Alps 2013 report & Pictures

[Rasher]

The Plan

The trip was based around meeting up with the Alpineroads.com folk in the Dolomites, it could be reached in two days by Motorway, but I had five to get there, settled on four and arrived a day early.

As I was so close it seemed logical to pop over to Austria to take in the Grossglockner and have a quick peek at the Carinthia area.

That then left a long trip back, broken up with a stop in the Austrian Tyrol, a couple of nights in the Black Forest and a final night in france.


Day One

Dawned unusually nice for one of my trips, and was warm at 6:30 as we left, a steady run to the Tunnel which was 150 miles of dead straight roads, early on I had 3 roundabouts and two sets of traffic lights, but after the first 15 miles nothing but motorway boredom....

... followed by another 345 miles in France, the first 250 on motorway, a distracting 30 or so cross country ast Verdun and then another 50 or so dull miles to our stop in Epinal.

The Hotel was nice, on the edge of town with an under the Hotel park for the bike, the Sauna and Hot Tub helped ease away the days pains and good food and drink was readily available. At £65 it was not the cheapest place we could have stayed, but the location / room / spa made it worthwhile.

http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-0831-mercure-epinal-centre/index.shtml

495 Miles
68 MPH Average Moving
7 Hours riding
5 Hours stopped / on train
46 mpg

Day Two

Now the holiday really starts, picked up some grub from the Patisserie next to the hotel and set off to the top of Col du Ballon (Vosges) this was under an hour from Hotel to mountain top, need not of bothered with the food pickup as there was a big Café at the top, but I suspect my method was far cheaper!

Once leaving the Vosges we had a couple of hours of motorway to bash through Basel and past Lake Constanz before hitting our first Alps Pass (Brunig) this is a major route, but was not so bad for traffic.

We re-mortgaged the house to buy a sarnie at the last Swiss motorway service area we passed and ate it at a view point heading up the pass.



From here on we were onto a winner, we turned off half way down the far side of the pass and headed towards the Grimsel, the roads were fantastic, and the Grimsel (in a fog-out last time I was here) was well worth the detour, also light on traffic and with the Furka lining up right after it (you can see the Furka on the right of the picture which we took from the Grimsel) a great day was forming



The Furka was busier, due to a great Sunday (over 20c at top of Grimsel / Furka) most of Switzerland seemed to have come here for the day so we got held up a bit, but still got to Andermatt very early so decided to hop over the Oberalp and then look for a Hotel.



The Oberalp was pretty traffic free with most Sunday drivers having gone home, we stopped for a late afternoon cuppa at the top before dropping down the other side and stopping here:

http://www.posta-rueras.ch/

The Hotel cost about £85, the room was on two levels and fantastic, wish we could have stayed longer. The meal we had was also amazing, the Chef had some sort of award and seemed very proud of his work, one of the best meals I have ever eaten, we both really rated the Hotel and food.


230 Miles
44 MPH
5:15 Riding
2:15 stops
49 MPG

 

[Rasher]

Day 3

Now we are really on Holiday, another wonderful day and a ride up the valley towards Chur, this is a nice flowing road with a few villages, but generally a really nice ride with faster bends.

At Ilanz we turned off to take a backroad shortcut to Bonaduz and then cross country to meet up with the Julier Pass road, a pass often rated as very average by Alpine standards but I love it, great scenery with wide smooth, grippy tarmac and plenty of bends with no tight hairpins. In my experience (rode it twice in 2010 and once this year) the traffic gets lighter as you head south, but never had anything other than light traffic by UK main road standards.



It shows how good Alpine roads are when many folk declare a road like this congested and crap :!: The Fluella is better, but if heading from the UK towards the Stelvio (an often travelled path) the Fluella is out of the way, my schedule meant I had to take this over the other options (Fluella, Albula or Splugen). There is a lovely lakeside café we stop at to get a rest from the corners.

The Julier dumps you at the wonderful town of Silvaplana, then we headed through St Moritz, to the Bernina pass (Quick and easy to ride through St M)

Few disagree that the Bernina is a good pass, more sweeping bends on the run out of St Moritz, but once over the top the run down past the Livigo turn and onto Italy is something else, recently resurfaced and a dream for bikes of all shapes and sizes, tight and twisty but without tiresome 1st gear / clutch slipping turns.



