Magicmat
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Thanks guys 
How much is too much ? Alps and Pyrenees ?
- Thread starter Magicmat
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Peirre O`Bollox
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+1
Its a pity Magicmat is leaving Yorkshire & heading to Cambridge prior to heading for the ferries/tunnel, as I`d have suggested he take the hull ferry.
Deleted account Cooperman
Registered user
Yep
Ride report for some inspiration (but no camping
).http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?308016-Linking-the-Pyrenees-and-Alps
GS_or_bust
Registered user
We have just come back from 10 days riding the Pyrenees. We took the ferry down to Santander and then rode to Sitges, spent three nights in a luxury hotel then rode back to Santander and took the ferry home. We camped in the Pyrenees just stopping when we felt like it. It was my wife's first long trip on the back of the bike and she loved it.
We were on a 2014 GSA with panniers top box and a tank bag. My wife was allowed the top box for her clothes, large pannier for my laptop and clothes. Smaller pannier for air beds and camping bits and pieces. Then tent strapped on one pannier and double sleeping bag strapped on the other.
With the ESA set to two riders the bike handled fine and with my wife on the back I would never try getting a knee down anyway.
I guess it is not quite so easy on a gs with Vario panniers rather than the larger alu ones but you could alway use something like the BMW softbag rather than the top box if you want extra space.
You could take a £21
tent and two £7 sleeping bags and if you get fed up carrying them just throw them away, equally when you get down there you could buy a cheap tent and double bag to try the camping thing.
When the trip is over you will remember the campsites but you probably won't remember the hotels.
If you do ride in the Pyrenees then ride the N260, it's amazing.
We were on a 2014 GSA with panniers top box and a tank bag. My wife was allowed the top box for her clothes, large pannier for my laptop and clothes. Smaller pannier for air beds and camping bits and pieces. Then tent strapped on one pannier and double sleeping bag strapped on the other.
With the ESA set to two riders the bike handled fine and with my wife on the back I would never try getting a knee down anyway.
I guess it is not quite so easy on a gs with Vario panniers rather than the larger alu ones but you could alway use something like the BMW softbag rather than the top box if you want extra space.
You could take a £21
tent and two £7 sleeping bags and if you get fed up carrying them just throw them away, equally when you get down there you could buy a cheap tent and double bag to try the camping thing.When the trip is over you will remember the campsites but you probably won't remember the hotels.
If you do ride in the Pyrenees then ride the N260, it's amazing.
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GS_or_bust
Registered user
VERY good advice
We did a 2 week tour, me on a 650 Dakar and wife on a transalp 650. She's not a fast rider, but we had a ball and covered some good miles. Dijon is lovely and a good point to stop, camped in Aosta and the following day did val d'Isere, col d'Iseran, col de Bonette down to Monaco and then on down the coast a bit to stay at a seaside campsite. Stayed in Savona, then on to lake Trento for another nights camping. Following day we went on to the stelvio pass, Umbrial pass and on to Lake Constance (that was a long day tbh and in hindsight I'd have stayed somewhere else cause the midges were killers! We then pootle back in to France and back to the Chunnel.
We had a couple of two day stays to make the full two weeks up, but that was the gist of it.
You could do the Pyrenees but tbh the alps are so much more IMHO.
Chill, enjoy and don't plan too much, often the inbetween places are the best and often the better stopping place.
We had a couple of two day stays to make the full two weeks up, but that was the gist of it.
You could do the Pyrenees but tbh the alps are so much more IMHO.
Chill, enjoy and don't plan too much, often the inbetween places are the best and often the better stopping place.
Lunepilot
Registered user
+1 with this Pyreneees will be to much. Take it easy and take a couple of days getting down to the Alps and keep your mileages down with plenty of stops. The last thing you want to do is put your wife of travelling as pillion it's her trip as well, and travelling pillion isn't as much fun as riding the bike. Dump the tent (and I love camping) it's to much luggage two up. Treat her to hotels it will be money well spent,and when the kids come along the Grandparents may look after them while you have another trip away with the wife on the bike. If you make this a trip to remember.
Have a good un.
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Magicmat
Registered user
All sound advice 
If you're travelling from Cambridge it's 2 hours to the tunnel without traffic, make life easy travel over the night before and stay somewhere like the Ibis at St Omer which is 40 minutes from the tunnel. Next morning nice brekkie and a reasonable start by 9 and you can be well down into France with an easy lunch thrown in. Easyish first day will set you both up for the trip and get you used to the French traffic, or lack of it!
Magicmat
Registered user
Our lass has it all planned, friends 30th birthday. Sat, then grandma's on the sunday to tick the grandchild box, then leave monday am.
Not perfect, but is what it is
Not perfect, but is what it is
Myke Rocks
Registered user
Planning on doing just that.
