractions of the Allgau is the Wintermontgolfiade in Hindelang: you rarely see so many hot air balloons in all sizes, shapes and colors. Further information and the next appointment are available from Ballonsport Alpin in Sonthofen, phone 08321/7091.
The motorcycle: NSU, originally a knitting machine factory, put a motorcycle on its wheels as early as 1901. In 1909 a speed record was set in Los Angeles at 124 km / h, and until the beginning of the First World War, NSU could also be seen regularly during the TT on the Isle of Man. The NSU Fox shown in the story, built in 1951, has been in the author’s possession for eleven years – and at that time it was acquired in a miserable condition for 100 marks. Many weekends followed at parts markets and in the workshop to turn the pile of metal back into a fully functional vehicle. Today the small two-stroke engine with its 4.5 hp runs almost without any problems. On winter alpine tours as well as on the way to a Sunday morning pint.
Literature: A good guide for motorcyclists comes from the Unterwegs edition. In “Alps”, Volume II (ISBN 3-613-01809- 8), for 28.90 marks, seven promising rounds are described in detail from the Allgau to the French Alps. Information about hotels, places of interest and organized trips as well as a breakdown dictionary in Italian and French make the book a well-rounded affair. To be ordered from Motor Presse-Leserservice, phone 0711 / 182-1229. A very good map comes from Marco Polo: The General Map of Austria, sheet 3, for 12.80 marks on a scale of 1: 200,000.
Time required: two days
Distance covered: 350 km
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