From here we planned to ride the Gavia to Bormio, but I had read about the Mortirolo pass and decided to give it a go, the first bad idea of the trip, this was very tight, unbelievably steep, bumpy and just no fun. Some may like these types of roads, but it is certainly not a road for a sportsbike.

The Gavia was as good as many claim, we had seen some snow around Andermatt, but this was the first really big roadside snow we came across, fairly quickly due to the fast climb up the Gavia from the south.



The Gavia pass is stunning, and despite being narrow (single track in parts)and twisty it is not a chore to ride. Certainly one of the prettiest passes I have ridden, the Mrs reckoned from a pillions perspective her favourite ever.



Over the other side we pulled in as soon as we reached Bormio and got a room here

http://www.baitadeipini.com/

A hundred Euro's was the deal, and the room was fantastic, as was the Spa, parking under the Hotel for the bike and a real good bit of nosh in the rather nice garden Restaurant, the place was really good and the staff were fantastic.

Bormio also has a really nice old town, another place I wish we could have stopped at for a few days, but the Stelvio and Dolomites beckoned...


197 Miles
33mph Average Speed
6 hours in the saddle
8:15 Hours total
55 mpg

Just like the GS, as the average speeds came down the mpg shot up, I was now able to do 200 miles without the fuel light coming on, with a good 50 in reserve.

 

[streaky]

brilliant , Heading that way september then on to misano for motogp

 

[Deleted account Cooperman]

I did a similar route last month out of Andermatt and agree that the Julier pass is excellent

 

[enabb]

 

[Rasher]

Day Four

This could have been a really quick day to just dash to the Hotel near Arabba, but as we were experiencing such great weather (Every day so far in the mid - high 20's with barely a cloud in sight) I decided to run up to the top of the Timmelsjoch Pass, Oh, I forgot to mention I was hoping to tick off the rest of the highest 20 Alpine Passes on this trip.

I felt I had cheated by going up the Umbrail to the Stelvio last time so having ticked that off properly had claimed the 3rd highest, the Gavia comes in at number 7 and the Timmelsjoch number 9, between them is the Grossglockner holding the 8th highest award - planned for later in the trip, the other 15 we had covered on our last two trips as most of the top ten are crammed into Route Des Grand Alps.

The run over the Stelvio was just on the doorstep, I was glad of the good weather, I had dreaded the thought of a freezing cold wet ride over this road, as it was we set off from Bormio in 20+c heat, with the temp still being in double figures as we reached the top of the Stelvio around 10:00am - and already the place was busy!

The run up the wider, smoother west ramp was easy, the "fearsome" eastern ramp is now well surfaced, annoyingly tight, but with the decent surface and the benefit of doing it downhill (I prefer to take really tight turns down hill as you can far more easily see what is coming the other way, and it reduces the amount of 1st gear and clutch slipping episodes)

The road is still spectacular with good views all around, but as a ride (especially on a sportsbike) going up and down the west ramp to tick the Stelvio off your list is probably a better plan, on an ADV bike I would recommend back down the Umbrail - then go off and ride some decent roads.



After dropping down the East ramp (Pictured above) we had a dull run towards Merano, this is a main road and the first one on this trip with any notable traffic, loads of it in fact and combined with towns and villages along the way was a painful experience made worse by temperatures above 30c, We had about an hour of this, followed by the battle to get through Merano, once past this major town and heading towards the Timmelsjoch things improved.

Just before the pass starts on the Italian (South) side we found a great roadside restaurant, huge Pizza's for just a few Euro's, by now it was about 35c so as we left to climb the pass we were looking forward to it cooling off.

Typically once past 1500 metres it starts getting cooler, by the top at 2509M it was a pleasant 20c - but still felt hot under the bright sun, a re-occurring theme on this trip was the oddity of sat still sweating with snow all around - I will put some more pics up at the end of the report when I have sorted them out.

We (well "I") now made mistake number two, I knew the north ramp was much smaller, and had planned to ride back down the Southern ramp and take the Jaufen pass towards the Dolomites, but the more snow covered North ramp looked really tempting....



so off we went soon to hit a toll booth.... may as well pay the 12 Euro's and see it all now I thought, only to be disappointed with about 3 more corners after the booth, I really should have turned around, but these corners were just too tempting :!:

I thought I may as well head up the valley to the Motorway and run across the the Brenner pass motorway, the extra miles compensated by much higher speeds, plus turning around now would incur another toll charge

This was a big mistake, the run up to the A12 was through a really nice valley, often following an enthusiastic river with exclusively sweeping bends, but this must be where all those looking for the Heidi experience come on holiday, lots of towns and villages, a fair amount of traffic and extreme heat, 35c all the way - in fairness had it been a bit cooler this run may not have been so terrible, but certainly if running this route again I would have spun around before the TJ toll.

