Our 2 week European tour 2016
Discussion
Hi Everyone,
I thought I'd write a little thread about our European tour, partly because you might be interested, partly for our recollection in future!
It was just TimmyWimmyWoo and I this year, which meant a mostly faff free holiday.
Tim took GoPro of a lot of the ride, which he is making into a video, but that will probably be a while.
I'm going to do it in a few chunks because I haven't finished going through the photos yet and because there is probably a limit to the number of pictures I can put in one post!
Without further ado:
The trip went from London to Vosges mountains in France, then over to Black Forest in Germany, then down through Switzerland to do a few mountain passes then down briefly to Italy before going down the route napoleon, along the south coast of France to the Millau Viaduct, then across the Pyrenees before getting the boat home from Santander.
I, shamefully, had only ridden 100 miles on my Street Triple in the last year, so I was out of practice, so I thought that a great way to deal with that was to sell the street triple and buy an S1000R 3 weeks before the trip! My first liter bike. It's bloody mental, luckily it has more electronics than the space shuttle to keep my variable wrist timing in check.
It's safe to say the bike is much faster than I'm capable of riding. It was crazy fun. The only modification it has is the comfort seat which helped a lot!
Tim went on his newish-to-him Multistrada that i'm sure he'll be in here to froth all over the screen about, both were Red which is what matters most!
Day 1 - 210 miles - London to Arras
This doesn't really count as a day because I spent the entire day at work. I did end up covering 210 miles though. I first rode in to work in London from Essex which made a delightful change (I'll stick with the train). On the first real day of our trip we always try and get across northern France to somewhere interesting and we've found the best way to make that not such a chore is by getting to France the night before. So after work we met near the M20 and had dinner in a beautiful McDonalds. Went over to Calais on the train and rode for about an hour to Arras.
Day 2 - 410 miles - Arras to Gerardmer
We woke up fairly early, around 7:30, had some breakfast at the hotel and then did half a day of Péage cruising at no more than some miles an hour above the speed limit...
I had a tiny screen but it actually felt nicer to cruise on than my street triple which had a bigger screen, it's all to do with where the wind is hitting you and I much prefer it in the chest than around the helmet because I find the noise more tiring than the actual wind pressure.
We decided to just have a quick snack during one of the many fuel stops at which point I think I accidentally ate 2000 calories of sugar in the form of chocolate waffles.
We arrived at Gérardmer in the Vosges about 2pm where we had our first fannying about with Airbnb (we mostly stayed in Airbnbs all trip).
At this point I'd like to go in to one of the flaws with the S1000R. The side stand is s
t. It's too long...
We parked up in a street and Tim went to get the key and view the flat, I knew my bike was parked very precariously and wanted to move it as soon as possible because it was very upright. Out comes the woman with Tim, demanding I give her €20 for sheets, the only cash money I had was deep in my luggage which was strapped to the back of my bike. so I opened it up still on the bike, rustled around and got her money out and she left, I then tried to take my luggage off my bike, which proceeded to fall over on to a Renault Twingo from 1854. I'm so lucky the car was there, because the only bit that hit was the rear right seat plastic, the car was fine, and luckily it had prevented the front of the bike hitting anything at all so all in all I only had a small/medium scratch on one fairing and that's all! Phew. Still, £150 fairing, but hey.
After that we went for a 3 hour jaunt around the Vosges mountains, we did a loop which included the Route des Crêtes. It was beautiful, good weather, good roads. I must say I wasn't on my best form that afternoon due to it being the longest I'd been on a bike in years, combined with dropping it. But it was good to ride none the less. I was aching by the end of the day. We ate a massive dead cow that evening though.
Tim did this a lot, ironically I must point out, because by the end of this you may think he was doing it seriously.
View from the room
Tim briefly went the wrong way which made for a good picture
I thought I'd write a little thread about our European tour, partly because you might be interested, partly for our recollection in future!
It was just TimmyWimmyWoo and I this year, which meant a mostly faff free holiday.
Tim took GoPro of a lot of the ride, which he is making into a video, but that will probably be a while.
I'm going to do it in a few chunks because I haven't finished going through the photos yet and because there is probably a limit to the number of pictures I can put in one post!
Without further ado:
The trip went from London to Vosges mountains in France, then over to Black Forest in Germany, then down through Switzerland to do a few mountain passes then down briefly to Italy before going down the route napoleon, along the south coast of France to the Millau Viaduct, then across the Pyrenees before getting the boat home from Santander.
I, shamefully, had only ridden 100 miles on my Street Triple in the last year, so I was out of practice, so I thought that a great way to deal with that was to sell the street triple and buy an S1000R 3 weeks before the trip! My first liter bike. It's bloody mental, luckily it has more electronics than the space shuttle to keep my variable wrist timing in check.
It's safe to say the bike is much faster than I'm capable of riding. It was crazy fun. The only modification it has is the comfort seat which helped a lot!
Tim went on his newish-to-him Multistrada that i'm sure he'll be in here to froth all over the screen about, both were Red which is what matters most!
Day 1 - 210 miles - London to Arras
This doesn't really count as a day because I spent the entire day at work. I did end up covering 210 miles though. I first rode in to work in London from Essex which made a delightful change (I'll stick with the train). On the first real day of our trip we always try and get across northern France to somewhere interesting and we've found the best way to make that not such a chore is by getting to France the night before. So after work we met near the M20 and had dinner in a beautiful McDonalds. Went over to Calais on the train and rode for about an hour to Arras.
