3200 miles and no problems.

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EDIT: Pictures to be added once I get this computers bluetooth working!!! Gurr..

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It's a bit of a ramble I know but thought I'd document my first travel abroad for anyone that might be thinking of doing the same. It's worthwhile having a read and then learn from my mistakes.

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Day 1 - London - Dover - Dunkirk - Tours

Well, I went to the continent last Monday for a 2 week holiday. The plan was that I wouldn't have a plan. Talking to bikers on the ferry over, they found amusement in the fact that I didn't have a clue where I was going. I knew I wanted to get as far as Bratislava, if only just to say I've been that far. But how I got there, I didn't know.

Once I hit the shore of France, it dawned upon me that my French was very rusty and that I was all on my own. Being of the shy, non outgoing nature, I won't lie - I was pretty nervous about the whole thing! So I chickened out of heading into Germany first and plotted a route to Bordeaux instead.

I was 80 miles into my tank of petrol so thought I best look for a petrol station along the route. One 'Total' site wouldn't accept my maestro for some reason (prepay only) so I had to pass that one. The next was shut. The next one was non existant (silly gps not being up to date). I got to about 168miles before the petrol light started flashing and I turned my priority on the gps to finding a local petrol station. Bonus, I find an atm in the first town but alas, it doesn't allow me to take out money! And the local petrol station doesn't take my card. 15 miles to the next town and my fuel light is solid. I get to the petrol station as indicated on my gps only to find it had been knocked down and replaced with a block of flats. Blast!!!! I thought that was it...I figured I'd have to rely on my breakdown cover and have half a day of travelling wasted. The last gasp effort was to go to the other location indicated in the town as having a petrol station. At that point, the fuel light had been on solid for about 8 miles and I was really pretty worried. But I got lucky and this place did accept maestro and she finally got the much needed drink of fuel!

Apart from that brief bit of excitement, the journey was largely uneventful. I avoided all the toll roads thanks to a tomtom gps unit I had borrowed. Countryside is pretty flat in the north but it was warm, it was dry and I was outside the uk - I was happy!

Set-up camp in a municipal camp site with only 1 neighbour in the entire site- Great I thought. And only 3 euros!!! Great I thought, until it turned 2am and my neighbour took great delight in belting out some hits by Meatloaf and Elton Jon. And I mean belting...we were in a shallow valley and I'm sure all of the surrounding villages had been woken up. I was actually beginning to quite enjoy the music before he was asked to stop after half an hour. Quite why some people have to be so inconsiderate I don't know - still....it was an experience!!

Whats more, when I left, no-one was there to pay the 3 euros so it was free...bonus!

Day 2

Tours - San Sebastian - Urrugne

Pretty much the same as day 1 really. No fuel dramas this time thankfully, my mastercard had finally been activated and I had access to my £450 so was relieved at that. I didn't realise san sebastian was in spain until I got there. At the thought of being in a country where I didn't speak one word, not one, of their language, I chickened out and headed back to a campsite in Urrugne, just at the french/Spanish border.

10 euros a night for camping but at least this place had a shower. Boy was I relieved to get one of them.

Day 3 - The Best

Urugnes - Ax-Le-Thermes via Pyrenees

Well since I was down here, I planned to see what the fuss was all about with the pyrenees. I phoned back home to get someone to google "good biking routes" in the area and got the suggestion of the E80. Great, I thought. Fantastic weather so off I went along the E80 towards perpignan. About 130 miles in, on this "E80", I realised that the mountains were off to my right and that my mothers working of knowledge of google was obviously not up to my standards. ANnoyed at the thought I may have missed them out, I clicked on "calculate alternative route" in a petrol station. I don't know how far along I was on my route to Perpignan but this route added on about 100miles. Fair game I thought, it's why I was here!!!

This route went along a main trunk road through the pyrenees it seems - popular with the bikers and it was a main shipping road too. Dual carriageway for most of it but had some great single hairpins in it too. This was after a town called Ax-Le-Thermes. Bumped into my first english speaking bikers there too and I was relieved to have had a conversation with someone other than myself in 48+ hours!

The route eventually took me through to Spain via a very friggin expensive tunnel charged at 10.8 euros. Not content with the thought of going all the way to busy Barcelona, I stopped on the roadside 10miles in and reversed the route, this time avoiding toll roads. This was the most fantastic part of the journey and I don't think I would have found these roads without the gps. This route added on some 120+ miles to my original journey back but I didn't care. I had spotted a campsite near Ax-Le-Thermes earlier and since I really liked the area, decided to go back.

