Mid July is Stella Alpina time, the annual ride up the highest unmade road in the Alps. The Stelvio is the highest paved mountain pass in the eastern Alps, immortalised by Moto Guzzi who named a bike after it. The Stelvio checks in at 2757 metres/ 9045 feet, but the height of the Stella varies according to the snow line, which dictates the highest accessible point. Being unpaved and therefore inaccessible for most vehicles, its upper reaches are not kept open, so the highest reachable level depends very much on how much snow there is and how quickly it melts. This year, as we were to discover, it was 2826. 2m/ 9272 feet ( oh, and 3.23/32 inches!)
It's just inside Italy, near Bardonecchia, a bit west of Turin, and we'd never been able to do this before. The original plan was to ride there and back from London on our long suffering Chinese scoots, but as they are still stuck in Mongolia and with no real hope of seeing them ever again, we needed alternative rides. After some discussion and Ebay research, we decided that 125cc step throughs would be just the ticket, especially as I already had one - my trusty Suzuki Address commute horse. Gordon found a similar one and Nadine found the Honda version - the Innova - fairly quickly, so that was us all set.
We decided on small bikes just because we could. They are light and easy to pick up, even when fully fuelled (they have mighty 4 litre tanks!). Mine is also a proven veteran of off road and frequent mistreatment in unsuitable places, so we knew they could hack it. But they are slow, and getting there would be an ordeal if we stuck with our original plan of riding there and back from London, albeit that its only a 1400 mile or so round trip.
But then we realised that if we stuck one in the back of the van, and trailered the other two down, we would have time to ride several passes in Switzerland, stop off in Liechtenstein, visit some friends in eastern Italy, ride the Stella Alpina, and then catch a couple of stages of the Tour de France on the way home. So that is what we did.
Wilf ( my 19 year old son) decided to come along for the ride too, partly to ride pillion, but mostly so that he could ride the same passes on his pushbike, and pack in more than if he went alone. So we made him chief cook too.
We took the ferry but fell foul of the system before we even got through as we'd inadvertently booked the crossings back to front, from Calais to Dover instead of Dover to Calais. But that was not as daft as it sounds as there is a glitch in the booking system when it comes to vans. Apparently it happens all the time according the woman tasked to sort it out. She wasn't phased though, nor did she charge us any extra and even gave us a voucher for £20 to spend on the boat. And as the crossing was millpond smooth, so the greasy breakfasts we bought with the voucher stayed down.
The route took us straight across northern France. Normally, we'd divert up into Belgium and follow the same route to avoid tolls but this time we decided to bang straight though France. because we were on a time limit. This way is a bit more costly on the autoroutes, but pretty direct.
The frequent toll stations became annoying when we got stuck behind a party of British bikers who'd clearly not done this before, all six of them faffing and fumbling about. How hard can it be to have euros ready before reaching the peage points, even if the first one catches you out? Everybody has to learn, but the key is to learn from your experiences, not keep repeating the mistakes, especially when you have people waiting behind you. And the instructions are in English, so come on fellas, sort yourselves out please.
Because of the trailer, we kept our speed down to 70mph and reached just short of the Swiss border by about 8pm, and camped at a municipal site which cost us €12.00 four four of us. We didn't book but just rocked up. The office was shut so we found a pitch and paid in the morning. Spotlessly clean, and the showers were gloriously hot.
Next morning, we reached Switzerland and got ripped off at the border for a vignette. This allows you to use autoroutes, but because we had a trailer, we got charged twice - one for the van, one for the hanger on as they call a trailer. So €70 later ( yes really) we were in Switzerland, but cursing the frontier people all the way to Interlaken. It is possible to travel in Switzerland using main roads only because vignettes are only required for the autoroutes. However, as the road system is based largely around auto rotes, it is quite hard to get anywhere without using them and we had a trailer which added a bit of fag factor on small roads and hairpins. However, should you get caught on an autoroute without a vignette, it's a €500-600 on the spot fine. And the vignette lasts for year only - January to February, and its the same price regardless of whether you buy it in at the beginning of the year or in July. An expensive addition to visiting Switzerland.
But Interlaken perked us up a bit. A lovely lakeside town with some great twisty scenic roads to ride. So we found another site ( Manor Farm, right on the lakeside, just over £90 for two nights for four of us, so just over £12 each per night, and again, we just turned up and booked in) dumped the van, got the bikes out and rode for the whole afternoon.