Day 2 - 410 miles - Arras to Gerardmer
We woke up fairly early, around 7:30, had some breakfast at the hotel and then did half a day of Péage cruising at no more than some miles an hour above the speed limit...
I had a tiny screen but it actually felt nicer to cruise on than my street triple which had a bigger screen, it's all to do with where the wind is hitting you and I much prefer it in the chest than around the helmet because I find the noise more tiring than the actual wind pressure.
We decided to just have a quick snack during one of the many fuel stops at which point I think I accidentally ate 2000 calories of sugar in the form of chocolate waffles.
We arrived at Gérardmer in the Vosges about 2pm where we had our first fannying about with Airbnb (we mostly stayed in Airbnbs all trip).
At this point I'd like to go in to one of the flaws with the S1000R. The side stand is s
t. It's too long...We parked up in a street and Tim went to get the key and view the flat, I knew my bike was parked very precariously and wanted to move it as soon as possible because it was very upright. Out comes the woman with Tim, demanding I give her €20 for sheets, the only cash money I had was deep in my luggage which was strapped to the back of my bike. so I opened it up still on the bike, rustled around and got her money out and she left, I then tried to take my luggage off my bike, which proceeded to fall over on to a Renault Twingo from 1854. I'm so lucky the car was there, because the only bit that hit was the rear right seat plastic, the car was fine, and luckily it had prevented the front of the bike hitting anything at all so all in all I only had a small/medium scratch on one fairing and that's all! Phew. Still, £150 fairing, but hey.
After that we went for a 3 hour jaunt around the Vosges mountains, we did a loop which included the Route des Crêtes. It was beautiful, good weather, good roads. I must say I wasn't on my best form that afternoon due to it being the longest I'd been on a bike in years, combined with dropping it. But it was good to ride none the less. I was aching by the end of the day. We ate a massive dead cow that evening though.
Tim did this a lot, ironically I must point out, because by the end of this you may think he was doing it seriously.
View from the room
Tim briefly went the wrong way which made for a good picture
Edited by Salgar on Monday 26th September 09:27
Day 3 - 204 Miles (37mph average) - Gerardmer to Titisee - Blackforest
Determined to eat healthily and not ruin our award winning physiques, we had breakfast at the closest boulangerie. Chocolate croissants and pain au chocolate were on the menu today (and almost every other day for the whole holiday). We crossed into Germany by riding over a giant lock on the rhine river, we stopped to watch as it filled up very fast. The black forest is extremely picturesque, rolling hills and log cabins everywhere, and it was a beautiful sunny day. I want to come back with the OH. We encountered many LOLs as we dubbed them (Lorry of Logs). This day was also the day of closed roads. One of them was the only road in that direction for miles around, so we ended up backtracking quite a bit and skipping a bit of our route, but it wasn’t the end of the world. The roads are amazing though, there are many fast flowing corners and you can really go quite quickly (which might explain why I don’t have that many pictures of this day). We stopped at a guesthouse for lunch which wasn’t supposed to be open and they gave us the only meal they had on for the day, which was a 3 course goulash meal and it was lovely!
We stayed half way between Titisee and Schluchsee and went for an afternoon swim in Schluchsee where they had other pools and a waterslide too, which we obviously did. Dinner was one of the weirder ones, we went to the top rated place in Titisee on TripAdviser. Ordered ‘garlic toast’ and a pizza. The garlic toast was literally a few cloves of garlic cut up on a piece of toast, and the pizza I ordered was about 50kg, I managed about a third of it after all the toast!
Day 4 - 213 Miles (36mph average) - Titisee to Interlaken - Swiss Pass day
Rode to a health food shop again (see first picture) for breakfast. Had a brief blast down the B500 again before going in to Switzerland where you’re required to buy an annual vignette for their highways, think it was €40 for the calendar year, which is strange because it doesn’t seem to go down, even though we’re more than half way through the year. We didn’t do much in northern Switzerland but it isn’t a huge country. The views in this part of Switzerland seem to mostly be made up of the sides of many many tunnels. But once you get off the highway the views are spectacular. We did a loop that included first the Susten pass, then we stopped for lunch in Andermatt where I had a healthy chicken and bacon salad… covered in honey. Then continued around the loop and did the Furka and then the Grimsel pass which just continue one after the other on the same road. The scenery was spectacular. The riding was fun too, but it is quite stop-starty, the Susten and Grimsel have slightly more flow but the Furka is very narrow, it’s often 1.5 cars wide and the surface is like that of a teenagers face. I eventually got what I call ‘hairpin shoulder’ because I was locking out my arms too much (doing it wrong).
We stayed in Interlaken that night in a hostel because everything else was either booked up or priced for someone that isn’t us. We had some Korean girls at the hostel put their chicken filled lettuce in our mouths, then we went for dinner and drank many good beers.
