Touring Advice.

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Matteh Boy
23/12/2004 at 09:46
Ok, so this is a genuine question, so please - no fucking arsey answers.
____________________________________________________________

K, so me and a few m8's are planing on going to France next year to do abit of touring. Our route is, through england, ferry over to calais, then down the A26 to Geneve then on to Chamonix, which is roughly 1000 miles.

So heres my questions;

1. Is there anywhere which we should visit, I.E. after Chamoinix we havent got anywhere after that planed, so where should we go?

2. Any touring advice would be nice.

cheers, matty.


Yamaha fzr 1000 exup.
Gromit
23/12/2004 at 09:51
You need to ask yourself a few questions, including how long are you going for?

Just a 1000 mile hike down the motorway to reach your destination is fine, but why not do it over say 3 days and take in some good roads into the bargain? 1000 miles is a fair bit of wear on your back tyre too.

Eastern France isn't too badly off for decent roads. Get a Michelin map, and plan your route that way - Autoroute won't show how interesting the roads are.

Good luck - and enjoy
Ringadingding
Matteh Boy
23/12/2004 at 09:53
Ok cheers, as for cloths in panniers, how much should i take? a pew pair of sox/boxers per day and a couple of pairs of jeans?


Yamaha fzr 1000 exup.
Dodgy Geezer
23/12/2004 at 09:59
Lay out the minimum you think you need and then get rid of half of it. Seriously. Travelling light doesn't come easy to many people first off, but you'll regret it if you don't

I try and keep it to tailpack or topbox (depending on bike used) and tankbag. Panniers are unwieldy and either make your bike irritatingly wide for filtering (hard version) or are a fire & theft risk PITA (soft version)

Agree with Gromit about the quality of the roads in Eastern France, the first 200 miles or so out of Calais is a bit poor but after that I wouldn't bother with Autoroutes. Burgundy, Franche-Comte, Alsace, Lorraine, Jura, all have great roads.

Best (as in combination of sensible dibble, great scenery, decent surface and traffic conditions) Alpine roads are in Italy IMO. French Alps are too high, if that makes sense. The roads are either valley roads, and congested, or very high passes which can be any combination of scary, shitly surfaced, or closed until June. There are some good ones but by no means all, don't believe the hype; for pure biking lower mountains are best

Scenery in Switzerland spectacular but the cops are tw@ts
Pirahna
23/12/2004 at 10:07
Bike touring is crap unless you have very large hard luggage. Better still take a car.

It'll be hot and you'll be dressed for a mild UK summer. When you find somewhere you fancy stopping you won't be able to walk around with all your bike kit on, and you won't want to leave the bike with your gear strapped to it.

Of course it could be cold and wet and you won't have brought enough kit. Or the kit you have brought isn't waterproof and you'll spend a miserable time in damp soggy clothing.
Gromit
23/12/2004 at 10:08
What Dodgy said - especially re the closed roads. I've even been in the Massif in late May when some roads have been closed and they're only 5000' or so.

Luggage - again, I use a tankbag and tailpack, even on a BM which has superb luggage of its own. Don't take a rucksack as even if it's really comfy for the first 100 miles or so, it'll eventually be a pain in the arse. Hard luggage is fine if you're doing 3 weeks with the missus but otherwise don't bother.

Clothing (bike) leather kecks and a winter-type armoured fabric jacket I've found is best - jackets which have plenty of pockets are really useful. I went touring for 3 weeks/4000 miles in '99 wearing 1-piece leathers and it's the worst thing I ever did. Take a good pair of waterproof over-trousers and keep them handy - you may need to get them on in a hurry (but it's NOT going to rain is it??).

Of course the best thing - credit card, spare undies and a toothbrush.
Ringadingding
FLASH
23/12/2004 at 10:14
Is this your first trip out of the UK? Tape a sign to your tank/visor/screen that says "Stay on the right, you idiot!" And come and see us. You'll be glad you did.
Cousin Jack
23/12/2004 at 10:34
Sounds good, I hope to get down to that part of the world myself in June.

I'm not the world's expert (Ive been to France/Belgium/Luxembourg once earlier this year), but the motorway from Calais down the Eastern edge of France was quiet when I went (late May) and an ideal introduction to remembering to look over your left shoulder.

Roundabouts feel VERY strange, and so do T junctions where you have to stop. Trying to get your head around where to look is the worst bit.

I fixed (zip ties) a cheapish car sun-visor mirror to my left hand mirror stem. They are sold as kiddie mirrors sothat you can watch kids in the back of the car and it isd supposed to clip on the sun visor. Only a few quid in Halfords, but it gives a wide angle view of that blind spot over your left shoulder. I found it really useful, especially since I tended to slow early for junctions so I could have a good think about where I was supposed to go, and where to look for traffic that might try to kill me.

I found that reciting a mantra (ride on the right) every time I pulled out, from a junction or from a petrol station, was useful. And then again (ride on the left) when I got back to UK.

Advice I was given was not to try to go too far too fast. Dealing with strange road signs, riding on the wrong side, etc all tend to slow you down, so blasting all the way down to Geneva may be possible but not very enjoyable. The advice from Gromit to take a few days and use the back roads is very sound.

As for what to take - depends what you you are doing when you get there. Pack light, but take what you would need if you were doing the same trip but in a mate's car. One thing I did was to get some BIG poly bags (bin bag size). Everything went in them inside my bag, with the top well rolled over. Even if my bag leaked I still had dry clothes.

I also had Gortex gear that was a godsend. Other people were faffing about trying to get waterproofs over leathers, and then get them off again. Gortex is the way to go.

