French trip

[cyclos]

I usually take a few days out at this time of the year to go for a quick trip through the Eifel mountains and the Ardennes. I normally go from Harwich to the Hook of Holland and then come back via Calais - Dover.

However, I have relocated from Ipswich to Southampton and so i am thinking of using the Portsmouth - Caen route as I really like going overnight and arriving in Europe first thing in the morning.

If it were a summer trip I'd go down the West Coast of France, but at this time of year it'll be too wet, so will go towards the Ardennes again. What is a good route from Caen towards say, Luxembourg without using the motorways? Any good places to go enroute?

Or anyone have a good ideas for a four day round trip heading south from Caen, maybe via Le Mans?

 

[Wapping]

In the immortal wisdom of the old joke...

You have four days for a round trip from Caen to Luxembourg (Ardennes) and back to Caen, avoiding motorways (great roads, mate)....

Well, I wouldn't be starting from here.

Seriously, cut your cloth to suit your changed situation.

From Caen, head down into the Massif Central. You could do a great four day, circular loop, starting and ending in Caen, no problem. I think I posted one up about this time last year, as it is (near enough) what I did a year or so ago.

Once you get dough of Le Mans, the world really is your lobster, Terrence. A good map helps



Oops... Seems I never posted the route up.... http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?316084-Massif-Central-Five-days-away-Friday-thro-Tuesday

I'll do it over the weekend for you.

 

[wessie]

You also have the LDLines service to Le Havre, although their service is not as good as BF. Maybe cheaper though.

Personally, I'd want to blast across the motorway 200 miles to St Quentin where I'd take my first fuel & coffee stop. From there take the scenic routes across to wherever you are staying. Picardy is a bit meh.

 

[Wapping]

Oops... Seems I never posted the route up....

Here you go:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14126843/Suggestion for UKGSer four or five day jaunt.gdb

Mapsource file, hosted on dropbox

It's not the one I was thinking of but it will do.

 

[adventuredon]

are we all becoming invalids? Does anyone on here use google, before posting? f ell....at least have an idea of the rote/ferry options before asking for such information...honestly

 

[cyclos]

are we all becoming invalids? Does anyone on here use google, before posting? f ell....at least have an idea of the rote/ferry options before asking for such information...honestly

Oooh sorry we can't all be 'Adventure Dons'

I was simply asking for some opinions of where might be good to visit and some nice routes based on a 4 day trip starting in Caen. By not over-defining the parameters I was hoping to get as many different ideas as possible.

....honestly

 

[Wapping]

Well there haven't been too many suggestions, so let's look at some more.

1. Were the Mapsource based routes I pinged up any good? I appreciate that they started and ended in Calais but it would be easy to just ride nearly straight down from Caen to pick them up.

2. Caen brings you out into the very popular D-day invasion beaches area. As the beaches cover a length of about 80 miles, east to west, and each has its own museum, things to see or whatever, you could clock up four days and still not see the lot.

Add in going to see the Bayeux tapestry and your four days will be over.

3. Don't fancy guns, tanks, gravestones and concrete blockhouses? 11th century needlework not appeal? OK, maybe head off deeper into Normandy and Brittany, perhaps? The standing stones at Carnac, Mont St Michel, maybe the U-boat pens?

4. Still no good? How about the pretty decent racing museum at Le Mans? It's right near the main entrance. You can also ride around long lengths of the 24 hour track, pretending you are in an Audi at over 200 miles an hour.

On south from Le Mans and you are into open France. Rivers, bonkers chateaux, woods, great roads. You name it, it's there and then some more.

5. Have a look at the 80 Virees Michelin Moto stickies. It's to answer questions like this that Michelin created them. Stitch a few together and you'll be fine.

Not got a GPS or can't open Mapsource or Basecamp (one day I will get around to converting them to .gpx) no problem.... Get yourself a 1:200000 scale map and plot your owne routes out. Not sure how far to go? If you are riding reasonable D roads, 250 miles is a decent day's schlep. Stop every five minutes to gawp and press wild flowers and the day will vanish. Add in some motorway ( there is nothing wrong and no shame in riding on them, not least we'll never know) and 350 miles - 100 of motorway plus 250 of D roads - becomes a not unreasonable day out.

6. You found your way to Luxembourg from Holland. Be confident and you'll find plenty to amuse starting from Caen. Really, a map is all you'll need and a bit of Google work.

Google:

Things to do in Normady

Things to do in Brittany

Motorbiking in Normandy

Motorbiking in Brittany

I just did and got some pretty good ideas. Just click on the Google links and see what comes up. Surf away, you can't break it. Find something interesting, save the URL and come back to it later. Have a look at some of the organised tours; not because you necessarily want to join one but because they often give a clue as to where it is they'll be going. Join the clues up and Bingo! You have made your own tour. Last but not least, have a look on UKGSer. Hit the advanced search function, just typing in a key word like 'Normandy'. 100's of threads will pop up, just click on few that look like they might not have started in the 1200 Technical section.

Let us know what you decide on please. Yours is a common enough question... Who knows, what you do might be just what another bod will want to repeat in October 2014 or May 2022.

Have fun.

 

[Wapping]

What did you decide to do?

Any good?

 

[Simon W]

If you look on the www.ride.co.uk/france page you'll see a host of routes initially presented in a supplement called The RiDE Guide To France.

There's a one-day D-Day beaches loop (quite a short one, to allow lots of time for stopping/taking pics/mooching round the museums and monuments) but a longer version will be in a forthcoming issue. There are also routes within reach of the port – around Le Mans, Chartres, Quimper – and even a complete five-day tour of Brittany and Normandy, starting from the Caen ferry port. There are also cross-country routes to Treignac (the excellent/popular Riders Rest b&b) and all the way to Grenoble – though there's no point riding to the alps only to turn straight round and come back.

