South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

Hi all

Thinking of a trip to spain/france next year, was thinking of motor gp catalunya and a return ferry to spain, but then I'm thinking forget the race and go for a bigger adventure.... ferry to spain and ride across the pyrenees (west to east), into france and the bottom of the massif central and then into the french alps before heading to northern france for ferry home. That's around 1550 miles which is fine but as I always try to avoid motorways I'm thinking some of its going to be relatively slow and is it then too far in 7 days do you think?

cheers

I've started thinking about a similar trip although it has now morphed into Spain and Portugal only with France and the Pyrenees for another time.

I think distance-wise there are two main considerations (this comes from thinking not experience so don't trust it). One is whether it is about the ride or about the stops. The other is how much safety time you need in case things go wrong.

My current plan is 1300 miles in 9 days with an option to do it over 12 days and add in three two-night stops in places where we want to spend a whole day (and recover from saddle sores maybe). That's not much per day but we want to do various side trips to ruins, battlefields and of course the odd wine establishment. I've also planned it so we get in striking distance of our return ferry two days early so we can make a dash for home if we need to.

Although we are not maximising the area covered we will get more time in each place. Then we do Barcelona and north west Spain (MotoGP/F1) the next year, Le Mans and western France another time, north-eastern France or Germany another and so on.

If the ride is more important for you I would say your trip is easily do-able solo but with my wife on the back I'd want at least one day in hand just in case. I planned mine on non-motorways and that gives the option of switching to motorways if you fall behind.

1500 miles in 7 days is nothing. 200 miles per day.

The roads are so quiet in Spain & France, even on the minor roads you can cover ground so easily.

Worse case situ, jump on an AutoRoute, bang off a couple hundred miles in an afternoon if you need to.

Depends where you sail to, Roscoff adds a few hours if you're heading mid/South East France but even then, getting off the boat around 10 can see you in the South of France by lunchtime the next day by using Autoroutes (the views are still good) - that includes stopping at 5/6ish to find accommodation.

As said the miles, time and route is easily do-able. As has also been said, have a think about what you want from the trip - is it about the riding, or the scenery you're passing through. That will have an influence on timescales and miles per day.

To from the Pyrenees, all the way up to the massif central, then back down to the Alps is a bit of a zig-zag. Don't dismiss the attractions of the flatlands of the carmargue.

You don't say what sort of accommodation you're considering - "factory" hotels like Formule1, Etap hotel, etc., are plentiful but busy and often around perimeter industrial estates. Camping tends to mean earlier stops and later starts if wanting to push on.

Plus, if the trip is about the ride, you don't want to be burdened with too much baggage....... If it's about the scenery you don't want to be tramping around mountain side villages in hot sticky onesie leathers.

You could easily spend you're whole time in either of your locations without feeling bored. You will also see the best of the country by getting off the Autoroutes and even the Routes Nationalles ..... But once again this has an impact on distance covered.

If you have never been, you will find France far more welcoming to bikes than here. As the population is about the same as the UK, but with 4x the land mass, roads outside of major cities tend to be correspondingly quite too.

One thing we learned was that unless you really had to be somewhere at a specific time, don't book ahead. That way there is no pressure to get somewhere, or target to reach, so if you see somewhere of interest you can stop with no clock ticking in the background. You can then adjust routes to suit without problems.

Do it. Have fun.

Hi Guys
just to say i am interested in doing a tour ,never been over the channel before ,been over the atlantic several times though.
I would love to entice the wife along on our FJR so will be looking at any dates etc,the nice lazy ride is more our taste to be honest with hotels etc as not into camping as she likes comfort lol

Whilst the mileage doesn't sound huge per day over seven days, you could end up just simply riding ALL the time and not getting to see/do stuff along the way. Yes the roads are epic in the Alps, and tbh I'd happily spend a few days exploring that region!!!!

Oh and +1 to travelling light - I can do a week on a tailpack, no probs ;)

A few of us based our selves in the Pyrenees Last May for 5 nights. Great trip. My fork seal blew on the way down so I missed the trip to Andora but would recommend a tour like you've suggested to anyone. I've done a few trips over the years and have found a week is long enough depending how where you want to go. Can be hard work if you just travel all the time, take at least one day out to refresh and enjoy a local town/area. I prefer to have a destination, get there, even if it takes a couple of night stops to get there...
Let us know when and where and how you do when you decide something. I'm heading to the little village of Nurburg next May where there's a track of sorts to bimble around...

Thanks for the responses all, some useful comments. Been a bit busy since the original post but since then we've scaled our plans back a bit to stay within France (to keep the ferry costs down) and to/from Roscoff covering some of the Alps and if time allows the Central region to head back home. Similar mileage if we covered both areas but we wont loose the first 24 hours on a ferry.... we'll definitely suck it and see though and change routes etc as needs be, we are going for the ride but dont want to be on the bikes all day every day plus we will be camping which I know will slow us down a bit. cheers

4 of us rode down to the Alps last year. We had 9 days and went via the tunnel. Rode down the boarder of France and Belgium switching between the two, into Germany for the Black forest, into Switzerland then over the Alps and into Italy.
9 days was not enough!
We had to chop a load of the Alps route off as we needed to start heading north again.

My ideal trip would be ferry to Bilbao, ride through the Pyrenees, hug to coast road to Montpellier and then head towards the Alps, circle around back to the Vosgnes before heading north for the tunnel.
I think you could lose 3 weeks there without noticing it.
Anyone game?

I don't have the experience Jug but I'm a pretty good planner and I originally wanted to do pretty much the circuit you outline plus a bit more of Spain. In the end I realised I was pushing it even over almost three weeks and we were better splitting it. So this year will be Cherbourg, down and then across via the Loir and Loire then back over from Roscoff. Next year will be the Santander (or Bilbao), Pyrenees and some of Spain and maybe even Portugal if time allows. Then if we are still up for it the Tunnel, eastern France and down to Italy although I am tempted to find a way to fly down to Albania or similar and ride just one way.

I'd rather enjoy the time spent in places and avoid the fast roads even if it means deferring some parts of the trip for another year. Some of the routes I have planned for May are scarcely more than lanes but with the chance to see more than just the tourist areas and cities.

My wife jolz and I did 3000 miles around Europe in 16 days down the West coast of France from roscoff over the pyrenees in to Spain back over the pyrenees across France to the alps route du napoleon into Italy lake garda up through the dolomites into Austria then to garmish german side then Stuttgart and finally right across France back to roscoff. All on two zx10's bit of a trek but unbelievable adventure.

Went to Tours on my own when I had the bandit 1200. Easy to do using the ferry to Caen and the food was lovely!

Looking to get to Italy this year....