Good luck, and enjoy.
Cousin Jack

(a member of an oppressed minority whose legitimate aspirations to nationhood have been brutally suppressed by the Anglo Saxon invaders. Remember An Gof !)
Back-in-Black
23/12/2004 at 10:58
Best advice is to not bog yourself down too much worrying about details. Just get out there and do it.

Just make sure you have:

European breakdown and insurance cover
Passport
Ferry Tickets
Mobile Phone
Credit card
Puncture repair kit
A bit of common sense

...and off you go.

The Alps are great. As DG says, there's a few shoddy roads and some downright terrifying passes, but there's also plenty of beautiful fast flowing stuff as well as the obligatory sets of hairpin bends up to the ski resorts.

Buy a Michelin map of the area from any service station in France and look for wiggly lines. Ski hotels are cheap and plentiful, no need to book in summer, just turn up.

Enjoy
AdamA
23/12/2004 at 10:59
Gromit wrote
Hard luggage is fine if you're doing 3 weeks with the missus but otherwise don't bother.

Weeks? Id need it for three days with my missus!

Thats why she takes the car at Easter.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/Abelrider/Newsig.gif


go_slow
23/12/2004 at 11:02
I got an old kit bag (canvas type and water proof) and a 2 meter steel wire with loops on either end. Once I get to where I am camping I take off the motorbike cloths, string the wire through them, put them into the kit bag and padlock it to my front wheel. It means I dont need to be wearing motorbike kit all the time. I take deck shoes with me for wearing off the bike since they are easy to pack.

As DG said, lay out what you think you need and then pack half.
Mr. Tibbs hits the nail on the head when it comes to what happens if you help the environment.

Mr Tibbs wrote
You'll be a fucking hero and some sort of tree-hugging yoghurt-weaving organisation is bound to reward you with free sandals and worry-beads for the rest of your low-impact environmentally friendly life.


Every man should have a shed where he can potter, Visordown is my shed on the internet
balbas
23/12/2004 at 11:20
This sounds completely stupid, but the first time I took the bike to the continent, I was surprised by

How bad the French road signs are
That French petrol stations aren't nescessarily open on Sundays - especially in the country side
How well French drivers treat bikers
That there aren't any cats eyes on French A-roads

I also found that tying a flourescent zip tie to my RH mirror stem reminded me which side of the road to ride on.

Stupid things like different road signs and traffic light positioning also caught me out a couple of times when I was tired.

Riding on the continent is damn good fun though. My advice is go for as long as possible, go as far as possible, take as little luggage as possible and you should have loads of fun.

Best of luck, let us know how you got on.

Oh and if you're riding an FZR Thou, get breakdown cover before you leave...
BMW Rockster, CBR 600F & Aprilia Pegaso 650

SG # 266 T.W.A.T # 266 TSSC # 99
Nippy
23/12/2004 at 11:30
Some very good advice on this thread, especially about travelling light. A heavily laden bike is no fun, never mind the width of the panniers!

I'd just add:

If you're route planning in the long winter evenings, try www.viamichelin.co.uk

It's got the proper job Michelin maps (the clue is in the name ) and the scenic roads are highlighted with a green line. These are very often the nicest motorcycling roads, too.

The recognised greeting between motorcyclists is done with the left hand extended, not a nod or a wave. €œThank you€ is indicated with a kick of the leg (really).
Dodgy Geezer
23/12/2004 at 11:35
I'd say French road signs are inconsistent rather than bad. So you'll get signed off somewhere, then come to a junction and there won't be a sign with same names on it, so you get lost easily that way

Plus, you must navigate by place names, NOT road number. If you have this habit (navigating by road number, I find a surprising number of UK folk do, always seemed odd to me), lose it as soon as you're on the boat/shuttle

Road numbers of almost all 'D' roads, of which you will be using many, change as you cross from one departement to the next, and in towns none of the signs will have the road numbers on at all
weeksy
23/12/2004 at 11:38
Matteh Boy wrote
Ok, so this is a genuine question, so please - no fucking arsey answers.
____________________________________________________________

K, so me and a few m8's are planing on going to France next year to do abit of touring. Our route is, through england, ferry over to calais, then down the A26 to Geneve then on to Chamonix, which is roughly 1000 miles.

So heres my questions;

1. Is there anywhere which we should visit, I.E. after Chamoinix we havent got anywhere after that planed, so where should we go?

2. Any touring advice would be nice.

cheers, matty.



you can't even organise a loaf of bread and half a dozen eggs and i'm supposed to believe you're going to plan a trip to France ???? behave yourself.
Matteh Boy
23/12/2004 at 12:00
weeksy wrote
you can't even organise a loaf of bread and half a dozen eggs and i'm supposed to believe you're going to plan a trip to France ???? behave yourself.



lol


Yamaha fzr 1000 exup.
Back-in-Black
23/12/2004 at 12:42
With a sports bike, I was limited luggage wise. I went for the Oxford sports panniers and tank bag for two weeks in the south of France, the Alps and Luxembourg. I could have got everything I needed into one pannier probably but the beauty of soft luggage is that it can be compressed with the straps whn it's not full and it weighs next to nothing. The panniers were no bother filtering in cities as they weren't over full and the handling wasn't impaired. In fact, I had my first scrape of kneeslider on an alpine hairpin with full luggage on

The thing is with those Oxfrod panniers, you can undo a zip round the middle and they expand to ridiculous proportions. I fail to see how anyone would need them that big normally, BUT they easily accomodated enough cheap cigarettes and spirits to more than pay for the ferry ticket.
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