M'off to do a Tour De France

[Toshack10]

First forrin trip soon to start: a clockwise Tour de France - Ypres, Epernay, the Vosges, Annecy, Gorges de Verdun, round to Limoges, Le Mans, Le havre...

Weather not looking too bad and managed to pack for 2 weeks without expanding my Vario boxes - no camping stuff to carry though

5 of us, going, I know one. Three on rental bikes who I fear may be a bit quicker than me so I am owning "Captain Slow" vibes

 

[leadfarmer]

Ride at your own pace, meet up with any speed freaks in the group at your destination, enjoy your tour

 

[Bloomers100]

They might be faster but are they safe on their rentals that they might not be familiar with? Enjoy the 'oliday and take time to smell the flowers.

 

[Wapping]

Have fun, on your first foreign jaunt. Fingers crossed, the first of many.

 

[Toshack10]

All going swimmingly (though very humid) and at Lake Gerardmer in the Vosges
Today was a loop
After a gentle bimble over the Ballon d’Alsace we stopped for coffee
After which I had an alert (my second as on day 2 it told me the SOS wasn’t working). I saw “alert” and figured it was SOS
But pulling away the bike sounded awful
And I quickly realised was in limp mode
So stopped and did the obvious thing: shut it down and restart it. Three goes later and I still had this.

So I gets to Googling BMw motorrad and there’s one 18k away so I bade farewell to the gang and headed off.

<5k from the destination, the bike suddenly went “normal”, sounded right, went over 4500rpm and the alert triangle disappeared.

I continued to BMW but Google lied. Belfort is a car place only.

So I had another gentle bimble (honest officer) over the Ballon.

I wondered if I’d used the wrong fuel (we put the good stuff in). But later wondered if there’d been some fuel evaporation somewhere it shouldn’t have been after a bit of a thrashing and that needed to clear out.

I guess I may never know. Or it conks out completely in the middle of nowhere in a thunderstorm

 

[Toshack10]

‘M back.

Fab trip though I may have had too much to drink. My friend had booked it all with Global Motorcycle tours so route maps/GPX files, and hotel bookings all pre done in advance. Definitely more luxury than many of you do on here. Friend has a k1300s, and the rentals were a Ducati 950s, Tracer 9 and an S1000.

First afternoon was to Ypres/Ieper and we managed to get a beer before the last post ceremony at 8, but the Menin gate is currently under scaffold for renovations.
I managed an early morning run around the old ramparts before setting off on the Tuesday.

 

[Toshack10]

Day 2 was to Epernay (can’t imagine why )

We took the autoroute to Laon where we stopped for a very hot lunch followed by a slow trip to Epernay, via a German ww1 cemetery. I suggested a stop at the Reims GP pits at Gueux but was over-ruled: cold wine awaited…

 

[Toshack10]

Day 3 was purely across country to Lake Gerardmer in the Vosges mountains. The rain stayed off until after we arrived but was an otherwise humid ride with quite a few of the km on recently refinished roads still covered in chippings which made for interesting riding. Fab countryside and lovely rural roads but the depopulation of rural France was so plain to see, leaving villages of old people with no shops or services beyond a pizza vending machine.

Managed a run around the lake, and day 4 was the circuit out to the Ballon d’Alsace and my safe mode message - which did not appear again all trip.

 

[Toshack10]

Day 5, the Friday we had a ~400k cross country route past Belfort, Besancon, Pontarlier, along the Jura to west of Geneva (staying in France) round to Annecy and up to Les Saises in the alps.
It started raining near Besancon, and didn’t stop. Indeed was a deluge much of the time, with floods on roads, trees down and near zero visibility. One of those occasions when being pre-booked was a disadvantage as we all thought about stopping for the night but with another 400km the next day we didn’t want to add to that. I was in two pairs of Tucano waterproof over trousers (jeans were dry) but my top, under two waterproofs was a bit damp. Hands and feet soaked. Bless the hotel as they let us put all our gear in their Sauna overnight (turned off, but had been on all day) so we were left with just damp boots on the Saturday.

