Alps Trip Route Advice

Hi All

I am in the process if planning a touring trip to the Alps with 3 of my mates. I have a route in mind for when we get to the Alps including Innsbruck, Grossglockner, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Marmaloda, Pordio, some of the Sella Ronda on our way to the Stelvio Pass.

Where I would like some advice is the trips to and from this area. We live in the North of England so I am thinking of getting the Eurotunnel on the way out and then getting the Rotterdam to Hull ferry on the way back. This would give us a nice round route and would mean a much shorter journey home on our last day.

Please can you guy suggest routes from Calais towards the Innsbruck area and also routes from Bormio to Rotterdam. We only have 9 days so I we will have some BIG miles to do. I just hope it isn't too much.

Cheers, Alesupper

first tip: get yourself to the tunnel on day 1 in time to get an evening crossing and stay overnight in France. On day 2 you have none of the faffing about at borders and can get on the toll free autoroute to Lille and into Belgium, taking the dual carriageway via Namur, through Luxembourg into Germany. After around 300 miles you will reach Saarbrucken. Overnight here if 300 miles is your daily limit or press on to Karlsruhe. From here either blast down the autobahn or pick a cross country route towards Kempten and onto Innsbruck. Lots of nice small towns along the Germany/Austria border for an overnight stop if you do not need to be in Innsbruck itself.

Can't help with the route to Rotterdam as not something I have ever done

second tip: you need more than 9 days.

Home to channel tunnel to Calais to Innsbruck is 1000 miles.
Plus your Alps trip as listed above is 500 plus miles.
Bormio to Rotterdam is just shy of 700 miles.
Plus the bit home from Hull at around 160 miles

Most direct route down to furthest point east of your route .... Austria (two days from the channel/Zeebrugge/Rotterdam ) then you can travel back west doing passes and flitting back and forwards between Austria and Italy taking in the Grossglocker, Cortina (Plocken Pass/ Staller Sattel), Stelvio, Silvretta, Timmelsjoch ,Arlberg etc 350 to 400 miles per day

Return to Rotterdam , try a route from Bodensee north west and then Karlsruhe, Landau. Annweiler, Pirmasens, Landstuhl, Hermeskeil overnight around Bernkastel Kues on the Mosel, Wittlich ,Prum Prum, St Vith, Verviers, Liege,Antwerp and then on to Europoort via Dordrecht or cut across and travel up the coast into Europoort .

Easy but long one and a half to two days down and the same back but it gives you five or six days to play in the Alps.

Every year we go down to just beside the Grossglockner and as I say it is do able

not sure what dates or days you are travelling, but as you know continental motorways are non HGV on a Sunday, so heading back to Rotterdam pick up the motorways around the German /dutch border ,Aachen ? to make some quick progress . the Rotterdam ferry is quite a decent crossing, you need to be there around 1800 / 1900 hrs for last boarding. have a great trip

Nine days, using the Chunnel out and the ferry back from Rotterdam

Day one is home to the Chunnel, hopefully crossing over that evening, instead of faffing about in Folkestone. Why? Crossing over that evening will save you time the next day and you probably need to create time.

Ahead of you lies 600 miles to get to Innsbruck, using the direct route. How long will it take you and your three mates to ride that 600 miles? A day? A day, a night and then half a day? A day, a night and then another full day? You tell us. To give you an idea, Kendal to Penzance direct, is 400 miles. Similarly, Kendal to John O’Groats is about 400 miles, too. Kendal to London to Penzance is 600 miles. That’ll give you an idea of the distance. If you say two days, your are now three full days into your nine days, leaving six days. Or maybe not?

Now the last bit. I do this now as you’ll need to come home from the Stelvio, whilst not forgetting to include the 150 miles from the UK ferry terminal to Kendal. As I think the ferry from Holland is overnight, you’ll dock in the morning. We can assume that the last of your total of nine days will be used for that last bit home, so in reality you maybe have not six days but five. I mention this only as people often forget to include the time taken to get from home to the crossing point and back again.

From the Stelvio to Rotterdam is, conveniently enough, another 600 miles. How long? Two days, let’s say.

What have we now got?

Nine days, less one = eight

Eight less, say two = six

Three days to come home from the Stelvio (being two days riding, the overnight sea crossing and then the part of the ninth day to arrive at home)

Six less three is three.

That’s three days to go: Innsbruck, Grossglockner, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Marmaloda, Pordio, some of the Sella Ronda on your way to presumably the top of the Stelvio Pass and back down again.

Feel free to correct my scribbles and report back.

PS Forget (for now at least) about scenic routes there and back. Though it can be done…… it all depends on you, your three mates and those big enemies of miles, speed, time, flower pressing, chilling out, stopping to take pictures, stopping for a fag, stopping for fuel, stopping for brew and scran…. getting lost, having a laugh, getting a puncture….. it being boiling hot, it peeing down with rain…. It maybe snowing (as we don’t know when you are going).