It was hot, the sky was blue, the ripples on the lake shimmered silver, and everybody stared at our little bikes as we zipped about. We might not make as much noise as the Harleys, nor have the glamour of sports bikes, but the little scoots from London punched well above their weight, nipping round the twisties easily.
On Monday morning, we had planned to get up and out early but that didn't quite happen. The getting up bit went OK but getting out was a bit slower than anticipated, but we were en route to Gindelwald by 10am.
Grindlwald is the gateway to the Eiger and Jungfraujoch, the top of Europe, and the train to the summit runs from it, but at 177 Swiss francs each (about €140 or £120) and having been fleeced yesterday by the frontier police, none of us were willing to be ripped off further by robbing gits , so we settled for coffee and cake in the town instead.
Apparently, there had been plans to turn the town into a major tourist resort but the locals didn't want it. So in a massive display of people power, they had it declared an avalanche zone, thus thwarting greedy big business property developers who were then unable to build big hotels as nothing larger than houses can be built is such zones.
Alpine chalets always look so out of place in the summer, sparsely perched on lush green hillsides, surrounded by piled firewood, and meadow flowers, with steeply gabled roofs looking over pointy and a bit ridiculous out of season. But of course, they really come into their own in the winter when the surroundings change under snow, and communities become isolated. However, they somehow look CGI'd out of season, dwarfed by the sheer enormity of the rock faces towering high above all over all of it; it is hard to take in.
Interlaken is on a bit of land between two lakes - Thunersee and Brienzersee - hence Interlaken or' inter( between) lakes' as its name suggests - and is an outdoor sports mecca, paragliding and hang gliding being two of the more spectacular.
It seems to be the thing to do round here to climb any of the steep rock faces that surround the town, jump off, and ride the rising thermals for however long it takes for gravity to win. I guess it depends as much on what you had for dinner last night as your ability to anticipate invisible air currents and stay several hundred meters above the ground. Not for me thanks ; I'll stick to my bikes.
The following day, Wilf took off on his own on his pedal cycle while we three rode the length of Briendzersee to Meringien and then up to the Richenbach Falls where Sherlock Holmes had a fight with arch enemy Moriarty, and Moriarty fell to his death.
Its all fictional of course but a whole industry has grown up around the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle, with a statue in the main street, a pub with a "Baker Street, city of Westminster" sign, and a museum in the town dedicated to the character. But even back then, somebody was sufficiently switched on to build a museum disguised as a church and a paragon of Victorian Gothic expression, designed to entice the rich Brits who had discovered Switzerland in an early form of themed tourism.
Unfortunately, on the way there, Nadine got hit in the eye by a flying insect which caused her a few problems. By the morning, it was clear that something was still wrong, but we were in Switzerland, en route for Lichtenstein, both of which are massively expensive, particularly for medical stuff, and as neither are in the EU, no reciprocal medical agreements exist. So after setting up the tents etc in Liechtenstein, off we went to Feldkirch in Austria, a 30 minute drive, found the hospital which amazingly, had a specialist eye department. The doctor there found that she had a splinter of something (possibly insect, possibly a piece of plant or the like) sticking into her eyeball. Fortunately, and after a few hours, some anaesthetic drops, a bit of digging around and then an eyepatch, she was fixed and allowed out again., albeit with a headache and complete loss of spatial awareness. So back to Liechtenstein we went and spent a sedate evening wandering around the capital, Vaduz, steering Nadine to stop her walking into people and objects .
Vaduz has to be one of the smallest capital cities in the world, overlooked by one of the biggest castles (where Crown Price Hans Adam lives).
It really is quite spectacular in a very medieval fairytale way, but apart from a few overpriced posh shops selling watches and ornate coffee sets, as well as a few odd statues, there is not much else to make you stay.
Not even the oddly titled museum.
I suspect it comes to life more in the ski season, yet its not really much of a summer destination, but we can now all tick it off our ' must visit' list, and I'm quite pleased to have finally got there, having tried and failed many times over the past twenty years.
By Wednesday, we were ready for Italy. Because of the trailer and two bikes on the back, we decided not to go over the very windy and narrow Spluga Pass. It does have passing places, but as we couldn't reverse our trailer easily, it was best avoided. So instead we took the main roads through Davos to St Moritz, and then over the Julier and Maloja passes down to the border and into Chiavenna to some friends, Max and Graz, we hadn't seen for a few years.
It even sports a Norman Foster design.
A must see in St Moritz is the Cresta Run, another potty Victorian British creation still in use today. It's a mad sledge 'club members only' run from part way up the mountain down into the town . It's not used in the summer of course, but each winter, the course is set up and iced, and members race down it for the thrill of it.
