Since I had some free time last week, I took off on my trusty K1200 to see the alps. For a three day ride out this is not a bad route...

Day 1 - Basel to Grenoble.
Wimped out and took the motorway since I did not decide to go until 4pm, but the run down the doubs valley and then over the Jura is really good +/- 7 hours.

Day 2 - Grenoble to the Aosta Valley
On the D926/ 927, via Le Plan de Suet. Fab road, shortish video from bike here

Then Marianne, really nice at the top with a fantastic view over the Maritime Alps

Finally Petit St Bernard

which runs from Bourg St Maurice over to Aosta with some of the longest sets of hairpins I have seen, and a lot of snow at the top...

Day 3
Aosta back to Switzerland
Tempus Fugit so I cut short to head back to Basel, but Grande St Bernard and Valliers are well worth a try. Valliers is a short cut round the sweep of the bottom of Grand St Bernard, with some seriously hard work on the Northern end
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&so...4&ie=UTF8&z=13

I shall probably repeat some of the journey, Col D'Isere was closed and awaits a trial... as well as the run from the other side into Italy. I am also intending to make the run over Umbrael later in the year

Excellent reporting, thank you Bexie. Just a bit too far for my trusty 49 cc.

"seriously hard work" - on a motorbike ??? On a real (human-powered) bicycle, that is certainly true, but on a motorbike I find it hard to believe. BTW, most people call that climb "Champex", I don't know where you got the name "Valliers".

Actually, I did most of that in a day - on a Buell .
Admittedly we started from Neuchatel not Basel ...

Some of these are hard work in a CAR so can't see why they'd not be on a bike!!

it takes some effort to get bikes round a corner, especially a fully loaded K1200 at about 300kg. Try 8 hours on passes and you would see what I mean.

Admittadly not as hard as doing it on a velo.

The shortcut from Orsières via Champex and then down the Vallettes is a nice road. I did a lot in the early 90ties on my R80, just for fun as we have a chalet in Champex. It isn't faster than the main road.
Is it an LT you have, then I can imagine it is hard work in the lower parts of Vallettes.

KT1200 GT, 160hp really easy to ride

Great bike.
Bought myself an LT in September, so I feel like an absolut beginner again... I noticed you went through the curves more in GT- than LT-style...

Have a nice day.

LT? Slammer rides an LT, just got over 230.000 K´s on the clock now.

The K1200GT is very much more of a sports bike you can cruise on rather than the other way round. Top speed up in the mid 200 kmh's and very rapid accelleration.

Slammer has an older and very much touring based bike...

230.000km in how many years? All in Switzerland?
28'000 on mine... I've got perspective...

In 25 years in Switzerland, I've put 150k km on my LeMans, 80k km on my LeMans/sidecar, 57k km on my ST2, 35k km on my SS, and 26k km on my 999R.

Tom

You are closed our mouth, but one way or another we will catch you

In the start of this year i got to bring all the parts from Romania and after to make this two routes.


http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.co...lps-trail.html

http://www.exodus.co.uk/holidays/mwu/overview

Was anybody there? Impressions?

Very useful information.
I am planning a one week trip in the summer, and this will help a lot.
Thanks