Opinions on passes

[chandrew]

Very closely aligned to the October meeting thread but given I didn't want to hijack that thread I'm creating a new one.

A friend and I are planning a Sunday morning trip over some passes last week in August. It's likely we'll be in a Caterham. Start place will be Vitznau / Weggis area and we're up for making an early start to avoid the worst of the traffic - in fact we're happy being on the first pass at sunrise & would need to be back it Vitznau before lunch.

The two routes that we're thinking about are:

Susten / Grimsel / Furka
Susten / Grimsel / Nufenen / Gotthard.

Apart from the Gotthard I haven't driven any of the other passes. Therefore any brief descriptions on suitability, traffic etc would be welcome.

Which would be your prefered route? (do suggestion another route but note we need to return by lunch)

In which direction (ie clockwise / anticlockwise) would be best?

Many thanks

Andrew

[RainerM]

Hallo Andrew

Have a look here:

http://www.bikecam.ch/

or here:

http://www.ryter-hermann.ch/motorrad/paesse_uebers...

it is in German, but self-explanatory, with vids etc.

Enjoy :-))

Rainer and Dot

[chandrew]

A little write up.

We ended up doing the Susten / Grimsel / Nufenen / Gotthard route and it worked out very well. We left Vitznau about 6am and must have been at the bottom of the Susten around 6:30, just as the sun was rising.


At the top of the Nufenen.

At this time the Susten was really quiet, with the only other folk being walkers. It was bitterly cold and the Caterham didn't have a heater (or we didn't find it).

I can understand the fondness of those with wider cars for the Grimsel. It's a lovely wide pass with good sight etc. This time I think we found 1 or 2 other cars. There were bikes at the top and even a few cyclists, who must have been freezing.


Top of the Grimsel


The Nufenen was getting a bit busier, but this meant we encountered a few cars on the way up and the post bus and some other stuff on the way down. Nothing that caused a problem for the Caterham.

We took the old cobbled Gotthard up from Ticino which was lots of fun, especially the hairpins not too far from the summit.

The Caterham was a CSR200 from Kumschik. Of all the hire options that I could find in Switzerland I guess this was the right choice for the job.

Back to Vitznau by 11:00. A very good way to spend an early morning.

[marcusjames]

Andrew

I should have check on here before. We were also on the Susten yesterday. We were going some but you were doing really well to do all that in 30 minutes

Let me know next time you plan a trip and we'll join you.

[RainerM]

Thanks for the report, Andrew :-))

and

we still have the same beautiful weather

Regards to you and your family

Rainer and Dot

[chandrew]

Hi Rainer, yes, we were lucky with the weather - at the beginning of the week it looked like we'd have rain. I drove a Caterham at Bruntingthorpe in the wet and it's not one of my favourite experiences, especially the getting in / out. We were also on semi-slicks which would have made things 'interesting' especially on the cobbles.

Of course Markus we didn't do the whole lot in 30mins - it was about 5 hours in total (just under 4 hours to do the 4 passes). Of course given the sunrise and the opportunity to drive an open 'classic-style' car under the blue sky we just were just enjoying the leisurely pace.

I know we were a bit hardcore to do the passes so early but it's remarkable how pleasant / quiet they are at this time. A few weeks ago we did the Fluela / Ofen on the way to a walking weekend in the national park and it was busy to the point of being frustrating (mainly swarms of bikers preventing any overtaking).