This year's European trip

Just about to start planning this year's European biking trip with a couple of friends . Third year running, did black forest last year and vogues year before.

Not going to ask the usual as there is plenty of info on here.

My friend is keen to got to Switzerland (he's heard Andermatt is a good central location).

Is this doable in 7 nights (sat to sat) without days of motorways there and back? Would prefer a nice ride to our destination/turn around point.

I do have my European map but what is evident from here is there is a difference between map route and reality, and no substitute for experience.

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Yes but my advice is you really need to do some tough motorway work to get nearer and have more time there. Loads will tell you to buy a Swiss Vignette but I've been plenty times and never done so, though to be fair I only use their motorways returning.

Be prepared for outrageously expensive hotels in Andermatt that haven't been upgraded since the 70s.

You could blast down to the Alps in a day on the french toll motorways, unless of course you want to do some sightseeing in France, then hop over to Switzerland on day 2. I'm thinking about Austria and Switzerland in June and will take this option.

You seem to be in W Sussex - can you take the overnight boat from Portsmouth to Le Havre on the Friday? It leaves at 11pm so if you are all in that area, people could even work that day?

You will then be in France at early o'clock. Zip down the autoroute to south of Metz on the Saturday - my choice would be Colmar as it has a lovely centre and is close to the A35.

You can then take your time to ride down to Andermatt - cross the border on a minor road not the motorway at Basel as they will force you to buy a vignette. I use the D419 from Altkirch direction as a friend lives near there. You then have most of the day to pick a non-motorway route to Andermatt, enjoying a few passes. The Panoramastrasse that runs from Fluhli to Giswil is a great way to get close to Andermatt as you get to ride the Susten pass on day 2 as well.

You can use an overnight boat from Caen on the way back. This reduces you to 2 motorway days on the trip

Thank for the ideas wessie, but one of our group won't do boats so it's the euro tunnel. Your other suggestions may be useful though (I think we did colmar on last year's tour)

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gazuk said:

Just about to start planning this year's European biking trip.....with a couple of friends ......Not going to ask the usual....friend is keen to got to Switzerland (he's heard Andermatt is a good central location)......Is this doable in 7 nights (sat to sat) without days of motorways there and back.......Would prefer a nice ride to our destination...... I do have my European map but......there is a difference between map route and reality..... one of our group won't do boats so it's the euro tunnel.....

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There are apparently, three of you......You have asked all the usual questions and want the usual stuff..... Calais to Andermatt and back 7 nights..... avoiding motorways.... can YOU do it? Well, let’s see.... There is no difference between the reality of miles on a map and miles on the road, they are the same distance; the only difference is how long it will take YOU to ride a mile or more on them and / or how long YOU want to spend riding them, as opposed to standing still, doing whatever it is YOU want to do. So let’s start with the distance A to B....

Calais to Andermatt, avoiding motorways (but also avoiding minor roads and unmade roads) is 600 miles. Kurviger is really useful for things like this and it’s free.

https://kurv.gr/opMJb

We assume that YOU and your two friends do not roll off the train at say 14:00 or later on Saturday? If so, can YOU ride 600 miles in two days (all of Saturday and all of Sunday) avoiding the motorways and goat tracks to arrive in Andermatt at say 18:00? Split into two equal parts, that is 300 miles a day, down the N and D roads of Western Europe..... can it be done? Yes. Can YOU do it? Only YOU and your two friends know.

Let’s say YOU can, so here goes....

Saturday night to Sunday night, getting to Andermatt from Calais, avoiding motorways and goat tracks. 300 miles both days, after rolling off the Chunnel (fully fuelled up, ready to go) at a reasonably decent time on Saturday morning. Why do you roll off the Chunnel, fully fuelled and ready to go? Because if you don’t you’ll be stopping at the fuel station about a mile from the terminal, joining a queue at the pumps, maybe having a pee or a coffee and then another pee and (for sure) enjoying general backslapping with your two friends who you haven’t seen since rolling off the train two minute earlier, where you’d spent at least 40 minutes with them. Maybe 30 minutes will go by and you’ll be no closer to Andermatt than when you started..... and you still have 300 non-motorway miles to go.

Sunday night in Andermatt (2 nights gone out of 7)

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights in Andermatt (5 nights gone)

Thursday morning leave Andermatt to commence non-motorway (no goat tracks) 600 mile ride back to Calais and home

Thursday night, logically somewhere roughly half way between Andermatt and Calais. (6 nights gone)

Friday night, arrive back home (7 nights gone)

If you plan on arriving back on the Saturday night (ie 7 full nights away) then you have an extra full day somewhere inside that lot.

Now, can YOU do it?

Is Andermatt a great, biker friendly, great roads, awesome riding, awesome views destination? Arguably yes. Though UKGSer is suddenly full of tales of dreadful fines and the apparently startling revelation Switzerland is not cheap. Make your own minds up. Is it worth three full days? Ask your mate, he’s chosen / suggested it.

Thoughts of the three of you, please......




PS When are you going?

