Stelvio Pass, Davos and "The Greatest Driving Road in the World" in the TT RS

[- Jeremy -]

First, watch this to familiarize yourself with the subject:



I spent a few days around Stelvio over Memorial Day Weekend. I'm a huge cycling fan, so I drove down on Friday to watch the Giro d'Italia race up the pass on Saturday. Then I drove all over the area on Saturday evening, Sunday and Monday morning.

Before heading down there, I bought and installed a V.I.O POV.HD camera system on the front of the car. I recorded 120GB of 1080p video during the three day visit. I don't get much personal time so I've only been able to edit a little bit here and there and upload them to YouTube. I'll try to review, edit and upload any more interesting footage that I have when I get time here and there. There are many other roads and passes that I haven't gotten to yet. Here's a photo of the car with the camera mounted on the front splitter:



In a nutshell, Stelvio pass is the 3rd highest pass in the Alps at 9,000 feet. The North side of the pass has 48 hairpin switchbacks and is not very fun to drive. There's no speed or real handling to be had. It's just hairy. The South side is much more fun as can be seen in the Stelvio to Bormio video. Still a lot of switchbacks but there are more sweepers and the road surface is much better. This is the side that the Giro d'Italia raced up on Saturday. The area is littered with mountain passes and they're all connected so you can string them together into a continuous driving nirvana. That was the point of the Top Gear episode in which this area was featured. Here's a map of the exact route taken in the film:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...35c6652e7e8aa7

I drove this route a few times during my stay as well as added many other passes in the area to the list. My friends showed up on Sunday in an Exige S and a Scirocco R. It was nothing short of incredible.

I took a few photos (they're at home right now) but I was more interested in the video footage and driving so I didn't stop much to take photos. The scenery is, of course, quite beautiful. I'll check my camera to see if any photos are worth posting. Otherwise, here's some video from the trip. Be sure to switch the video to HD:

By the way, the tunnel was driven slowly because I was afraid of traffic cameras hiding in the dark. The Swiss HATE speeders with a passion and the penalty is an impounded car and several thousand dollars.











- Jeremy -

[R5T]

I bought and installed a V.I.O POV.HD camera system on the front of the car.

- Jeremy -

Cool piece of equipement.

http://www.vio-pov.com

[Dan.S]

Props for the delectable wheel choice. As I have purchased the same to accompany my Phantom Black, I say well chosen sir.

[JRockFTW]

Excellent job capturing something I could only dream of doing right now. Awesome car on an awesome road. Well done!

[JRockFTW]

One-way street in Bormio?

[- Jeremy -]

One-way street in Bormio?

Heheh. Actually, it's a two-way street but it's very narrow and you're supposed to take turns. The only problem is that you can't tell who's coming on the other side. What makes it funnier is my friends in the Exige and Scirocco were behind me and we all had to back up down this tight little alley together. A bunch of old people came out of their houses to watch the idiots get out of the way of the truck

- Jeremy -

[YYC Dubber]

We hate you Jeremy!

Honestly I'd love to be able to drive in Europe the way the TTRS was meant to be driven, autobahn, the Nord, Nurburgring, Swiss Alps.....


To contrast, I will be adding 300 km to my Calgary to Vancouver 1300 km roadtrip by skirting south of the border thru Montana, Idaho and Washington State before heading back up near Seattle....

We're talking about having to avoid a beautiful, very empty, 6 lane divided British Columbia highway that is a great drive..... because if you go 35 km/h over the 90/100 km/hr speed limit, they will impound your car on the spot for a week, footing the bill for a ticket, towing and impound storage....