Baph's Euro-Tripe

[Messie]

Oh this sounds sooooo tempting. I havn't planned holiday rides for this year yet and this sounds great.

And I'll need the chill out after it all goes wonderfully well or horribly wrong at AR09!!

Please, please Mr Baph, go for it!!

Cool Baph, looking good.

June is probably the best time, warm enough and sunny enough yet the tourists won't be around as much as July/August.

Pre-book your stuff I reckon, when I did mine we thought of ad-hoc but we had someone back here organising the hotels the night before. That was the best idea because the alps take a while to munch through it would be pretty late when we rolled into town and it made it nice to have a destination and fall into bed, oh and don't go for hostels or the like, B&B all the way

Phone should work fine, costs are higher but I would recommend getting a pre-paid Europe/French Sim, save alot on calls/texts and takes the hassle out.

I used tankbag and Tailpack and that worked fine for everything with room over.

Erm learn a little French if you don't know it already just to be polite if anything saying thankyou etc.

Would like to do another French trip this year, will see how it goes! Good luck anyway and take lots of pics.

[Stu]

Sorry but I couldn't read past 400 miles a day. Sounds like madness to me

Hi Baph you seem to be packing in major mileage each day even when large chunks of your journey seem to be based upon Motorway travel.

Have you costed the Toll charges for your journey?

I tend to think that my routings are some times ambitious at times but this exceeds what I would consider enjoyable by some margin.

For me its about the journey not just some destinations. Some of your days when plugged into Google way points come out to well over 400 miles a day. This will force you down motor way or multiple carriage trunk roads to get the mileage in.

Motorways (in my experience) are just not fun. France has so much to offer in terms of variety of country side, villages, mountains, valleys, challenging near deserted roads and nearly all of these such roads are D roads few are N roads and none of the Peages and or A roads meet such criteria IMO.

I have made this mistake driving a route that demanded 450 to 500 km/day and I ended up driving to the clock and not taking time to enjoy the journey. It pressures you to meet dead lines and then dumb stuff starts to happen.

You also face a dilemna re advance booking. With such an ambitious schedule you dont always get time to both make your destination and then hunt down a bed. So the tendency is to book ahead. Forcing you to meet dead lines

A more relaxed schedule buys you this time to hunt down a bed, or it gives you time to dally somewhat and still make the reservation unstressed.

Plan in some semi loops into your route. These are bits you can cut out if you start to fall behind. e.g you have a loop in to see the Mileu bridge. if you fall behind that day this is the bit you'll most likely miss or else not make your planned destination.

But then on that same day you may have factored the bridge as a major objective?

Some times you can take an ambitious day and route by but not on a hiway. Again if you fall behind you can take to a hiway to catch up. But if you plan ambitiously whilst depending upon motorways then there is no back up plan.


Here is an example

I did this day route

http://tinyurl.com/7pl5ge

4 years ago its a beautiful journey along the Tarn to the Ardeche. Its only 350km long but the roads are challenging. Yet we left Cordes at 6.00 am and arrived at Aigeuze at 7.00pm. We had stopped 4 times enroute once was for a quick lunch. I reckon we were at least 10 hours in the saddle.

My fellow rider collapsed at the end of this journey. Refusing to even unpack. The day had been spoilt for him at that moment and it was only after several beers and Pizzas that we began to realise how much we had seen and done in one day.

It was a long day there was no back up plan. We could have taken it a bit easier and enjoyed it more. Fortunately the next day was a rest day and we took it very easy.

Yet your days are just as long yet without the rewards en route and without the rest bite.

OK I have had a bad case of verbal diarrhoea above but I really think your mileage is very ambitious and the resultant routes less than fun even though you are passing within a few miles of some amazing routes if you allow more time (days) or plan a less ambitious total journey.

Of course its doable and we may just put that sort of mileage in on the odd Sunday ride out but not day after day for 7 days non stop.

Hope this helps..........

Originally Posted by Tilt

Lots of sense

Well done that man!

I agree. 400 miles a day is over ambitious. I plan to do a similar trip doing 200 a day, and a rest day in ever 4.

Would be good to draw up a list of places and roads worth visiting though

On my two big euro trips I managed the following:

Trip 1, 3500 kms in 6 days, 1/2 day out on the motorway and 2/3s of a day on the way back on a motorway, the rest on normal roads and passes, very intense but great at the same time, but I was flexible, my plans got altered every evening to reflect progress, plus I had the advantage of starting on mainland europe.

Trip 2 was 4000 miles in two weeks starting in the UK, 1 day out on motorways to the Ring, 2 days at the Ring and the rest heading round the alps and Slovenia on passes, back roads and normal roads 1 day and a half back on motorways, so it can be done, even when hitting a lot of passes.

However if there was more than one person I don't think it is quite so easy to match people's riding rhythm (oo err missses), so you're likely to cut down on that. It also depends what you enjoy, do you want the intensity of 10 hrs in the saddle concentrating on countless hairpins, or do you want to stop for the odd coffee?

Whatever you do as long as you're flexible you can adjust to suit yourself. I'd set one point as an objective somewhere (about half way) and one of the important bits of the trip to you. On one of my trips it was Monte Carlo and Lake Como, with an interesting route there and back.

Again this is all advice, everyone's an individual and there is no right or wrong to go about this

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by Tilt

. I reckon we were at least 10 hours in the saddle.

My fellow rider collapsed at the end of this journey. Refusing to even unpack. The day had been spoilt for him at that moment and it was only after several beers and Pizzas that we began to realise how much we had seen and done in one day.

...

AHHH yes the 10 hrs in a saddle.
Funny I almost thought you were describing me after that length if time on the bike....but then realised you'd missed out the constant driving rain
Tilt your post is one of much sense, have done that amount of mileage on the peages over there in a day and you really do feel absolutely crucified, wasn't so bad on the way down, but on the way back after you've been riding around villages taking in some gorgeous roads, it just paggers you.

I will never again listen to someone who says
''ahh yes I've done it to Bordeaux in 'X amount of hours' ''
I thought that the peages were like motorways, they are...until you realise that junction numbers over there aren't as close together like they are over here, they can miles and miles apart in a lot of places, in fact it gets so lonely in places that you almost start believing you've missed it!

Still, end of the day a trip over there is absolutely well worth it...no matter how far it is

Ah mileage, yer less mileage is best on the nice roads. Did from here to Nice in one day before and then worked our way back up along the twisties. It was just over 900 miles in the saddle and 15hours odd bed was very welcome, we did get lost a few times too!

Wouldn't do it again but it was an experience i'll never forget, for good reasons I should add

Time to look at some alpine roads I think...

[DarrenSV650S]

Originally Posted by falc

Ah mileage, yer less mileage is best on the nice roads. Did from here to Nice in one day before and then worked our way back up along the twisties. It was just over 900 miles in the saddle and 15hours odd bed was very welcome, we did get lost a few times too!

Wouldn't do it again but it was an experience i'll never forget, for good reasons I should add

Time to look at some alpine roads I think...

That's nuts. Impressive. But nuts

[Stu]

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

That's nuts. Impressive. But nuts

Actually I can understand that approach much better than planning to do 400 miles every single day of your trip.

60mph, what kept you?