PPS You could do worse than stripping down this organised tour a bit: https://alps-tours.com/essential-alps-must-ride-tour/ How do you do that, mate? Put each of the destinations into Kurviger and look at the result. Then work out how you are going to do it starting and finishing from home, via Calais. He tells you near enough what passes he’ll be riding, which you can mark in. A bit of effort between the three of you and it’s done.

PPPS Go to the RiDE magazine website. It has loads of ready made ideas on week long 7 day type adventures, answering exactly your questions.

https://www.ride.co.uk/routes

And from there to:

https://www.ride.co.uk/routes-1/ride-guide-to-the-alps


PPPPS Search for Rasher’s posts. He probably goes to the Alps more than most and has some great, really helpful, suggestions. His first would probably be to hit some motorway between Calais and at least a decent way down to Andermatt. Is he right? That’s up to you (and your friends) to agree or disagree with him.

PPPPPS Some kind soul put this together: https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showt...ce-Michelin-Louis-KurvenKoenig-etc-GPX-routes In fact, look at all the stickies.... get your mates to do the same.

Personally I’d stay only one maybe two nights at a push in Andermatt, it’s that expensive.

If you want to hoon around best avoid Switzerland, no margin for error on speeding.

Beautiful though.

Mr Wapping .. I am NOT in that group of 3 but I do live in West Sussex and my diary for the next couple of years is pretty booked .... but you and Mr Wessie have put in such a good thread I am on it as I sip my morning coffee .. lots to look at so thank you both !

Stayed in this area several times, although always to the west of Andermatt, in Meiringen/Innertkirchen, & visited Andermatt via the excellent passes of Susten Furka Nufenen Grimsel

Meiringen quite expensive, (Sherlock Holmes tourist town), Innertkirchen better value but not much tourist stuff there

Always done over 8 nights, (Sat>Sun) but with two centres (usually Black Forest & CH) 3 nights each plus a night en route there & back. If you are happy with "just" one centre, a seven night trip to this area is easily doable

Mostly avoiding motorways, usually just the first/last bit near Calais would be M-way on my trips

To show how easy it is to pinch other bod’s ideas, I loaded just the stops mentioned in this tour https://alps-tours.com/essential-alps-must-ride-tour/ into Kurviger:

https://kurv.gr/OkLdi

Is it perfect? No, of course not. I did it on a iPhone waiting in the doctor’s. But it shows how, with a bit of imagination, anything is possible. Arm yourself with a half decent local paper map, zoom in on the Kurviger offering, cross reference with the tour company’s website and BINGO! you are done.

One last tip whilst we await your words.... if you can find a way to cross over on the train the evening before, do it. Why?

You save the hour time difference, you’d otherwise lose.

You save the crossing time, say 45 minutes by the time you‘ve waited for the doors to open etc

You save the checking in time, passport check, faffing about time, say 30 minutes

In short, more than two hours. On a motorway that is maybe 100 to 120 miles. On D roads, maybe 70 miles. That’s a decent chunk of your 300 mile first day non-motorway distance.

...and I'm going to be one of those who suggests you actually buy the vignette in Switzerland. We went for about 5 days a couple of years ago. Stunning in every way. When we looked at routes there were some really long B road routes that would have taken 15 minutes on a motorway. I'm talking at least an hour saved. We figured that if you've had a hot day riding for 10 hours and simply need to get the day done....you may well wish you could just nip on to the motorway and get it over with. (It also saves the 'worry' of screwing up on the sat nav and ending up on a motorway by accident.)
Well worth it IMHO and FFS, its about £30....(you'll spend maybe £15k on a bike...£2k on a trip and baulk at £30 )

Wapping said:

One last tip whilst we await your words.... if you can find a way to cross over on the train the evening before, do it. Why?

You save the hour time difference, you’d otherwise lose.

You save the crossing time, say 45 minutes by the time you‘ve waited for the doors to open etc

You save the checking in time, passport check, faffing about time, say 30 minutes

In short, more than two hours. On a motorway that is maybe 100 to 120 miles. On D roads, maybe 70 miles. That’s a decent chunk of your 300 mile first day non-motorway distance.

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Excellent tip, don’t know why I haven’t done that before

I have just asked our group if we can change for our June trip. As a bonus a comparable hotel is cheaper in Calais, vs Folkestone

Another free tip. Lots of people cross back to the UK on the Saturday / Sunday afternoon and evening trains. If you can time your return so that you stay just short of Calais the night before, you can skip up to the train the following morning with much less traffic. Arriving home the next morning, is not much different to arriving the evening / night before.... but often less faffing about in queues.

Wow, cheers guys for your replies, especially Mr wrapping.

There is normally 3 of us, but there may be an additional 2 this year. We meet tonight to get the ball rolling.

The Friday night departure has been suggested. Not too sure myself as we are going on the weekend before bank holiday and half term week so worried about rushing in Friday night traffic, most of us work Fridays etc. It would also mean another hotel night although I have found the ibis one in St omer for 50quid so it's not off the table.