Susten Pass
Susten Pass
Furka and Grimsel Passes
Interlaken
Even the fuel stations in Interlaken look good
Day 5 - 152 Miles (40mph average) - Interlaken to Aosta - 2 passes 1 pizza
We decided to do away with the health food and live a little, so we ate some pastries for breakfast today. Not before being woken up by a steam boat letting off some… steam outside our hostel room, it was extremely loud. We did the Jaun pass in the morning, a lesser pass, but actually quite good to ride because it wasn’t all hairpins. Here we encountered one of the only people in a car going faster than us all holiday. An Audi S3 was going insanely fast up this pass, well done to him. We went into Montreux which is a very nice town on lake Geneva, we mostly went because Tim wanted to see the Freddie Mercury statue. I could see myself living there. (There were a lot of places I could see myself living, if I won the lottery). We then popped over to Italy over the Great St Bernard pass, which is a very empty pass because right at the base there is a tunnel to go under the pass instead. So the only people up there were people like us. It was good peaceful riding, except for the Porsche that was lying on the side of the mountain, obviously having gone off the end of a hairpin, there were a few tow trucks trying to figure out how to get the car, didn’t look like fun. At the top of the pass, we saw some people walking their St Bernard dogs! Which was a very xzibit moment. We did very well with the Airbnb this night, staying in a lovely house with a swimming pool, table tennis table and a GILF. Aosta hosted the best pizza we had all trip too! Prego
STEAM BOAT
Montreux
Great St Bernard Pass
Aosta view from the Airbnb
Determined to eat healthily and not ruin our award winning physiques, we had breakfast at the closest boulangerie. Chocolate croissants and pain au chocolate were on the menu today (and almost every other day for the whole holiday). We crossed into Germany by riding over a giant lock on the rhine river, we stopped to watch as it filled up very fast. The black forest is extremely picturesque, rolling hills and log cabins everywhere, and it was a beautiful sunny day. I want to come back with the OH. We encountered many LOLs as we dubbed them (Lorry of Logs). This day was also the day of closed roads. One of them was the only road in that direction for miles around, so we ended up backtracking quite a bit and skipping a bit of our route, but it wasn’t the end of the world. The roads are amazing though, there are many fast flowing corners and you can really go quite quickly (which might explain why I don’t have that many pictures of this day). We stopped at a guesthouse for lunch which wasn’t supposed to be open and they gave us the only meal they had on for the day, which was a 3 course goulash meal and it was lovely!
We stayed half way between Titisee and Schluchsee and went for an afternoon swim in Schluchsee where they had other pools and a waterslide too, which we obviously did. Dinner was one of the weirder ones, we went to the top rated place in Titisee on TripAdviser. Ordered ‘garlic toast’ and a pizza. The garlic toast was literally a few cloves of garlic cut up on a piece of toast, and the pizza I ordered was about 50kg, I managed about a third of it after all the toast!
Day 4 - 213 Miles (36mph average) - Titisee to Interlaken - Swiss Pass day
Rode to a health food shop again (see first picture) for breakfast. Had a brief blast down the B500 again before going in to Switzerland where you’re required to buy an annual vignette for their highways, think it was €40 for the calendar year, which is strange because it doesn’t seem to go down, even though we’re more than half way through the year. We didn’t do much in northern Switzerland but it isn’t a huge country. The views in this part of Switzerland seem to mostly be made up of the sides of many many tunnels. But once you get off the highway the views are spectacular. We did a loop that included first the Susten pass, then we stopped for lunch in Andermatt where I had a healthy chicken and bacon salad… covered in honey. Then continued around the loop and did the Furka and then the Grimsel pass which just continue one after the other on the same road. The scenery was spectacular. The riding was fun too, but it is quite stop-starty, the Susten and Grimsel have slightly more flow but the Furka is very narrow, it’s often 1.5 cars wide and the surface is like that of a teenagers face. I eventually got what I call ‘hairpin shoulder’ because I was locking out my arms too much (doing it wrong).
We stayed in Interlaken that night in a hostel because everything else was either booked up or priced for someone that isn’t us. We had some Korean girls at the hostel put their chicken filled lettuce in our mouths, then we went for dinner and drank many good beers.
Susten Pass
Susten Pass
Furka and Grimsel Passes
Interlaken
Even the fuel stations in Interlaken look good
Day 5 - 152 Miles (40mph average) - Interlaken to Aosta - 2 passes 1 pizza
We decided to do away with the health food and live a little, so we ate some pastries for breakfast today. Not before being woken up by a steam boat letting off some… steam outside our hostel room, it was extremely loud. We did the Jaun pass in the morning, a lesser pass, but actually quite good to ride because it wasn’t all hairpins. Here we encountered one of the only people in a car going faster than us all holiday. An Audi S3 was going insanely fast up this pass, well done to him. We went into Montreux which is a very nice town on lake Geneva, we mostly went because Tim wanted to see the Freddie Mercury statue. I could see myself living there. (There were a lot of places I could see myself living, if I won the lottery). We then popped over to Italy over the Great St Bernard pass, which is a very empty pass because right at the base there is a tunnel to go under the pass instead. So the only people up there were people like us. It was good peaceful riding, except for the Porsche that was lying on the side of the mountain, obviously having gone off the end of a hairpin, there were a few tow trucks trying to figure out how to get the car, didn’t look like fun. At the top of the pass, we saw some people walking their St Bernard dogs! Which was a very xzibit moment. We did very well with the Airbnb this night, staying in a lovely house with a swimming pool, table tennis table and a GILF. Aosta hosted the best pizza we had all trip too! Prego
STEAM BOAT
Montreux
Great St Bernard Pass
Aosta view from the Airbnb
Edited by Salgar on Tuesday 27th September 20:29
SteelerSE said:
"We had some Korean girls at the hostel put their chicken filled lettuce in our mouths"
Is this some sort of code?
Most random thing ever.
