Alternative Tour de France 2004
 

5 of us on 2 R1's, Thundercat, VFR and my 996 SPS.

The rules were simple, no pillions, no panniers and no autoroutes except to bypass cities. As a group we've all riden together for many years, Birchy being the last recruit in 1999 although Geoff had been missing for the last few years.

day 1 boring ride to ferry

Day2 we rolled of the overnight ferry at St Malo with hangovers at a more civilsed time than the Le Havre night ferry and headed south making progress. It was Bastille day, a public holiday in France and the roads were deserted. Imagine having a public holiday for breaking out of jail, maybe Manchester should have Strangeways Day as a bank holiday.

It soon became apparent that those bloody R1's can make better progress in a straight line than the SPS as i was flat out at an undisclosed speed when the manic dwarf came by and returned my friendly 2 finger wave. We had just returned to more sensible speeds when 3 gendarmes stepped out into the road and flagged 3 out of 5 down, waving the backmarkers through who had spotted our brakelights. The Gendarme spoke far better English than i do French, explained the error of our ways as we were 20mph over the limit. He then asked what i thought of Harleys?, to which i replied they are crap. His response was 'i have a Harley'

He then informed us the fine was 90euros (although i'm not sure if this was for speeding or my opinion of Harleys). Geoff replied 'is that 90euros each?', to which he replied 'No i'll only fine one of you and you can all chip in 30 euros each. result what a nice man.

With beerfunds slightly depleted, although not half as much as it could of been as the fines are in a sliding scale now, we wandered of in search of a hotel. We normally use a few favourite places to stay, but also search out some new ones each time. Tonights random choice was a beautifull place in the Perigord region with superb food at reasonable prices. We spent a wonderful evening sat on the veranda overlooking the river and chilled.
357 good miles plus 1 not so good one.

Day3 dawned bright and early but we did not. It is a holiday after all. got away about 11am and headed for Rocamadour for a bit of culture, wander round the village and church built into the cliff face. Walking around in leathers in 30c was a bit hot so culture vulture bit over it was back on the road. All was going well until we came across a road block, thankfully not for us and some bloke wearing a bright yellow Tshirt pedalling like the clappers. This was obviously some other less important Tour de France. Our route was closed until many hours later so we headed off on a very nice detour which was deserted as the entire local population seemed to have gone to watch the race along with the Gendarmerie.

Got back onto the planned route down some of my favourite roads and headed for one of our favourite hotels complete with giant Jaccuzzi which we all jumped in well after midnight. We reminded le patron of the hotel that we fixed his car last year, had a quick fight over who was 3 to a room and got stuck into another excellent meal, why can't we Brits produce such good food for so little money at home. Posh hotel and nobody batted an eyelid when 5 bikers turned up. They come out and admire the bikes and arrange secure parking.

Qoute of the holiday for me was when we sat down for a cold beer before diner and i said i'm starving to which Birchy replied 'No, beers better value when you don't eat because you get drunk quicker!' Thats one for TP-996.
A mere 244 miles of bliss.

Day4 started with me taking a wrong turning out of town down a route i know well, much to everyones amusement. As run leader i had an arrow shaved into the back of my head for the others to follow and to help them pick me up the right way at the end of the night. We dodged round Carcassonne on some pretty naff roads snarled up in traffic with temperatures reaching 32c before heading to the pair-of-knees with Andorra as our destination. The horrible black clouds looming over the mountains didn't bode well and sure enough as we climbed up the heavens opened with a torrential thunderstorm and hailstones in July spoiling some of the fun on the road. As we reached the top of the Pas de la Casa into Andorra at 8000ft we cheated and used the recently opened 3km long tunnel that avoids the summit. As i was in front i decided to treat the others to the sound of the Termis at full bore through the tunnel rather than their insipid in line fours. What music and the toll booth operator at the other end just laughed and made funny throttle gestures. Down the mountain into the madness of Andorra de Vella rush hour in the rain with more roadworks than ever, felt like being back in Manchester except the rain was warm. We fought our way out of town 5km up the road to Ordino where we were staying for 2 nights and met up with with John and Su from Moto Aventures for the best meal i've ever had in Andorra which is not noted for its fine cuisine.
Only 219 miles.

Day5 was a day for shopping with us descending on the multitude of bike shops in town, then stocking up on perfume, fags, and small electrical goods. We had been travelling light but the trusty Ventura was now somewhat fuller than the start of the trip despite having left a trail of used socks and undies through france. I always take old stuff and discard rather than reapack. Don't know about you but everthing fits in well when you first pack at home then the nasty luggage fairy comes along and makes things twice as big when you repack.

After the bike shops 2 pairs of smelly old boots were binned. No, i'm not half an octupus, they weren't both mine. Back to the hotel to carry on with the rest and recreation:)
Not many miles today.

To be continued (if you haven't already been bored to death)

[Edited on 18-8-2005 by BDG]

Well you know, ..... eatin's cheatin !!

:bouncy:

Fantastic write up. Sounds like a great time. Not remotely boring. Keep it coming. :P

Part 2
 

Day 6, Although we hadn't covered many miles each day on the way down they had virtually all been on some of the twistiest roads possible so it had been quite hard work, moreso than 600 miles down the autoroute in a day. Geoff had summed it up when he said that back home we have a few good roads but generally only for about 20 miles at a time and with far higher density of traffic whereas he could ride all day for 2 or 300 miles of virtually all great stuff. The result of a good few years research.

Anyway we'd enjoyed a day off but everyone was gagging to get going early the next morning........so we finally left Andorra at midday.........hopeless the bloody lot of us, but it had been another great night with an even higher quotient of my bikes better than yours drunken type of b*llocks, much to the amusement of the locals in the bar whilst we watched last years Everyone against Aids in Africa concert on dvd before venturing into the local nightclub underneath the bar. Nightclub/disco...it was the size of my garage and we doubled the attendance!

