any help on alps route max 4 days

[Skid06]

me and a few mates have booked four days of work in june and would love to explore some of the best alpine routes, ive read some stuff but would like to hear from bikers experiences which ferry etc, im in derbyshire so if your local and want to come along your welcome

 

[Ronno]

me and a few mates have booked four days of work in june and would love to explore some of the best alpine routes, ive read some stuff but would like to hear from bikers experiences which ferry etc, im in derbyshire so if your local and want to come along your welcome

4 days. Does that include your travelling to and from your home?

Eurotunnel would get me vote for price, convenience and speed of crossing. You'll get cheaper ferry crossings but if I only had 4 days to play with, I'd want the fastest option possible.

 

[Rasher]

I hope you mean four days in the region, gonna be a day to get from your home to just inside France and another day to reach the Alps.

Assuming you have four days in the region you can either ride all day and stop at a different Hotel each night, or pick on or two places to stop at and plan some circular routes.

From my limited experience of the Alps I would recommend Andermatt as a great base if you only have a few days, this is also what "Motorcycle Journey's through the Alps and Beyond" recommends - pick yourself up a copy and have a read, see what takes your fancy and go from there.

For us Brits the Grenoble area is the closest entry point to the Alps and may be more practicle with your limited time, also lots to do around here including many of the highest passes in the Alps.

 

[Deleted account 210609001]

Andermatt for the Swiss Alps is a good recommendation, but you can ride all the obvious circular routes fromt here in a couple of days. Or head for Grenoble in France and pick roads from there. I love the roads and scenery in the Tyrol and the Dolomites, but they're that bit further away and in four days it's not really practical.

It takes a day to get there and a day to get back (and that's from Calais/Channel). Add 3.5 hours to Notts/Derbyshire from there... If your four days include getting there and back, then you're going to be knackered - probably too knackered to really enjoy it. But assuming your four days off work are next to a weekend, then you'll have six days altogether and it might be more fun.

Riding for ten hours/600 miles in a day is fine, but in my experience riding ten hours/600 miles two days running is a whole new level of pain.

If you really are limited to four days, my honest advice would be to forget the Alps. Head for the Black Forest and/or Vosges, which are more easily reached. The roads are almost as good - some would say better because there are no stretches of 36 caravan-strewn hairpins to negotiate, which aren't everybody's cup of tea - and the lower altitude means you won't have the same risks of snow, hail, run-off and so on.

Channel crossing - I've only ever used the short crossings to France. Tunnel is quick and easy, ferry gives you chance to have a sit down and some grub. Bikes are ususally first on/first off the ferries, always last on last off the tunnel but the tunnel is still way quicker and simpler - no tying down etc.

Routes - time may well dictate that you have little choice but to take motorways all the way. You can avoid tolls if you go down via Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Or use the French autoroutes if tolls don't matter too much. Decide how far you think you want to ride on the first and last days, pick a town nearby, and book a hotel nr the motorway. I use a chain hotels on France for reliability, ease of booking and so on - B&B being most used. They are a little soul-less, but clean, cheap and conveninently located.

Finally, look at ALPINE ROADS for detaisl fo what passes are wehre, but remember that any Alpine road is going to be a thousand times better than any road here, so just because it is an "average" alpine road doesn't mean it's no good.

 

[Wapping]

As usual, when does your four days stop and start?

You appear to live in Derby but have to get to 'The Alps'. That will take a minimum of one day to get to 'The Alps' and one day back.

If I am correct, that leaves you two days to hoon about 'The Alps'. Let's hope it does not lash down.

Given your obvious time restraints, I would go to the bit of 'The Alps' closest to Derby and care less about the quality of the roads..... or, better still, go to Jock and / or Taffy lands, where it will lash down for sure.

 

[Pip_UK]

Hi Skid, if you do consider Robin's suggestion of Black Forest, then I can recommend the overnight Harwich -> Hook of Holland ferry. It leaves late and arrives early, so you get a good start on your first day, is reasonably priced, and is very easy & comfy. Just remember to bring an old towel to protect your bike's seat from the tiedown straps.

The Vosges is great riding as Robin mentioned: mountains, wiggly passes, lakes, forests - all present & correct. The Ballon D'Alsace there is worth checking out.

