Biking in the Dolomites 2009-06

This year I decided to make my alpine trip earlier the year. Plan was to meet with a friend and doing some biking from Munich together. Unfortunately he fell sick, so I ended up alone again. We're trying for next year, again.

This time I travelled the whole tour by myself, because I know some people in Munich which I could ask for stopover (Thanks as always!)
Same conclusion as last year: The time lost driving though Germany would be much better spend on alpine roads. Even that you save some amount of money isn't worth it.
And this year I made another grave mistake: I started over the weekend from Munich! So two days only queuing with cars/trucks/cyclists (of both kind). Only from Monday on the trip became enjoyable again. Whole Bavaria was on the trip this fine temp§ered weekend, as it seemed. So being clever and using the weekend for a trip from Munich turned out not being clever at all.
So next year again car train, somehow we will manage to meet in our target area, won't we?

This time again - besides first day - I depended on tourist information offices for accomodation, and it was fine. Especially with German speaking areas only, no need to do any pre-booking.

This year again I brought my Acer Aspire One. Setup was finally finished so I could made some use of the WLAN interface in places which supported it.

Weather unfortunately was not soo good this year. First day I started in heavy rain, which soaked me down to the skin. No rain garb helped, even the leather boots were filled with water. This was really discusting, fortunately on the afternoon some sun came up and allowed me to dry. The other days I was so "lucky" that the rain only hit me the afternoon, so I managed to reach an accomodation before I was fully soaked again.
And I bought now some rain cover for the boots and cloves too.

This years costs come down to 230 € travel costs, not counting the trip to/from Munich.

The Route

Day 1: Munich to Bolzano

Leaving Munich, covered in rain, then over the mountains to Bolzano.

Day 2: Dolomites

Grand view of the Dolomites and a lot of beautiful and challenging tracks.

Day 3: To Serfaus

On the returning way, to in-between-stop near Serfaus

Day 4: Back to Munich

I skipped the Kaunertal glacier road because of long trip ahead and 10€ of toll. Maybe next time, because it looked quite promising.

Summary

See improvements, in back perspective the trip was nice, but long away from being as satisfactory as the last years.
So plan for next year is Back to the roots: Car Train, 1 Week, maximum 200km a day. And I want to go back to the Provence. Adding a relaxing day at the sea would be also great.

Additional Information

Planning Literature

• Markus Golletz: Westalpen mit dem Motorrad, Bruckmann-Verlag, ISBN-10: 3765444316, German
  The author is a big enduro fan, thus please take a little bit of caution with the tracks in here.
• Rudolf Geser: Die schönsten Alpenpässe. 50 Motorradtouren, J. Berg Verlag, ISBN 3-7658-4169-2, German
  Good overview about alpine passings
• Sylva Harasim, , Martin Schempp: Die 100 schönsten Pässe der Alpen: Österreich Italien Schweiz Frankreich, Nikol Verlag, ISBN-10: 3937872701, German
  More passes, even small and unknown ones
• Some motorbike route maps, which I don't want to list all here
• And last but definitely not least, not to forgot my TomTom Rider (version 1)
  I won't had as much fun without a navigation system. Just plan/program your route the evening before - and then just follow it!

Improvements

• Last year was better. Mistakes I made this year:
  1. Too few alpine travelling days (I had to reach and return from Munich, remember?)
  2. Too high daily traveling distance (180km-200km is really enough in alpine setting)
  3. Weekend travel in holiday area, and even during school vacation time
  4. Too early in the year
  5. Relaxing day missing inbetween (Okay, does not really count for 4 travelling days only)

Links

• http://www.dbautozug.de - Deutsche Bahn Car Train

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