Swiss Alpine Tourers

A Club that isn't a Club

Swiss Alpine Tourers (or SAT Riders, as it’s also known) is effectively a GoldWing Club but it doesn’t like to think so.  It’s also more or less a One Event Club, although it doesn’t like to acknowledge that either, because some years there might be more than one. And if that’s not unusual enough, it’s an English-speaking Club which is based (loosely) in Switzerland!

It’s a group of biker friends, mostly Wingers, of various European nationalities but mostly Brits, so English is the primary language, but based loosely in Switzerland and concentrates its efforts on an annual Touring Event, to which all Wingers are welcome) usually in or near the Alps and usually in the first week of  September.

The Group’s origins explain their reluctance to call themselves a Club, just as they have a powerful aversion to any formal club structure or rules.  They see themselves as a group of free-spirited bikers who don’t need, and certainly don’t want, to be bound by anyone else’s ideas or rules.

Once upon a time the group (or many of them) were part of GWOCGB and operated as the British Alpine Region (BAR).  But there were frictions and disappointments with GWOCGB and its system or rules and centralised control, so in September 2008 they disbanded themselves as BAR and immediately reformed as a fiercely independent non-club called Swiss Alpine Tourers.

So no one is in charge of SAT, although there are of course core members who make the arrangements and run the Website.  And there is a Badge and those involve make “donations” each year to cover costs like their website – so unstructured though it may be and averse as they are to being called a club, it does operate a bit like a Club and many (but not all) those involved ride GoldWings.

In practical terms SAT Riders works like an informal club which concentrates its efforts on enjoying an annual touring (i.e. riding) holiday in or around the Alps.  It’s Alpine riding, the challenges and exhilarations of those wonderful mountains and the fabulous biking roads which is the glue which holds SAT Riders together as a Group.

The Annual Tour is hotel-based but there is also usually a camping alternative nearby for anyone who prefers it.  The Group choose a hotel in a good biking area which is not expensive but which has en suite rooms as a minimum and which also provides both breakfast and an evening meal, so that the Group can eat together before and after the day’s riding.  There will always be some guided rides during the week but everyone is free to enjoy the area as they wish, so it’s by no means a regimented week. And there will always be riders on hand who have lots of Alpine experience, to provide help and advice to newcomers.

SAT welcomes all Wingers to join its Tours, and it therefore provides an attractive way to start Alpine riding as a Winger because if you can organise yourself to book the Tour and get to the Hotel, they will make you welcome and look after you as a friend.

The 2010 Tour is taking bookings and, for a change, is based on a mountainous biking area in France called The Vercors, which is to the South West of the Alps, just West of Grenoble.   Still has lots of twisties and mountains, so there will be plenty of good biking roads.  If you would like further information click here.