Yorkshire to Dover (to catch a midmorning ferry) to Calais to arrive in Le Mans on the same day, is a decent schlep. Why?
I guess midmorning means a ferry at say, 10:30’ish? The ferry takes one hour forty minutes, plus say 20 minutes getting off etc. is two hours. Lose an hour due to the time difference is three hours. Even if the 20 minutes ‘to get off’ is overstated, you are looking at two hours forty. That means rolling through the port gates in France at about 13:10 earliest.
Calais to Le Mans direct (ie. via motorways) is four and a half hours, nonstop. Add say, 30 minutes for maybe fuel, a pee / coffee, gives rolling into Le Mans city at about 17:40 or 18:00’ish.
Le Mans to Saumur (fastest) is one hour thirty. You’ll arrive at 19:00.
There is nothing wrong with using an iPad, I am using one now. Me, I’d do it slightly differently:
Start by looking at what time you realistically roll off the ferry in Calais. I have guessed at about 13:10 local time on Saturday, having ridden from Yorkshire that morning.
Then look at your final destination, which is Bergerac on Sunday. Calais to Bergerac direct is about nine hours direct or roughly 600 miles. It’s that distance that you have to break into a day and half in France, having half an eye that you’d have already have come from Yorkshire before.
Then I’d consider whether I wanted to go direct (ie mototorways) or every D road and goat track for 600 miles in a day and half, having started in Yorkshire and, presumably, taken motorways from home to Dover. I’d maybe write off Saturday as being a “We need to get from Yorkshire to Calais to XYZ place in France”…. And then turn Sunday into your first proper day of holiday riding.
When going to Le Mans from London (a long way south of Yorkshire) I always to cross over to France on a late afternoon or early evening train and then stay somewhere along the north east coast of France OR I’d take the overnight ferry to St Malo, which means I’d at least roll of in the morning on the west side of France. Were I to be heading to Bergerac, I’d certainly look at taking the St Malo crossing.