PPS In 2012 I went London to the Dolomites (Cortina, Stelvio and all the stuff) and back in the 14 day period of the London Olympics. It was a leisurely enough holiday. I could have done it quicker on my own or going balls out with three mates but that was not its purpose. I do though have an advantage when it comes to getting across the Channel, as I live in London, not Kendal. It does though make it a fag to get to Scotland or indeed, Kendal.

my 2d worth .

i just poked that in Mapsource , fast and slow with and without toll roads .

Calais to list then Rotterdam fast 1805 miles 2d 4.09 hrs

Calais to list then Rotterdam slow 1779 miles 2d 5,43 hrs

Dieppe to list then Rotterdam fast 1810 miles 2d 4.54 hrs

Dieppe to list then Rotterdam slow 1860 miles 2d 8.39 hrs

these are driving hours , double them , then add sleeping , fuel , food , etc.

Dieppe is an over night boat ,from Newhaven ( i should get commission from DFDS ) you can doze on the boat , spits you out at 0500 hrs to empty roads , and no Police , you'll need a kip part way through the afternoon.

speeds moving , i set at 40 mph average , budget 10 hours a day driving , think you'll do a better average , you might here and there , but not overall.

in the Alps you'll be hard pushed to average 20 mph.

go sit down with your route planner , and break it up into 10 hour days and see.

or do a route in the UK , see what your planner says , then ride it with the whole group ....... realistically....and look at your track afterwards doesn't have to be far , 100 miles will do , but on roads you don't know , without speeding anywhere.

time a petrol stop , not just you , all of you, don't tell them you're timing , bet it takes 10 minutes . a splash and dash takes me 5 mins.

PS , enjoy the planning bit , budget stops every 80-110 miles or 2 hours , I've tried the " lets do 150 miles in 1 hit " , but it isn't the fastest way.

I love the planning bit .

Reference the post last night by Wapping - I am not sure that Penzance to John O Groats is 400 miles........more like double that.
I live in Cornwall and have been to Lands End a few times and that famous sign says it is something like 874 miles to John O Groats and Penzance is not too far from Lands End.....

i think Wapping meant Kendal to jog was 400.

theoneandonly said:

i think Wapping meant Kendal to jog was 400.

Click to expand...

harley-metisse said:

Reference the post last night by Wapping - I am not sure that Penzance to John O Groats is 400 miles........more like double that.
I live in Cornwall and have been to Lands End a few times and that famous sign says it is something like 874 miles to John O Groats and Penzance is not too far from Lands End.....

Click to expand...

Thank you. An innocent mistype, which I have now edited to correct.

Richard

theoneandonly’s post rather neatly confirms my own thoughts.

The timings he has listed are of course non-stop ie. Calais to the Stelvio then to Rotterdam fast is a distance of 1805 miles, which (if you were to drive it non-stop) would take two days (48 hours) plus an additional four hours nine minutes.

Whilst big mileages are possible in a day; we came back over 1,000 miles from Budapest to London non-stop in a long day on the Turkey Trot but that was all motorway. We did it ‘Only because we could’ and as it fitted in with the spirit of our London > Istanbul > London dash taking one week. I am not sure I’d want to do it again out of choice. That was ‘only’ 1,000 miles, the round trip in theoneandonley’s example is closer to 2,000.

OP I hope the posts you have seen in reply to your question, help you to decide on your (and your three mates) holiday. Come back to us please, with anything else.


PS When estimating time / distances with a mixed group of riders, I use a rough rule of thumb of:

French reasonable D roads / a bit of N road, all reasonably direct to be 250 miles in a day. That is wheels rolling at 09:00 and finishing around 17:00. It’ll include two tea stops and a lunch stop. If I want to take it out to 350 miles, I’d lob say 100 miles of motorway in.

Of course I can go faster / further on my own (or with a small bunch of likeminds) but that’s not the point of most holidays. Some others will do less miles / take longer, as they want to start at say 10:30 or stop more regularly. It is what makes suggesting ‘interesting’ long distance routes for other people (who we don’t know) pretty hard, if it is to be done properly.

One other fairly reliable rule of thumb is, one hour lost in the morning, translates to two hours in the afternoon.

The last (and one that is frequently overlooked in a gaggle of mixed riders) is that when we are all standing around gassing or idling over an extra coffee, we are not moving forwards. I put the estimated arrival time on my GPS, not least as I like to watch it move ever outwards, when matey decides that he now wants the pee that he could have had an hour ago and we have now got to find somewhere reasonably safe for maybe six bikes to stop, whilst he has it. Meanwhile the other four will take their helmets off and start chatting. Hey-ho, all part of the fun. I love it really.

I drove to the Dolomites a few weeks ago from North Yorkshire. In terms of distance alone you are looking at two full days of travel on motorways, and more if you want to take in any scenic roads. On our way there we had to take a one and a half hour detour to avoid a four hour tailback on our intended route. Factor in the possibility of shite weather and you could be giving yourselves a difficult job. I’d definitely say you need more days.

