Bewdley Bikers On Tour

  Day 12: Wed 17th June 2009   Ride: Livigno to Brescia (Montechiari) – 157 miles   Most of the group woke up nursing at least some semblance of a hangover. Phil certainly had a bad one and Kyle’s must have been monumental.   Nonetheless everyone was ready by 8.00am and Pete, Gaz, Bob, [...]

After the previous day’s rest for Gaz, Pete, Taj and Bob we agreed on a group ride out to knock off the last of the top 10 highest passes in Europe – the Gavia, and then ride round over the Mortirolo, Bernina, Julier and Albula passes the back to Livigno. Mark decided to take a break as he’d been on the road for at least 8 to 10 hours every day for the last 10 days. We had the usual false start … [...]

  Day 10: Mon 15th June 2009   Ride: Stelvio, Umbrail, Ofen & Bernina – 153 miles   Last night the Stelvio had been discussed extensively and it went without saying that Kyle, Phil and Mark would ride it today. Yesterday Bobby, Pete, Cat, Taj and Gaz had ridden it going up the northern [...]

  Day 9: Sun 14th June 2009   Ride: Arabba to Livigno via Timmels Joch – 204 miles   For our transit day from Arabba across to Livigno we once again split into two groups. Not so much food and non-food groups, but rather those who wanted to hit some high passes en route [...]

  Day 8: Sat 13th June 2009   Ride: Sella Massif – 34 miles   Before we booked our motorcycle trip to Italy we spent a lot of time online scrolling through dozens of websites doing research. We wanted to find somewhere to stay in the Dolomites – a base for 3-4 nights – [...]

Since we started motorcycling in Europe in 2006, Phil has used John Hermann’s excellent motorcycle touring book Motorcycle Journeys Through the Alps & Beyond as a valuable resource in planning trips, and Kyle has since joined the Hermann fan club. Trip 52 (in the fourth edition) is entitled “I Dare You; 17 Passes in One Day” … [...]

As soon as we woke up this morning it looked like we’d struck gold with the weather. By all accounts the previous weeks weather in the Dolomites had been dreadful, cold and lashing it down with rain, but today it was blue skies and sunny, and the forecast was for more of the same …. The plan today was to tick off another of the 10 highest passes in Europe from our bagging list by riding out towards … [...]

  Day 5: Wed 10th June 2009   Ride: Brescia (Montechiari) to Arabba – 197 miles   This years motorcycle touring holiday saw us heading to Italy and the Eastern Alps to tour the Italian Dolomites. We’ve wanted to do this trip for some time but hadn’t, mainly because it’s 1,000 miles to get [...]

  Day 4: Tue 9th June 2009   Ride: Swiss Alpine Passes – 252 miles   After yesterday’s ride from Belfort to Andermatt we thought that we deserved a rest today, especially as we had ridden a good deal of it in rain. Looking out from breakfast at more rain and low cloud it [...]

  Day 3: Mon 8th June 2009   Ride: Belfort to Andermatt – 207 miles   Loading up in the morning, the weather in Belfort was good. Our riders had a reasonably early night, and save some late night watching of the hotel “art” movies, every one was refreshed and ready to go, although [...]