European Tour Mid-october - Advice Needed

[Berty3000]

Hi all,

I got amazing advice on here for my Scotland tour last year, so I'm back...

I'd like to do a tour for two or three weeks from mid October. Main concern is wanting to avoid ice, snow, and rain. I've decided I'd end up in southern Spain where, hopefully, there will be warmish and dry weather and I can do some riding around Andalucia and the Sierras around late October heading into November. Then could either go up to santander and take the ferry back or return through western France. Any thoughts on this part?

The question is what I could hope to squeeze in prior to that whilst, probability wise, avoiding horrible conditions. I'd like to include a route through Switzerland and northern Italy (Dolomites)... Is this out of the question mid October onwards? Presumably would take a route through Holland and Germany to reach those, and then southern France to Spain.

I'm on a Honda cbf600, so not an adventure bike!

Any thoughts about weather, good routes, overall strategy would be very much appreciated. Also, anybody who'd like to come along is more than welcome

Edited by Berty3000 on Tuesday 27th August 21:26

[Andybow]

It’s pushing it a bit for Swiss Alps as most of the passes will be shut by then, I’d go through Germany into the Dolomites via Innsbruck as At least the main road goes through to Italy, then back across northern Italy via the lakes and if the the weather is good across and down the French Alps into Alpes Provence area as it’s great riding, across to Cevennes national park, Milau and down to the Pyrenees

[DuraAce]

Just go straight to Spain.

Maximise your time in decent conditions. Forget the alps for this trip.

[Mr_Tickle]

I'd just go straight to Spain too and leave the Alps, etc for another day. Spain is an amazing country with so much variety. In Oct you should still get decent weather in the south and the east cost, North will be a bit colder and probably wet but don't discount as is fantastic and with great food.

[Berty3000]

Thanks for the responses chaps.

Spain is a great bet, I agree, but the thing is, I have three weeks to play with and really want to get the most out of my time. I'm tempted to risk fitting the rest in and hope for the best with the weather - I'm usually lucky with weather and I believe I will be again

I understand that the northern Dolomites are still typically dry and warmish through October. Any suggestions about good routes to take through there?

So I could head down through Germany, Austria, Northern Dolomites loop, and then across northern Italy, France (any specific suggestions?) towards southern Spain. I want biggest bang for my buck and time in terms of riding, roads, and scenery, but also want to reduce the probability of bad weather - and to avoid dangerous conditions completely if I can help it. I don't mind occasional wind and rain, already been around Scotland and had that in spades, I just want less chance of it.

Thoughts?

Another option might be to include Portugal.

[Andybow]

I’ll do you a route later tonight, obviously it’s weather dependent , but October can be great or foggy wet and cold!
Portugal around the Douro valley is great, Braganca, Chaves etc have some amazing roads and scenery.
Provence alpes are brilliant as if the weather is good and still warm some of the passes will be open, if not it’s no bother as you can easily miss them without to much deviation from the planned route.

[Berty3000]

Andy, that would be awesome. Thanks mate!

[Bordtea]

I concur with others on here - get the ferry to Spain, return, and spend your time doing a full tour of Spain/Portugal. There's a RiDE tour route somewhere that has about 14 days of riding

[Andybow]

Hi mate can you email me and I’ll send them to you

[Berty3000]

Ok, there's been a change of plan and I can now do the euro tour this month instead, I'll be leaving between the 12th and the 15th and spending ten days on it.

So fitting in the Dolomites, Austria, Switzerland, Alps - this is more viable now in terms of weather, right? Any suggested routes so I can take in the best routes on offer? I'm based in Devon. Happy to cover up to 300 miles per day.

[DuraAce]

Berty3000 said:

Happy to cover up to 300 miles per day.

Just bear in mind that in some places you'll struggle to average 30mph (villages, traffic, road closures, getting stuck behind campervans/coaches, fuel/food stops, photo opportunities etc etc - it all eats into your progress)

[MrsMiggins]

I'm heading to the Alps next week and have already plotted some GPX routes. Ping me and I'll share them with you. You'll need a MyRoute account, but that's free.

I can't help with the getting there as we're going with Bikeshuttle in the 12th. That might be an option for you if you want to eliminate the boring bits...