Heading cross-country avoiding motorway... I'm with Wapping: I wouldn't bother heading to the Ardennes. By the time you've looped round the south of Paris, stitching a route of decent roads together will make it a two-day trip. You'd be better off heading down to the Morvan (stay in Avallon or Chateau Chinon), the Auvergne (base yourself in Issoire or even Vichy) or the Correze (Riders Rest). If you want a sightseeing trip, you can string a good number of impressive chateaux together along the Loire (try staying in Blois or Cosne Cour sur Loire) though there are a fair few straight roads round there.

The riding does get better the further south you go from the port. The Suisse Normande region and the Orne - the areas between between Caen and Le Mans - do have some good roads, but all the time you're swapping distance for pleasant roads. I'd suggest you mix and match: a bit of motorway to get some ground covered, get off and have a nice ride; bit more motorway, get off for a nice ride.

If you're short of time, I would recommend Riders Rest as a destination - one day from the ferry - because you can have two days good riding, with Tony (Nomad on here) able to give plenty of advice on good routes around there.

 

[Wapping]

Hey, Simon, is there a nice PDF download of the full Ride magazine supplement available?

It really is quite good, if anyone is interested.

 

[Green Boy]

... If you're short of time, I would recommend Riders Rest as a destination - one day from the ferry - because you can have two days good riding, with Tony (Nomad on here) able to give plenty of advice on good routes around there.

+1 for Tony and RidersRest. Basically did that trip on a 4 day trip last September. Top place and a top chap

 

[Simon W]

Sorry - no download of the actual mag with the pics. Back issues are available or if you have an iPad, it's bundled with the September 2013 issue - and iPad issues never go out of sale. The company line is pretty clear: the business is based on selling stories; we can't give them away. Of course, I insisted that there's no pay barrier to actually getting all the routes from the RiDE website - the Google Map links and the GPX downloads are all free on the website. All you lack is the pics and a bit of me waxing lyrical...

 

[Wapping]

Hi Simon

No worries, I got my mits on a free copy at the weekend

Joking apart, it's quite a nice article on touring, with some good routes suggested, all along well tried and tested roads. Anyone looking to experiment in a France could do a lot worse than contacting Ride magazine for a re-print and / or hitting their website for the downloads. If anyone is hesitating over the few quid a re-print might cost versus a free download, I'd say don't ponder too long. The paper article sets it all out much better than the cold downloads, putting it into decent enough perspective. Blimey, now I'm doing your advertising for you....

On a broader note:

On the whole France is well covered via a host of different websites and books, as are the Benelux's, Germany, Austria and the Alps. I probably have 15 or more books and God knows how many maps and magazine articles in multiple languages. Italy is starting to get its act together, too.

The Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) have some good publications, some of which I picked up in Stockholm and Oslo. Not cheap and all in herdy-gurdy but a map is still a map and a route a route, no matter what.

The country that seems most lacking is Spain, once you cross the very well covered Pyrenees. Odd, as it offers some great riding on-road and off. There's somewhere you could get your teeth into quite usefully.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Wapping]

One thing I should add....

The Ride pull-out article has a pretty good guide on how to use Basecamp, a sort of 'Basecamp for beginners' if you like. Particularly good if you have a Mac.

If you use a PC try to borrow or steal a copy of Mapsource and then load your detailed Garmin maps on top.

 

[gerarddwatts]

Do you know....I love living up here, and can't ever see myself moving back down, but if there's one thing I miss, its being able to be at the south coast in an hour or two, and 'foreign' shortly after.

Hey ho, I shall just have to resign myself to 4 hours to Newcastle and starting 'foreign' at Amsterdam...and the ensuing couple of hours of filthy Dutch/Belgian/German motorways..

Lucky, lucky bastards....but only for a few weeks a year...

 

[Wapping]

Some you win, some you lose.

Living in central London but only an hour from the Chunnel makes one lazy, too. Overly easy to go to France and comparatively cheap to cross. It means I miss out on what the UK has to offer but I've been lucky enough to do more across the Channel than some others.

 

[Simon W]

Well, Spain's another kettle of fish entirely... Part of the problem is the inconsistency/inaccuracy of a lot of the mapping. But more of a problem is just miles ridden. I first rode there in 1988 and I've been back regularly – plenty of trips to the Pyrenees, the Picos and of course Andalusia and Granda (some winters I seem to spend more time around Ronda than around Peterborough, when launch season is in full swing). I have ridden there a lot but generally only in a limited number of areas. There are some gaps in my knowledge that I'm only getting to plug slowly –*though the start is working out what the gaps are and at least I've got that covered.

There is loads of good source material out there for routes in France and I was lucky that a couple of French friends were happy to help me with suggestions, comments and, in one case, even checking a couple of routes options. But Spain's not so easy to research (unless you speak/read Spanish, which I don't) and I don't know the guys on the Spanish motorcycle mags well enough to get the kind of assistance I got from some of the French journalists. The last route recommendation I got from a Spanish journo turned out to be a terrible road - very scenic but with an awful surface. Besides, when researching the France guide I managed to do a couple of additional trips/extend other trips that were passing through, to help me tighten my routes up. But Spain's not exactly quick to get to and you don't really pass through it on the way to other places...

So let's just say I'm working away at Spain – but there are a lot of factors to draw together to get it to the point where I'm happy enough that I can do the whole country to the same standard as the France one. Plus doing that kind of caper needs generous sponsors as it's so expensive to do the shoot... and the trade isn't exactly flush with money at the moment...

Of course, if anyone has any good routes they want to share with me – especially in Castille y Leon, Extramadura or La Mancha – don't hesitate to get in touch with me at RiDE!