Even once on the motorway at an indicated 90 with my jacket almost entirely open and the screen on the lowest setting I was boiling hot, but I suppose I would be even less happy if it was freezing cold and pissing with rain, the Brenner motorway is very impressive and has some good sweepers, at times your on a motorway "bridge" (half this motorway is on stilts and feels miles above the valley below) with a sweeping bend and amazing birds eye view of the valley. A few tunnels gave some relief from the heat.

Finally we entered Italy again at the far side of the Jaufen Pass and continued towards Arabba on the main roads until we finally saw the famous mountains appearing before us...



Just one small pass to go, the Campolongo, as we were coming out of the village before the pass starts a local on a Harley came past in the 30 zone, I decided to tag along, at the first sweeping bend he threw his Harley at the corner in way that suggested he A. Knew the road intimately, or B. Was not long for this world, luckily it was the former as I blindly followed, this guy was dead smooth taking perfect kerb - line - kerb arcs with the Harley's pegs always just a few mm from touching down.

Obviously a local on his way home from work, he soon pulled a neat overtake using "local knowledge", by the time I got past the truck that baulked us he was long gone and I knew I had no chance of catching him, this guy must really dent some ego's, best bit of riding I saw on the whole trip.

We soon hit Arabba and found our Hotel, I will post more on this fantastic place later.

256 Miles
38 mph Average
6:45 ride time
48 mpg

 

[wreck diver]

Great views,what I would give to be there now.
Enjoy and keep them coming

 

[Tusky]

Glad you did the Gavia from the South...... It has all really

Keeping an eye on this thread with interest.... Great job so far

 

[GS.Jack]

Nice one

Hi Rasher.

Going to enjoy this. . Keep those ride reports coming. Wish I could find the popcorn symbol. Ah F**K the popcorn ATB Jack.

 

[Udders]

Fantastic report! Keep it coming!

 

[geordie156]

Great report and photos keep them coming

 

[Rasher]

Day Five

Had already decided if we had good forecasts for the coming days we would take it easy on our first day here and relax after a rather epic pass bagging journey to get here, a simple run around a few passes and up to Lake Misurina for lunch seemed perfect.

The beauty of the Dolomites is how close and short many of the passes are, you can ride around so many in such a short time, so off we went to do just that....

We set off in the "wrong" direction as the Lake was very close by, so we ran a loop over the Pordoi, Sella, Gardena, Valporola and Falzerego passes on or way to the Lake with the plan to arrive around lunch time, the first two passes were over in about half an hour, we were on the 4th pass (Valporola) by coffee time, and for anyone in that area the Valporola had the best value café (refuge) we found in the area, prices seem to vary quite a bit, this one was fantastic value.

This is a view of the Sella, all of the days passes were of similar quality.



All of these passes are good roads, but with the Arabba, Canzei, Corvara and Badia all being popular in summer the first three on our journey had a fair bit of traffic, the Valoporola and Falzerego were much better for biking, but seeing as the others are so close together and easy to run around in an hour or so you would be mad to miss them.

Here we have the rare sight of two Tenere's in one place (other than a Yamaha warehouse) in fact there were three at the Hotel and not a single GS in sight.



After lunch at the lake (the road up to the lake from Cortina is also pretty fine) we returned via Passo di Giau, another great pass, we stopped at the top for a cuppa and allowed a light shower tocatch us, but it was dry by the time we got to the bottom of the pass.

By the time we got back - in this case we, means me the Mrs and "Pie Man" who we met at the Hotel the night before along with his Mrs (No not Pie Woman) anyway, on our return a fair chuck of the Alpine Roads folk had rolled in, we joined in the beer drinking and watched a few more bikes start to roll in.

I had also discovered just how mountainous this area is, all huge peaks, with very tight twisting passes, but for the most part not with the annoyance of endless hairpins, the roads were all wide enough, grippy and well surfaced, if slow, ideal for a KTM single, good fun on the S10, but not ideal for superbikes.

