My Gear

Since Top Gear drove the Stelvio Pass (Passo di Stelvio) I keep hearing all about it. Obviously they've unleashed the best kept driving secret. In fact yes, when in the swiss italian alps last year I did in fact drive through it and many other passes in the region which were equally exhilerating. It is a wonderful road and drive and then picking up the local paper today hey presto! There's a photo of the pass that might have come from my own collection. The driving reporter from the article did it in the dark (I did it in total fog and later sunshine) with the luxury of a car ahead clearing the traffic. For goodness sake!! To give credit; they were actually testing night vision technology rather than doing the drive for the road itself. Here's their footage. http://media.drive.com.au/cars/car-news/driving-the-stelvio-pass--at-night-with-no-headlights-669730.html?

Very novel. He did it in the dark for sure, but in a Merc looking at a screen with the that the road ahead was clear. Very clever, but a little bit more about the technology than the actual road or experience of the surrounds. To my mind having been there it does not really do the road or the alps justice.

My trip was no less dramatic than they make out. In fact I think it was rather more dramatic... early in the morning in fog with cyclists and local busses flying past. Yes, you can do 50Km between the hairpin bends if you have no traffic in front of you and then haul down to 2nd gear for the actual turn. If you have anyone that is not a local in front of you, you'll be doing 10km all the way through... yeesh. I watched the motorcyclists in awe. they were having a ball, handling the turns nd the straights with zip and power and were obviously having a ball. They'd have earned every minute of it, getting around the alps with the snow impending, on a bike... would love it for the passi when sunny, but not for most of the other time, nor the autostrade to get there. I was in no Mercedes, nor an Evo, but a Peugeot diesel hatch. Had a great time regardless. Here are some photos, but not in the fog. I was too busy then concentrating like all f(*^^%#