Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > I survived the N85 (Grenoble to Cannes)

[madmav]

Well guys/galls as some of you know, me and some of the boys went on a bit of a ride round last week
so i thought i would give you a bit of a glimps into it

it started on the 6.15 ferry out of Dover a week last Saturday!

There were 8 of us and the Bikes were 2x Duc's my 996 and my mates 853, A brand new Gixxer K5 a day old
an sp1, a new 2005 R1, A Gixxer 1000 K4,A 99 R1 and a zx6.

well the first day we made for Dijon and then on to Grenoble on Day 2.

well that was all the motorway work done and we were all glad to be ready after having a good nights sleep to do the ! Infamous N85!!!!!

(well B4 I tell you the Results)
let me First tell you that for a "Fact" Fast Bikes Video "calais to cannes" in 7 hours is Total B0llxxxx!!!
AS THE night before over a beer or two we worked out that with Fuel stops and Toll's they would have had to do an average speed of 211.657 MPH
so anyway thats put that into perspective

So onto the N85 !!!!!
for those of you who dont know about this road, its like a roller coaster Ride and one you never want to get off
on the other hand get it wrong and you DIE!!!!! SSIMPLE
So after a briefing which was basically (Don't look out for anyone other than yourself) and if i bin it and die tell my wife and kids i love em 4 me!!!!!

well i know for sure there are people on here who know some of the people who came with me on the trip ! so no pork pies from me! just the facts

so we started of,and the first half of the road was first gear hairpins, uphill and downhill 180 switch backs etc etc
the pace was very brisk to say the least and the super corsas soon came up to temp

After that the road went into somereal fast 140mph + sweepers and the gixxer's and R1's started to show there fantastic pace and cornering ability (modern Engineering at it's best) they took some hanging on to for a time
after the first 80miles Tops we needed a fuel/fag break and some time to take it all in !
we saddled back up and for some reason the Duke must have realised we were getting close to the motherlandand so i gave her some reighn's and of we went to pic off the fast boys 1 by 1 It wasn't long b4 i settled into a real good pace and got a feel for what the Duke was all about ! Never had i had the oppertunity to push it so hard for so long, and the harder i pushed the more she wanted until we were loosing the gixxers and R1s corner after corner!

in the end i was having to slow down and wait for them and then speed off with a Grin from ear to ear!
so the point of it all is simple !

for those of you who are thinking about a Duke go get one!!!
and remember these words (usable Power)
Well the rest of the holiday after that was a bit of an anti climax altho riding around the F1 circuit in MONACO at 11pm was fun and the trip over simplom PASS in the swiss alps Oh and the Phone call off BDG at 2 am in the morning

nice one sean!! Hey sorry we could not make the pi55 up mate

Well to cut a long story very short! the ride home from germany was very very wet , and it gave me time to think and reflect on what was actually left to do on a sports bike after that!

i'm not a track day king! and i certainly aint got the energy for off roading! And at the age of 45 i dont think the css would offer me a job

so i finally arive home and my 18 yr old Daughter was standing on the drive and greeted me with a hug like i aint never had B4 and then the tears welled up in her eye's and she said, DAD i realy did not think you were gonna come back from that one
so the next day i woke up and cleaned the old trusty steed and went down to my local dealer and came home with this

I know you are all gonna say "man" have you lost the plot or what but you have goto give it up some day b4 it gives you up

so i just popped in to say< thanks to all me mates on here i'm offically RETIRING from the sports bike world and me and the missus are looking forward to doing a bit of Bimbleing, so we might pop in and see some of you race at the Desmo Due
inbetween the ring trips!

so to all you guys/galls out there stay lucky keep intouch and look out for each other Kind Regards mav
c ya around

ps will this look nice with termis and painted RED OR YELLOW

[Rushjob]

Now that iswhat I call aroad...everything from fast 120mph+ sweepers to tight little nadgery 20mph hairpins.
Went down that way last March.....AWESOME
Here's a little piccy of the outlook.................