No, it literally happened just like that. We were sitting reading our books when we were called over and asked if we wanted to 'try some' pointing at a table full of food. And they shoved lettuce filled with chicken and sauce directly into our mouths. It was as strange as you imagine. We smiled and nodded and left...Is this some sort of code?
Most random thing ever.
Bordtea said:
Berz said:
How much does a trip like this cost per day when you're staying at airbnb/hostels instead of hotels? Fuel, food, accommodation; anything else to budget for?
I did a very similar trip a couple of months ago with two friends trying to keep it as cheap as possible within reason. We did 2300 miles over 9 days, took the ferry rather than the tunnel - significantly cheaper - and it ended up costing around £600-650 for direct costs (food, accom, petrol, breakdown cover, ferry etc). My Speed Triple averaged 46mpg over the whole trip. That figure doesn't include the fact that I almost went through an entire rear tyre, and did a few bits and bobs like oil/filter change before we left. I pre-booked all accomodation and averaged £20 each per night, most breakfasts/lunches were supermarket bought (some hotels had brekky included) although we did eat out for dinner every night, followed by a couple of beers.
Oh also, £200 for the spain ferry, £40? for the dover one.
Here is some more of this!
Day 6 - 250 Miles - Aosta to Barcelonette - Route Napoleon
Having had breakfast in the airbnb with an American guy who thought that Switzerland had no speed limits on their highways (yes actually), I was tempted to let him find out the hard way that that wasn’t true. We went over the Petit St Bernard pass to Bourg-st-maurice. I wanted to go over this road because Bourg is probably the place I’ve visited outside of the UK the most, I used to go there a lot when the OH lived there in the winter. I used to fly out on a Friday night and drive from Geneva and then leave on a Monday morning at 2am to get to work for 9am. I took a photo of her old flat that I still have a key for somewhere. The pass itself was quite good but the road down from La Rosiere has a monstrous number of hairpins, felt like a long time for a short distance but it was good viewing none the less. We then rode down the N90 from Bourg-SM to Albertville, which I absolutely loved because I’ve wanted to do it on a bike for years after all those midnight drives in hire cars on it. I rode it a bit like a maniac but it was definitely one of my personal highlights. We then did some brief motorway to Grenoble before heading down the north half of the route napoleon, it was also a great, fast, flowing road and very empty. After getting to Gap we turned off towards Barcelonette, we had been warned that there was a closed road just before our airbnb and had planned to arrive after 4:30 when it would be opening. Upon our arrival to said road at 5pm, it was still closed. Luckily, just before we arrived, it started to rain really very heavily. And so we stood in the road with many other cars and motorcyclists for an hour in very heavy rain which helped me determine exactly which gear was waterproof and which wasn’t. Most of it was semi waterproof I would say. Luckily our airbnb had a big garage for us to park in and a very nice place to sit and debate whether we really were hungry enough to get on our bikes and go to the nearest town to find food. I’m glad we did in the end because it was one of the best meals of Tartiflette and Cafe Gourmand. Near the end of the meal the restaurant invited in a man who sat by himself waving a knife around and shouted a lot at everyone, and us, and the waiting staff. Everyone in the restaurant promptly left, as did we. I was quite tired by the end of this day, it was a lot of miles and time and I has arse pain and was riding like a granny by the end.
Tim doing his thing outside our Aosta Airbnb
Bourg-st-mauirce
Everything in France
Lac de Serre-Ponçon
Lac de Serre-Ponçon
An hour+ of standing in the rain in the road
Day 7 - 126 Miles - Barcelonette to Nice - Cols
Today we rode up the Col de Bonnette which claims to be the highest paved road in Europe. The views were amazing and it was a very quiet road. It was surprisingly long and highest point is a slight detour off the road. It was a nice piece of road. We then went to the Col de Turini which is very nearby, this was also beautiful but it wasn’t a great road to ride, a lot narrower and more twisty and hairpinny than the Bonnette. This was a relatively short day of riding, although it still took quite a few hours do to our route. We then went straight to Nice, checked in at the airbnb, washed all of our clothes, and then took a train to Monaco which is only about 15 minutes away by train, walked most of the ‘track’ and saw the casino. Didn’t see any super amazing cars, just your boggo Ferraris. Odd place. Went back to Nice for a bit of a walk around and some food then caught an Uber back to the b&b.
All of the above are the Col de La Bonnette
Nice
Monaco
Monte Carlo Casino
Dat hairpin
Monaco F1 Tunnel
Nice Port
Very Nice Port
Day 6 - 250 Miles - Aosta to Barcelonette - Route Napoleon
Having had breakfast in the airbnb with an American guy who thought that Switzerland had no speed limits on their highways (yes actually), I was tempted to let him find out the hard way that that wasn’t true. We went over the Petit St Bernard pass to Bourg-st-maurice. I wanted to go over this road because Bourg is probably the place I’ve visited outside of the UK the most, I used to go there a lot when the OH lived there in the winter. I used to fly out on a Friday night and drive from Geneva and then leave on a Monday morning at 2am to get to work for 9am. I took a photo of her old flat that I still have a key for somewhere. The pass itself was quite good but the road down from La Rosiere has a monstrous number of hairpins, felt like a long time for a short distance but it was good viewing none the less. We then rode down the N90 from Bourg-SM to Albertville, which I absolutely loved because I’ve wanted to do it on a bike for years after all those midnight drives in hire cars on it. I rode it a bit like a maniac but it was definitely one of my personal highlights. We then did some brief motorway to Grenoble before heading down the north half of the route napoleon, it was also a great, fast, flowing road and very empty. After getting to Gap we turned off towards Barcelonette, we had been warned that there was a closed road just before our airbnb and had planned to arrive after 4:30 when it would be opening. Upon our arrival to said road at 5pm, it was still closed. Luckily, just before we arrived, it started to rain really very heavily. And so we stood in the road with many other cars and motorcyclists for an hour in very heavy rain which helped me determine exactly which gear was waterproof and which wasn’t. Most of it was semi waterproof I would say. Luckily our airbnb had a big garage for us to park in and a very nice place to sit and debate whether we really were hungry enough to get on our bikes and go to the nearest town to find food. I’m glad we did in the end because it was one of the best meals of Tartiflette and Cafe Gourmand. Near the end of the meal the restaurant invited in a man who sat by himself waving a knife around and shouted a lot at everyone, and us, and the waiting staff. Everyone in the restaurant promptly left, as did we. I was quite tired by the end of this day, it was a lot of miles and time and I has arse pain and was riding like a granny by the end.