Very dangerous, exceptionally fast, and totally bonkers. But out of season, it looks a bit like the base from a 1960's animated show.
The ride down from St Moritz into Italy is spectacular, right down from the top of the mountains through a series of hairpins into Valtellina and Italy.
Chiavenna is about 5 miles/ 9 kms inside Italy. Its lovely medieval town and home to some good mates, with whom we stayed for two nights. Nadine's eye was heaps better but still sore, so rather than ride miles, we took the bikes on several shorter local rides.
Pianzzola lies maybe two kilometres up the mountain from the town. Its a tiny vehicle less village that hasn't changed in years, so we took a spin up there to give us all the opportunity to ride tight hairpins, and her to get her spatial judgement back.
After that, we took trip down to Lake Como, stopping at Colico, before riding back to Chiavenna, picking up Wilfred who had just returned from cycling to St Moritz and back, and riding up to Madessimo.
It is along rag up to Madessimo on a 125ccstep through, but even more so with a pillion. Wilf is actually very good as being a cyclist, he understands how to move and how to corner, but the tight hairpins are hard to ride going up, particularly with cars coming down. We wheeled several times, having lost all of our less than impressive speed, but we stayed on and trundled upwards, eventually making the top, where the coffee was exceptionally good. Coming down was a lot easier and faster, testing the newly sorted brakes nicely. But they worked and we made it OK.
We had meant to set off for lunch at a crotto near to the Swiss border before leaving for Bardonecchia and the Stella Alpina, but true to form, we faffed about, and ended up having lunch with Max and Graz which was even better. We eventually got going, rather reluctantly, and somewhat belatedly, at about 1530hrs.
That of course meant we hit rush hour traffic round Milan and Turin, but it turned out to be not too bad, and we kept moving all of the way. The autostrada tolls cost an arm and a leg, but nowhere near that of Switzerland, but it was still quicker and much easier than navigating our way round tiny roads with a a trailer in tow. It is a bit of an irritation when you consider that the road system in the UK which although we moan about it, is actually exceptionally good, and is free to everybody to use, including the residents of those countries who demand tolls from us for using theirs, which are not always that great.
When we reached Camping Bokki just up the mountain from Bardonecchia, it was pretty full. Its a permanent place with a couple of fields set aside for tents, which looked like it had been invaded by an international biker gang, which I suppose that it had. We squeezed our three small tents into a very tight spot, parked the van and the trailer, and stayed for three nights.
Bokki Camping is just a few hundred metres from the French border, although of course there is no marker sign anymore, just a gradual realisation that passing vehicles have different licence plates from those a bit further back.
The scenery here is beyond spectacular. Mountains, aquamarine coloured water in a dam, forests, wild flowers, rushing snow melt streams, wild birds, beautiful sunshine and silence.
The bikes were just itching to be ridden so up the mountain we went, firstly up alongside a stream to a picnic area at the top.
However, it was a dead end, so we didn't stay but rode back down, past the campsite and into Bardonecchia where the Saturday market was in full swing.
There is something really special about these local markets, and something that we have lost in the UK, if indeed we ever had it. It is a real gourmet foodfest, laid on by locals for locals, both of whom know it has to be good or else its a complete waste of time all round. So we bought enough olives bread, cheese, meat, antipasto and salads to last four of us three days, before setting off via the campsite to the dam, where we feasted on some of it in the by now hot sunshine.
After the pig out and laze out by the dam, we ventured up the mountain the other way, and this took us over a col into France, pausing just short of the top to look down over where we had camped.
Further up over the hill, there were loads of French families parked on the grass, eating, hiking, or just hanging out. But it wasn't crowded and they were very spread out amongst the trees and rocks. Its clearly a place where they go on summer weekends ( it was Sunday) to have a good time doing nothing in particular.
A bit further on, the road dipped towards Briançon and some villages, so we called in at one for some coffee, sitting under the trees alongside a small river swollen by snowmelt. And it was just down the road from where the film 'The Italian Job' was filmed.
A few women bikers that we know were also staying at Camping Bokki, so that evening, we rode down into Bardonecchia with Sue, and all ate together in a pizza place.
On Sunday morning, we actually managed to get up early and out by 0730 for our ride up the Stella Alpina. It was just the three of us as Wilf was off on his pushbike for the day. We had been warned that it gets quite busy later on, a full on tangle of bikers on all sorts of bikes, 4x4 vehicles, cyclists, as well as pedestrians. As well as making it a bit of a chore, it also makes things quite dusty, so getting up there early is definitely a bonus.