105 Miles
33 MPH
3:15 Ride Time
7:00 total (lots of mucking about / taking pictures / drinking cappuccino)
49 MPG

 

[(RIP) andrewgsadv]

Good memories flooding in Rasher, love the Dolomites( pref late June or Early Sept) less traffic. Last visit in August we went out early am and late afternoon a couple of times, much better.
Keep it coming, most enjoyable.
What hotel you staying in Arabba

 

[Rasher]

http://www.alforte.com/en/hotel/

Very nice

 

[philhunt88]

Really enjoying this report, im heading for the swiss, Italian and Austrian alps next month, just out of interest how pricey is Switzerland? Im going solo and camping.

 

[Rasher]

Really enjoying this report, im heading for the swiss, Italian and Austrian alps next month, just out of interest how pricey is Switzerland? Im going solo and camping.

I bit more pricey IMO, but it really depends, we actually got the biggest room of the trip for the lowest price of all the places we stayed in the Alps in Austria, we paid £65 for a huge 4 bed apartment in a really great Hotel, but that was more luck than judgement (but many Ski resorts are glad of any business in summer and last minute prices can reflect that.

We also had the most expensive meal here, but it was one of the best meals I have ever had, 3 courses plus several drinks and a coffee worked out about £75 for the two of us, but I know Gastro pubs near me which would cost a similar amount.

Food and drink is a bit dearer, and some places can be very expensive, certainly worth avoiding Swiss Motorway service stations, they even charge you a half a Euro to piss.

Generally though the quality is very good, and Switzerland has some of the best roads and scenery, and I can't see it is going to send you bankrupt - enjoy

 

[Deleted account 210609001]

Great report.

 

[snelly]

Day Four

This could have been a really quick day to just dash to the Hotel near Arabba, but as we were experiencing such great weather (Every day so far in the mid - high 20's with barely a cloud in sight) I decided to run up to the top of the Timmelsjoch Pass, Oh, I forgot to mention I was hoping to tick off the rest of the highest 20 Alpine Passes on this trip.

I felt I had cheated by going up the Umbrail to the Stelvio last time so having ticked that off properly had claimed the 3rd highest, the Gavia comes in at number 7 and the Timmelsjoch number 9, between them is the Grossglockner holding the 8th highest award - planned for later in the trip, the other 15 we had covered on our last two trips as most of the top ten are crammed into Route Des Grand Alps.

The run over the Stelvio was just on the doorstep, I was glad of the good weather, I had dreaded the thought of a freezing cold wet ride over this road, as it was we set off from Bormio in 20+c heat, with the temp still being in double figures as we reached the top of the Stelvio around 10:00am - and already the place was busy!

The run up the wider, smoother west ramp was easy, the "fearsome" eastern ramp is now well surfaced, annoyingly tight, but with the decent surface and the benefit of doing it downhill (I prefer to take really tight turns down hill as you can far more easily see what is coming the other way, and it reduces the amount of 1st gear and clutch slipping episodes)

The road is still spectacular with good views all around, but as a ride (especially on a sportsbike) going up and down the west ramp to tick the Stelvio off your list is probably a better plan, on an ADV bike I would recommend back down the Umbrail - then go off and ride some decent roads.



After dropping down the East ramp (Pictured above) we had a dull run towards Merano, this is a main road and the first one on this trip with any notable traffic, loads of it in fact and combined with towns and villages along the way was a painful experience made worse by temperatures above 30c, We had about an hour of this, followed by the battle to get through Merano, once past this major town and heading towards the Timmelsjoch things improved.

Just before the pass starts on the Italian (South) side we found a great roadside restaurant, huge Pizza's for just a few Euro's, by now it was about 35c so as we left to climb the pass we were looking forward to it cooling off.

Typically once past 1500 metres it starts getting cooler, by the top at 2509M it was a pleasant 20c - but still felt hot under the bright sun, a re-occurring theme on this trip was the oddity of sat still sweating with snow all around - I will put some more pics up at the end of the report when I have sorted them out.

We (well "I") now made mistake number two, I knew the north ramp was much smaller, and had planned to ride back down the Southern ramp and take the Jaufen pass towards the Dolomites, but the more snow covered North ramp looked really tempting....



so off we went soon to hit a toll booth.... may as well pay the 12 Euro's and see it all now I thought, only to be disappointed with about 3 more corners after the booth, I really should have turned around, but these corners were just too tempting :!:

I thought I may as well head up the valley to the Motorway and run across the the Brenner pass motorway, the extra miles compensated by much higher speeds, plus turning around now would incur another toll charge

This was a big mistake, the run up to the A12 was through a really nice valley, often following an enthusiastic river with exclusively sweeping bends, but this must be where all those looking for the Heidi experience come on holiday, lots of towns and villages, a fair amount of traffic and extreme heat, 35c all the way - in fairness had it been a bit cooler this run may not have been so terrible, but certainly if running this route again I would have spun around before the TJ toll.

