Trip around Massif Central, mostly on trails

Berin · Jun 19, 2022

Well, we are here at our start point near Vulcania, in the Auvergne region and near the Chaine de Puys volcanic mountains.

We left home 3 up in the van with 3 KTM 690’s on Saturday morning, got the Eurotunnel, overnighted in Senlis and arrived here about 5pm today after an easy journey down, helped by the marvellous Peage tags (thanks, Wapping

).

The bikes are pretty much loaded up and safe in the garage at the hotel

We’re navigating a loop made up of some of the TET, plus some other stuff I made up. It’s about 1800km, we’re aiming for about 160km a day and 2 rest days to do some washing and have a bit of a relax. We’re taking a slower pace than normal, which I’m pleased about as it’s hot, still around 30c at the moment. It’s supposed to be cooler tomorrow, though.

Navigation is by Montana 700i’s with Garmin Topo France plus the Talky Toaster Topo maps. All the tracks are pre loaded onto the devices, Wi-Fi is off. I have a Ulefone Android phone as back up, loaded with Locus maps and offline maps downloaded.

I’ll update as and when, and in the meantime if anyone is in Senlis for dinner this place is excellent, and the owner said it was lovely to have the English back as they had missed us. I love travelling!

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Berin · Jun 21, 2022

A lovely trail running alongside the Dordogne.

The TET here is a bit bitty, for some reason I thought the trails would be longer but so far a lot have been farm tracks and using road to join trails, like we do at home. Sometimes it’s miles off direction for a track a few hundred metres long.

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Berin · Jun 24, 2022

3 days later, and a total of about 700km on the trails.

Some fantastic trails now, through Rocamadour

and then south, some of the trails are now 20-30km, and linked by tiny backroads.

All the bikes running well, but both Montana 700’s have died and will no longer calculate any directions, but can still be used to follow the track.

last night in Montolieu, some weird artists town, in a semi derelict former factory which has been converted to Chambres D’Hotes and some artist workshops.

Last night in another ancient medieval town in a 6 century old inn, in St Antonin Noble Val, some pics to follow.

Some pics from the trails.

Excellent petrol station

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Berin · Jun 27, 2022

We’ve had a couple of very good days, 150km or so mostly on trails.

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Timolgra · Jun 27, 2022

Nice trip!

Berin · Jun 27, 2022

Timolgra said:
Nice trip!

Really enjoying it, never done much in France before.

Where my mate fell of his bike is interesting, a few k’s south of Millau.

There’s a long, really straight trail graded with fist sized rocks for a good 2-3km. I think it was once a railway as the trail has “walls” of old railway style arches, 2-3m high. At the end it stops suddenly and there’s a really short, steep switchback, very sandy and with big slippy rocks, followed immediately by another switchback.

Commitment is required to ascend! Especially as I can only touch the ground with one toe on my 690 now.

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wilbjr21 · Jun 27, 2022

Looks like a great trip. France is wonderful.

Now if only I could remember where and when I met you.

Timolgra · Jun 28, 2022

Berin said:
Commitment is required to ascend! Especially as I can only touch the ground with one toe on my 690 now.

Have you shrunk?

wilbjr21 said:
Now if only I could remember where and when I met you.

Sounds like one of your old chat up lines Bill

wilbjr21 · Jun 28, 2022

Timolgra said:
Have you shrunk?

Sounds like one of your old chat up lines Bill

Tim ..... you rascal.

g00ner · Jun 28, 2022

Enjoying the write up Berin, hope the trails stay longer for you

Berin · Jun 29, 2022

Timolgra said:
Have you shrunk?

QUOTE]

No. The bike got taller . 300mm Tractive rally shock and fork kit. Suspension is fabulous but I need to stand on a rock to get on it.

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Berin · Jun 29, 2022

Yesterday turned into a challenge at the last hour, as these things do.
We’d made good time with some lovely trails out of Millau/Cressail

Crap iphone picture but that’s the bridge in the distance.

Lots of long uphill rocky steep pulls that went forever, we climbed from 300m to 900m on a single trail.

The rest were nice, wooded forest trails, and we we all good for an early bath at the Gites we’d booked for 2 nights.