Tim doing his thing outside our Aosta Airbnb
Bourg-st-mauirce
Everything in France
Lac de Serre-Ponçon
Lac de Serre-Ponçon
An hour+ of standing in the rain in the road
Day 7 - 126 Miles - Barcelonette to Nice - Cols
Today we rode up the Col de Bonnette which claims to be the highest paved road in Europe. The views were amazing and it was a very quiet road. It was surprisingly long and highest point is a slight detour off the road. It was a nice piece of road. We then went to the Col de Turini which is very nearby, this was also beautiful but it wasn’t a great road to ride, a lot narrower and more twisty and hairpinny than the Bonnette. This was a relatively short day of riding, although it still took quite a few hours do to our route. We then went straight to Nice, checked in at the airbnb, washed all of our clothes, and then took a train to Monaco which is only about 15 minutes away by train, walked most of the ‘track’ and saw the casino. Didn’t see any super amazing cars, just your boggo Ferraris. Odd place. Went back to Nice for a bit of a walk around and some food then caught an Uber back to the b&b.
All of the above are the Col de La Bonnette
Nice
Monaco
Monte Carlo Casino
Dat hairpin
Monaco F1 Tunnel
Nice Port
Very Nice Port
Realised I never finished this.
Day 8 - 217 Miles - Nice to Nimes - Verdon Gorge
At breakfast at the Intermache they took our helmets at the door for 'terrorist reasons' which was interesting. We rode up the Route Napoleon to Castellane then turned left to go down the Verdon Gorge, fun roads. Lots of sweeping bends and not many hairpins, which by now was nice, there are only so many times I can go on to the other side of the road going around a hairpin before there is a bus there. We had lunch in a nice hilltop village Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon. We then went the rest of the way via motorways and it started HAMMERING it down just as we arrived at Nimes, we got fairly wet waiting for the camp hench french man who gave us the keys to his flat which contained a 'bass bazooka' which we used for all of 19 seconds.
This again
Rain, so much rain
Brief rain respite at the Arena of Nimes
Day 9 - 261 Miles - Nimes to Carcassonne via Millau Viaduct
At breakfast today, I ate one of the best things that I've ever put in my mouth. It was called a Brioche Suisse, 10/10 would Brioche Suisse again. Jizz. We kinda chose the route at random to get to the Millau Viaduct as there weren't really any major roads going there. For the most part it was quite good, except at one point we were on a road that wasn't even one lane wide going down the side of a hill between two bigger roads. I was glad for my suspension settings then! We got to Millau for lunch and the view of the bridge from far away is quite something, it's so tall. I would recommend going to see it. We spent a few hours riding around seeing it from different places and riding across it, there are some pretty good roads around it where we went slightly faster than is recommended. We then motorway'd to Carcassonne and had a very nice airbnb on the edge of the new town only a few minutes walk from the old city. We mooched around the old town having a look at the old stuff. Lovely.
A rest
Millau
Somewhere
BRIDGE
TALLNESS
The one second from the left is the hight of the Eiffel Tower
Small truck
Carcassonne
Day 8 - 217 Miles - Nice to Nimes - Verdon Gorge
At breakfast at the Intermache they took our helmets at the door for 'terrorist reasons' which was interesting. We rode up the Route Napoleon to Castellane then turned left to go down the Verdon Gorge, fun roads. Lots of sweeping bends and not many hairpins, which by now was nice, there are only so many times I can go on to the other side of the road going around a hairpin before there is a bus there. We had lunch in a nice hilltop village Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon. We then went the rest of the way via motorways and it started HAMMERING it down just as we arrived at Nimes, we got fairly wet waiting for the camp hench french man who gave us the keys to his flat which contained a 'bass bazooka' which we used for all of 19 seconds.
This again
Rain, so much rain
Brief rain respite at the Arena of Nimes
Day 9 - 261 Miles - Nimes to Carcassonne via Millau Viaduct
At breakfast today, I ate one of the best things that I've ever put in my mouth. It was called a Brioche Suisse, 10/10 would Brioche Suisse again. Jizz. We kinda chose the route at random to get to the Millau Viaduct as there weren't really any major roads going there. For the most part it was quite good, except at one point we were on a road that wasn't even one lane wide going down the side of a hill between two bigger roads. I was glad for my suspension settings then! We got to Millau for lunch and the view of the bridge from far away is quite something, it's so tall. I would recommend going to see it. We spent a few hours riding around seeing it from different places and riding across it, there are some pretty good roads around it where we went slightly faster than is recommended. We then motorway'd to Carcassonne and had a very nice airbnb on the edge of the new town only a few minutes walk from the old city. We mooched around the old town having a look at the old stuff. Lovely.