The route I took back, I know, for the folk who have been there, encompassed the GI-402 & b-402 with the more well known N-152 as well. These are all marked down on the gps so when I get back to London, I'll update it with the exact roads. At one point it was 1888m up and I was 100% sure I was lost. It was cold, there was mist everywhere and I could hardly see a thing. By the state of the roads that I was on, I had the thought of dieing from hypothermia at the back of my mind. I hadn't seen another car for at least 50+ miles! But 5 miles later, I'm going back down the otherside and the sun breaks through and everything is fine and dandy - what a superb experience. I regret not taking a proper digital camera with me as the landscapes in this area are outstanding. Okay, I had plenty of it living in Scotland most of my life but this was easily as impressive if not more so.

Day 4

Ax-Le-Thermes - Nice.

Having spent a lot of my childhood holidays in the Nice & Cannes area, I decided to go there this day. The sun was again, shining and for 50% of the time, was riding in my t-shirt - eek! The road leading along to Cannes was absolutely fantastic - better surface than those found in the pyrenees and also pretty quiet with relatively low traffic levels. Biking heaven, I had found it. I got down to Cannes pretty late on in the evening and stopped off in town to buy some petrol and beer for the campsite. As luck would(n't) have it, the gps couldn't locate a campsite anywhere near us at all except in northern italy!!!! I rode along to Nice, more or less for old times sake, along the coast - marvelling at the beautiful women, cars and sea.

By the time I got to Nice, it was pitch dark and was about 9.45pm so chances of finding a campsite open were slim. Still, I went ahead with it and went along to Italy to find it. I didn't fancy sitting around, waiting for the sun to come up. And I KNOW I couldn't afford the hotel prices!!!

Had some great fun on the road from Nice - Moncao - Italy. These roads are quite high up but along the sea front - It's classed as a 30mph limit but once a local hornet rider passed me, I knew it was on and we had a ball, proper knee down, peg scraping stuff if you want it to be. The view from these roads is spectacular also. At night, you can just look down afar on the lights of Monaco, looking at all the pretty boats, the busy nightlife, how you wished you had a life out there...

Eventually I found my english speaking campsite at about 10pm and 70 euros later, had a cabin for the night. Okay, it wasn't cheap but I wanted a warm shower and a bed. At this point, I would like to point out I didn't take a sleeping bag with me and no sleeping mat - so although the nights weren't particularly cold, they weren't the comfiest.

Day 5

Little town in Italy - Nice

Last night I had checked the balance of my pre-pay mastercard and found it had gone from a healthy £450 to a very unhealthy £160. Something I had not expected. It was either the very unhealthy state of the GBP to the euro of I had been overcharged somewhere - I am still looking into this. I couldn't last another week on such little cash so decided to spend the day doing relatively little. Rode down through Monaco again, in t-shirt, to Nice where I finally managed to find a campsite 7 miles further out. After a visit to CarreFour and 3 euros down, I had some swimming shorts and was sunbathing on the shingly beach. Superb. Only recently had I taken joy from sunbathing after spending 20 years growing up and questioning why on earth adults like to do such boring stuff. After doing 400+ miles a day for 4 days, this was what I needed. It was above 30degrees that day and the very light blue sea was gorgeously warm. Enough to cool down from the sun but not enough for you to have to sim around for ages to keep warm. I spent about an hour in the water, just bobbing up and down. At this point, it was the first swim I had in about 7 years and it felt so damn good. I was a real water baby growing up and spent a lot of time doing triathlon training (mostly in the pool). Weird how no-one else was swimming though, I thought there must have been something wrong with the water!!!

T'was just what I needed anyway. And the sea water always makes my blonde hair ultra peroxidey.

Went back to campsite after a cheap bite to eat in town, tried to sleep, couple next door to me had a bit of a domestic and were fighting until about 5am, sometimes physically!! Resulted in her being rather upset and him coming across as a total nob'ed. Quite why people do such stuff with others around them, I just don't understand. Where did all the considerate folk go?

