This year's 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 there - of which 950 miles is motorway - and also the cost of transporting or hiring bikes has always seemed expensive. However Phil came across a guy named Chas Mortimer who specialises in motorcycle transportation to Europe and his costs seemed reasonable.

In 2007 when we motorcycled around the Pyrenees we had two start dates and we've opted to do the same again in 2009 with some of us flying out to Italy and some of us riding out there.

 

The "Ride-out" group would start on Saturday 6th June and initially make their way to Hotel Sonne in Andermatt, stopping off at Le Clos du Montvinage in Etreaupont and Grand Hotel du Tonneau d'Or in Belfort on the way. The "Fly-out" group would start on Wednesday 10th June, flying out from Stansted to Brescia (Montechiari), with the two groups meeting up in the Dolomites on Wednesday evening.

 

In a similar way to 2006, when we used Chamonix Mont-Blanc as our base for a week, this year in the Dolomites we decided to make Hotel Evaldo in Arabba our base for 4 nights, and it was from there that we'd set ourselves the task of riding 18 passes in a day!

 

For the last 3 nights nights we would leave the Dolomites and head to Livigno and Hotel Cervo which would give us easy access to the really high stuff, and allow us to complete the second task that we'd set ourselves, knocking off the 5 remaining passes in our 10 highest passes in Europe bagging list. After a week of riding around the Dolomites and the Alps we would all drop our bikes off and fly home together the following Wednesday on 17th June.

 

 

The charge for transporting 8 motorcycles is £200 per bike - each way - including full goods in transit insurance, or £225 for 5-7 bikes, picking up/dropping off at a single location. We opted to have the bikes collected from Bewdley and requested that they be ready for us to pick up at the airport, only a couple of hours ride from Arabba. At the end of the trip we would simply drop them back off at the airport where Chas would be waiting to meet us. For anyone interested in transporting their motorcycle over to mainland Europe take a look at Chas Mortimer's Mototrans website.

 

This year Chris B couldn't make the trip due to other commitments but we gained new recruit Bobby, and Mark made a return appearance. For our fourth motorcycle touring holiday the riders were Bobby on his Honda Fireblade, Pete on his Kawasaki GTR1400, Kyle on his Suzuki GSX-R1000, Phil on his BMW HP2 Sport, Cat on his Yamaha V-Max, Chris P on his Honda Fireblade, Gaz on his Honda Blackbird and Mark on his Honda Blackbird.

 

 

The trip would be 8 riders, 8-12 days, 43 mountain passes and roads, and almost 3,000 miles for some of the riders.