Would love to ride this again in decent weather…

 

[Toshack10]

Day 6, Saturday in the alps, but another long one down to Castellane, in Provence. So a route over col Roseland, d’iseran, Cenis and Montgenevre made me practice hairpins… Once back in France our route took us past Briancon, Savines le lac and down the Napoleon to Digne and Castellane.

Some amazing things going up and down the cols: some old and new Vespas, bicycles with trailers, and one lady who won Saturday for me heading up and over Roseland

 

[Toshack10]

Sunday in Castellane we took a bit of a rest and did a short ride in the afternoon but it was really busy so we didn’t get far. Monday we had to buy some replacement bike bits so headed to Cannes/Mougins/Grasse and back via the Verdon gorges. I visited in the car in 2018 so was not as blown away as the Aussies.
Tuesday, day 9, another decent leg to Vallon l’arc in the Ardeche gorges, via Ventoux. An amazing mix of roads, and surfaces! I drove up Ventoux in 2018 and got to the top at 7.30am and that was nicer than an afternoon run on a motorbike, but fun nonetheless. It’s a bloody big hill though and we did all spot the dad helping his ~10 year old pedal his way up toward Reynard.

 

[Toshack10]

Wednesday was on paper less interesting and shorter so we put in a couple of loops in the Tarn gorges, before heading northwest and ending in Peyre en Aubrac: very very rural and a small village but on the Camino so quite interesting to see. Really nice hotel dinner (Logis chain) which surprised us as it really was a small place

I had an early morning walk…

 

[Toshack10]

Thursday 18th and the NW trajectory took us across the Dordogne to Limoges. It’s a lot less interesting than the Alps/Provence/Massif Central areas for riding with more open/fast roads.

We did go through (and stopped at) Laguiole, a centre (the centre?) of French knife making. My son is fascinated by knives so I ended up with 2 steak knives in my top box for the rest of the trip…

I’d not been to Limoges before and it has an amazing ancient old town.

 

[Toshack10]

Friday and we’re starting to smell home, which was a bit unfair on the rest of the trip… but straight out of Limoges our route took us to Oradour sur Glane, https://www.oradour.info/ . After the war De Gaulle declared the village must be a memorial and a new village built nearby. Very poignant.

Then on past Tours to Le Mans. Not much exciting en route and no, we didn’t do the circuit. Le Mans is a lovely old town with an amazing cathedral and well worth a visit beyond the 24 or 6 hours…

 

[Toshack10]

North westerly continued to St Malo, I’d visited but like most people to get on or off the ferry. I’d not been in the walled town and we had a great evening with wine, cheese and fish. The rain arrived, then cleared in the evening:

 

[Toshack10]

St Malo to Bayeux and then our last night in Honfleur. Slow travel on busy coastal roads and for me not much to report as I cycled the Normandy beaches with my then 8 year old son (on a tandem) 10 years ago, and I’m sure a load of you have also visited.

Got home yesterday afternoon after a very windy ride from Le Havre to Calais (Pont de Normandie really bad)

All in it was over 3800km, we all kept the rubber side down, though I did drop the GS off its centre stand on the first morning … one flat battery and you don’t want to know where Ducati hide batteries… lots of laughs, cheese and booze, and I managed a workout(run, walk or weights) every day. Would love to do that with my wife on the back but we may need a trailer, or sidecar for the luggage… maybe a weekend into and around St Malo…

 

[Toshack10]

From the Beeline that I used for navigation (except Ypres to Epernay where I followed the leader )
Beeline was very good, mostly happy with it and very easy to import the prepped GPX files from Global Motorcycle Tours but (and this may be a setting) once on a route and accidentally off it, it would tell you the direction to the route at the last known point and the distance.
So if, for example, we went on fast road through choice, rather than a twisty one as planned, it would simply indiacte that the route was further and further behind us - and then suddenly indicate we were on the route if our straight road intersected with the twisty one. I am sure I could have ended the route and have it map a new path to either the route or the destination. But with two garmins, a Carpuride and the Beeline between us, it was confusing enough already!

 

[leadfarmer]

Must say that’s a great circuit, plenty of “must see” places and some of the best roads in France

 

[Ex-Call Centre Chimp]

Excellent, pleased you had a good time and stayed safe.
Terrific photos, nice write up. TY for taking the time.

 

[Toshack10]