This tour is organized as a “LINKED” tour with the FRENCH LOOP tour as the anchor

QUICK LINKS

About This Tour
Where We Go
Tour Highlights
Tour Cost
Brief Tour Description
Key Dates
Minimum Number of Tour Members
How To Book This Tour

ABOUT THIS TOUR

This trip is for people who want a rider’s ride to the highest of the high. A lot of tour companies refer to their tour as the “High Alps” or the “Extreme Challenge” or some such name but they never really get to the high stuff. This tour does. The whole point of this tour is to ride the TOP 10 highest passes in the Alps. I’m sorry to say that in order to get to those passes we’ll have to ride dozens of other great passes of all types, big, small, wide, narrow, many in the middle of nowhere, to get from one side of the Alps to the other and complete the tour. It is a technically, physically, and mentally challenging tour loaded with as much fun, adventure and riding enjoyment as one person can handle. It is the “High Alps Extreme Touring Ultimate Challenge Tour” or “TOP 10+” for short.

What I am doing now is to offer the tour  in 2 parts for those Tour Members who might be time contrained and can only ride one loop.

Now you can do the FRENCH LOOP and the ESSENTIAL ALPS TOUR over 15 days including 1 rest day in between.

If you want to squeeze out 2 more days you link the FRENCH LOOP with the AWESOME AUSTRIA tour for 17 days.

Finally, if you really want a 27+ Day GRAND TOUR you can book all 3 September tours. While we hit 5 of the TOP 10 on both the Essential or Austrian loops I make sure we get there using mostly different routes and directions. Tour Members are already signing up for all 3 combined tours – so it must be an intriguing option.

WHERE WE GO

Where we go is up to you based on which tours you would like to link together. Please check out each tour below to see what makes each one different and which ones you like. BOTH options below are anchored by the FRENCH LOOP cover all TOP 10 highest passes. They just enjoy getting there by riding different routes.

OPTION 1 –  ESSENTIAL ALPS – Must Ride Tour is the shorter combined tour option before the FRENCH LOOP that covers the 2 prime riding areas in the Alps

OPTIONS 2 –  AWESOME AUSTRIA – Keep On Riding Tour  is the longer tour option after the FRENCH LOOP that delves into the special roads of Austria

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

• Special Places – Chamonix/Aiguille du Midi Cable Car up to Mont Blanc
• Special Places – The Grimsel Pass – one of the most photographed vistas in the Alps looking towards the Furka Pass
• The iconic Stelvio Pass (#3) – famous for it roughly 50 switchbacks on each side and carnival-like atmosphere at the top
• The Grossglockner High Alpine Road – home to Austria’s highest pass and a motorcyclist’s playground
• Lunch at a high Dolomite Mountain Hut (via 5 minute cable car ride) with unforgetable panoramic views of the Dolomites
• Major Passes – (#10), (#9) (#8) (#7), (6), (5) , (4), (3), (2) and #1 + more
• Smaller Passes – too many to mention
• More than 70 passes in total

MOTO-CHARLIE reserves the right to alter the exact route at his discretion.

TOUR COST

The cost for this tour will be the combined amouts of whichever 2 tours you want to combine as shown on each tour webpage. I will be glad to help you figure out the cost of the specific tour(s) you want if you have any questions.

BRIEF TOUR DESCRIPTION

This tour focuses on the 10 highest passes in the Alps. The TOP 10 were determined from John Hermann’s book “Motorcycle Journeys Through The Alps & Beyond, 5th Edition”. All these passes are paved (with a couple of minor exceptions) and all go from one place to another, as opposed to dead-ending in some valley. As such they are the highest paved roads you can ride in the Alps. Our mission on this tour is to find them, wherever they are, which in this case is spread throughout France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria – and then ride them all. This will truly be the tour of a lifetime.

Most people like to arrive at least one day ahead of time to help with jet lag, see the local sights or get acclimated to their motorcycle, the roads and Euro riding in general via the free 1/2 day ORIENTATION DAY offered to all Tour Members. I’ll be more than glad to help you plan whatever activity might be of interest to you.

• The exact route(s) and daily schedules we ride will obviously depend on which tours you link together. Please feel free to conact me if you have any questions about each tour or which linked tours might be best for you. I am always happy to talk to anyone who has an interest in riding the Alps.

KEY DATES

• If you would like to come sooner, or stay longer, hotel and motorcycle arrangements can readily be made to suit your schedule.

• When to book your reservation obviously depends on your schedule. As a rule I suggest at least 3 months in advance to ensure that you get the motorcycle that you want and to secure a place on the tour. There is a limit of 7 motorcycles or 10 people, whichever comes first, per tour.

• The final cut-off date is technically 30 days before the tour starts. If someone contacts me to sign up with less than 30 days to go every effort will be made to accommodate you. The issue will usually be the motorcycle availability.

MINIMUM NUMBER OF TOUR MEMBERS

5 riders or 7 Tour Members

HOW TO BOOK THIS TOUR

Please “Contact Me” by telephone or e-mail to book your spot on this tour. I am not a paperwork intensive person. So, the process of making a reservation and getting what I need for my records is pretty simple.

Feel free to contact me to ask any questions about my tours in particular, or the Alps in general. If I can be of help in any way I’ll be glad to do so.

Final Thought – This tour is the real deal, the “High Alps Extreme Touring Ultimate Challenge Tour.” The description above pretty much says it all. All the riding you can get, all the altitude you can handle, all the food and culture that four different Alpine countries can offer, all the fun and adventure that you will remember for a lifetime. You can gorge yourself on a frenzy of pass blasting, conspicuous croissant consumption and espresso overload knowing that you have ridden the highest of the high and a had a blast doing it. That’s what this tour is all about.