Day 6

Nice - Dunkirk - Dover - London

After a brief conversation with me mum, I decided it best to cut my losses and head back on the available funds that I had before I got into trouble. I got her to book me a ferry on the following day at mid-day. So after a small dip in the sea again that morning, I headed off back to Dunkirk. 783 miles that day, all avoiding peages (well, most of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

It was dry all the way to Dunkirk where it proceeded to absolutely **** it down for hours on end. I got there at 3am and sat in a petrol station for a bit after spending the better part of 45mins trying to figure out where the hell the fery port was. After lots of people asking me at the station where the ferry port was, I soon cottoned onto the fact there was a 6am crossing that morning. I was booked on the 2pm one but thought screw it, I'll give it a go. The poor girl at the check in kiosk didn't really have the option of turning me away as it was a one way system with lots of traffic behind me! Ha! What, really???? I'm sure I booked my ticket on the 6am one!!!?! What am I going to do for the next 8 hours??!?! Are you absolutely positive? You can change it for me? Would you? My goodness, you're a lifesaver...etc. Thank f*ck that worked, it was 5.15am and I didn't fancy waiting around in Dunkirk. It has to be the most depressing town in existance.

I got back to London about 9am ish where upon speaking to my mum and realising I had 1 week left of my holiday, I decided to go back to hers for a week instead of sitting in, complaining that I had no money. So left at 10am and got to edinburgh for 5pm. That was a total of 738(nice-dunkirk) + 85(dover-london) + 436(london-edinburgh with 2 wrong turnings) = a lot of miles without any sleep. Not a particularly clever thing to do and I wouldn't have managed through the last leg without any red Bull. I was seriously tired. Still, I'm not stiff at the moment and the bike performed amazingly!!! Not one hiccup. The roads in the pyrenees confirmed quite why I love the sv and why I am now on my forth one. The presence of hornets in france did make me want one again when but when you can have this much fun on such a cheap, efficient, noisy & reliable machine - why would I want anything else?

Tyres - Rating

The Continental ContiMotion tyres that I had put on before I left were absolutely faultless. Superb in the twisties yet really well performing in the wet in Dunkirk and London. I am a sensible rider, I don't take particular notice in tyres and different levels of grip but can confirm they do work very well. I rode harder in the rain than I usually do and nothing - no slips, no unsteadyness. I thoroughlly recommend them. I've had the conti road attacks before too and these are just as good if not better I say (for performance in the wet).

So, lessons learn that I can pass on to others?

Toll roads - They don't accept mastercards or maestro. Or visas it seems. Bring cash. Plenty of. They aren't cheap. Go to 'manned' stations, not automatic ones - this way you get charged at the bikes rate, not the standard car rate. This can be the difference between paying 15 euros and paying 9 euros. Seriously.

GPS - Learn how to use it properly before you go. Just do it!

Languages - Take a phrase book. Although I got by okay as I had 'higher french' at school, it would still have been useful.

Safety cameras - They are small. We have it good here in the Uk. The 'gatso' type devices they have in France stand about 60cm tall if that, are grey and only have minimal flourescent strips on them. Thankfully, every one I came across had a sign indicating before hand that they were there. Very nice I thought, not like the scamming buggers back home. But seriously, they're small, they're grey and they blend in well. And....they can take your picture a fair bit further away than our ones do. There are no road markings. I think one took my picture where I was about 70m away from it! (thankfully it was taking a picture of my front)

Safety vans - Low and behold, they do have them. I seen 2, both late at night, in northern france when I was heading back to Dunkirk. There is little to no flourescent markings on their police vans so their dark blue appearance make them blend in well with other traffic. I only seen 2, none in the south of france, but I wasn't really expecting them. Don't speed in towns.

Go off the beaten track - Just because the gps suggested it, it doesn't mean it'll be the most interesting route! Funnily enough, without the gps I wouldn't have found the roads that I did but still....if you see a nice looking road, take it - just make sure you have plenty of fuel!!

Campsites - Take some ear pugs with you...& a sleeping mat. Despite the fact I love camping, I hadn't done much of it before now. And the french's idea of a campsite is usually rubble based!!! Gurr....

Sun Cream - Buy some if you want to ride in a t-shirt. Owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowoowwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

So, still apprehensive about going on your own? Just book yourself some ferry tickets in the distance and do it - The biggest step for me was just getting on the boat by myself (I did have a mate but he dropped out 2 weeks before the event, much to my dismay)

Bit of a boring read I know, with minimal pictures but if one person takes away something from it then it won't have been written in vain.

Cheers

Greg

A nice adventure there and atmospheric pics of the Pyrenees, I need to go see them one day.

A mammoth marathon back and a huge total for one week of biking

Originally Posted by instigator

Few things look cooler than having clouds BELOW you.