For those of us who haven’t got £700+ plus flights, bike breakage and beer for a week in the Alps, here’s a plan/suggestion.

8 Day roadtrip, cramming in as much riding as possible, staying in hostels/camping/bivying.

Possibly in Scotlandshire as it’s far enough away from most of us to count as a holliday and allows a 50/50 split between border trail centers and proper tracks in the highlands. Possibly spending an afternoon at Dalby on the way up and in the Lakes on the way back down?

Anyone interested? Particularly people with big bike carying pimped out rides prepared to do the driving in return for beer tokens and those who know routes and good wild camping spots?

No idea of cost, but assuming 3 people in a modderately economical car, petrol would be £70max each if your driving from ‘darn sarfff’, and the only stuff on top of that is intended to be food and drink, and if the midges kill us on the first night, hostels.

Mid/late July?

I was thinking something similar but hitting europe…

Drive out to do the Salzkammergut trophy race.. then spend the next week mooching through the alps taking in the tour and some big days riding.. pack some slicks and do some classic big climbs/descents…

take own food and tent etc.. ferry is £60 return and fuel cheaper on the continent:)

hmmmmm could be a another good idea,

I would offer to be a driver, but I suspect the midget wouldn’t appreciate being used as a bike waggon, for starters there’s no roof, stereo or bike rack!

Where are you getting the £700 plus flights and beer from?

I’m doing Megavalanche this year and I doubt it will cost me anywhere near that much all in (unless I break my bike).

I went snowboarding last year and it cost me less than £500 all in.

.. well i have a citroen berlingo if its not sold by then but even if i did sell it then it would be replaced by something equally as bike ready:)

its slow and not pretty but carries load well…

Would be good to get enough people to hire something…

Only drawback i can see is different people wanting to ride different things.. i just wanna take my singlespeed and ride everything:)

£725 is the cost of th esingle track week in the alps, from what ive seen a weeks guiding+accomodation+lift pass seems to be about that.

So at the other end of the scale im thinking, MBR route guides, tents and cycling up hills.

Last year 5 of us drove from Bristol to Zermatt & rented a chalet, food & beer kitty – cost us under £370 each including lift passes on 4 days.

Yeah, your UK plan would be great too, but don’t think the options are either £1000 guided fully catered Alps trip, or grotty UK camping – there is somewhere in between!

yea, I know there’s a middle way, just wondering if anyone else out there was feeling a bit skint and fancied a bit of a roadtrip.

Well if anyone fancies salzkammergut and then the alps style road trip drop me an email and we can look at transport options.. just need someone to share the driving with:)

Paul, I’ll mail you later this evening. I’ve had my licence a good few years, but only even been the named driver on other cars so dont even have 3rd party cover in anyone else’s car.

There’s 4 of us off STW doing a similar thing, but driving to the Alps to do the PPdS. 4.5 days riding is the plan.
Including fuel, camping, tolls, PPDS tickets, a days guiding, ferry, food, some beer, insurance etc (Basically everything apart from personal spending & lunch money) we’ve costed it out to about £300 each.
So, it CAN be done! You don’t have to spend £700 to ride the Alps.
🙂

I’d deffo be keen for a bike roadtrip… UK or Europe, I’m easy 😀 I’ll keep an eye on this thread to see how it all progresses.

What about renting a van or somesuch?

I’d be in too. Have a weeks annual leave booked for 12th to 19th July and nowt to do with it…. Willing to do some driving but only have a Golf.

could we look at week starting with Salzkammergut and drive out on the thursday night/friday morning… minibus rental could be an option if numbers grow… Salzkammergut has a number of distance options so something for everyone and then it would be a joint decision on rest of week but as the tour is in the alps would be great chance to check it out

I have a couple of 1 week breaks booked into my roster, 9AUG-16AUG and 06SEP-13SEP. Would be really keen to do something in this window if it suits others 😀

Maybe a good article for the mag eh? Credit Crunch Capers, something like that?

I can book my leave whenever, but will probably just have a corsa at most (if i end up getting it).

