good summer so far!!!

Ok this is a few ride reports rolled into one.

a few weeks ago I left for my first tour abroad. The plan was to do the route des grande alpes, italian alpes and the dolomites, slovenia, austria, germany then home.
My Parents were going to Morzine for a weeks mountain biking before doing their own tour so I shared a cabin with them when we sailed from Newcastle to Amsterdam.


Me waiting for the ferry.

Unfortunatly the ferry had some sort of delay with boarding, and when we arrived at Amsterdam there was a massive delay getting off the boat which ****ed loads of people plans, as many on board were there for the assen GP.


Auld Yins waiting for the Ferry.


The ferry was a bit choppy.

got my sea legs though!

We never got off the boat untill around 8pm so we headed a few miles outside Amsterdam and the old yins put me up in a hotel where the dude let us park the bikes in the foyer.


My GS in the foyer.

Early rise the next day, up at 6! Due to the delay from the ferry we decided to head straight to Morzine, my Parents and some of my mum's mates had hired a chalet in a small village outside Morzine called St Jaun Des alpes (i think)
It was the biggest mileage I had done on a bike, clocking a little over 750 miles, due to getting lost a couple of times.


Bumped into the olds somewhere in France

I got to the chalet around 7, my old man arrived well before me thanks to his GPS.


the chalet


old abby near the chalet.

The people at the chalet were all pretty cool. most of them are into mountain bikes in a BIG way.


One of the mountain bike guys had a pit bike that i took for a spin.

The next day i headed off on my own down the route des grande alpes, but I'll post that bit tomorrow.

route des grande alpes

Sorry its taken so long to do part 2.

Ok, I headed off on my own, these pics might not be in order, but I headed from Morzine area to Val d'Isere.

stopped here for a juice.


My first pass.

I camped in Val d'Isere. its quite nice place, apparently its big with snow boarders and skiers in the winter. I have a few beers in a pub with this outside.


The next day I headed south to Barcelonnette




Those last 3 pics were on Col' de L'Iseran, which was the one of the highest passes I done. It was freezing!!



anyone know what this is?







Those last few are from the Col de L'Izoard, a real must do road.




Never noticed the Zepplins till after I took this pic.




View from the campsite at Barcelonnette.


Had this with my tea.


The next day was to be another (unintentional) big mile day. I left Barcelonnette heading south to the med.
I went over this pass

Which I think was called St Martin, then I turned of the Route Des Grande Alpes and went along an amazing gorge/valley with really red rock. It was so hot I only stopped for one pic.

I eventually got to Nice then got lost. I ended up sitting in rush hour traffic sweating my balls off. At one point I was beside a big car park and all the local young team were doing really impressive stunts on their 125s. It was quite amazing.
I was going to camp at Menton, but I decided it was too hot so I pushed on. I never stopped untill i reached lake Ledro in Italy!!
Lake ledro is north west of Garda. the road round Garda is pretty sweet but before I got to it I encounered a traffic jam due to a car crash. All the other bikes filtered their way to the front of the que, which I also did. A Mazda MX5 and another car appeared to have had quite a dunt and some poor guy was lying on the road getting seen to by paramedics. The locals on their scooters seemed unphased by this and rode round the guy, sometimes between him and the paramedics! Even when the police tried to stop them they tied to push past.
I thought i was going to have to wait it out when this guy pulled up next to me on a KTM adventure. He never spoke any english but I managed to ask him if he knew an alternative route to the Garda coast road. He did and led me through some small villages and along country roads at a pace that can only be described as "balls out." Speed limits were ignored and pedestrians targetted as we flew through those villages. mental!


Lake Ledro from Pivo de Ledro

I spent 3 nights camping on the banks of lake ledro, just chilling out and reading my book.

I'll try and post some again soon.

chow

mike

Sound and looks like a great trip.
Thanks for posting

Looks like you had a great time!
Have you got details of where you stayed?
More photos please

that really looks like you had a great trip/tour,photos are very good,as are the ZEPP'S...LOL..so you never noticed them

Part 3

Again, sorry it has taken so long to post this.

After Lake Ledro I headed for Stelvio Pass.



At the top of the pass this guy has his stall set up selling superb sausage sandwiches



After camping in a small village on the east side of Stelvio I headed to Cortina D'Imazio (i think thats how its spelt) in the Dolomites.
On the way there I took an experimental detour and ended up on this crazy dirt road.



Unfortunatly my bottle crashed and I turned back and took this pass instead.


The campsite in Cortina was pretty good, I got a prime spot beside the river.


The next day I left Italy for Slovenia. I entered Slovenia on the Vrsic Pass. My pics don't do it Justice. It is amazing, a real must do.



on my way to the campsite at Lake Bled, I got pulled over. The speed limit was 60kph, but I had been overtaking on a massive straight the wrong side of 100mph. Luckily the copper sent me on my way after looking at my documents and chatting about the weather!

Bled was nice but very touristy so the next day I went to Lake Bohinj.
The campsite is rocky as hell but quite nice. I bumped into around 40 Irish folk who were over to climb the mountains for the charity Debra. I had a top night with them, the even sneaked me into their slap up buffet in their hotel.
I also managed to get some washing done. Before a MASSIVE storm hit us.



After Bohinj I headed to Kranjska Gora where my parents had hired an appartment where I could crash on the couch.
I advised my parents to ride the Vrsic Pass, which they did, only my dad decided to make it a little more exciting by nearly getting shot at for not stopping at the Italian border.


I got speaking to a guy who lived in a transit van with his four dobermans, honda blackbird, harley sportster, speakers, amps and instruments for live music and a bunch of skateboards and surf boards. Then i nearly got in a bar brawl, then arrested when the guy slapped a giant blokes girlfriend's arse.
Top night!!
Renalto, the arse slapping, van living in nutter rode with us to the Austrian border, then it was on to Grossglockner, which I thought was weel worth the 18 euros.





While I was in the visitor centre at the glacier a huge snowstorm blew in and I ended up riding half the pass in a blizzard.





Shit!

when I took these next two pics there was a real blizzard behind me!


After Grossglockner I stayed in a hotel in Zell am See. They had handy couch shaped tent dryers in the rooms.




Next was Germany and the Black Forest. I never found it to be the biking mecca some say it is, but it was nice for chilling out. I stayed in a place I cant remember the name of, begginning with W, and a place called Titisee (guffaw)


Thats a pic of the fire brigade practising, they were quite funny, playing jokes on each other and stuff. They even crashed the fire engine!




Camping, goats and an old Triumph at Titisee.

After Germany I planned to head to Bullion in Belgium where I was going to spend the last two nights of my trip at a hotel with my folks.
This took longer than expected due to me going around 200 - 250 i the wrong direction. I never got there till after 10.00.






In Bullion I ate mussels, sampled the local beer, and had a laugh with a bunch of stoners from paris.
Then it was justa mad dash for the ferry near amsterdam, which I nearly mised due to getting lost near rotterdam!!

Anyway i had a top trip. Hope you all enjoy my pics.

The next installment should be a wee tour of Scotland which a bunch of us done.

Cheers

Mike

If anyone wants any info about where I stayed and stuff just give me a shout.