A rest
Millau
Somewhere
BRIDGE
TALLNESS
The one second from the left is the hight of the Eiffel Tower
Small truck
Carcassonne
Edited by Salgar on Monday 2nd January 19:17
BobSaunders said:
Amazing. Really interested in how you finish the loop.
Would be interested in understanding what you took on the bike, and what you felt you needed or what you did not need in the end.
Will do a small gear review at the end, this was the second trip I've ever done and I think I did much better this time.Would be interested in understanding what you took on the bike, and what you felt you needed or what you did not need in the end.
Day 10 - 251 Miles - Carcassonne to Andorra
Started today with another Brioche Suisse, already a good day. After a quick blast on the motorway down to Spain, we started making our way across the Pyrenees, at first I was worried it wasn't going to be very good, because it was all very slow 60kph roads and villages joined on to each other. But at some point just before we crossed the border that stopped, and opened up into completely empty beautiful road. We stopped for a while on the road and we saw no cars come past for 10 minutes, only cow bells and scenery.
Then on to the N260 which we were on for all the rest of the day, and the next day. It was honestly one of the best roads of the trip, it had everything from mountain pass style roads to very very fast long sweeping bits to gorgey gorgeousness and the weather was great the whole time. We ended up this day in Andorra, we were slightly early for the airbnb so we ended up taking a trip to Soldeu which I instantly regretted because I was knackered, and Andorra is an extremely odd place that appears to essentially be one road, and 1500 fuel stations, and very little else. Unfortunately I didn't take many photos on this day because I was too busy riding.
Also, on this day we had one of the strangest lunches I've ever had. It was a sausage, 9 chips (actually 9), and about 20 beans (they were similar to baked beans, but also, they were not baked beans at all). It was rural Spain at its finest.
Started today with another Brioche Suisse, already a good day. After a quick blast on the motorway down to Spain, we started making our way across the Pyrenees, at first I was worried it wasn't going to be very good, because it was all very slow 60kph roads and villages joined on to each other. But at some point just before we crossed the border that stopped, and opened up into completely empty beautiful road. We stopped for a while on the road and we saw no cars come past for 10 minutes, only cow bells and scenery.
Then on to the N260 which we were on for all the rest of the day, and the next day. It was honestly one of the best roads of the trip, it had everything from mountain pass style roads to very very fast long sweeping bits to gorgey gorgeousness and the weather was great the whole time. We ended up this day in Andorra, we were slightly early for the airbnb so we ended up taking a trip to Soldeu which I instantly regretted because I was knackered, and Andorra is an extremely odd place that appears to essentially be one road, and 1500 fuel stations, and very little else. Unfortunately I didn't take many photos on this day because I was too busy riding.
Also, on this day we had one of the strangest lunches I've ever had. It was a sausage, 9 chips (actually 9), and about 20 beans (they were similar to baked beans, but also, they were not baked beans at all). It was rural Spain at its finest.
TimmyWimmyWoo said:
Andy XRV said:
Great blog and some really nice photos. May I ask what camera you used?
It's a Canon Powershot S110. A993LAD said:
What a fantastic thread. It looks like you had an amazing time. I certainly envy you that long trip with such brilliant roads.
The section when you are going through the Swiss Alpine passes reminds me of the trip we did in our air cooled 911 a couple of years ago.
The Grimsel and Furka passes were amazing, but I did struggle to keep the power on through some of the tighter hairpins given the rather unnerving and sometimes unfenced drops on the outside of the bends. In fact, I'm pretty sure cyclist rather embarrassingly overtook me on one of the downhill stretches but my excuse was that I was admiring the view.
:-)
We must get back there some time with the motorcycles and try and take in some of the Spanish roads as well.
I like the idea of riding down, enjoying the good roads and then coming back on the Spanish ferry rather than trying to slog back quickly on the motorways.
Thanks! I will try finish up the thread in the next few days.The section when you are going through the Swiss Alpine passes reminds me of the trip we did in our air cooled 911 a couple of years ago.
The Grimsel and Furka passes were amazing, but I did struggle to keep the power on through some of the tighter hairpins given the rather unnerving and sometimes unfenced drops on the outside of the bends. In fact, I'm pretty sure cyclist rather embarrassingly overtook me on one of the downhill stretches but my excuse was that I was admiring the view.
:-)
We must get back there some time with the motorcycles and try and take in some of the Spanish roads as well.
I like the idea of riding down, enjoying the good roads and then coming back on the Spanish ferry rather than trying to slog back quickly on the motorways.
That shot looks like you stopped exactly where I took this:
Furka & Grimsel Passes by Paul Robinson, on FlickrDay 11 - 252 Miles - Andorra to Pamplona - N260 Part 2
We woke up and set off back out of Andorra, I counted 9 fuel stations in 1 mile. It's an odd place. We did the second half of the N260 today, such a good road, we saw a wonderful town on a hill. There were great sweepy bits and beautiful mountainside riding.
