24 Alps Passes in 1 week

David Mc · 29 Dec 2023, 14:51

In 2009 my wife introduced me to the husband of her work colleague. Mark was from Australia and was "into bikes". He then spent the next 5 years borrowing various bikes from me so that he could join the various Old Gits trips. in 2015 he bought his own BMW K1300S MotorSport.

In 2021, just as the the restrictions imposed by COVID were being relaxed, Mark and his wife decided to return to Australia so the decision was made to run one last trip for Mark and a small group of the Old Gits regulars.

I spent a few days doing research on the well known passes of the Alps and Dolomites before playing "join the dots" on MRA to create a route that covered as many of the passes as was possible.

https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/social/route/5105018?mode=share

In just a little over one week we rode through France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, back into Italy then back into France. We rode most of the Route des Grande Alpes and the Route Napoleon as well as over 24 passes in the Alps and Dolomites, including Stelvio St. Gotthard, the "holy trinity" of Grimsel, Furka and Susten, Col de l'lseran, Tonale, Timmelsjoch and Col de la Bonette

The 200 - 250 mile days across the mountains were exactly right for 5 large sport touring motorbikes (2 BMW K1300S, 2 x KTM SD1290GT, 1 x Kawasaki H2 SX). With the exception of the hotel in Switzerland, all our over night stops were excellent and the roads were simply stunning.

If you find yourself with a week (and an extra weekend) then I can't recommend this route highly enough. Ride it. I will guarantee you will have one of the best trips of your life. I did! But, most importantly, Mark did!

Full details here: https://www.old-gits.org/FarewellMark.htm

Corjan Meijerink · 29 Dec 2023, 20:15

@David-Mc cool! Thanks for sharing this

Bart 4 · 30 Dec 2023, 08:48

@David-Mc thanks, nice route

Lynchy67 · 30 Dec 2023, 09:15

@David-Mc

Wow thats a cracking Route!
Thanks for sharing.

David Mc · 30 Dec 2023, 12:42

Some pictures from the trip.

Italy

Switzerland

France

and finally, Mark enjoying Stelvio!

Kenny Thierens · 31 Dec 2023, 00:53

@David-Mc I'm sure this trip was an amazing experience. However when I'm opening your link, I see the route with a few errors in it. Don't know what's the cause of this. Probably not your fault.
A few examples:

So I'm asking to the experts, what could be the reason I'm seeing this please? Android 14 and gold account.

Hans van de Ven MR.MRA · 31 Dec 2023, 07:04

@Kenny-Thierens
On the website: put on the traffic layer and zoom in. Between point 16 and 18 the road is closed.

I think 37 is a viewpoint via a gravel road, or the point is misplaced

I suspect that 88 is incorrectly placed because the indicated hotel is located near the arrows

Hans van de Ven MR.MRA · 31 Dec 2023, 07:09

@David-Mc
I see that you have included 45 waypoints in this route. The Garmin Zumo devices can process a maximum of 29 waypoints (hard points) in 1 route. So it is advisable to split this route into day routes.

I think it was a nice holiday

David Mc · 31 Dec 2023, 08:14

@Hans-van-de-Ven-MRA-Master

It was a great holiday - thanks.

I did indeed create individual day by day routes from this master and those loaded onto both Garmin and Tomtom devices.

David Mc · 31 Dec 2023, 08:14

@Kenny-Thierens

I have the setting to ignore seasonal closures. I suspect that some of those issues may be a result of roads being closed.

This is definitely a summer months route, especially on motorcycles.

David Mc · 31 Dec 2023, 08:23

@Hans-van-de-Ven-MRA-Master

Waypoint 37 had been "relocated" incorrectly and has now been corrected. My apologies for that.