Even once on the motorway at an indicated 90 with my jacket almost entirely open and the screen on the lowest setting I was boiling hot, but I suppose I would be even less happy if it was freezing cold and pissing with rain, the Brenner motorway is very impressive and has some good sweepers, at times your on a motorway "bridge" (half this motorway is on stilts and feels miles above the valley below) with a sweeping bend and amazing birds eye view of the valley. A few tunnels gave some relief from the heat.

Finally we entered Italy again at the far side of the Jaufen Pass and continued towards Arabba on the main roads until we finally saw the famous mountains appearing before us...



Just one small pass to go, the Campolongo, as we were coming out of the village before the pass starts a local on a Harley came past in the 30 zone, I decided to tag along, at the first sweeping bend he threw his Harley at the corner in way that suggested he A. Knew the road intimately, or B. Was not long for this world, luckily it was the former as I blindly followed, this guy was dead smooth taking perfect kerb - line - kerb arcs with the Harley's pegs always just a few mm from touching down.

Obviously a local on his way home from work, he soon pulled a neat overtake using "local knowledge", by the time I got past the truck that baulked us he was long gone and I knew I had no chance of catching him, this guy must really dent some ego's, best bit of riding I saw on the whole trip.

We soon hit Arabba and found our Hotel, I will post more on this fantastic place later.

256 Miles
38 mph Average
6:45 ride time
48 mpg

Great write up dude. We stopped in Arraba for one night some years ago,on our way to Mugello.In the morning we spent an hour trying to watch the hunters on the hillside from our hotel dinning room through a strong set of bino,s the chef lent us. We did a few of the passes you mention ,and on an 1100 zzr,two up with all the camping gear we had a few shit your pants moments.All good fun.

 

[Rasher]

Day Six

Better crack on while I can still remember where I went!

Day five was a bigger day out, Passo Manghen was the main target, this involved a few good passes to get there, although we changed our plans a bit to shorten the day as it was so hot in the afternoons.

We set off to pick up Passo Aurine (originally I had planned to head further East and take in Passon Duran and Staulanza first)

Aurine leads into Cereda and then the Brocon, it is hard to remember what each one is like, but generally they were all very pleasant roads with few overly tight hairpins and very little traffic.

This is a shot from Cereda (I think - could be Aurine)



Passo Manghen is a very scenic pass, from the south it winds it's way up for a long time, although single lane the road is generally well paved and like the preceding roads very light on traffic.



At the top is a pleasant restaurant by a small pond with some interesting wood carvings, around the side a path leads to a small shrine to various people, a moving tribute was to a German lad who had fallen on the pass.

We got a light shower as we set off down the pass, the North ramp is steeper and wet cow shit did not look all that grippy so I took it steady, before the bottom it was dry so the pace picked up on the last few hairpins - by now back to two lanes and mucho fun could be had.

The original route still had three passes, but as weather was drawing in we decided to take the more direct route back, this meant some main roads and just another run of Passo Pordoi, but the other way to last time, leaving the Lavese and Costalunga passes out, we had now gone from 8 passes to 5 for the day - although not bad and more good riding than I get the other 11.5 months in the UK!

Good choice as the weather turned for the worse, and the Pordoi was not much fun in the rain - which in the towns was causing foam to appear in the road, not sure why, some reckon it is remnants of anti-freeze treatment, others say oil coming from new tarmac - all I know is it looked and felt bloody slippery!

We got back to the Hotel before it became really stormy and warmed up in the steam room and sauna before drinking until late with the others.

The Hotel is worth a special mention, some of the original WW1 character still exists. The Hotel is in two parts, the bar / restaurant is very much all original Fort and it looks as if a lot of effort went in to retaining this during the Hotel conversion, there are also a number of relics such as shells and a couple of field guns each side of the Hotel.



155 Miles
5:00 hours riding
6:30 Total
30 mph moving average
54 mpg

 

[mcinlb]

Rasher, what's the name of said hotel, sounds interesting?????