riding in france

[Pete.L]

Nepoleon trail....what a day!


Don't forget to take a reflective jacket,spare set of bulbs,a warning triangle and I think you might also need to carry a personal breathalyser.

Pete.l

You don't need a reflective jacket - they have shelved the plans for that. Nor do you need a reflective triangle for a bike. You do need 2 x personal breathalysers this year though and the bulbs, plus your driving licence etc.

I have ridden to The Alps, done the Route Napoleon and the Pyrenees (doing them again this year - better than the Alps I think). If time is limited, you can ride quite easily down to the Normandy landing beaches in a day ( I did a couple of years ago) and the roads are a bit more interesting there plus there is a lot to see.

Have to agree about the roads in northern France though - long straight and boring and best got through asap, unless you just like France anyway and want to keep stopping at points of interest.

The Chunnel saves a lot of time and I use it now rather than the ferry. That said, we will come back from The Pyrenees from Santander-Portsmouth. After 10 days riding the thought of going all the way back through France is a bit much!

they have relaxed the law on personnel breatherlizers too...
But you will need both parts of your licence, log book, insurance cert and MOT cert. along with breakdown and travel insurance. best to be safe than sorry.
Check you insurance policy for cover in Europe, make sure that you are covered and also how long they allow pr trip. Carole Nash are good with this, 90 days per trip with full breakdown cover on any aged bike as long as it is MOT'd. If you do need to get travel insurance, make sure they cover motorcycles as some only cover up to 125s.

Cheers I had a feeling I would be out of date on my info.
So, more importantly. What's the latest on fixed speed cameras? Are they still grey and in the middle of the motorway and can you just drive through them and set them off without getting a ticket? They weren't connected to our UK system the last time I went through and we set off about five in the first day

Pete.l

[Trainraider]

French speeding cameras connected to UK traffic systems?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSo0duY7-9s

The hell freezes over before that happens (well actually the hell melts again, because it froze when Finland won the Eurovision contest)

[captainoi666]

so im sure many of you will have rode over there, but can some of you recommend places to go/things to research into?
Ive been to Paris and quite frankly don't fancy being rammed off my bike by a shitty renault

I would like to ride to Spain but I think that's a bit over the top for my first European ride, plus we only have a week off and don't want to be doing silly distances each day

Visit the Provence! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provence

Spend my holiday in the Department Drôme...absolut awesome. There are not many places in Europe they are so similar to paradise like Drome.
The entire Provence from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea is heaven for Motorcycling.

Made some photos (not the best quality) from my last holiday without Motorbike.

https://plus.google.com/photos/11247257 ... 6409837745
(Hope the link works for you)

Cheers Buk

Edit: Oh, a little bit to late

[callam_nffc]

the alps and southern France, possibly even Spain are where I really want to go,
The only problem is that I only have a week off and don't want to have to ride every day, I like to be able to have the choice rather than it being essential for me to get to somewhere

[Miztaziggy]

Yes I know the feeling, which is why I suggested the ferry to Bilbao.

As I said in my post before, I wouldn't want to go again to the North and ride down, it wasted so much time. I think at very best, you could do it in 1 really long hard day's riding all on toll roads (will cost you approx £50 on tolls from North to South).

More likely is it will take you 2 decent day's riding to get to the South coast.

Maybe you could do Calais to Lyon, or even Grenoble on day 1 (although it is nearly 600 miles).

Day 2 go down the Route Napoleon (best road EVER) to Cannes, then along the south coast to Monpellier.

Day 3 go into the Pyrenees.

Day 4 go back from Montpellier to Grenoble/Lyon.

Day 5 go back to Calais (another long hard drive), or you could break it up like I did last time and go from Lyon to Paris. Spend the night in Paris, then next day do Paris to Calais.


Doing that above would give you a day or two depending on your schedule to stop and relax for a full day somewhere like Montpellier / Cannes.

