Heading south in france, must see roads / places?

[Specialone]

My upcoming trip to France to september is getting closer, what roads and or places would people consider must see / ride ?
Please feel free to give me all your suggestions, me and danf123 are going for 10 days and want to limit the mileage to around 2500 door to door.

After seeing dmc's pics of Annecy, that's immediately on the list lol.

[Luckypants]

Well I always say if you just want to get into the Alps, use the autoroute to head south. Get off at Dole, head towards Poligny and take the N5 to Nyon, it gets you on the twisty stuff early. (advice given to me a few years back and is very sound) Depending on where you stop for the first night, you can carry on to Annecy from Nyon easily. This is a view that greets you on the N5...

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/200229_4952083213_677353213_146723_5216_n.jpg

That is Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the far distance. Geneva is just off to the right.

Get yourselves up the Col de La Forclaz when you are in Annecy, on the D42 then drop back down to pick up the lake road and onto the D10 then D41 to do a loop around Lake Annecy in the hills. Good warmup for the big passes in my opinion.

[Specialone]

Cheers Mike, this (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=A20&daddr=50.82652,2.05678+to:Unknown+road&geocode=FTzdCwMd-nQTAA%3BFRiNBwMdTGIfACl7limwVUXcRzFk_11zwzl24g%3BF U2b9wIdEAsxAA&hl=en&mra=pr&via=1&sll=50.889174,2.27417&sspn=1.763763,5.795288&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=8) is where we're planning to stop the first night or somewhere around this area.
As Dan is riding down from his house up north on the 1st day, its a lot of miles for him if we aim any further.

[Luckypants]

Yeah fair play it's a long way. You could do Annecy from St. Quentin in one hit, but it is still a fair step. Of course you can spend a couple of days doing it along N and D roads which is more fun. But I highly recommend the N5 as a road to get towards Annecy.

[Specialone]

I agree mike, we wanna use back roads as much as possible, only using mways as a last resort or a way to make up time.

I want to keep the miles down to about 200 a day unless on fast routes.

[STRAMASHER]

(Thats the money shot there LP.:cool:)

Where are you thinking of going? Alps&Med?

Col de Galibier:

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g87/stramasher/MontBlanc.jpg?t=1242081310

Gorge du Verdon: (You'll take this very same pic ;) )

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g87/stramasher/gorgedeverdon4.jpg?t=1242081310

[timwilky]

I agree get into the hills

either south through the alps down to Monaco but I also like it to the east in the Belfort, Mullhouse, Basle area

[Fluffer]

Have set up the same trip for July 1st for a week so i'll be taking all the things above on board. If you happened to get a full route itinerary planned and on here before then specialone i could compare it to my own meticulously planned route. No of course i'm not trying to get you to do all the hard work for me :-p

[Specialone]

Why don't you delay until 1st September and come with us ?:)

[Fluffer]

All booked and sorted for this one now but if leave / money / the lady all fall in to place i may well take you up on your offer! I may hate France by that point though if things fall to bits on the first one :grin:

[dyzio]

This was fun :)
http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=154910

[thor]

I live in Geneva so if you have some particular questions then drop me a line.

I would recommend this

http://www.mapsman.com/store/product.php?id=301

[Fluffer]

we got our provisional route sorted last week off top of my head its something like

saturday
calais ->dole

sunday dole -> turin via geneva

incuding some of the roads mentioned here...

monday turin -> marseille via monaco etc

tues marseille -> toulouse via millau

weds toulouse -> la rochelle via bordeaux

thurs la rochelle -> paris via lemans

ferry home saturday so time to kill

getting ferry back on saturday so got some extra time and turns out straight after knocking this up one guy seems to think its too far (2000m in 7 days) which is probably fair point for first time away etc so prob wont stretch across to the west and adapt the route to spend more time around monaco and all the lovely sights (bikini clad ladies ofcourse - oh and mankini clad men if thats what floats your boat)

might come and say hello thor!!

[Luckypants]

turns out straight after knocking this up one guy seems to think its too far (2000m in 7 days) which is probably fair point for first time away etc My first thoughts were 'Christ thats some long days on the bike there...' Go with the flow and don't push the distances if you are tired, it WILL end in tears. The whole point is to go and have fun, so do!

Have a great trip.

[Fluffer]

Well, made it back in one piece and what an amazing holiday!

2500 miles door to door and had it all:

Crazy mountain roads (n5, n85 like the recommendations in here)
even crazier diversions (col de lombard - never would have discovered it and the most mental road ever! look it up and head for it! )

breakdowns

- we discovered that datatools do not like 36degree monaco heat and all 3 bikes cooked and wouldnt UNimmobilise.
- slight electrical fire at a service station on the sv :eek
- snapped exhaust on mates 10 plate er6f
- failing gasket thus oil leak on a pristine mt-01
- oil leak on the sv thinking breather pipes or clutchrod seal type thing


stopped by the rozzers for cutting over hatch markings on the periphique and had to sweet talk out of a fine

GPS wouldnt charge on the bike so it was all done on a 2 euro map from the service station

Bank card stopped working half way around meaning mates had to bail me out and get me the rest of the way round... thought i'd ran out of money and the way it was being spent on petrol i wouldn't have been surprised but alas it was the card

first proper night we got to dijon and the whole town was full due to some conference (took us 4 hours to find somewhere in a neighbouring town and ended up in a tiny village in a guesthouse surrounded by vinyards

So much fun, will try and post a few pics when i get them all together, one thing i know is we did too many motorways on the way back and now over a week later my wrists are still in agony from the gsxr front end!

AND SODS LAW - the greatest roads i have ever been on, up through the mountains with haiprpin after hairpin and its throws it down meaning i end up doing pretty much the whole thing on a single cylinder 325cc chugger :S booooooo

[STRAMASHER]

Sounds like a memorable trip!

Bet you're thinking of the next one already though?:)

[Fluffer]

Sounds like a memorable trip!

Bet you're thinking of the next one already though?:)


OH YES! Cant stop thinking of when and where the next adventure will be. Alas, with the 8 gazillion dollars i spent on this one and the new tyre needed and insurance due i may have to pass on specialones September trip and daytrip it to barmouth for a bit until the finances recover. That or sell a kidney in which case i'll see you all on the boat!!

[Sosha]

Dip into italy for lunch (via monaco)?

Best meal we had and 1/2 the price. Roads also pretty good... takes a couple of hours along the payage to get to Reims. Left after work so if going to be dark, might as well be motorway.

Edit: Those two sentences bear no relation to each other.