Over 16.5 days. Ferry Newcastle/Amsterdam. Straight to Sinsheim. 1 full day there next day. Then on to Austria for 4 days. Then on to Verona for a night at the opera.
Back to Bavaria & see Ludwig's castle. Next day into Switzerland for 2.5 days. Then to Millau and on to Andorra. Then into Pyrenees towards Lourdes & exit for Bordeaux. Overnight and then to Roscoff/Rosslare/home. With the exception of motorways on first/last days, never more than 450km per day, and often less. It will be long days in Alps and Pyrenees. 3 sober, non smoking bikers. Schedule is easy as long as we do not stop for too many photograph breaks, but if we were travelling with wives or camping, I would say it was impossible.
Leaving end of August. Possibly a mistake, but if schedule is too punishing, we will just cut bits out.
Such a schedule is reasonably practial with 3 riders, but impossible with 6 or more.
Regards Myke
Over 16.5 days. Ferry Newcastle/Amsterdam. Straight to Sinsheim. 1 full day there next day. Then on to Austria for 4 days. Then on to Verona for a night at the opera.
Back to Bavaria & see Ludwig's castle. Next day into Switzerland for 2.5 days. Then to Millau and on to Andorra. Then into Pyrenees towards Lourdes & exit for Bordeaux. Overnight and then to Roscoff/Rosslare/home. With the exception of motorways on first/last days, never more than 450km per day, and often less. It will be long days in Alps and Pyrenees. 3 sober, non smoking bikers. Schedule is easy as long as we do not stop for too many photograph breaks, but if we were travelling with wives or camping, I would say it was impossible.
Leaving end of August. Possibly a mistake, but if schedule is too punishing, we will just cut bits out.
Such a schedule is reasonably practial with 3 riders, but impossible with 6 or more.
Regards Myke
Deleted account Cooperman
Registered user
You may be aware of another one of Ludwig's constructions Linderhof Palace. It's not far from the castle and could be an option for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linderhof_Palace
You would need a month of solid riding to ride just the best known 300 or so Alpine passes, to cover some of the lesser known passes and explore the multitude of wonderful dead end off-shoots in the Alps could easily make for an entire summers riding.
The "Motorcycle Journey's" book has something like 70 ride outs for the Alps covering about 300 passes in totoal, most of these trips are at least half a days riding (Some are hard work to complete in a day) and few passes appear in more than 1 of the routes.
If you want to "tick off" the Alps and Pyrenees then you could easily go to both places, and probably come up with a reasonably good route between the two and cover a big part of France in the process.
My preference is to go somewhere (Alps / Pyrenees / Black Forest etc) and have a base hotel for 2-3 nights at a time so I do not have to pack / unpack every day and can do great ride-outs looping around a bunch of passes / great roads, on all of my Alps trips we have had 7-10 days split up with 2-3 nights at each point we visited and never have we spent too long in one spot.
On each occasion we could have done with an extra day or two in each location, but this is my preferred method of balancing available time with places I want to visit and roads I want to ride.
Whatever you do will be great, just have a think about how the two options may work out for you and factor in the miles (and time to cover those miles) each day, type of roads you will be riding, how long you will have to enjoy your surroundings and the amount of packing / unpacking you will need to do.
This year I only have 1 week available and will be doing 1 / 1 / 3 / 2/ 1 night(s) at each Hotel - a bit rushed by my normal standards, but it gets me to the Alps quickly (by blasting all day on day one on Motorways so we hit the Mountains at lunchtime on day two) and gives me a few days there to just ride around and enjoy, the first two nights are basically on the way in (although we will be stopping half way up some Swiss pass on the 2nd night) and the last night on the way home is a necessary evil as we cannot get home in one hit.
And do not plan too rigidly if you can avoid it, we only have 3 of the 5 Hotels pre-booked, and 2 of them can be cancelled right up until the day before with no penalty
The "Motorcycle Journey's" book has something like 70 ride outs for the Alps covering about 300 passes in totoal, most of these trips are at least half a days riding (Some are hard work to complete in a day) and few passes appear in more than 1 of the routes.
If you want to "tick off" the Alps and Pyrenees then you could easily go to both places, and probably come up with a reasonably good route between the two and cover a big part of France in the process.
My preference is to go somewhere (Alps / Pyrenees / Black Forest etc) and have a base hotel for 2-3 nights at a time so I do not have to pack / unpack every day and can do great ride-outs looping around a bunch of passes / great roads, on all of my Alps trips we have had 7-10 days split up with 2-3 nights at each point we visited and never have we spent too long in one spot.
On each occasion we could have done with an extra day or two in each location, but this is my preferred method of balancing available time with places I want to visit and roads I want to ride.
