Tour of France, April 2009 - The report

[Jacqueslemac]

Another morning, and this one started off hot and sunny. How lovely to be able to wander back from the showers wearing next to nothing and be almost dry before getting back to the tent. Our gear had lost its dampness, if not the sweaty biker smell, overnight.

Soon it was time to tackle a fresh day's challenges:


Yet more picturesque towns:



More views:



... and the Gorges de l'Ardeche:



It was still mid-morning but it was well and truly hot. In comparison with the day before, the road was crowded. We had to suffer a car every two or three minutes. There was even a coach or two!

But we still found plenty of places to stop and admire the view:



We decided to take a few minutes out to have a play. Selecting one of any number of lovely left-handers we took a few action shots. Steve:



Geoff:



And a very rare example of me on the other side of the camera:



This one shows me just straightening up after scraping the peg:


Another view to gawp at:




By now it was lunchtime. We decided to leave the madding crowd behind and explore one of the many tempting tracks leading away from the road.

I've never taken the Tiger offroad and Geoff had never been offroad before. Steve didn't know this until after he'd led us up a stony track:


Still, it was quiet.


We had our feast and Geoff provided the mosquitoes with their feast and then it was time to rejoin the tarmac:




(When he downloads his pictures, Steve will not be able to resist adding a picture of me and my Tiger at this point...).

The Gorges de l'Ardeche was rejoined:


And the road continued as before:


We had to endure a bit of straight, flat road as we crossed the Rhone, but soon we were climbing into the high Alps.

The road was just as terrific but the temperature began to fall:


By now we were on a more main road, so when we spotted a campsite it was the work of a moment to turn off, find it was open, pay and ride in.

It was only when we rode to the bottom of the campsite we discovered much of it was waterlogged. Still we found ourselves a dry pitch, made camp, ate, went for our ritual post-dinner walk and then crashed out.



It was a cold night...

[Jacqueslemac]

Did I mention that we'd crossed the border into the départment called the High Alps?

In the morning the condensation from our breath in the tents had frozen. Still, the sun eventually thawed us out. It was a bit of a contrast from the previous morning, though.

A bit of routine maintenance:

And the bikes were ready for another day of adventures:


So we headed off towards Gap and the start of the Route Napoleon:


We had to suffer a few miles of main road to get us to Gap, but even the main roads weren't short of a good view to look at while enduring a few miles of straight road:


It was at this point that I'd pulled over to take a photo, the bike had fallen over to the right (why don't bikes on mainland Europe have sidestands on the right?) and before I'd even crawled out of the ditch, two gendarmes had pulled over to check I was alright.

The shame was worth it for the view:



The Route Napoleon is the route Napoleon took when he returned from his first exile on Elba. The Rhone valley was Royalist, so he bypassed it by taking a minor road closer to the Alps. Regardless of the connection, it's a lovely road. It's a lot more open, with more traffic (still only a fraction of a similar route in the UK) and less bends, but well worth a trip:




At lunchtime we stopped at the spot where an army sent to capture Naploeon decided to switch sides and join him instead:


It's one of the wider parts of the valley but still bounded by magnificent mountains.


Our planned camping spot was in Tournus where the road crosses the River Saône. Friends of mine recently bought a house there. As we got closer a nagging doubt began to creep into my mind. I used to stop at the municipal campsite there on my way back from the south and my memory began to nudge me that when I'd mentioned the site to my friends they'd said it had closed.

Sure enough, as we crossed the bridge, the site of the site was now just a park. Aargh. Fortunately, a new site had opened just half a mile away. It was bigger, further away from the main road and one a stone's throw away from the river (but far enough away that we saw no midges):


It was the busiest site we'd been on, with half-a-dozen other campers. Only one other with a tent, though, and he was also on two wheels. Only he'd had to pedal his steed.



After we'd eaten it was wonderful to stroll into the old town. The walls were radiating the heat they'd stored in the afternoon and there were a few people strolling around, taking in the air. There were dozens of old buildings, including one church that had been built (presumably commissioned, rather than actually built) by an abbot who had died in 1095.

Another lovely end to a lovely day.

[Jacqueslemac]

Our penultimate day. The best of the bends were over and we were in the lower lands now.

Time to fill up with fuel. For a while the key to the Tiger's locking fuel cap had been a bit stiff. I'd been meaning to oil it for ages, but whenever I had a can of oil or WD40 in my hand I wasn't near the bike and whenever I remembered the key was stiff (usually at a petrol station) I didn't have oil or WD40 on me.

Anyhoo, after we'd filled up, I turned the key, locked the cap, put the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I took the key out again only to notice it was half the length it had been a few minutes before. Yes, the key had snapped off in the filler cap.

Well, the bright side was that I had a full tank of fuel (so a range of 230 miles or so) and it was Saturday morning. The not-so-bright side was that I was on a British bike in deepest France and we were a damn sight further than 230 miles away from home.

I stopped at a little local garage, but they were too busy to help. The mechanic did say that the next town had "lots" of bike dealers and all we had to do was turn left at the first roundabout we came to.

Ten kilometres along the road we came to the first roundabout. Sure enough, to the left were lots of dealer-type buildings. I could even see a large Suzuki sign. Perhaps we could find someone to help.

As I took the turning I noticed a Harley Davidson sign and, could it be a Triumph sign too? Unbelievably it was! In fact, there were at least four dealerships selling Triumph, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Harley Davidson, Buell, Ducati, even MV Augusta!