Apart from filling our bikes with fuel and me having had my rear brake fixed before we left the UK, and Gordon replacing a suspect rear tyre, we had done nothing to prepare our steeds. But we were confident on these little bikes, whilst not fast or flashy, score every time with their durability and lightness. Step throughs are the common ride in Asia, so riding the last unpaved road nearly 3000metres up over the Italian Alps, whilst unusual, would be very do-able. And if it wasn't, they'd be easy to push back down. Hopefully.
The lower part of the route up is paved, but rough, patchy and potholed, thanks to the snow and ice that pastes it every winter. It is also a narrow windy country lane type thing with passing places and much tree cover, and despite us being on the road early, we did meet several vehicles coming the other way. But is a steady climb up to there tree line of about 8km and an open area known as the refuge, just above the village of Rochmelles. It is also the point where what little tarmac there is finishes, and the whole thing becomes an unmade track.
Other people had chosen to wild camp at the refuge, a stone building that now boasts a cafe. Its in a sort of wide basin so when you ride up, you come up over the lip and there laid out below and right across it was a rag tag jumble of colourful tents, bikes, flags, and people wandering about. It was a bit like one of those cowboy films where the indians line the horizon and look down over the unsuspecting covered wagons, planning an attack. But we'd come in peace and were on a mission, so carried on up the track and onto rough gravel.
The lower road had been hairpins and twisties but was also tree lined so we hadn't really seen much from it. But now we were above the treeline, we were in the open and could see just how much we were climbing between every bend. It was quite a rapid ascent and the track surface got rougher as we went, graduating from gravel to rocks and then small boulders. Fortunately, our plan of getting up and out early seemed to have worked because although there were others on the track, we were sufficient distances apart to be able to pick our way over rough terrain and negotiate the turns and ruts as we went. And the lack of trees meant we could all see each other so there was no making each other jump on the scariest bits.
Luckily for us, the day was dry and sunny, and getting warmer by the minute, which made riding a lot easier; being up there in low cloud or rain would not have been great, and would have decreased visibility drastically. It also meant that the surface was dry, so we were only sliding on loose rocks and gravel rather than slipping on slimey claggey dust. The track was quite lined and rutted though, clearly having been washed out by water recently. And speaking to several people who had ridden it the day before, there was quite a bit of snow and land slips further up.
We picked our way up steadily and the bikes were fine. Mine and Gordon's Suzuki Addresses are fuel injected, so the increasing altitude made no difference but Nadine's Honda Innova is carved and had a few coughs and sputters every so often, but still kept going without any trouble.
Because of the lack of features en route, its quite hard to judge how high you are, but the Satnav, although pretty useless for this route, did give us height readings which was pretty cool. And patches of snow increased as we went, making it pretty obvious that we were nearing the summit.
A convoy of 4x4s passed us at one stage, chucking up so much dust that we had to stop in order to be able to see, but they were soon thwarted by big areas of snow and didn't get much further. But the bikes kept going, squeezing though narrow gaps in the snow and finding alternative routes down the side of the actual track.
As we neared the summit, we started to meet bikes coming down. All sorts of bikes - trail bikes, a few trials bikes, big road bikes, and even a Vespa scooter.
Some we two up, but most were solo, and it was clear everybody was having a great time, crashing about over the small boulders that now made up the entire track. On the penultimate corner, a dutch bike - an old 1200 boxer thing on road tyres - coming down stacked it a bit too close to the edge for comfort and couldn't pick it up.
The poor blokes mate was a bit further down, but he just sat there and looked at him, which didn't help anybody. So Nadine and I stopped and helped him pick it up, then tried to drag him back but he wouldn't let us and couldn't seem to understand that the wheels needed a wider turning circle. He was clearly embarrassed and a bit panicky, but another dutch bloke told him to listen to us, and that worked. We got him upright, pulled the bike back, and he went on his way without falling over the edge.
The snow line was still very much intact round the next corner, meaning this was the end of the road at 2826m We were in sight of the summit, but there was no way any bike - not even the few trials and trail bikes that tried it - could get any closer.
The snow was partially melted but still a bit frozen, meaning that whilst we could walk on it, bikes just sunk like in deep sand and had to be pulled out. And as it was solid snow for about another 300 metres up, that was it. But Nadine did try but as she only got about 5 metres, she gave up.
