Hi all, well I'm back from my trip. 2700 miles in 7 days, mix of motorway blasting and then touring around.
Stage 1: Newhaven to Dieppe ferry (night ferry landing at 05:00) then down to Clermont Ferrand for a stop over.
Stage 2: Tour round the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne next morning (lots of snow on the tops but roads all clear) then blast down through Millau (too windy to go over the bridge unfortunately but I've done that before anyway) and on down the Med. Stayed the night in Perpignan)
Stage 3: Perpignan to Sastago (near Zaragoza), weather was bloody awful coming into Spain (the only real rain I had all trip) but cleared up to lovely sunshine by the time I got to Sastago. Amazing sandstone landscape with hundreds of abandoned farmhouses and villages, quite eerie.
Stage 4: Sastago to Betelu (northwest of Pamplona), with a quick visit to the Bardenas Reales (amazing desert landscape, but only had road tyres so didn't venture too far in as rain was threatening and would have turned the place into a clay/mud nightmare), with a quick hop over to France and back through the Pyrenees over the Col du Somport (amazed to find this col open so early in the year)
Stage 5: stayed 2 nights in Betelu to give me chance to explore the Basque region a little bit, amazing mountain roads! The coast road up around Bilboa was beautiful but I didn't go there for the seaside so took a few pics and then heading back up into the mountains. The back roads between Zarautz and Estella are incredible, and zero traffic this time of year. Amazing!
Stage 6: Back into France and a Peage blast up to Le Mans (nothing to report, just the usual excellent (and spitefully expensive) French motorways.
Stage 7: Le Mans to Dieppe and across to Blighty. Only to find that the M4 is shut for a bridge to be demolished with all the usual traffic bullshit that you might expect so I spent the night in a Travelodge in Billinghurst and ran back up to Wales the next morning. Left at 05:00 and was home just after 09:00 (so a good shout there).
All in all, the old GS (2008 1200 Hexhead) did amazingly well, super comfortable, no issues, no oil used, and averaged about 47 mpg all in. I went with the advice above and just stayed at cheap hotels along the way (just crappy motels along the Peage in France and then a couple of nice little tavernas in Spain). I did take camping gear but didn't actually use it. Was super easy to use Google Maps to find cheap hotels each day (though if I went back in Summer I would definitely go with the camping but as was mentioned, it was bit early in the year for this in March).
First big trip on a GS, after 40 years of Japanese bikes. I was impressed by the incredible comfort (actually less neck strain than on my ST1100, I think the wider bars suited me better), and the engine has grown on me, though not a patch on a big V4 Honda to be fair. I did take it off road in a few places and loved how easy it is to manage. I did drop it in the clay mud at one point and had no trouble picking it back up with no harm done (weighs the same as my old 650 Transalp so nowhere near as heavy as people seem to think, though it is a bit of a lump). Less impressed with the side stand (way too short, especially with the ESA suspension on its higher settings). Lights are abysmal, total crap, how the TUV allowed BMW to fit this rubbish is beyond me. The rear is so small as to be outright dangerous, I was in heavy fog and rain on the heavy route around Barcelona and genuinely afraid for my life. The headlights have very little projection and seem to be impossible to aim correctly, shockingly bad for a 'premium' bike. I've fixed the stand (hockey puck screwed to the end of it works perfectly), bought some Xenon extra bright headlight bulbs (haven't fitted these yet but hoping they help) and will fit extra rear lights (including a fog light) to back up the miserable excuse currently fitted. Loved the ESA suspension, covering so many landscapes and road types each day would either mean settling for a compromise or stopping to bugger about with tools and settings several times a day, the ESA just let me switch as appropriate with no hassle, big fan!
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Moved.
Richard
Stage 1: Newhaven to Dieppe ferry (night ferry landing at 05:00) then down to Clermont Ferrand for a stop over.
Stage 2: Tour round the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne next morning (lots of snow on the tops but roads all clear) then blast down through Millau (too windy to go over the bridge unfortunately but I've done that before anyway) and on down the Med. Stayed the night in Perpignan)
Stage 3: Perpignan to Sastago (near Zaragoza), weather was bloody awful coming into Spain (the only real rain I had all trip) but cleared up to lovely sunshine by the time I got to Sastago. Amazing sandstone landscape with hundreds of abandoned farmhouses and villages, quite eerie.
Stage 4: Sastago to Betelu (northwest of Pamplona), with a quick visit to the Bardenas Reales (amazing desert landscape, but only had road tyres so didn't venture too far in as rain was threatening and would have turned the place into a clay/mud nightmare), with a quick hop over to France and back through the Pyrenees over the Col du Somport (amazed to find this col open so early in the year)
Stage 5: stayed 2 nights in Betelu to give me chance to explore the Basque region a little bit, amazing mountain roads! The coast road up around Bilboa was beautiful but I didn't go there for the seaside so took a few pics and then heading back up into the mountains. The back roads between Zarautz and Estella are incredible, and zero traffic this time of year. Amazing!
Stage 6: Back into France and a Peage blast up to Le Mans (nothing to report, just the usual excellent (and spitefully expensive) French motorways.
Stage 7: Le Mans to Dieppe and across to Blighty. Only to find that the M4 is shut for a bridge to be demolished with all the usual traffic bullshit that you might expect so I spent the night in a Travelodge in Billinghurst and ran back up to Wales the next morning. Left at 05:00 and was home just after 09:00 (so a good shout there).
All in all, the old GS (2008 1200 Hexhead) did amazingly well, super comfortable, no issues, no oil used, and averaged about 47 mpg all in. I went with the advice above and just stayed at cheap hotels along the way (just crappy motels along the Peage in France and then a couple of nice little tavernas in Spain). I did take camping gear but didn't actually use it. Was super easy to use Google Maps to find cheap hotels each day (though if I went back in Summer I would definitely go with the camping but as was mentioned, it was bit early in the year for this in March).
First big trip on a GS, after 40 years of Japanese bikes. I was impressed by the incredible comfort (actually less neck strain than on my ST1100, I think the wider bars suited me better), and the engine has grown on me, though not a patch on a big V4 Honda to be fair. I did take it off road in a few places and loved how easy it is to manage. I did drop it in the clay mud at one point and had no trouble picking it back up with no harm done (weighs the same as my old 650 Transalp so nowhere near as heavy as people seem to think, though it is a bit of a lump). Less impressed with the side stand (way too short, especially with the ESA suspension on its higher settings). Lights are abysmal, total crap, how the TUV allowed BMW to fit this rubbish is beyond me. The rear is so small as to be outright dangerous, I was in heavy fog and rain on the heavy route around Barcelona and genuinely afraid for my life. The headlights have very little projection and seem to be impossible to aim correctly, shockingly bad for a 'premium' bike. I've fixed the stand (hockey puck screwed to the end of it works perfectly), bought some Xenon extra bright headlight bulbs (haven't fitted these yet but hoping they help) and will fit extra rear lights (including a fog light) to back up the miserable excuse currently fitted. Loved the ESA suspension, covering so many landscapes and road types each day would either mean settling for a compromise or stopping to bugger about with tools and settings several times a day, the ESA just let me switch as appropriate with no hassle, big fan!
======
Moved.
Richard
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