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France road trip advice?
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10-10-2011 9:26pm#1
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Join Date:Posts: 10513
Fair play OP, do it, one of the best holidays I've ever done! Have a read of my past threads cause lots of people gave me great advice. In short here are my tips.- Pick your bike wisely. I was on a naked monster 600 - big mistake. Have as much fairing and wind protection as possible.
- Get some rain protection, several days I got drenched - was not fun. You can get big raincoats to go over your gear and boots, and gloves - cheap and light. Also, bring two sets of gloves, summer and winter.
- Get a satnav. Other did without it but it was an absolute godsend for us. No idea how much more difficult it would have been without one
- Stay off the motorways and take the scenic route when you can. I spent many days spending most of the days on long boring motorways. The days I did do amazing country mountain backroads
- Find out some of the best roads and plan your route around them. We did the Gorge Du Verdon and it was INCREDIBLE!! Also the roads around the mountains here were fantastic too: http://g.co/maps/u69a7
- Camping might be a pain, you can get very cheap accommodation outside the cities, we got really nice rooms for €40 a night between the two of us. Personally I think you should save some money up, do it properly and have some creature comforts.
- Get breakdown cover. Proper stuff not just recovery. It saved me. My chain got really lose and luckily I was able to get it fixed roadside. If not I definitely would not have made it home - would have missed the boat and might have had a horrible crash if it fell off. I got mine though a company in the UK - I gave my UK reg (my bike was an import). Got it for €40. AA are the only ones who do it in Ireland and its a ripoff - over €100 for 11 days.
That's all I have for now, let me know any questions
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BrokenArrows wrote: »I'm on an L plate at the moment on a varadero 125. Advice on what bike to get for the trip on a full direct access uk license.
When I went to France the first time, I was only a year on a big bike, so it can be done, but try and cover as much mileage as you can before you go - it helps if you ride every day not just weekends. Easier and safer to get as much experience as you can here before you go off to unfamiliar roads, riding on the other side, different rules of the road etc.
Familiarise yourself with the local laws, speed limits, road signs etc. in each country you will be travelling through. Good idea to have spare bulbs in France (a legal requirement for cars, not sure for bikes, but a good idea anyway) and have enough tools to be able to adjust your chain at the very least.
Check brake pads, chain, tyres etc. have plenty of life left in them before you go so you avoid wasting holiday time trying to get replacements (BTDT) Tyres can wear down a lot faster than you'd think when doing long high speed rides in hot weather, the chain will be under more stress too. Check the tyre tread (for wear, damage, nails etc.) and tyre pressure, and check the chain adjustment and lube it, every morning before you set off. I did hundreds of motorway miles in Germany once with a slow puncture in the rear tyre, it was almost flat before I realised and I'd been doing 90-100MPH all day, if I'd checked the pressure that morning I'd have spotted it.
If you get a Scottoiler (or a belt or shaft drive) then that's one messy job you won't have to do every morning, and the chain will last longer too.
Take a plug kit for temporary puncture repairs. Breakdown cover is a must as if you have to be towed off an autoroute it could cost you hundreds.
Get a small piece of removable vinyl sticker (the IRL plates for cars are good) and cut it into an arrow shape 2cm across, stick it in the centre of your speedo pointing to the right before you get off the ferry. Every time you check your speedo you'll be reminded to ride on the right! Do the same but pointing to the left when back home for the first few days too, ask me how I know...I'm thinking of a cruiser.
I don't like cruisers anyway, but there are drawbacks with them for a trip like this - some of them get very uncomfortable on long rides because your bum is taking all of your weight, not great for doing motorway miles (true of all bikes to some extent!), they can be heavy and not handle well in the twisty stuff, luggage provision is often poor.
I did my first trip to France on a GS500 and then I did 4 or 5 on a CBR600F, using the same luggage on both bikes, soft panniers, tent and a bag on the pillion, and a tank bag. Rucksack for bringing the baguettes back from the hypermarket but seriously, don't plan on carrying more than that on your back, it tires you out as well as being dangerous in a crash. Let the bike carry the load, not you!
Camping in France is probably the best way to see the country, on the routes nationales once you get away from the ports there are campsites every 10 or 20km, so finding one is rarely a problem, they are cheap and usually have very good facilities.Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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I didn't do much distance on D-roads but what little I did was great fun - literally no traffic, fantastic scenery and the chance to just potter around and soak it all in, go slowly through tiny villages and scatter the hens on the road!!, the autoroutes are a bit manic and even on the routes nationales the traffic is constantly looking to get somewhere, they're a bit like our old N-roads before the motorways were built, although more scenic in general.
Have been going there since '96 and never had a problem with priorite a droite but mostly I would have been on RNs with the priority sign. On local roads, old habits die hard irrespective of rule changes, but that applies in rural Ireland too.
I found the most dangerous thing was pulling out of a petrol station or the like, on a two lane road with no traffic - needed to consciously remember not to go onto the wrong side. I got caught out once on a complex junction (in a town, single carriageway turning left onto a crossing dual carriageway) I was aiming for the wrong side of the dualler until I realised! The nearest I came to a cropper was when turning left from a dualler into a petrol station on the other side, a gap was provided for turning left, I pulled into the left filter lane and stopped, by some sort of reflex I looked over my left shoulder and of course saw nothing, pulled out and a car coming from the right had to jam on. So embarrassing
Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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