Sitting on op of the mountain was fabulous and well worth the effort of the ride up. Little Alpine flowers were dotted on the rocks, but apart from the assorted collection of bikes and riders who had made it, there was nothing else up there and no sound at all.
It had taken us two hours, and we stayed up there for another 90 minutes or so, eating the lunch we had carted up.
It always amazes me just how warm it can be next to a pile of snow. And it was really warm. And very bright.
Coming down was an odd experience. My arms were shaking from the elbows down. I'm not sure why; maybe it had been harder on the way up than I thought. But the main concern of all of us was not to stack it, and particularly not on the corner that the Dutch bloke had. But the gradient was fairly steep and the boulders and sand were quite loose, so any speed also meant that we slid, so braking had to be careful and anticipated. But we were on small bikes and so had the advantage of stamping our feet down and digging them in for a bit of extra traction.
As we got near the bit where the 4 x4s had been thwarted on the way up, there was a bit of a bike jam, owing to the narrow track that had been carved. It was only wide enough for two wheels, and surrounded by icey mush. The soil was also very slippery. I had a bit of a moment there, having stopped to let a dirt bike through. But he waved me on instead but I couldn't get enough grip so despite a bit of wellie, I slipped backwards down the slope, waiting for the expected a tumble. However, thanks to the lightness of the bike, I stayed upright and held on to it, and on the second attempt, a bigger handful of throttle did the trick. Nadine and Gordon had no such problems though.
I think we all took in more on the way back down, and stopped at various things for pictures. Because the surrounding rock face is so big, it is actually quite hard to gauge how high you are or the progress you are making in any direction. But most bikes trundled along at more or less the same speed, except for some German bikers who clearly had a testosterone boost when they saw three pizza bikes, and went all out to overtake us. We let them pass but they didn't get very far because despite their bigger engines and more gear, you also need to be able to ride, especially bends.
A quick coffee at the refuge took ages, thanks to the dolly day dream waitress who could only do one thing at a time, and seemingly couldn't see customers waiting either. Goodness knows what happens when its busy.
An overheard remark sent us in the direction of the golf club that night - just across the road from the campsite and little more than a bar. But the bloke got his mum to cook us a huge pot of pasta, which we scoffed easily, followed by some cake and coffee. Lovely food and a great way to end our brief stay in Italy.
Next day, we packed up and set off late to drive up over the mountain to France, through Briançon and onto Gap to see a could of stages of the Tour de France. We found a site at Sevrines du Lac, which is on a man made lake, with a small beach and really clear warm water, great for swimming in. And at €30 per night for all four of us, it was a pretty good find, even if the showers turned out to be rubbish and the toilets, although clean, ponged something horrible.
The little bikes came into their own again the following day, when we rode them 20kms up the hills out of Chorges, to see stage 17. Because we were on bikes, we parked easily at the side of the road, watched the riders go by, shouted for Froome and Cav, then filtered right down the outside of all the traffic when it had all finished, getting back to the campsite quickly.
Our site was a bit of a lucky find because the next day, the individual time trial passed within two kms of our tents, meaning we rode as near as we could, then walked to a place on the last and second cat climb. It was mingingly hot though, but that changed to torrential rain and hailstones in the late afternoon. Of course we had no warm gear, but were fortunate that it only lasted about 15 minutes before warming up. However, the rain started not long after we got back to the site, and pelted down through most of the night.
The trouble with France is that it is big, much bigger than you think, and although I've been there many many times, the distance thing still always surprises me. And then there are the auto tolls, which are uber expensive. But the alternative is a long drag through towns and villages, which although nice if that's what you've gone for, is a royal pain in the gluteus maximus if you have a long distance to cover in a short time. So reluctantly, once we left the Alps, and Gap, which was still under siege due to Le Tour, and reached Grenoble, we took the autoroutes, and suffered the annoyance of knowing that like the Swiss, they can drive on our motorways for free for as long as they like, and as often as they like, and all for free. But there is always a small but significant amount of puerile satisfaction to be had by paying the cashiers in small denomination coins instead of notes.
The roadside scenery on that bit of the local roads that we did do, is astonishing. Still shrouded in low cloud after yesterday's bad weather, we spent much of the day picking our way around volcanic topography; wooded gorges, sheer cliffs and viaducts linking bits of railway.
We stayed that night at Troyes, leaving by 0915 for Calais.
Our ferry was due at 1755 but we arrived with several hours to kill. However we couldn't get on an earlier one as it was too busy. But the day was warm and sunny so we amused by wandering along the beach and people watching. And there's nothing like a bit of sun to enhance the sights….and there were some.
