European Alps "Working vacation"?

[rc26]

I was thinking about the possibility of a temporary job (in my current field) somewhere in close proximity to the Alps for a few months. Spend weekends riding through out the mountains. Possible? How the hell would you really do it?

[SpecialK]

Suonds reasonable. I guess the first thing you should do is pick up an inexperienced but enthusiastic apprentice to help keep all those franco/swiss/italian girls occupied so that you can get some work done. If you need help finding someone let me know.

[xtian]

If you can choose, I would avoid to stay in swiss unless you are a millionaire trying to hide a lost nazi treasure. I won't write my opinion on swiss on a public forum, but it's not my favorite spot.
For the riding, it's about the best place this side of the garden, the most scenic places I can remember are south tyroll in the east, where Italy, Austia and Swiss meet, or anything around the route des grand alpes on the west. http://grande-traversee-alpes.com/en/ro ... ndes-alpes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
From lac Leman to the french riviera, where if you are not a millionaire, you can find an old rich lady who will enjoy your company

Just remember that there's no offroad riding and that a lot of these roads are closed by snow from october to may. Lots of cheap hotels and great food. Just ask if I too can do anything.

[DerGolgo]

Keep in mind that not all places in the alps are bike-friendly.
In Bavaria, the cops apparently make a sport out of confiscating bikes that may be illegally modified - took some court decisions to stop them doing it for slip-on mufflers, but they still like to make up their ticket quota on bikes.
In Switzerland, laws regarding motorcycle modification are a nightmare. Or so German bike rags tell me when comparing it to our own, easy going, laize-faire system. If it isn't stock, the cops will stop you and have a close look at it. And these are Swiss cops - they can actually tell whether it's stock or not, or so the stories go.
They are also a bit anal about noise and speed limits apparently, and they all got guns.
I don't know about Austria, but the Italians are supposedly cool about things that go fast.

I've never been down there myself, motorcycle or otherwise, so I only picked this up second hand, but those are things I'd keep in mind.

[xtian]

^^ what he says ^^
in swiss you'll be shot dead instantly if you try to make a line change without first filling the form and send it to the appropriate administration of line changes, or ride 1kph above the speed limit.
Also, they won't accept credit cards so that you have to pay with euro's at their own personal exchange rate, and they gave you tons of swiss coins that you can't change anywhere else.
In italy, they will rape you and burn the corpse if you ride UNDER the speed limit.
In france you can do what you want as long as the cops don't see you, but they have speed camera's and laser google hidden in bushes so they will see you eventually and they hate speed, and they hunt anything that is not factory approved on bikes too.

other than that, everything is cool

[rc26]

The obvious answer seems to be, save a ton of cash for a bike rental, and all other expenses for a good 2 months.

[xtian]

Or go to Livigno where everything is cheaper