Nufenen · Gotthard Tremola · Furka Highline

3 passes in 202 km, topping out at 2478 m

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Why this ride

High altitude, cobbles, hairpins and no room for lazy planning. Out of Andermatt and back again: 202 km, roughly 3 h 52 in the saddle. The climbs: Gotthard Tremola cobbles, Nufenenpass and Furka west. It tops out at 2,478 m. Gotthard Pass and Furka Pass are subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It is a high-mountain day.

Roadbook

1. Andermatt base check start · 1444 m

   Andermatt sits in a high, flat valley called the Urseren, at 1,444 metres, where four of the great Swiss passes meet. The Gotthard heads south to Ticino, the Oberalp runs east toward Graubünden, the Furka climbs west to the Valais, and the road north follows the Reuss down through a gorge to Lake Lucerne. People have crossed here for at least eight hundred years, ever since the Devil's Bridge was thrown across the gorge to make the Gotthard route practical, and the village has served travellers and soldiers ever since.

   In 1799, the Russian general Suvorov fought his way through the gorge here with an army, losing many men, an episode remembered in a monument carved into the rock. The Swiss army has a long presence in the valley, and the barracks and fortifications are part of the scene. More recently, Andermatt has been remade with new hotels and apartments and a golf course, which sits oddly with the plain old village centre. It is still a quiet place, with a population of just over a thousand, and a good base.

   For motorcyclists, this is an obvious starting point. In a single day you can do Furka at 2,429 metres, Grimsel at 2,164, Susten at 2,224 and Nufenen at 2,478, if the weather and the traffic allow, and all four are open only from about June until October, depending on snow. Starting early is important, because by ten the roads are busy and by noon the tour buses arrive. The old Tremola road, paved with cobbles, drops down the south side of the Gotthard and is a different experience, slower and bumpier.

   There is fuel in the village, along with bakeries and restaurants, though prices are higher than in the lowlands. Weather changes fast at this altitude, so a warm layer and a rain jacket belong in the luggage even in July.

2. Gotthard Tremola cobbles pass · 2106 m

   The Tremola is the old road over the Gotthard, and riding it is a bit like walking into a museum that is still in use. It climbs from Airolo on the Ticino side up to the pass at 2,106 metres in a staircase of tight hairpins, all of them paved with granite cobbles, laid by hand in the nineteenth century and restored in recent decades. The tarmac road runs alongside for those who prefer it, but the cobbles are the point.

   Riding the cobbles takes patience. Stay relaxed, keep your weight low and let the bike find its own line; the stones are smooth from centuries of wheels and rain, and in the wet they turn slick and treacherous. Brake gently before the bends, not in them. The corners are hairpins, tight and steep, with the uphill side usually giving the better line, and the surface vibrates through the bars in a way that is hard to forget. Cyclists labour up the same road, and in summer the traffic includes coaches and slow cars, so overtaking takes thought.

   Around you the landscape changes quickly. The lower slopes of Ticino carry chestnut trees and stone houses, then the road crosses into alpine meadows and finally into bare rock and low scrub near the top. The air cools, and on a clear day the views look south across the Leventina valley, the road you have climbed snaking below you like a ribbon dropped on a rug.

   At the summit you will find the old hospice, a stone building that has offered shelter to travellers for hundreds of years, and a small museum about the pass. The lakes are cold and grey, and on a cloudy day the whole place has a severe beauty. Fuel is not available at the top; fill in Airolo, which lies some twelve kilometres below, or in Andermatt on the northern side. The Tremola is closed in winter, usually from late October until late spring, so check before you plan a trip around it.

3. Airolo fuel and water fuel · 1175 m

   Airolo is a small town with a big job. It sits at 1,175 metres at the southern end of the Gotthard, where the Leventina valley begins, and for centuries anyone coming south from the pass has funnelled through it. Today much of that traffic disappears underground: the railway tunnel, opened in 1882, and the road tunnel, opened in 1980, both come out near here, and the village is the place where the north-south corridor changes from German to Italian speech, from larch to chestnut.

   For a rider it is an honest, practical stop. There is fuel, as you would expect in a place that sees so many vehicles, and there are fountains where you can fill a bottle with cold mountain water. The cafes and bakeries serve good espresso and the kind of simple Ticinese food that comes without fuss: polenta, cured meats, cheese from the high pastures. The language is Italian, the pace is a little slower, and the afternoon light has a warmer tone than north of the pass.

   Airolo's surroundings are rich in history. The Gotthard was a fortress area in the twentieth century, and mountains around the town hide old military installations, some of which are now open as museums. Avalanches are a fact of life on these slopes, which is why the mountainsides above the village are dotted with protective barriers. The village was also a staging post for the stagecoaches that carried mail and passengers over the old pass before the railway made them redundant.