And my knee as ever probably isnt up to raceing! Think i may test it over the next month or so and see how it holds up to regular cycling (i’m fit, and can do irregular 4+hour rides with no real complaints at a fair pace (in fact im cleaning more climbs than i was when i was properly fit!) but have no idea how my knee’s going to cope with a weeks solid riding. But equaly I figure I may as well do the damage over the summer if at all, then its got the winter to recouperate.

I’d be interested in the 2nd week in Sept, is there a maximun figure people are willing to spend?

Thisisnotaspoon. I’m liking the sound of this, was thinking about doing something similar due to being skint. I have to go to work now but if your interested in possibly sorting something out my email is in my profile. I can provide transport no need for tent’s..

me and a mate of mine would be interested in aug? we are going to the alps in July 😉

I wonder what it would cost to charter a coach for an Apls trip…?
I mean, they can ferry 50-odd OAP’s all over Europe for £200 or so.
So how about 35 bikers (I say 35 due to extra space for bikes etc).

How about Suisse Normande? France-shire, but not as far as the alps?

I’d be game for a road trip…

:o)

8 Day roadtrip, cramming in as much riding as possible, staying in hostels/camping/bivying.

Possibly in Scotlandshire as it’s far enough away from most of us to count as a holliday

Sounds like a plan – hold on – i’m already doing it next week !

😀

My experience has been that roadtrips can can consume a lot of your holiday time with loading your car with all your kit and driving to different places. Its often better to use 1 or 2 locations as a base and explore from there.

With a bit of route planning you could easily have 7 days worth of great rides in any of the York Moors, Dales, Peak District, Lake District, South/North Downs. i don’t really know Wales and Scotland other than the trail centres which get very samey if you ride them every day.

If you compare like for like, i’d imagine the alps holiday is more expensive but not massively so. You need extra money for travel and lift pass and thats it.

max budget?

no idea, but i was reconing it should be possible to do a week mostly wild camping for under £200 per person including fuel and some renumeration to the drivers if we go somewhere thats putting 1k+ miles through their cars!

Per person (based on 800 mile round trip, 4 to a car):

Fuel & a bit – £70 (30p per mile)
Food: £6-£7 per day = £50-£60 (cooking most meals, eating out once or twice)
Car parking – £5
2 nights in YHA’s to wash out smelly kit and get some propper sleep – £20
+ beer money

4 possible ideas:
1, Scotland – further away therefore costs more, but more of a holiday.
2, Wales – closer and cheeper.
3, Meet up at nominated starting point, spend 2 days riding each others local trails (might make the best mag article? mods are you listening?)
4, Alps, costs the most, but the most holliday like.

yea the loading and driving takes a while, my rough idea for scotland was

some time arround peebles, some time in somewhere not a trail center, then the other group of centers for a few days (havent got a map to hand, the ones in SW scotland).

coach trip to the alps eh?

sounds like a good idea, although i suspect it could degenerate into an argument between those treating it like a uni ski trip and getting horrendously drunk on the way. And the average STWers who are a bit mroe mature!

But i suspect after the IWA fiasco people may be reluctant to pass strangers cash, and i wouldn’t want to be the one handling the money.

Dumfries in SW Scotland is a good base, 3 or 4 trail centres within 40 minutes drive.
North Wales would be good, I found a place doing basic B&B for under £20pppn
Also got 5 mates going to Morzine next week for £280 each (travel & chalet rent)

btw if you do want to stay in the dumfries area, I can recommend this place – would only be £50 ish each for the week if there was 8 of you. It’s really nice and has a sauna and pool table.

http://www.greenhead-holidays.co.uk/

Sounds all very interesting, especially the overseas trips – keep me posted please (email addy in profile).

Pete

paul78, we dont have you e-mail address, mail me at thisisnotaspoon@yahoo.co.uk and i’ll add you to the mailing list.

^—– that goes for anyone else who digs this thread out in the future as well.

any movement on this chaps?

We just had a lads weekend camping in Coniston. We all chucked £60 into the pot and had :-

1 night BBQ ing
2 breakfasts
1 pub tea and a couple of pints
Fuel for 2 cars,
and one full barrel of real ale, plus bar pump (72 pints in total) (next to tent in picture)

Cracking weekend on a tight budget.

That’s what I’m talking about, looks excellent! Hope we can get this up and running 😀

psycle, e-mail recieved an oppinions of beer dully noted :p