This was the day when we finally entered the Alps and the route that I planned this whole trip (Route des Grandes Alpes). But before we actually got to ride the endless hairpin corners… we visited the Les Gorges du Pont du Diable.
This is a place where the river has been “digging” the limestone for millions of years. It’s not a cave but almost… The hole is 40 meters deep. It costs 6,10€ to take a 40 minutes tour with a guide and it really is worth every penny!!
It is amazing place! And it’s only 20 minutes from Thonon Les Bains.
Then the first climb we took was Col de la Colombiere which is 1614 meters high mountain pass near Cluses. Then we climbed Col des Aravis, it’s still not very high but it offers one of the best views to Mt. Blanc!
You can see the highest mountain in Europe from many places if you’re driving south of Col des Aravis.
Then we had Cormet de Roselend, which is almost 2000 meters (1968 meters), this offered already very spectacular views from the top!! Especially the Lake Roselend with the clear turquoise water is really worth to make a break and admire the view!
And finally we had the highest mountain pass in Europe in the afternoon: Col d’Iseran (2764 meters). The summit is still a lonely place! There’s no restaurant or no souvenir-shop just an old chapel made of stone… and I think they don’t even use that anymore!
There’s still old meters in the sign… It has been checked few years ago that the real hight is few meters lower!
When we rode down to Val d’Isere it started to get cloudy. We had one more climb to make since we had our accommodation in Italy (Moncenisio). We did see a little bit of of the Lake Mt Cenis, but after we crossed the border we had no visibility anymore! We’re riding in the clouds! And the road to the amazing Chalet Sul Lago was extremely narrow with the branches of the trees coming very low… it felt like a scene from a horror movie!! And finally when we found the place… it had a very pleasant surprise for us!
No, it is not a Michelin restaurant with any stars… But it is mentioned in the Michelin quite many times (as you can see!) -And yes the food was good!
Here is the route for the day 9.
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After breakfast it was time to start riding again. My Tomtom Rider 410 showed us the way to the nearest gas station in Weil am Rhein… but what I didn’t remember in that point that in highway in Switzerland you’ll need the Vignette! And the nearest Shell was AFTER the border checkpoint in autobahn/ highway with only possible direction to Switzerland… Oops! (We decided that we are not going to buy the expensive Vignette -we would rather ride the small roads in Switzerland area).
After a short discussion with customs officer we were able to make nice move to the other side of the customs area and ride back to Germany… and soon after that ride through the city of Basel. That took about 1 hour! In the southside of Basel we actually got our first real mountain hairpin corners when we climbed to Passwang Pass (elevation 1204 meters). And we had the first break in the “summit cafeteria” (http://www.alpenblick-passwang.ch/).
The view to valley was amazing.
Then we had Grenchenberg! What an amazing ride it was! The road is so narrow (climb from the north) that it is simply impossible to overtake a car. And I was so kind that I stopped and wait for the other 2 riders… and we had to drive behind a car for a long time.
Just before the summit there was a place with lots of cars, tents and people… I don’t know if there was a some kind of special meeting or a camp(?) but it looked very strange! (In video 09:00). We had a nice break in the summit restaurant.
The southside road of Grenchenberg is not that narrow, there are even some busses driving… Then we entered Bern.
I was actually quite scared about riding through Bern! But it was Sunday early afternoon and there was not that much traffic. We did see the city center terminal of Bern and it was quite easy to ride through. From Bern we choose the road beside (and under) the highway to west as we headed to Lake Geneva. In the way we got some pretty nice views to the Lake of Gruyère (a reservoir).
Also the view to the Lake Geneva was amazing! I had planned the route to the beach Boulevard of Vevey, Clarens and Montreux… And that was a big mistake! There was annual Jazz Festival of Montreux going on… it took about 2 hours to ride that boulevard! (But we learned to do some nice splitting!) We did see the tents! And we heard some music! So I guess we can say that we were at the festival!
Finally after a long day we arrived in Thonon-Les-baines. It’s a city in French side of the Lake Geneva.
The route for this day was like this.
It had been raining during the night in Obersteinbach and the weather forecast promised us some more rain during the day. Right after the breakfast we visited Fleckenstein castle. It was actually good that it was raining since there were not too many people!