The Triumph guys were happy to help. They tried oil, they tried WD40. They tried being gentle and then they tried being tough. In the end they got a damn big screwdriver, banged it in the lock and forced the filler camp open. They didn't have a replacement barrel but they dismantled mine, filed off the little locking lugs, put it all back together and presto!



Check out the large knife on the bench. Only in France would a bike mechanic be expected to carry a large, razor-sharp knife in a leather puch on his belt.

After less than an hour (but £45 poorer) I was on my way again. The filler doesn't lock, but it still looks like it does.

We were in Burgundy now, passing names like Nuit-st-George and Poligny-Montrachet:


Vines as far as the eye can see and an inordinate number of very expensive and well-maintained châteaux:


The previous few days had been a lot of fun, but we'd not covered as many miles as our schedule had planned, so we cracked on a bit for most of the day.

By early afternoon we were in Picardy and the weather had worsened. By late afternoon we were wet, cold and wondering whether to crack on to the port and cross late at night, crack on towards the port and find a cheap hôtel or crack on towards the port and hope to find a campsite where we could get ourselves even wetter putting our tents up.

In the end, we decided to warm ourselves up by having something to eat. A large bus shelter beckoned us and soon we were also debating wther to set up camp for the night in the bus shelter:






But by the time we'd finished eating the rain had cleared and the sun had peeped out from behind clouds that looked less threatening. So we cracked on towards the port, found a campsite a couple of miles off the main road, pitched our tents in the setting sunshine and fell asleep. It was too dark by the time we'd put our tents up so I didn't take a photo.

[Jacqueslemac]

Sunday. Our last day. We were close to Calais now. The weather was still a bit damp, so we decided to head for the port without rushing, but without too many detours.

Our route took us through some of the areas of the worst fighting in the 1914 - 1918 war and there were signs for military graveyards all around us. We stopped at one or two:


They are sobering places at the best of times, but when it's cold, grey and drizzly it puts damp motorcycle boots into perspective:



This one's a German one:




We also stopped at Vimy Ridge. Much of the area immediately surrounding the memorial has been left to be reclaimed by nature. It's grazed by sheep but humans are not allowed on the grass because it's still full of unexploded shells:



Then it was on to the port. Time for Geoff to break out his secret weapon - an inflatable pillow:


We arrived at the port a few hours early for our ferry. Could we cross on the next ferry? Yes, but it would be £45 surcharge each! On the other hand, we could wait an hour and cross on the one after that for no extra charge.

We turned round and left the port. Okay, where to go for an hour? I know, a coffee in the terminal building. Let's ride the bikes a bit closer. Hang on, the Tiger won't start. Dead as a dodo. The battery had lots of charge, but the starter wouldn't engage, just a click and then not even that. We tried bump starting, but to no avail.

I asked at the ticket office whether we could tow the bike onto the ferry. Sure, why not? was the response. We managed to borrow a tow rope and voila:


Oh, the humiliation.

Anyway, the crossing was uneventful. Except that the sun came out and we arrived in Dover in blazing hot sunshine.

I sat at the dock entrance until a man arrived in a van:


He diagnosed either a fault in the ignition button caused by rain or that the starter solenoid had died. He showed me how to hotwire it, followed me to the petrol station where I filled up with fuel enough to get me home and bought jump leads so I could start the bike if I needed to and I was away again under my own steam.

I arrived home after a somewhat spirited ride compared with the speeds we'd been doing in France. Guess what, the roads were busy, the corners non-existent and the tarmac was rough and pitted. Welcome back to England!

[steveR]

What a great trip you guys have had very envious

Millau is on my to do list

It is an amazing sight, truly beautiful. I was quite shivery when I saw the first few piers as we approached the viaduc. When we parked up after the second run up to the roundabout near the visitor centre (from Millau) I was quite choked. Not many things have done that...

The other thing to say about the Millau Bridge is that it is one of the few things that will dwarf Cooking Fat (geoff), I've got a nice shot of the two in harmony for when I suss out how to upload the pics....

[StumpyFingers]

So a great time was had by all .
What was wrong with the Tiger?

[steveR]

I asked at the ticket office whether we could tow the bike onto the ferry. Sure, why not? was the response. We managed to borrow a tow rope and voila:


Oh, the humiliation.

Honda owners call this "Tigger on a String"

Cue song...

Oh the wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is they pull like hell on a String....

...ad nauseum

[steveR]

Geoff and James catching some rays on the beach front at Narbonne Plage. Very, very windy and the sand was getting everywhere Silicon in the works was wot dun for the Tigger I reckon, not the rain!


The lads being dwarfed by the Millau Bridge, great design, wonderful location!


The trail rider in me was constantly tempted by the lanes and tracks leading off almost any road where we went, a couple of times my Zumo got creative and took us on a short cut which was interesting..... After a stonking morning of riding and half way along the Ardeche Gorge we agreed to find a spot for a picnic, I was leading at the time and stopped at a likely looking spot and got a nod from James and off I went. Cruel of me, but I was not aware that the lads were not as battle hardened when it comes to a dirt road as me! Super lunch spot as the other pics show and then we started off again back to the road.

Geoff descending nicely on some loose shale.


And James went Big Game Hunting in the Ardeche and got his first kill, A Tiger!!

[steveR]

Our gear had lost its dampness, if not the sweaty biker smell, overnight.

Soon it was time to tackle a fresh day's challenges:

And a warm one in prospect... finally C'est moi, looking tres chic in bike jeans, n'est pas? So nice to strip off a bit... ! And as SWMBO has kindly pointed out, fully colour co-ordinated with my 'alp!

[Alba]

Good pictures and report, may head to France in 2010, you have definitely wetted my appetite...