There was one bit with a very straight piece of road and I decided if I was ever going to accelerate at 100% throttle this would be the place to do it. I thought that the anti-wheelie in 'road' on the S1000R allowed for a bit of lift, but, I can conclusively say it doesn't, what it does do is accelerate faster than I probably ever will in my life again; combined with the quickshifter, going at full throttle, it's fking nuts. I was actually trying to wheelie but I didn't put it in Dynamic because I'm a girly man.
I digress, we then rode into Pamplona after a brief stop under a bridge to put winter gloves on because it rained just before we arrived. We had to go round the block 3 times when we arrived to go down a mega steep ramp. Pamplona was a very nice town, had some good (Italian) food and beer.
Andorra
N260 Views
I was annoyed I didn't stop half a mile sooner for this, was a great view
Pamplona
We woke up and set off back out of Andorra, I counted 9 fuel stations in 1 mile. It's an odd place. We did the second half of the N260 today, such a good road, we saw a wonderful town on a hill. There were great sweepy bits and beautiful mountainside riding.
There was one bit with a very straight piece of road and I decided if I was ever going to accelerate at 100% throttle this would be the place to do it. I thought that the anti-wheelie in 'road' on the S1000R allowed for a bit of lift, but, I can conclusively say it doesn't, what it does do is accelerate faster than I probably ever will in my life again; combined with the quickshifter, going at full throttle, it's f
king nuts. I was actually trying to wheelie but I didn't put it in Dynamic because I'm a girly man.I digress, we then rode into Pamplona after a brief stop under a bridge to put winter gloves on because it rained just before we arrived. We had to go round the block 3 times when we arrived to go down a mega steep ramp. Pamplona was a very nice town, had some good (Italian) food and beer.
Andorra
N260 Views
I was annoyed I didn't stop half a mile sooner for this, was a great view
Pamplona
Day 11 - 83 Miles - Pamplona to San Sebastian
We started the day with a loaf of bread and some Nesquick on our dining room table (did I mention how variable the Airbnbs were? very.)
We had originally planned slightly more for this day, but it was a wet rainy day, and I think we were both fairly knackered by this point, so we just did a brief 2 hour blitz over the mountains briefly back through france and on to San Sebastian, where we had the mother of all faffs trying to get the keys to our Airbnb, the guy was so weird it was unreal. He had us ride a mile across town to park in the middle of nowhere and walk around trying to find him, with him getting angry at us for making him be late for work on his lunch break.
After that he gave us the key, but didn't tell us where it was! He said he would meet us at a cafe on a certain road, which we had to wait about another hour for. Then he walked us up to his flat and said his neighbours were horrible so we should try and be discrete. Then it turns out it was a 4 bedroom flat full of airbnb people and it smelled of damp. Oh well. San Sebastian was a lovely place, we actually spent the afternoon in the sea, jumping in the waves. Then went back and had tiny burger tapas and other good food. It's a really nice city and would like to go back sometime just to look at and eat all the things.
Where we waited for an hour
San Sebastian Beach
Odd mixture of people wearing coats and people wearing nothing
We started the day with a loaf of bread and some Nesquick on our dining room table (did I mention how variable the Airbnbs were? very.)
We had originally planned slightly more for this day, but it was a wet rainy day, and I think we were both fairly knackered by this point, so we just did a brief 2 hour blitz over the mountains briefly back through france and on to San Sebastian, where we had the mother of all faffs trying to get the keys to our Airbnb, the guy was so weird it was unreal. He had us ride a mile across town to park in the middle of nowhere and walk around trying to find him, with him getting angry at us for making him be late for work on his lunch break.
After that he gave us the key, but didn't tell us where it was! He said he would meet us at a cafe on a certain road, which we had to wait about another hour for. Then he walked us up to his flat and said his neighbours were horrible so we should try and be discrete. Then it turns out it was a 4 bedroom flat full of airbnb people and it smelled of damp. Oh well. San Sebastian was a lovely place, we actually spent the afternoon in the sea, jumping in the waves. Then went back and had tiny burger tapas and other good food. It's a really nice city and would like to go back sometime just to look at and eat all the things.
Where we waited for an hour
San Sebastian Beach
Odd mixture of people wearing coats and people wearing nothing
Day 12 & Day 13 - San Sebastian to Santander to Portsmouth to Essex - The End - 133 Miles + 154 Miles in the UK
By now we were pretty tired, as displayed very early on by Tim attempting to put his bike on his centre stand, and you can see how well that went below... Luckily only some minor damage, scratch to a pannier that was already scratched, and a bent brake lever. That made it one each on the dropping-a-bike-that-is-off front.
Our ferry was leaving early afternoon so we just did the 2 hours on the motorway to Santander, had a last McDonalds and spent a couple of hours boarding the boat and all the shenanigans that entails. Had a nice afternoon with a beer and a couple of crepes, booked a film then went for a nap. This may have been a mistake because I woke up feeling super woozy/seasick, the whole boat seemed like it was moving, so I didn't watch the film and just went back to bed/sleep. The water was a bit choppy to start with but eventually had a good sleep. Then it was just the monster faff of getting off the boat and getting through customs/passport control. Then it was a small half-loop round the M25 before getting home.
Total miles since leaving home: 2916.5
Tim takes stuff like this much better than I do
I'll do one final post on gear and I have a few photos that didn't make it into the main thread.
By now we were pretty tired, as displayed very early on by Tim attempting to put his bike on his centre stand, and you can see how well that went below... Luckily only some minor damage, scratch to a pannier that was already scratched, and a bent brake lever. That made it one each on the dropping-a-bike-that-is-off front.