[callam_nffc]

Certainly worth thinking about

I really want to go to bilbao but its just short of 400 quid for the ferry alone

[leevtr]

I did that in 2002. I think its changed slightly now, but outward took 36 hours, and return 28. In Bilbao hardly anyone spoke English, and I was riding around nearly out of petrol, in the pissing rain, with nowhere to stay. Got it sorted in the end but there was a point where I started eyeing up shop doorways.

Really depends on what you're going away for, but if the riding quality is paramount, and you have a week, I'd look at this. Day one, ride to that hotel I sent you via pm. Stop there 1 night, then next day ride to the Black Forest ( I can send you the route, about 160 miles accross country, no motorways, great roads ). Spend 3-4 days there, ride the B500, ( theres plenty others, but its a peach ) then you can do the return via the Ardennes region of Belgium, split over 2 days.

And the last time I did any camping, was in a site on the B258 ( absolutely AWESOME road ) between Blankenhiem and Nurburg, in Germany. Typical Germany, you could have eaten your food off the toilet floors, and it wasnt expensive at all.

http://maps.google.com/local_url?dq=&q= ... 36-VwiCtlQ

Or, Somewhere around Grenoble would make a good place to de luggage the bike for a few days and ride out in different directions. And you're on top of the RN85 Route Napolean, another one of my top 10 roads.

[callam_nffc]

The ferry to Spain is 22 hours mate, I'm still only in the ideas stage, nothing planned at all

So thanks for the ideas, I have so much to think about lol

[Stratman]

Re speeding - similar to the UK really, and this is just my opinion mind - why risk doing stupid speeds on motorways and main roads where you may get caught, when there are plenty of twisty, nadgery, technical roads (especially in the Alps etc) where you are never going to speed because you just can't go that fast.........that said, the D500 through the Black Forest saw some spirited riding, but it is so twisty that I doubtI ever go much over 70/80 mph anyway.

Speed cameras are rarer on the continent than the UK generally. I have never had a problem with police abroad (or the UK come to think of it) and have found the French bike gendarmes to be quite helpful when my headlight bulb blew (compulsory to have dipped beam on bikes in France)

[callam_nffc]

I won't be going mad on their roads anyway, especially not when I don't know the road system, let alone roads themselves

As for over here I once got to devon from Worcester, two up with gear, at an average speed of 107mph door to door haha
That was on a virtually brand new gsxf650 hire bike fro insurance company

[Miztaziggy]

Yeah I thought I wouldn't go mad before I went too, but you cant help it.

If you do go to the Route Napoleon or the road along the south coast of France, then there are sections I swear you will not get above 50mph and you will think you are FLYING!!

But you end up coming down the mountains into valleys with a 4-5 mile straight and perfect visibility. You just cant resist winding it back and seeing how fast you can go. See that first picture on the first post I made, the one on the straight.

If we get a few people interested, would anyone be up for a group trip later in the summer?

I am going, along with Sarah and my brother and his GF - so 3 bikes so far.

[callam_nffc]

I would love to mate but already got my holidays booked up for the summer, defo up for the weekend away in Wales though

[leevtr]

Yeah I thought I wouldn't go mad before I went too, but you cant help it.

If you do go to the Route Napoleon or the road along the south coast of France, then there are sections I swear you will not get above 50mph and you will think you are FLYING!!

But you end up coming down the mountains into valleys with a 4-5 mile straight and perfect visibility. You just cant resist winding it back and seeing how fast you can go. See that first picture on the first post I made, the one on the straight.

If we get a few people interested, would anyone be up for a group trip later in the summer?

I am going, along with Sarah and my brother and his GF - so 3 bikes so far.

I already have a ferry booked for June 28. Hoping to be going in the direction of South East France/Route Nap/Alps. Would come back via Black Forest and Mosel. If I get there in the first place, outside influences and all that .

[johnfish]

Has anyone tried Portugal? I fancy taking a trip down the coast...

[callam_nffc]

wombles me its slowly turning into "the long way down" lol