As others have said, the killer will be the first and last days with the time you can leave Kendal being the most important bit.

If you can have your bike loaded and ready to go and can finish work and get on it by 5pm then you can catch a late train and stop at a hotel in Coquelles which effectively grabs you an extra day.

The last day you can get an early afternoon crossing from The Hook of Holland to Harwich, sleep on the boat and be home by 2am without feeling too rough which means you can be 300 miles away from the port when you set off on your last morning. If you get the overnight crossing from Rotterdam then your last day is in the UK.

The bit in between is easy, just head in the right direction, do what you want to do and remember that wherever you are you don’t need to start heading for home until day 8.

Andy’’s points about the timings of the outwards first leg (Kendal > Chunnel> into northern France) and the final inwards leg (Holland ferry to home) have a biggish influence on the rest of your jaunt. Even the shortest section (the 150 miles back to home) might have a significant influence. If the ferry docks early in the morning, that 150 miles effectively takes a day out of your nine, assuming that is that the nine days includes the time journeying from and back to your front door. If the ferry docks at some other time, you might lose less time.

If though you have nine full days from the moment you roll off the Chunnel in France to the moment you roll onto the ferry in Holland, and you can tack on extra days at either end for the UK travel bit, then it’s a different story altogether.

This might be a useful guide, as you can then tack other suggested RiDE routes on:

https://www.ride.co.uk/routes-content/getting-to-italy-1

Or you can do your own thing or go / do something else entirely.

OP

Beyond having a look at RiDE’s ideas and tge other suggestions made in the thread, here is something that might help you.

There is a webpage, Kurviger, https://kurviger.de/en which (whilst it is not perfect) can be better than some when looking at possible routes. It comes in two versions; one is free, the other with a modest subscription.

The free version wiill give you A to B to C to D to…. Z routes, either direct or with some form of twisty (avoid motorways) options. The advantage of the fee based option is that it enables you to look at the route and think, ”That’s too far, too twisty, too long” and then to break it up into sections. For instance on an A to B to C to D route, you could say “Make A to C, motorway favouring but the final stretch to D, twisty”. You can then see if you like it and / or fine tune at leisure.

One hint though. Kurviger, in its twisty option algorithm, can sometimes chuck in some silly deviations, just to make what it perceives to be, a bend. My tip is always to check what the website has chucked out before you ride it blindly.

This is post #16 and still no reply from the OP.

I've done most of his required routes and areas of interest so I may be able to help too once he/she responds and narrows down the requirements.

Wow!! Thanks to all of you for your great posts to my question. Sorry for not replying sooner, but I am a busy fella and have only just got chance to have a look at this.

Reading all your posts it seems that the general opinion is that we are trying to bite off more than we can chew. This will be our first tour and that is why your experienced opinion is highly valued. Thanks again for that.

All 4 of us are still working and have families, so 9 days is the maximum we can stretch to if we wish to stay married

I am going to have a rethink on the route, and try to come up with something that is more moderate and doable in the time given. I want this to be an adventure not a sufferfest.

Cheers, Alesupper

Considering that we are limited to 9 days in total, including getting to/from Eurotunnel and/or ferries, is it still worthwhile trying to do an Alps trip, or should we consider somewhere else this time and maybe leave the Alps tour until we can go for a longer period?

I would be grateful to receive alternative route suggestions, but some mountainous terrain would be nice on at least some of the journey.

Cheers, Aleupper

Good to hear from you and thanks for the update.

What I think you might have done is made the classic two errors:

A. Not realised how big an area / mileage the route covers, ‘the Alps’ (to use the oft banded about generic term) alone are huge. The Dolomites aren’t even in ‘the Alps’ per-se.

B. Listed out the ‘Must do’ places and just lobbed them in, along with the hope of doing the lot (along with nice roads to get there and back) without any clear idea if it is even possible to do it in the time available.

One thing is for certain, you can still have a bloody good time away in nine days, even starting from and returning to Kendal. The other certainty is that the places you have listed won’t vanish in our lifetimes or those of our children’s children’s children.

Me, I’d look at maybe:

Belgium / Luxembourg Ardennes and maybe up into the Harz, not least as they suit an arrival / departure from Holland, which might suit your Kendal location.

Belgium / Luxembourg Ardennes, then the Morvan and then down to the Vosges / Black Forest.

A blat to the Alps to say, Andermatt or into the French alps at Annecy.

The Ride magazine webpage has lots of ideas, which you can mix’n’match with, too: https://www.ride.co.uk/routes

PS Don’t forget to get your three mates to do some of the work as well!

If you get the Eurotunnel on the 1st day and spend your first night in France (for reasons already explained), you can easily be in the Alps after a long 2nd day, or middle of the 3rd day.
Consider that the ride home will be a similar time schedule.
So you can see from that how long you'll have to "play with".

Yes, I know some will say that you can get there in a day, and I've done so, but I think you all want a biking holiday rather than a mini Iron Butt ride.