This castle is built on a steep and high rock and it was actually ruled by the same family Fleckenstein over 600 years!
There’s also halls and tunnels inside the rock!
The view from the top of the castle is great… But we had that rain and clouds everywhere!
After the visit in the castle we had a nice road from Lembach to Wissembourg, but the road was wet so it was no fun. Then we went over the border back to Germany and after a nice break in Baden-Baden we started to ride the Schwarzwaldstrasse. But it was all in the clouds, the road was wet and from time to time it was raining!
The south-end of the Black Forest road was closed so we choosed alternative route: The road to Allerheiligen. That was very fun ride! The rain had stopped and the road was actually almost dry!
Here’s a short video I took after the roads were complitely dry:
At the end of this wet day we arrived in Weil am Rhein (in Germany), it’s actually a triple-city with Saint-Louis in France and Basel in Swtzerland. Our hotel was just beside the border and we could see people making a line to get to Switzerland!
The reason for this is simple! After UK’s Brexit the € is so low that people from Basel come to Germany to make daily shopping!!
The route for the day 7 was like this!
We got 1 more rider to make this tour with us! He’s Timo and he rides Honda VFR 800, and it’s red too!
This days route was called “Lets get the real good look at River Mosel!” -And yes we did!
The route was like this! And we’re following the River Mosel all the way from Koblenz to Trier and then to Luxemburg… It was more than 230 km’s of River Mosel and those grapevine or wine bushes on the both sides of the river! I think that’s enough… Luckily we did ride something else too! In the last part of the route we had nice ride in Eppenbrunn!
And then finally the GPS found a route that it is even hard to find from the map!!!
This must be the MAIN ROAD from Germany to France!
We had accommodation in Obersteinbach, France. It was nice and “bohemian” just in the right way!
Tuesday March 15 was the day when I went to garage and took my Honda out (BMW is still waiting for the 1st ride).
I took a short ride to Lauttasaari in Helsinki to check one motocaching.net -cache someone had made during the winter. The place is actually not legal to ride with the motorcycle but it was in the middle of the day so there were not too many people around so I took the risk and rode my bike up to the small hill with this cannon.
There’s also a viewing platform very near from where you can see the south-western parts of Helsinki.
Wednesday 16th of March was much warmer so I even got 1 friend with me and we rode to Vuosaari to check 1 breakwater where you can also ride. Ocean is already without ice and there were few swans flying around beautifully!
Here’s my Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer with my friends KTM 990SMT at the Ruusuniemi breakwater in Vuosaari. This is also a cache at motocaching.net!
Then on friday morning it was below zero and some snow was in the ground (and on my Honda too!)
Now it seems that we’ll have to wait many days until we can ride again!
This was one of the first rides after my crash in Romania last July. I had my Honda waiting for me in Finland when I had to leave the XR far away from home.
It’s also a big surprise that I haven’t taken this road to the video before?! It’s very good road very near to Mäntsälä and there is one corner where I’ve seen quite many crashes. It is more than 90 degrees to the right (in this video 03:50) but here I’m taking it very easily because I’m still careful after my crash.
Here is Vanha Soukkiontie:
And here is the video:
Naked 1000 Honda doesn’t look modern, it doesn’t have traction control and it doesn’t give impressive power…
But it definately is a gentlemans choice from 1000cc naked bikes. And even it’s not very modern it still looks GOOD!
Here’s a nice review of the japanese naked super bikes:
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/naked-bike-comparison-honda-cb1000r-vs-kawasaki-z1000-vs-suzuki-gsx-s1000-vs-yamaha-fz-09-review
(The exhaust pipe is ugly as hell! It looks like there’s a snail under the engine!)
But today without me. I had to go to work (what a pitty!)
But I had the time to visit the starting point and go to the corner few km’s after the start.
24 bikes passed me like this:
Here it is. And it looks very good!
Now you have a possibility to buy almost as good as new Honda Crosstourer!
Nyt voit ostaa itsellesi loistavan pyörän: Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer! This is very nice in paved and in gravel roads! Tämä on loistava asfaltti- ja hiekkateillä!
http://www.nettimoto.com/honda/vfr/1868502
GoZa Mite 