How busy are the Alps in July/Aug?

Just completed the Ride grosslockner tour 9 days 2,400 miles taking in Alps and Dolomites, we did not have much trouble with trafic but a lot of Roadworks. Obviously Stelvio pass was busy but it is all summer. I can recomend the Ride Route as it takes in a lot of good passes.
 
RDGA is my favourite Alps trip, ridden it twice now - both times in July / August, by the standards of where I live the roads were very quiet, much more so than any decent road in the Cotswolds or South Wales.

Just got back from a trip out to the Dolomites and Italian Alps taking in parts of Switzerland and Austria as well, generally no problems with traffic anywhere.

"Lesser" passes are indeed quieter, but the famous ones are never that bad as to be worth avoiding (IMO)

Alp d'Huez is pretty crap IMO, just a bunch of hairpins covered in lycrists so unless you have an ulterior motive give it a miss, it is likely to be busy all the time, the passes of RDGA will be pretty good from my experience, and the many great passes each side of the main RDGA route will have even less traffic on them. Check out the Journeys book, RDGA is not listed as a route, but look at the chapters "The Grey Alps" and "Some High Stuff" for roads that make up parts of RDGA (and surrounding passes) as well as "The Mont Blanc Region" and "Annecy"

In my 5th edition the trips I would recommend are below (I think they have been the same for a few editions now)

13 - "All Around Mont Blanc" - may be busy in places, but one of the best days out you can have in the Alps

23 - "Around Guilestre" / 24 - "Agnel Sampeyre and Lombard" - I have done most of the passes in these two routes, but never the routes as described, but they should both be great - but a few of the passes are a bit nadgery and the book does not always make it clear how rough / smooth some of these roads are.

25 - "Three Highs" - Or two good roads and a Motocross track - well one half of Champs which is bumpy / tight / falling apart, I really enjoyed it on my Super Tenere, the Mrs was not happy on her TDM, the other side is brand new surface (or was about 2 years ago) so they might have improved the West ramp by now.

26 - "La Bonnette" - Great route as written

The "Gorge du Dulais" is also really nice, not a pass, just a twisty (generally well surfaced) ride through a wonderful canyon.

I would recommend you plot out the routes you like the look of and put together a plan mixing in elements of the trips in the book, this is what I tend to do, if looking at RDGA I would ride from the coast Northwards and stop arounf Guilestre / Barcelonette for a couple of nights to do some of the looping ride outs, and again around Bourg St Maurice so you can do the loop around Mont Blanc (worth it even with a bit of traffic.

IMO North of Cormet de Roseland it gets a bit duller (and busier) the best bit is that middle section mentioned above so if pressed for time skip the most southerly and / or northerly parts.
Is this your volume? If so, do your words apply to my 3rd edition?
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Sent from somewhere...
 
Dunno, I owned 4th and 5th editions.

Be much easier for you to see if the trips I listed appear in your book ;-)

If not you can either see if any similar routes are listed for these areas (I bet they are) or stump up £15 (or whatever) and buy the latest version.
 
Found a great wee road parallel to "Gorge du Dulais" a couple of weeks ago.

We did it south-north, and as long as you don't get stuck behind a truck with attendant cars - it was a great, fast climb.

Guillaumes to Beuil is also a cracking road.

All the roads down there are stunning.

Al. :thumb2
 

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Dunno, I owned 4th and 5th editions.

Be much easier for you to see if the trips I listed appear in your book ;-)

If not you can either see if any similar routes are listed for these areas (I bet they are) or stump up £15 (or whatever) and buy the latest version.
Will do once I'm back. Got the Mrs to take a photo and send to me :)

Sent from somewhere...
 
Simon W has it nailed:

They will be busier than they are in September but let's have a bit of perspective: you will not be stuck in a queue of nose-to-tail traffic from the bottom of each alp to the top. If there are roadworks, which there sometimes are, you might sometimes have to queue a little - but bikes go to the front of the queue and then you have empty road ahead of you.

Between concerns over traffic and now apparently the mass proliferation of the all seeing eyes of speed cameras, the Alps seem to be rapidly becoming a no go area for Adventure bikermates. Rhyll it will have to be.
 
Simon W has it nailed:



Between concerns over traffic and now apparently the mass proliferation of the all seeing eyes of speed cameras, the Alps seem to be rapidly becoming a no go area for Adventure bikermates. Rhyll it will have to be.

CAUTION......Rhyll is also busy in August and it's in North Wales.
 


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