The next morning dawned dry but with the forecast of rain in the afternoon. We had a longer ride than the day before ahead of us too. Despite all that our company managed to muster up some optimism, and we oiled our chains and headed off in good spirits.
The first part of the journey went smoothly. We had to backtrack over the road where the blockage had been, but it was clear though covered with remnant dirt and gravel, and the pass road following it was dry and manageable. Then came a much trickier pass where the road was narrow and in poor condition to boot. There was a constant worry about oncoming traffic coming around blind corners. We eventually made it down from this and decided to avail ourselves of a longcut option that would really be a shortcut by cutting off some further and even higher passes. We took a two-lane highway followed by A roads (high-speed freeways here in Austria, rather than unlimited-speed autobahns) for about 50 kilometers, then did one final, more minor, pass and then a B road to the Bikerhotel Schönauer.
260 km
