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  #1  
Old 16 Sep 2009
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Short swiss tour
I am planning a short tour of switzerland for this october. well i guess the 2 main concerns are the weather- will it be warm enough? and is it possible to wild camp?

This shall just be a short 4 dayish tour on a honda cg125, so nothing major, looking to do no more than 300 miles a day, maybe even 250.

also is it worth getting the vinette? or can i avoid motorways? CG isnt built for them, plus I do not have a windscreen to stick the vinette on to.

any advice very welcome
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  #2  
Old 17 Sep 2009
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er... no & no.


does that help?

ok, I'll expound a little. Having spent a week end in the haut Jura last week end, involving a wee dip into switzerland I can tell you that it was only 13°c during the afternoon. Most of switzerland is at a fairly signifigant altitude & in fairly close proximity to some snowy heights down from which the wind can become pretty chilly. It may not be TOO cold, but it won't be warm & balmy.

As for wild camping, in the parts of switzerland i've frequented over the years, I wouldn't risk it. I've never seen it done & it doesn't strike ma as the sort of thing that the swiss authorities would be verytolerant of.

having said that, I know there are people on here that actually live there & who will be more in touch with swiss reality, be it seasonal weather or camping tolerances

have fun.

MooN
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  #3  
Old 17 Sep 2009
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Shouldn't be much of a problem if the CG is reliable. You're gonna spend a lot of time in the saddle and a fair bit of time in the dark if you're aiming to do 300 miles a day off the motorways in October. If you've got half decent clothing and good waterproofs you'll be warm enough at that time of year.

Should be cheap on fuel though. If the pound keeps going down against the euro we'll all be touring on CGs next year.
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  #4  
Old 18 Sep 2009
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switzerland
hi dmitrij,

if you start, lets say in Zurich and you do 300 miles for four days you are somewhere near Madrid, and that is not Switzerland anymore :-)

300 miles will take from one end of Switzerland across all of it and you are in the next country ...

... if you intend to come to Berne, send me an email

yuhmak (at) web (dot) de

... and I will provide you with Gluehwein, Fondue, a hot shower and a bed.

Camping just somewhere should not be a problem, but I am not Swiss so I dont really know.

enjoy

Mika
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  #5  
Old 18 Sep 2009
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300 miles a day is what i would want to do on average, coming from London and going back to London, so a lot of boring roads in Northern France. To be honest i've never gone motorbike touring, so I am not sure on good daily miles, but this summer i cycled from London to Egypt in 7 week resting 2 days a week on average, so if I averaged 200km a day cycling then surely 300 miles on the CG is ok?

I will take up your offer to stay for sure, Thanks
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  #6  
Old 19 Sep 2009
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Hi Dimitri,

Spent a week riding around the Alps in August and have done Switzerland several times before.
On the weather front, I'll defer to the local experts but would say is expect very changeable weather in the Alps during the Autumn.

We've never bothered with the Vinette or the motorways as Swiss roads are so good and frankly we're there for the great mountain roads and passes!

I wouldn't recommend wild camping, I'm pretty sure it's against the law and the Swiss police don't tend to look the other way! Almost every village seems to have a simple clean campsite.

Good luck doing 300 miles per day on the CG on the way down (you have my respect!), but assuming you'll be doing the mountain passes I'd have thought you'll really struggle to do 300 miles a day up on the passes. I can't recommend the San Bernadino, Splugen and Stelvio passes enough!

Have a great time!
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  #7  
Old 19 Sep 2009
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I was with mi motorcycle in Switzerland in October 2008 and visited Zurich and Lucerne.

The weather in Zurich was terrific (you may visit FIFA, they receive you with good free souvenirs. You must ask for it jajajajaja), but the weather in Lucerne change all the time, in the Alps were not snowing but raining a lot, to much traffic and very nice cold.

Maybe because I didn’t know about it, didn’t pay the vignette. I just paid an insurance for the green card (it was expensive).

Good luck.

Iván
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  #8  
Old 25 Sep 2009
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dmitrij,

some info for you may look at:

Wild camping allowed? - English Forum Switzerland

Regarding the weather, and especially if you intend to ride in the many high passes in Switzerland (with great scenery), you might check if they are open or not (some close pretty early in the year):
Inforoute TCS - Cols et tunnels
swissinfo - Informations routières en Suisse. L'état du traffic sur route et autoroute - Inforoute.- swissinfo
http://www.meteonews.ch/index.php?section=ch&page=leisure&spage=wetter_pas 〈=en

Get prepared for the cold at those altitudes.

As for the vignette, save your money, Switzerland is a small country and each place is quite easily reachable by taking secondary roads, your CG will thank you for that, and you will enjoy the scenery better.

As long as you do not enter Switzerland through the few border checkpoints in between french and swiss highways (like the Bardonnex checkpoint in Geneva : you come from french highway A40, and step in Switzerland directly on the swiss highway A1 ; there they'll be waiting for your cash), you are not obliged to buy the "vignette autoroutière"

note: green road signs in Switzerland indicate highways, blue ones indicate secondary roads, unlike in France, do not be mistaken
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  #9  
Old 27 Sep 2009
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Suisse in October
Hi Dmitrij,

Just did two weeks from Kent in England through France to Suisse and a couple of days in the Lake District of Italy before coming back through France along the middle of the country.

We took mostly D roads all the way down, and were in Suisse the second day. Was a pretty long day riding the D roads all the way, but they were very quiet and very scenic.

Thought I would just mention that we crossed the border at Bern and were simply waved through.

We rode three passes. Furka and couple of others, we had snow flurries on two of them, and that was about on September 14th or 15th. Out of Italy too it was cold in the pass we used, but it was not (quite) snow flurries, but it seemed close!

We could also see snow on the mountain tops on the passes around us. Whether it stuck or not I don't know.

Hope that is of some help.

Kind regards,

Ian
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  #10  
Old 27 Sep 2009
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Oops
Sorry, I think we crossed at Basel, not Bern. Too many B names
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