As for routes, we'll see tonight what majority prefers. My preference would be se Switzerland as a turn around point, so just meander down there, pass through and meander back, just staying one night everywhere, but as long as I'm riding my bike and its not majority motorways I don't really care.

Kurviger - had a look but seems that free one is not worth it so best to get paid one. Is this much better than the motorrad v5 as I have this all wired into my gsa. Plan was use paper map to find direction then use v5 to get route. I can mount my phone on my bike so if Kurviger is better I will get it

Thanks again all for the advice.

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I use the free Kurviger website only to bash out the direction of routes, nothing more.

https://kurviger.de/en

Though you can export the routes / tracks (should you want them) into BaseCamp or Mapsource. See GPS section for more information on how to do that.

https://www.ukgser.com/forums/forum...ger-MyRoute-and-all-other-non-Garmin-software

Don't understand why people are so set against using motorways, look at the map and the route, your trying to make progress to get to your destination, when you get to a city or town and there is a motorway next to it, jump on the motorway, nothing worst than taking a wrong turn or road work's and losing a rider or two in a City, plus you are more likely for some one to have a spill, it may be a shorter distance but more time consuming
Oh! and it's Wapping not Mr Wapping

Dennis the Menace said:

Don't understand why people are so set against using motorways, look at the map and the route, your trying to make progress to get to your destination.....

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I agree. They serve an excellent purpose, as and when required. There again, I don’t mind the rural roads of north east France, which others detest.

The French are good in that they waive their motorway tolls around cities. Anyone who stubbornly refuses to take a free motorway and would rather trog their way through Boulogne, Lyon or Nancy, must need testing for brains.

Agree re cities & motorway bypass

Do not imagine you cannot lose riders by using the motorway. On one trip we lost one when we eventually met up, learnt he'd taken the wrong slip after the toll entry & headed north, not south. When we set off we didn't realise he was still doing his nails/hairdo or polishing his helmet & hadn't noticed which way we went.

To further confirm his ineptitude, he later admitted that he had "updated" his sat nav prior to trip, & deleted all but UK maps.

gazuk said:

Wow, cheers guys for your replies, especially Mr wrapping.

There is normally 3 of us, but there may be an additional 2 this year. We meet tonight to get the ball rolling.

The Friday night departure has been suggested. Not too sure myself as we are going on the weekend before bank holiday and half term week so worried about rushing in Friday night traffic, most of us work Fridays etc. It would also mean another hotel night although I have found the ibis one in St omer for 50quid so it's not off the table.

As for routes, we'll see tonight what majority prefers. My preference would be se Switzerland as a turn around point, so just meander down there, pass through and meander back, just staying one night everywhere, but as long as I'm riding my bike and its not majority motorways I don't really care.

Kurviger - had a look but seems that free one is not worth it so best to get paid one. Is this much better than the motorrad v5 as I have this all wired into my gsa. Plan was use paper map to find direction then use v5 to get route. I can mount my phone on my bike so if Kurviger is better I will get it

Thanks again all for the advice.

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Click to expand...

OK...

1. What was the conclusion from last night’s brainstorming cession?

2. It’s not compulsory that you go over the night before, it’s only a suggestion. If the timings can’t work for you or the other four, so be it. If you can, great. If not, as you potentially have 600 miles of non-motorway ahead of you for the next two days, I wouldn’t be rolling off the Chunnel at 15:00 on Saturday. There again, that will all depend on what the five of you decide on (see 1 above). As regards the additional cost? You can always share rooms or just see it as ‘value’ versus the time saved.

3. I think you are confusing the Kurviger / Scenic app’s with the free Kurviger website, perhaps? Are the Kurviger / Scenic app’s better than your Nav V? I guess you mean as navigation / route creation devices, used in conjunction with your phone on your bike? I don’t think so. That being said, others on this site have ditched their Garmin / TomTom devices and only use their phones. One possible reason is that they do not plot their own routes. Instead, they simply order their phone to: “Take me from A to B” down whatever roads the phone throws up. I suppose they did the same with their GPS devices? If that is all they want to do, then the phone alone is fine. Using a phone has it’s advantages, I guess.

(A) GPS devices are relatively expensive. If someone already has an (expensive) phone, why not use it.

(B) It saves them learning BaseCamp, having read that it is truly shite or getting to grips with whatever software a TomTom uses.

(C) They want to stubbornly use their paper maps and sheets of handwritten paper, only ever turning on their phone (or GPS device) on when they get lost or are within three hundred yards of their hotel. As to why they don’t use their paper maps to plot the route along roads of their choosing and then use their GPS in tandem to display the route as they go along is, of course, a mystery. But hey, each to their own.

In short, use whatever method you find easiest or best. Know where you want to go but don’t want to plot your own route A to B? Just ask your phone (loaded or not with third party apps like Kurviger / Scenic) or GPS device to tell you, they’ll both give you non-motorway / windy roads in moments. Are they the best roads? Maybe. Will they be perfect to get you from A to B? Maybe. Did it require no effort? Definitely. It’s the latter that makes them most attractive to many people.