Our ferry was leaving early afternoon so we just did the 2 hours on the motorway to Santander, had a last McDonalds and spent a couple of hours boarding the boat and all the shenanigans that entails. Had a nice afternoon with a beer and a couple of crepes, booked a film then went for a nap. This may have been a mistake because I woke up feeling super woozy/seasick, the whole boat seemed like it was moving, so I didn't watch the film and just went back to bed/sleep. The water was a bit choppy to start with but eventually had a good sleep. Then it was just the monster faff of getting off the boat and getting through customs/passport control. Then it was a small half-loop round the M25 before getting home.
Total miles since leaving home: 2916.5
Tim takes stuff like this much better than I do
I'll do one final post on gear and I have a few photos that didn't make it into the main thread.
For gear, I used this:
a 40 liter Givi Waterproof bag:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006V1SYWS
It was very good, had a great opening along the full length and was extremely waterproof, and had a shoulder strap. It came with two bungee cords which would probably be ok at fixing it to the bike (although you're meant to mount it lengthways), but instead I mounted it sideways because the pillion seat is pretty small, and I used 3 rokstraps instead which made it solid as a rock. I would say that it was a much more convenient, and bigger bag than the 3 Kriegas I had last time, which were more 'snazzy', but in reality just involved a lot more strap faff. The only downside of this setup was that it did end up taking a bit of paint off the rear fairings when I tightened the straps up. Luckily I had already dropped the bike and made an even bigger scratch so I replaced both sides when I got home.
Inside it, I used packing cubes, which made it much much easier to manage and made unpacking and repacking at each stop very easy, would thoroughly recommend if you're taking a bag like this. When my wife first showed me these, I rolled my eyes with disdain and said "Pfft, this will never catch on, why are we packing bags in bags", but once I'd used them for the motorbike trip I was more like "WHAT IS THIS WITCH MAGIC".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B014VBGUCA?ref=spks_0_...
Other essentials to this trip:
* Sena - being able to talk really helps, from 'I want to stop to take a picture', to 'oh god I've gone the wrong way', to 'shall we race here?' and just to alleviate the feeling of being alone for 14 days.
* Small transparent tank bag - http://www.2wheel4.com/autokicker-tank-station-two... - I used this to put my wallet in (for tolls) and my phone and an Anker battery in for GPS, it did very well, although wasn't waterproof at all so I had to remove my phone when it started raining a lot.
* Bigger Anker charger for the couple of nights we didn't have charging
I took 7 days of clothes and made sure we booked an airbnb with a washer for about half way through the trip, and just did all the washing once, which saw us through to the end.
I won't review my actual motorbike gear because it's st and I knew that before I went. The only new thing I bought were some boots, which were very good, but my summer gloves had holes in them the size of tennis balls by the end (they were my original gloves from before I did my CBT in 2010) and my original jacket which isn't waterproof anymore (again 2010) and my trousers have a hole in too now (2010). Nice boots though, very dry feet...
And lastly, here are some panorama shots that somehow went to the end of the collection even though they're distributed thoughout the trip.
Thanks for reading.
a 40 liter Givi Waterproof bag:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006V1SYWS
It was very good, had a great opening along the full length and was extremely waterproof, and had a shoulder strap. It came with two bungee cords which would probably be ok at fixing it to the bike (although you're meant to mount it lengthways), but instead I mounted it sideways because the pillion seat is pretty small, and I used 3 rokstraps instead which made it solid as a rock. I would say that it was a much more convenient, and bigger bag than the 3 Kriegas I had last time, which were more 'snazzy', but in reality just involved a lot more strap faff. The only downside of this setup was that it did end up taking a bit of paint off the rear fairings when I tightened the straps up. Luckily I had already dropped the bike and made an even bigger scratch so I replaced both sides when I got home.
Inside it, I used packing cubes, which made it much much easier to manage and made unpacking and repacking at each stop very easy, would thoroughly recommend if you're taking a bag like this. When my wife first showed me these, I rolled my eyes with disdain and said "Pfft, this will never catch on, why are we packing bags in bags", but once I'd used them for the motorbike trip I was more like "WHAT IS THIS WITCH MAGIC".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B014VBGUCA?ref=spks_0_...
Other essentials to this trip:
* Sena - being able to talk really helps, from 'I want to stop to take a picture', to 'oh god I've gone the wrong way', to 'shall we race here?' and just to alleviate the feeling of being alone for 14 days.
* Small transparent tank bag - http://www.2wheel4.com/autokicker-tank-station-two... - I used this to put my wallet in (for tolls) and my phone and an Anker battery in for GPS, it did very well, although wasn't waterproof at all so I had to remove my phone when it started raining a lot.
* Bigger Anker charger for the couple of nights we didn't have charging
I took 7 days of clothes and made sure we booked an airbnb with a washer for about half way through the trip, and just did all the washing once, which saw us through to the end.
I won't review my actual motorbike gear because it's s
t and I knew that before I went. The only new thing I bought were some boots, which were very good, but my summer gloves had holes in them the size of tennis balls by the end (they were my original gloves from before I did my CBT in 2010) and my original jacket which isn't waterproof anymore (again 2010) and my trousers have a hole in too now (2010). Nice boots though, very dry feet...And lastly, here are some panorama shots that somehow went to the end of the collection even though they're distributed thoughout the trip.
Thanks for reading.
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