Whatever you do will be great, just have a think about how the two options may work out for you and factor in the miles (and time to cover those miles) each day, type of roads you will be riding, how long you will have to enjoy your surroundings and the amount of packing / unpacking you will need to do.
This year I only have 1 week available and will be doing 1 / 1 / 3 / 2/ 1 night(s) at each Hotel - a bit rushed by my normal standards, but it gets me to the Alps quickly (by blasting all day on day one on Motorways so we hit the Mountains at lunchtime on day two) and gives me a few days there to just ride around and enjoy, the first two nights are basically on the way in (although we will be stopping half way up some Swiss pass on the 2nd night) and the last night on the way home is a necessary evil as we cannot get home in one hit.
And do not plan too rigidly if you can avoid it, we only have 3 of the 5 Hotels pre-booked, and 2 of them can be cancelled right up until the day before with no penalty
Book ferry/tunnel outward and return.Have loads of things to do and places to see then go with the flow but dont try and do them all as there willbe more stuff to see and do popping up en route that u never new existed. I book my crossings,and have rough ideas then basicaly follow the weather.Im off to slovenia in a week or two in the car coz Ive got the misses and the bairn with me and planning on doin postjna caves,predjama castle and skocjan caves.Me and my better half have already done slovenia by bike but the bairns now old enough to apprriciate some things inbetween playstations/and xboxes and shit like thatalso got stuff planned en route and return route but if the weather bollox Ive got back up plans in all of the neighboring countries.Hopefully in sept im off on the bike solo,my idea is the vercors massif but if weathers pish then I will divert to the dolomites or austrian lakes. I camp but dont cook so its just tent and sleeping bag. I eat at campsit or local town,if its a campsite in the middle of nowhere,I goto local lidl or aldi for beer,beer and bread/cheese/meat whatever and chill wi a good book while eating and drinking.If ure with the misses.take tent and sleeping bags etc but dont over do it..(its europe in summer not the himalayays in winter}Good sleeping bags with a blow up airbed and a cheap tent will do.If u want to ride like rossi the leave campin kit at home,if your out for a bike holiday and want to do the touristy stuff then the extra weight wont be a problem even on the passes.If u feel like camping then great,if u fell like a hotel then great.Providing u call it a day in the middle of the afternoon then absolutely no probs in summer finding accomodation.U can always go back out on ure bike later on.If camping then sites can usually sqeeze u in no matter how busy or late you are. If its nice weather then camp,if its pissin down then get a hotel and spend half the next day on the autobahn/strada or whatever to get to sunnier places.
Magicmat
Registered user
Sounds like a perfect plan to me
Thank you for taking the time to write the post
Thank you for taking the time to write the post
Not convinced by that - just come back from a 9 night trip to Carinthia - we stayed in 6 hotels, 3 of which had been used before by someone in our group. After over 20 years of touring in Europe I have quite a database (in my head) of good, mediocre & bad hotels. All 3 hotels we used are family run affairs with good hospitality and excellent restaurants, and they will probably be used again due to their location as convenient overnight stops on the way to the Ardennes/Black Forest/Alps/Dolomites.
MR&MRS.P
Registered user
Just doing some research for the honeymoon next year, this was a good thread! We have roughly planned to Autotrain the bike to Bordeaux over the 1st night and get the train down to stay with some friends we met on our last tour, this puts us in a good place to glance the french side of the pyrenees. We then plan to head along the coast, monaco and the like, then swoop back into switzerland (our fav), do some of the passes we havent done and probably shoot out and do the Stelvio. Then its some nice bits and north through the black forest back towards Calais.
2 up, all the luggage, all the camping gear, dont usually hit much more than 60mph on the fast bits, laughin!
We did a similar trip as our first tour a few years ago on a 96 VFR750 with homemade ammo tin panniers and stuff strapped everywhere, the bike was seriously overloaded, on old tired suspension but it was the best 2 weeks we have had away and loved every minute.
Personal preference I guess.
2 up, all the luggage, all the camping gear, dont usually hit much more than 60mph on the fast bits, laughin!
We did a similar trip as our first tour a few years ago on a 96 VFR750 with homemade ammo tin panniers and stuff strapped everywhere, the bike was seriously overloaded, on old tired suspension but it was the best 2 weeks we have had away and loved every minute.
Personal preference I guess.
Magicmat
Registered user
you'll love it, i did.
i can understand those wanting to hotel it, some of the last minute camp sites were awful !!
But i'd do it all again tomorrow. Totally loved it.
Have a great honey moon !
Gorge du Verdon is kinda on you way and we loved it, especially the canyoning we did for the day !
i can understand those wanting to hotel it, some of the last minute camp sites were awful !!
But i'd do it all again tomorrow. Totally loved it.
Have a great honey moon !
Gorge du Verdon is kinda on you way and we loved it, especially the canyoning we did for the day !
And your ride report and photos will be posted when ? 
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