We crossed the border into Spain after jumping the worlds biggest Q for customs. Here in Spain we finally decided to all swap bikes and see what lived upto last nights bullsh*t. We'd do about 20 miles then play musical chairs.

I thought the R1 was like a rocket propelled armchair, very easy to go fast, soft squishy and made a mockery of the myth that Ducati's are torquey. Don't want one though, couldn't wait to get back on mine,but enjoyed seeing it going round bends thinking ground clearance looks good, sounds great, and it might even make me look cool :lol:

General consensus was that the SPS was harder work, and this is a very big BUT, far more INVOLVING and REWARDING.
Azzy who is onto his second R1 is actually thinking of buying an SPS whereas Birchy wasn't as keen.

Phils VFR is well sorted with Ohlins shock, revalved forks and is the bike for big miles, whilst everyone was polite about the Thundercat, and it did really well it spent most of its time banging of the redline.

One of the roads down here won our road of the trip award for being indescribably good, particularly in view of what we'd already experienced. Then just to bring us back to earth we hit one of the worst that went from race track to dirt track without much warning. A belated lunch was consisted of 5 of us standing under the airconditioning outlet in a petrol station trying to cool down because it was so hot much to the amusement of the very cool bird behind the counter. The other good point was that she was playing the Chilli's at max volume which was a great relief from the usual Spanish 'I love Pedro my donkey' spannish guitar rif.

No political correctness here whatsoever as a good mate is Spannish and we rang him later that night to ask him the translation for "my gosh, your armpits are hairy"

Enough of the petrol station, it was back into the mid afternoon heat and time to get a move on as we had a hotel or in this case a Parador to find. This is where navigational blunder number 2 struck bigstyle. I'm a bit of an anorack for maps and have got loads with details of trips from over the years. Instead of bringing my upto date map of Spain i had picked up an old 1988 (yes 88 not 98) version and it transpires that various roads had been renumbered and we or more accurately i lost the plot for a while until the truth dawned and i found the plot again.

By this time we were all getting hungry so it was up a gear flat out in the right direction. The last 20 miles or so was down just the sort of very tight twisty, BUMPY gravel strewn road that didn't suit me at all, wish i was on the Multistrada for the first time on the trip.

We finally got to the Parador which was a very impressive old monastry turned into a hotel. Things were looking good, the restaurant looked equally impressive, but what a massive letdown. Worst food on the trip in what looked so good and was our last night before the ferry. On the phone again to Dan our Spannish mate to bereat him for the crap luke warm food. He may be 1000 miles away but it was all his fault, because he wasn't there to complain.
271 miles

Day7 last days ride before the ferry, bit of a downer as apart from last nights food we'd all had such a good time. Anyway we set of to make the best of it. Because i don't know Spain as well it was another day of mixed roads some brilliant and some average, but the locals definately seemed bike friendly with several examples of truck drivers waving us through with exhortations to ,give it some stick. Bunch of roadworkers at temporary lights egging us on to do wheelies but only Geoff and Birchy obliged. The final thing that summed up the Spannish love of bikes and general tolerance was coming round a bend to find to find 2 policeman having a fag and deep in conversation, seemingly unconcerned about the noise of the bikes coming at a pace that whilst not crazy was possibly a little over the limit ;)

Very relaxed country but still not on par with France in my humble opinion (sorry Dan). We rolled into Santander after 267 miles in plenty of time for the ferry which is a bit of a novelty for us, joined the Q of about 40 bikes all with a story to tell of their own trip;with the depressing thought of 300+ miles of M5 and M6 to go in the morning (but at least it didn't rain).

The night on the ferry was another good laugh except for the worlds worst DJ/compere/comedian in the bar. As Azzy said "He's only on the boat because no one will let him into a country and he can only annoy 200 peolple at a time". Despite him, it had still been an absolutely superb trip with great riding, hotels, food and mates. For me this type of trip is what biking is all about.

As for the bike. Well everyone thought i'd be on the Multifarter but i went on the SPS and i'm glad i did. This was my first time travelling on a 916/996 bike and it performed far better than i expected.

Comfort wise the best change over stock was a set of helibars (no wristache), follwed by a DP high screen and a Technosel foam seat which for a thin piece of foam is surprisingly comfortable. The only part of my 6'3" frame that gave me stick was my knees and legs.

Other comments are the oil consumption was far less than my previous ST4 and ST4S, strange, Ventura luggage is the business and standard Pirelli Diablo tyres took all the abuse i could give them, did 2000 miles on the trip and are wearing remarkably well. Fuel consumption, not bothered, just filled it when the light comes on.

If you haven't been abroad on the bike, just do it, please.:cool:


Finally, even though she'll probably never read this, huge thanks to Helen for sorting out builders and decorators etc to get the extension finished whilst i was swanning around on the bike. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Edited on 29-7-2004 by BDG]

Thanks, BDG! Inspiring :burn:

Fanbloodytastic!!

That is what biking is all about:burn:

Sure beats a 10 mile run to the local DSC meet.:D

Quality write-up .... another candidate for a Pronto article?
Get it sent in and supply some pics so everyone can read it!

Excellent stuff, yet again. As Loz said, inspiring. Good to hear that a 996 isn't too unbearable for touring and that you had such a superb time. Thanks for taking the time to share it. ;)

Thanks for the feed back, glad you enjoyed reading it, makes the one fingered typing worthwhile especially as i was worried it was getting a bit long winded, but wanted to convey the fun we all had.:D

Have to put one of those trips on my agenda - looks like a great time!

Cheers fella - good work.