   The riding starts right at the village: the Tremola climbs steeply to the north, while the main road swings through the Val Bedretto toward the Nufenen. Both are stunning, and it is worth thinking through what you want before you leave town. In the other direction, the road drops down the Leventina in a long, easy descent past gorges and waterfalls. Summer mornings are cool and clear, and afternoons can bring thunderstorms that roll quickly across the high ground, so keep an eye on the sky when you are filling up.

4. Nufenenpass high point pass · 2478 m

   The Nufenen is the highest pass entirely within Switzerland, at 2,478 metres, and it earns the superlative with a bleak, windswept summit that feels more like the moon than the Alps. There is no pretty village at the top, no hotel, only a small car park, a few marker stones and a wide view of bare rock and snow patches. The pass links the Goms in the Valais with the Val Bedretto in Ticino, joining Ulrichen and Airolo, and it was built only in the 1960s, which makes it one of the youngest major roads in the Alps.

   That youth shows in the engineering. The surface is smooth, the curves are open and well banked, and the road climbs in big, confident loops rather than the knotted hairpins of the older passes. On the Valais side, the road leaves Ulrichen and rises through meadows and scattered larches, with the long green trough of the Goms below. On the Ticino side, a descent of generous bends carries you into the Val Bedretto, steep-sided and quiet, where the Ticino river begins its run to Lake Maggiore.

   The wind is the thing to remember. At the top it can blow hard from any direction, and temperatures are low even on a sunny day, so you will want a warm layer and gloves for the stop. The air is thin enough to feel in your lungs on the walk to the viewpoint. Snow lingers late and arrives early, and the pass is usually open only from June to October; in a bad year it can be shut well into the summer.

   Plan from Airolo on the south side, or from the Brig area on the north. If you enjoy a wild landscape, though, the top is hard to beat: the Nufenen is the watershed between the Rhône and the Ticino, and a little stream nearby will end up in the Mediterranean. Stop for a minute and listen to how quiet it is.

5. Furka west ramp pass · 2429 m

   The western approach to the Furka starts in the Goms and ends on the shoulder of one of the most famous glaciers in the Alps. At 2,429 metres the pass joins the Valais and Uri, and on this side the road climbs from the hamlet of Gletsch, where the Rhône begins its journey, through a staircase of hairpins that give increasingly grand views of the ice behind.

   The Rhône glacier used to fill the valley floor here, and a hundred and fifty years ago it came down almost to the old hotels at Gletsch. It has been shrinking steadily since, and the stone-built Belvédère hotel on the road once looked straight at the ice front, which has since pulled back a long way. White blankets are laid on parts of the glacier each summer to slow the melt, and a tunnel carved into the ice, open in season, lets you walk inside. The source of one of Europe's great rivers is a grey, milky stream pouring from the foot of the glacier, and it is humbling to stand over it.

   The riding is a pleasure. The ramp has tight corners at first, then settles into longer curves with good views and a reasonably smooth surface. There are no guardrails in places, so concentration matters, especially in traffic, since the road is popular with coaches and cyclists as well as bikes. Wind and cold are the usual company at the top. Fuel is not available on the pass, so fill in Oberwald or in the Brig area before you start, and in Andermatt if you are heading east.

   The Furka also has film history: a car chase in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger was shot on its hairpins, and the Belvédère hotel stands in the background. Whether or not you care about Bond, the road is worth the effort, and the pass is open roughly from June to October, depending on the snow.

6. Realp descent check stop · 1538 m

   Realp is the last village on the Urseren valley road before the Furka, a hamlet at about fifteen hundred metres that most people ride through without stopping. That would be a mistake, because the railway station here is the starting point of the Furka cogwheel steam railway, a heritage line run by volunteers, which was rebuilt from abandoned track after the original was closed in 1981. Steam locomotives climb to Oberwald by way of the old mountain route in summer, and even if you do not ride the train, the sight and smell of the engines in the station yard make a decent coffee stop.

   The valley itself is wide, flat and treeless, with the Reuss river wandering through meadows between Andermatt and Realp, and long winters that bring serious snow. Andermatt, a couple of villages down the valley with about thirteen hundred inhabitants and the nearest place with fuel, has long been a garrison and holiday town, and has seen big new hotel developments. Airolo, on the south side of the Gotthard, is the next town with services in the other direction. If your tank is low, fill it before you commit to the high roads, because the passes have no stations.

   Ahead, the Furka Pass road climbs in a series of hairpins to 2,429 metres, with the Rhone glacier waiting on the far side, and the whole run to Gletsch and onwards to Grimsel or the Nufenen is among the great motorcycle roads of the Alps. This pairing with the Nufenen, the highest fully paved pass in Switzerland at 2,478 metres, has made the area a favourite. Surfaces are generally good, but the road can be rough at the edges and has tight corners with drops on the outside.

   Snow closes the passes from about late October until May or June, depending on the year, and the opening dates are announced locally, so check them before you go. In summer, mornings are cold at this height and can be frosty even in August, and afternoon storms build quickly. Early starts give you empty roads, which is what makes a dawn run here so memorable.

7. Back to Andermatt base check finish · 1444 m

   back to Andermatt base check closes the day.

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