[guest1]

Nice one Mav, it's a crackin road innit.
Many years ago when we used it there was a write up that said "...and you will then come across a cheeky little hump back bridge...."
Jeeez, how right they were! It had crankcase gouges big enough to grow potatoes in.

I gave up sports bikes about five years ago, and now I'm back on 'em.

[Walenut]

Fair play Keith, Watty said you had a good time, you'll have to tell me the story in full. Know exactly where you are coming from, but I was expecting a Harley

[Jools]

Years ago, when I was a systems engineer, we used to do all of our training Grenoble, either in the factory in Eybens or the training headquarters in Meylan. That was in the days when computer systems courses used to last 12 weeks and even operating systems courses like Advanced Unix used to take 5 weeks. I worked out that I've actually spent two and a half years living in the Alpha Hotel on the Rue de Verdun and getting legless in the Pub King Charly.

We used to thrash down the N85 (Route Napoleon) almost every weekend and go down to Monaco, Cannes, Nice, St Tropez, Cassis - wherever the fancy took us, and the fancy usually took us to the place where women wore the least, which was sometimes nothing at all.

We mostly tortured little Renault hire cars to within an inch of their life, but did it quite a few times on a VFR 750 borrowed from an English mate who lived out there on the weekends he had to go and see his in-laws.

Mav is right about the road though. It's awesome. It goes from fairly open, fast sweepers to places where it's like the Cat & Fiddle, only 10 times as long. I was last there 15 years ago, but it sounds as if they haven't improved the barriers at all. In some places, all that's between you and a 50 - 200 foot drop into a gorge is some big 2ft cubes of concrete placed about 8 feet apart. My favourite bit of the road (although one of the places you're most likely to die) is where the road has literally been carved out of a cliff face and there are short bits that are like half a tunnel with the side nearest the gorge below left open. On this stretch there are also churches and villages that seem to just cling to the rockface.

My abiding memory is of being on one of the snaking downhill sections, really going for it on the VFR and having a French biker on a beaten up old Kawasaki Z1000 come past me on the outside. The guy had an open face helmet, was smoking a fag and as he came around the outside on a long right hander, with sparks grinding off the pegs, he turned round in the saddle, put his left arm up and gave me the thumbs up. Mad as a box of frogs!

Incidentally, for anybody doing this and maybe having an overnight in Grenoble, try out a little family run restaurant called La Panse in Rue de la Paix. Not a bit pretentious and the food is superb. Me and Mrs Jools have often done a 100 mile round trip detour from Lyon to get some of their Salmon baked in a sea salt crust or their Tournedos. Gotta go now, I'm salivating too much...

[Gizmo]

I gave up sports bikes after similar trips and a couple of mates getting killed. Had 3 years off then bought a Monster just to hack around on without being stupid, lasted 12 months on that then I had to come back to sports bike. Also got a supermoto which i ride majority of the time but I still enjoy the rush from riding the 999. Know what you mean about the japanese stuff, big V twins just seem to be able to drive offa the mid range power without spinning up or front going light both of which always slow me down when it happens

Its a long time since i did the 85, usually end up coming home via Avignon, Gap, Savine le lac then Briancon and either into italy or back to Grenoble via the deux alpes road with that big drop off the side.

enjoy your new toy you'll still want to do those trips though, then you'll miss the fairing and high cruising speed

[Steve M]

enjoy the pipe and slippers Mav

you didn't fancy a Monster or Multistrada then?

[BDG]

Mav,

Very sorry for the late night call...bit of a life changing trip by the sounds of it, hope you enjoy the change, bit shocked as you're a first grade nutter. All the best

I'll give you a bell.

[Gizmo]

Originally posted by BDG
Mood: Sunderland-Champions 04/05

Surely that should be BDM

M being for Makam

[BDG]

Originally posted by Gizmo

Surely that should be BDM

M being for Makam

You're right it should be Makem, the BDGeordie was always an insult created by one of my not so good 'mates'