 

[Ronno]

Hi Skid, if you do consider Robin's suggestion of Black Forest, then I can recommend the overnight Harwich -> Hook of Holland ferry. It leaves late and arrives early, so you get a good start on your first day, is reasonably priced, and is very easy & comfy. Just remember to bring an old towel to protect your bike's seat from the tiedown straps.

The Vosges is great riding as Robin mentioned: mountains, wiggly passes, lakes, forests - all present & correct. The Ballon D'Alsace there is worth checking out.

He's got 4 days and you're suggesting that he spend 2 overnights on ferries?

 

[Bury_Dave]

He's got 4 days and you're suggesting that he spend 2 overnights on ferries?

I assumed it was meant he quit work and spent that night on a ferry and maybe same on day due back at work. Otherwise what, as you so rightly point out, would be the point.

Pretty strenuous but do-able with Proplus !

Not sure about safety with so much riding in so little time but it seems from other threads it's fairly common. Especially on motorways.

Dave

 

[Skid06]

thanks for the posts very informative, i go abroad on the bike every year with the girlfriend Portugal Spain etc. which is fab but i just wanted an intense, cheap, no frills blast to the Alps with the boys without her indoors on the back moanin im leaning it over to far, going to fast or her arse is sore!! i bought the 'Alps and beyond' book which is fab which is the best scenic way to Andermatt? i think i will take your advice and go for another two days

 

[Rasher]

Oh a lads tour, well 12 hour 800 mile days are suddenly a possibility.

If you put Calais and Andermatt into google maps it will take you down A26 in France all the way past Strasbourg, this could be done in a day, if you could travel to the tunnel the night before and buy yourself some time you could be down there in a day.

You can do trips 1&2 in a figure 8, this is easy to do in one day, with 3 nights in a Hotel you would have another day to try any of the other trips in that chapter and a day to get back home.

IF taking scenic routes to / from you won't do it in a day, you could run the entire length of the B500 from Baden Baden to just North of Zurich, but would need a stopover. If you cannot get to the Tunnel the night before you could probably fit this in if you stopped enroute.

Two Wheel Moorings is 4 hours into France and 3 hours from the top of the B500, or you could go to the Black Forest on day one (I would recomend Pension Williams) and from here run down the B500 the rest of the way on day two - you still have day 3 for the Andermat loops.

Whatever happens day four will be a crappy 12 hour plus motorway affair to get home, unless you do the reverse and come back up via the B500 - I prefer a worse ride out and better one back.

Add on two days and you could do Trip 13 - all around Mont Blanc, another supurb days ride and still only a (long) day from home.

That sounds best - Trips 1&2 combined and Trip 13, better to concentrate on a good time in the Alps than try to find good routes to and from, IMHO you just ain't got the time.

Chapters 6,7&8 are all reachable and have some great roads as well.

 

[Wapping]

As you go abroad every year, hooning and leaning it over (naturally), frightening your girlfriend and making her arse sore, you will be used to the distances, looking at maps, knowing what is a fast road, what is not a motorway, what is a National road and what is a cart track.

You will also know what you want to do, how and when.

I suggest you take a map, mark on it your chosen points of:

(a) your house

(b) your chosen ports of departure from the UK and for arrival sur la continent.

(c) your anticipated destination (Laundromat).

(b) your chosen port for returning to the UK, your chosen port for arrival back on God's favourite island

And, last but by no means least, your house, again.

You then agree with yourself whether you have four or six, or more, or somewhere inbetween days travelling time to join up all the dots. We will call this your timeframe.

Then, study the map for roads of your chosing that will allow you to join the
dots up within the timeframe you have given yourself. I guess this is what you do every year when you go to Spain, Potugal and etc? It will be exactly the same going to Laundromat, just the language will be different.

 

[Wapping]

Ps just noticed you are going in June. Sit down with mates, when joining the dots. Girlfriend's help optional.

 

[Skid06]

i just didn't want to go and everybody starts saying "you twat!" why did you go on that route you should have gone that way, with the short time i have i didn't want to waste any time looking for decent roads, so thanks everybody, im now sat with my Alps book joining up the dots and getting excited!

 

[Wapping]

.....but were happy enough to waste everyone elses' time, looking out decent roads, doing the planning, suggesting destinations, for you. All so you could avoid being called a twat.

Well, it nearly worked, I guess.

Have a great holiday.