France Trip

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Here is a nice circular route in the Dordogne, which is 240 km (150 miles) long.

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It does though illustrate how big France (and any one area within it ) can be, as it’s 70 miles from Treignac to the suggested start at Sarlat la Caneda. Still, 290 miles is a good day out.

Is that taken from the motorcycle tour book you mentioned ?
 
Yes, it is.

https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/439449-Petit-Fute-100-motorcycle-routes-in-France

I have just ordered myself a fresh copy, via Amazon.

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From the blurb in the front cover, it looks like you can download a version to go on an iPad or phone.

The guide (along with others in the big series) is sort of France’s answer to Lonely Planet or Rough Guide books and a good alternative (or addition to) to Michelin’s Green Guides, which are excellent.

Petit Fute sort of scores as their dedicated motorcycle route suggestions are generally not so long as to take two or more days. I found the examples shown in this thread by doing nothing more than Googling, say: Dordogne a moto. I then surfed from there. I would recommend the book (and others) to anyone. Yes, it’s ‘in foreign’ but you’d need to be pretty dumb, scared or just plain lazy not to be able to work it out. The downside? The route the book suggests might be miles away from where you are actually staying. Hey-ho, that’s life.

This really says it all, in suitably ‘bikermate’ language:

Why such a guide? This is the question that all seasoned bikers will inevitably ask. It is true that each of us, if he has already dabbled in bitumen, thinks that we know our region well enough not to need to be shown the "good spots". It is true that a well-studied road map allows you to build your own routes on your own. It is also true that the current tools (GPS and Internet in particular), help us to guide us and to find, without worry, many things to see, to visit and as many places to eat and sleep ... But Here it is ... The choice is so vast that it will often be useful for you to have a traveling companion (this guide!) who will have greatly "chewed up" on your work.The routes presented have all been carefully selected to allow you to have only one thing to do when the urge is there: hit the road without worrying about finding where to go to find vast landscapes or where to stop to satisfy the needs. essential "logistical" needs (eating and sleeping, if possible pleasantly) and, incidentally, knowing where to find a place to take care of your tired mount.

Each route remains in the "reasonable" for 1 to 2 days of journey (300 km on average) with a choice of sites to visit, restaurants and accommodation sufficient to find happiness. The maps are simple, contain the essentials and the road books just have to be read. In addition, apart from the new circuits of this edition that we placed first,The order of presentation and reading allows those who wish to link the stages of a very long journey (why not a Brest-Strasbourg or a Dunkirk-Marseille?) in the most logical sequence possible. It is up to you to take the side roads that we have abandoned or to stay several days in a place that was, for us, only a stopover to stretch your legs ... freedom on a motorbike is also that!

This guide is just a tool ... but a tool written by an enthusiast for other enthusiasts. Use it as you see fit - it's there to help. Have a good trip, biker friends!

In short, it gives you ideas. How you use the ideas are up to you.
 
Great thanks. I ordered one.
 
For anyone who wants some ideas for things to see and do in any particular area of France, the Michelin Green Guides are excellent.

Are all the routes to join up their suggestions ‘Great biking roads, mate’? Not always over their entire length but very few routes are. One thing is for certain, they are not at all bad and (if nothing else) they come free with the books. Look at it another way, too. Michelin have been publishing (which is not a cheap process) these guides for years, which probably tells you that people still buy them.

This, as a sample only, is mine for the Dordogne. I updated it about three months ago, my former copy being about 15 years old. So they last a while.

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Cheers. Another book to the collection.
 
Having said that they are not always great biking roads, you can often see that the roads taken, mirror those in maps put forward on biking centric sites or magazines. There are, after all, only so many ways you can go from A to D, via B and C. Similarly, the routes often run along the green bordered Michelin map roads, that we hear about so often on these pages. Where the books really score is that they:

A. Tell you, in a few words, about the things to see and do along the way. If the places appeal, go to see them. If they don’t, then don’t.

B. Suggest ways of joining the sites and places up in a time economic way.
 
Having said that they are not always great biking roads, you can often see that the roads taken, mirror those in maps put forward on biking centric sites or magazines. There are, after all, only so many ways you can go from A to D, via B and C. Similarly, the routes often run along the green bordered Michelin map roads, that we hear about so often on these pages. Where the books really score is that they:

A. Tell you, in a few words, about the things to see and do along the way. If the places appeal, go to see them. If they don’t, then don’t.

B. Suggest ways of joining the sites and places up in a time economic way.

Plus they keep the girlfriend occupied. I will just ride to wherever she wants to go.
 
Great thanks. I ordered one.

The Petit Fute book downloads well onto an iPad.

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The downside is that it is a little bit of a chore getting from page 1 to say, page 587 on the website, requiring you to flick through the pages. I got around this by saving a copy into the PDF Expert app on my iPad, which speeds things up a lot. Now to work out how to get it into iBooks.


...... It was a bit of a faff to get it into iBooks, even on my large iPad, but I got it there in the end. This makes going to pages really easy. It also means I can’t now lose it, if Petit Fute ever close their website. I also dumped a copy onto DropBox, whilst I was at it.
 
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There’s an odd thing. When I open the book in PDF Expert, I can see the individual map tiles (it looks like Open Street Map) that Petit Fute used to create the single image maps, as seen in the book.

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Anyway, we digress. This thread is meant to be about the fellow’s holiday.

Carry on.
 
Anyway, we digress. This thread is meant to be about the fellow’s holiday.

Carry on.

No carry on. Probably a good job i don't live near you. I would be round for lessons. :D I'm not a big eater though.
 
No carry on. Probably a good job I don't live near you. I would be round for lessons. :D I'm not a big eater though.

Could be a good little earner for Wapping. Routing for Bikes seminar at Wapping Towers. Four at a time round the kitchen table*. £250 a pop for five hour session (including one-hour lunch break, sandwich platter from Waitrose). I can put on a spangly bikini to be the Debbie McGee to Wapping's Paul Daniels. Job's a good 'un.

*Covid distancing arrangements allowing.
 
The Michelin book is very useful.
 
The Michelin book is very useful.

Jolly good.

I think they are well produced, with just enough information and descriptions to let you know something about the places to see, mixed in with a bit of history and geography.
 
The area you are looking at around Dordogne is great...but, it is busy in season and really a tourist mecca. Dont ignore fantastic roads around Clermont Ferrand, Le Puy and the national parc below Saint Etienne. All much, much less traffic. Just search out the D roads and streetview them on gmaps to get an idea and to plan routes.
Just a few weeks since meeting up with some mates from the UK, we stayed at Le Bessat (Hotel de France) for our 1st and last night. Great location to start a tour from and they will let you put the motorcycles in their garage.
 
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