Austria
1 year, 1 month and 10 days have passed since the WRWR (Women Riders World Relay) 2019 successfully crossed Austria.
Many female motorcyclists participated at that time, and with a lot of weather luck, in the middle of April, a fantastic ride through Upper Austria, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg.
Unfortunately there was not enough time to do a complete tour through Austria, and so, not only for Austria, the Ripple Relay was created. The reason behind: Enabling other parts of the country can have the experience of WRWR.
The planning for the Austria Ripple 2020, through our southern provinces – Carinthia and Styria and East Tyrol, started very early, and then the Corona Pandemic came and suddenly made all planning obsolet. Or didn’t it?
No, a small group of sensible women, kept the date (end of May) constantly in mind,
watched every trend, every development around the pandemic and the resulting regulations and, what already happened in a wonderful way during the first round, was also on our side this time: Luck!
From mid-May groups of up to 10 people are OK, from 29 May overnight stays in hotels and also the gastronomy can be available for us again from mid-May! Perfect, we are going on the tour!
The round call in the Austrian WRWR Group was successful and so we can expect an average of 6-9 persons per section. More would not be ok under the current Covid guideline anyway, so perfect!
As starting point, on May 30th, Weiz in eastern Styria was chosen.
For travellers from the north and west of Austria this would enable them on May 29th to have some wonderful tracks with curves and mostly nice weather to enjoy. As Weiz is situated in the middle of some wonderful mountains, the arrival journey itself was a great experience, which ended in the Golden Crown and Old Town of Weiz.
The cool evening weather did not deter us from visiting the old town of Weiz and finally enjoying a coffee and ice cream in front of the hotel.
Thanks to our motorbike scarves we were prepared for all eventualities, be it the cold, or even mouth-nose protection regulations, which were still in place and allowed us to enter shops, restaurants and the hotel only with half covered face.
In the more rural areas, thank God, it is no longer seen as dramatically as in Vienna, where, for example, many are hysterical and scream “life threatener” (my personal misnomer about the pandemic) when you meet them “unveiled” , even from a distance, outdoors.
But back to pleasant news: The joy was great to be able to spend the first evening with the three of us already and it was even increased during the course of Saturday, when more and more female motorcyclists joined us along the route, planned – and unplanned – and we finally rode in a group of 8 at the Seeberg saddle. In any case, the approach to the pass was a highlight. You can imagine a well developed mountain route with many narrow bends, which belonged to us alone. Just 2 cyclists were also on their way. The reason was simple and immediately obvious at the top of the pass. The concrete barrier, which blocked the border crossing to Slovenia, stretched across all lanes and thus effectively prevented normal traffic.
To our joy Nadja (Ambassador of the Slovenian WRWR group) together with 2 companions had managed to arrive from the Slovenian side and so it came to a memorable photo that will surely go down in the annals of the WRWR.
We took the opportunity to take a photo and to warm up a little in the refuge on site, because the weather was nice but very fresh.
After the short stop we went back to the valley and the Slovenian group left again. This must be repeated after the reopening of the border!
A small part of the group extended their ride to the Paulitsch Pass (also has to be repeated 😉 ) and then the group continued together again.
To Velden am Wörthersee, where we first have an epic dinner in the White Horse at the lake and then we arrived at our accommodation at Cap Wörth and tore the night porter from his rest.
Renate then moved out again to get an extra portion of stronger drinks from home, which were consumed in the best of moods, under a starry sky and splashing from the Wörthersee.
The location at Lake Wörthersee is unique, the rooms were very comfortable, the sanitary facilities clean, for a youth hostel a fantastic ambience. We must remember that.
We’ll be back on the road by 9:00. We continue with so little traffic that there is much more time to enjoy the wonderful area. In retrospect there would have been even more time to reach East Tyrol, on the other hand the shorter round saved us from snowfall at the pass of the Nockalm. As we cross the pass there is a very cold wind, fresh 3°, but it is dry. 1 hour after our crossing the first snow falls at the pass. At this time we are already warming up in Innerkrems down in the valley.
The timing is perfect, because this is how we meet Su and Anneliese, coming from St. Michael, who join our group earlier then expected. We briefly consider the option to cross the Nockberge mountains again and reach the Murtal via Turracher Höhe, but the news about snowfall at the pass lets decide us differently.
So we arrive, unplanned, very early in Murau. Sabine, Renate and Karin start their way back to south-east and the rest of us set off to explore Murau.
After visiting the old town, the castle and the church, we gather for dinner, which is excellent again. The choice of hotels is ongoing good.
Today the evening ends wonderfully, too. Of course, we only have gasoline conversations, including mandarins and keyboards. 😉
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The next day starts again with an early wake-up call.
Since we are practically the only guests in the whole hotel (hey, hotels have only been open again for 2 days), we have announced our breakfast wishes the day before, so that we don’t have to set up a whole buffet just for us.
But also here we are not disappointed, everything tip, top. Even the medium-hard special egg 😉
At already 8:00 we start again, it is still fresh and so it stays until over the Sölkpass.
Also there we are close to the snow and are happy when we go down again into the warm Ennstal.
There our ways separate once again. Anita turns to the west and sets off for Tyrol, which is plagued by noise from the motorbikes. But that is probably another story.
Wir entdecken im weiteren Verlauf einen alternativen Weg via Lassing und Selzthal, sowie ein wenig
In the further course we discover an alternative route via Lassing and Selzthal, as well as a little gravel road to Admont.
There we also separate from Eva, who continues north, to Upper Austria.
For the rest of the way we continue eastwards through Gesaeuse and the Wild Alps to Muerzsteg, where we also part from Petra, who is heading back south.
The last Wima Rest is then further on the way via Niederalpl, Höllental, Pernitz, Hals in the direction of Vienna. But despite the rather long distance and stop in Admont, no stress is the moto and we all arrive home unharmed. Resumee: It was nice, the WRWR spirit must be carried on and we should do our thing much more often 😉
Weather : 3°-24°, alle variants of weather!
Tour: 1180 km
traffic: small
The day routes