Then in the woods south of Laissac we turned down quite a tricky single track, downhill, not too steep but tricky as it was steep sided and washed out, lots of loose rocks under a few inches of wet leaf litter. Braking was a no go, even on the engine the front was washing. I even had a little tumble

.

It looked steeper so I had a look see, and it was steeper, washed out, nasty narrow rock steps,
more rocks and deep leaf litter.

We decided to walk the bikes down on dead engines, and the 300m took over an hour.

More to come as it’s tea time now!

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simondippenhall · Jun 29, 2022

Great report Martin - loving the photos and the story.

Out of interest, would a KTM 350 exc f have been able to do the distances you have done? Very tempted by the French trails but not by something as big as the 690.

er-minio · Jun 29, 2022

Looks like a great trip.
Enjoy Berin!

Berin · Jun 29, 2022

simondippenhall said:
Great report Martin - loving the photos and the story.

Out of interest, would a KTM 350 exc f have been able to do the distances you have done? Very tempted by the French trails but not by something as big as the 690.

Hi Simon, we haven’t seen many other bikes on the trails, but we did see one French chap on a DR350, 2 people on 690 KTM and a Husky 701, and 2 on 1250GS’s. Get a bigger tank, plush seat and the Nomad Adv or Advspec luggage racks and it would be fine on the 350.
There are road sections but mostly back roads so no need to do more than 50mph

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Berin · Jun 29, 2022

It went from a nice trail as in the last picture to a nasty snotter in a few hundred metres.

Rather than ride it with a high chance of a damaging off we walked the bikes on a dead engine for about 300m, leapfrogging as we went. I was able to ride Jane and Tony’s bikes for some of it. It was a bit hot and sweaty but all manageable.

But here’s where we ended up

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Berin · Jun 29, 2022

Just on distances, I started planning on the basis of 160km per day. Navigation was trickier than I thought, so after a couple of days we changed plans and reduced the mileage to 130km, which means we are mostly done by 4pm, giving time to get fuel for the next day,
get to our digs, check the bikes over and have a wash before dinner.

Some people however are doing 200km a day and more, but they are really on it.

We have noticed that many fuel stations are out of business, as are restaurants and hotels and chambre D’Hotes, in the rural areas at least. Turns out closing your country for 2 years isn’t good for the tourist industry.

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Berin · Jun 30, 2022

Today was a bit subdued, after the “descent of death” (TM) we were worried that all trails were going to end in hauling bikes around, which as anyone who knows me knows, I hate.

Plus it was rainy today, quite dark, and also we were up in the mists as we entered the Lot valley, and I needed my headlights on full on the wooded trails to see. It was also muddier, and quite slippy and greasy, and it turns my Motoz ST (soft terrain) tyres are good on hard pack and rocks, shite in the wet and shite in mud.

We did a few nice trails and then ended up south of the Lot, south of Aurillac, at about 500-600m with a descent down to a bridge near St Sulpice.

A quick look at the Topo maps showed very tightly packed contour lines, and for a long way. We set off and did a 1000m or but reverting to our long standing rule that we forgot on Tuesday, of not going down anything we couldn’t get back up, we we walked it.

It got greasier, steeper, and darker. We decided to bail, only problem being no apparent go around to get to the bridge.

We made it back up to the very small road that our maps said dead ended, when a Transit (white, obvs) came up the hill! We then reasoned there must be another way to the bridge other than a nasty steep dirt track so followed the road down. Pretty soon the Sat Navs were showing us in a forest with no roads, but road there was and 5 minutes later we were at the bridge!

We did see the exit of the track on the way down - looked a lot like Heartbreak Hill. Really steep, washed out, rutted, greasy hard packed clay. And dark. Good call to go around.

We stopped of at the very pretty village of Conques, our planned stop being in Aurillac in an Ibis. We turned up, but it was a terrible dump on a main road with the worst looking restaurant ever, and no safe parking for the bikes. The nice receptionist let us cancel and we headed out to a nearby Chateau, with suits of armour stuff. And a nice restaurant.
Much better.

Anyway, some random pics

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er-minio · Jun 30, 2022

Great pics, again, great report.
Exactly the kind of trip I wanna do next.

Edventure · Jul 2, 2022

Great trip report Martin!

Trip around Massif Central, mostly on trails

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