Route planning through France
 

Advice needed

A work colleague of mine is looking to ride through France to Nice, in the south of France, this summer.

Anyone have any good routes they can recommend?

Any useful advice?

Places, roads to avoid?

Anything that's useful really :smug:

Thanks.

Depends on how he wants to do it.
Is the journey part of the holiday if you get mydrift, or is it just a means of getting there?
Which port will he arrive at?
One route I've used is.....
Caen ( Ouistreham) - Alencon, Le Mans, Tours, Chateauroux, Montlucon, north of Vichy to Roanne, Lyon, Grenoble, then the route Napoleon to Cannes & Nice.
Most of this is single carriageway - a good 2 day run.
Avoid..... the centre of Lyon at 1700 on a Friday evening..... the middle of Nice in a midday monsoon when half the city is under attack from roadworks!!
Keep the speed down in built up areas...speed traps abound these days.

Thanks Andy.

Anyone else - boing ;)

If he wants to try a bit of autoroute (the vast majority toll free) then the A75 from Clermont-Ferrand to Lodeve (Including the new Millau viaduct has got to rate as one of the most spectacular in the world.

Knee down motorway, s'unreal.....

Darren

Especially the bits through the tunnels!!! :D:D:D:D
Not done the viaduct yet..... must go back soon.
Having said that, another motorway obviously planned by a biker is the A66 from San Andres del Rabanedo near Leon , north towards Oviedo.
The best money I've ever spent on an autoroute..... bends, mountains, lakes and eagles floating overhead.....superb!

I am off to France on the 6th of July for a 5 days of riding. We try to keep off the toll roads where posible, plan your route well in advance know all your mates moblie numbers. Take a rear wheel socket if your on 996/8 ?
enjoy
:roll::roll:

I seem to recall a couple of excellent articles in a recent Pronto .... ;)

Oh make sure you have breakdown cover
Just in case :eureka:

Take a bit of a detour around Orange, and visit the Gorge De L'Ardeche.

It's awesome (and a bit scary too)

I missed out on the Gorge De Ardeche, but have stopped at Orange a few times and in the summer months its quite lively with nice bars/restaraunts etc. Theres a nice little hotel we stop at just a few hundred metres from the centre up by the train station I think the hotel is called "Terminus" Its has a garage the size of a aircraft hangar for secure parking. If your not in a rush and don't want to use the autoroute it is a nice days ride from there to Nice taking in Mont Ventoux. If you are interested I will check the hotel name and phone number etc for you.

The French seem keen to ensure you don't get caught by the gendarmes in a speed trap. We were warned well in advance this year, by oncoming traffic flashing their lights, before each speed trap. They are also much less frequent than over here. :burn:

On the other hand, if they do catch you, it's a hefty on the spot cash fine or a visit to the local bastille :flame:

You do have to pay to get over the new Millau bridge, and there is nowhere to stop close or on the bridge to have a look. Its the highest bridge in Europe designed by a Brit as well. You can see itr for miles before you get there coming from the North, so if you want to have a look stop at a rest area before you get there, its very impressive.

Personally i'd get through Northern France as quickly as poss and head for the Massiff Central or the Alps for good roads.

Michelin very kindly mark good scenic roads with a green line on the map, the catographers must be bikers as these roads are usually great bikung roads as well.

Speed traps in France have become alot more common in the last few years, but you are more likely to find them on main N roads, close to towns as a generalisation.

The Route Napoleon makes a good run down from Grenoble to Nice and on the way back from Nice you can go across upto 5 high Alpine passes including the highest tarmacced road in Europe at over 9000 ft, Col de la Bonnette north of Nice, then onto the Col du Vars, Col d'Izoard, col du Lautaret and finally Col du Galibier, a great days ride just to do these 5 passes, but slow going and hard work.

If you're not sure which roads, The AA have a free online route planner which also does European roads with maps: http://www.theaa.com/travelwatch/pla...jsp?database=E

Might be worth a look with the above in mind.

Can't recommend buying a Michelin map enough though. In fact, I've got a spare if you'd like to borrow it. Just u2u me an address and I'll stick it in the post.

I use the viamichelin.com route planner to get my basic route, then refer it to a Michelin Map for the best biking roads. This route planner allows you to set parameters which will allow you to avoid Motorways/Toll roads etc and gives a good idea of time and distance to be covered, for those important fuel/coffee and o/nite stops.
Have used this system for my last 4 trips to Europe (France/Germany/Italy/Spain/Portugal) with good results. The route instructions are also good, giving just enough information in a easily read format, unlike Autoroute which will have you stopping every 5mins to turn the next page of your 50 page route instructions.
My most recent purchase has been a GPS system from Aldi at £230 which i hope will further aid my deteriating reading sight and will ease the locating of city locations or bypassing off. Haven't tried the GPS on tour yet, but initial impressions are good. It's compact, works of it's own battery supply or cig. lighter and has audio. Just need to load all Speed Camera sights to the software and make it a dual system at £600 less than a Garmin.
Hope info is of some use - Just remember that if you decide on GPS, don't rely on it totally. You still need your maps for planning & backup.
Another useful tip if stuck in a City centre or the like and you need to find your route out, is to use the Suns Position relative to the time of the day, works every time for me. It's also a good check to make sure you are Hooning down the right road, before finding out 50 miles later that you've taken the correct road number, but in the wrong direction (Who's done that at least once in their life?)
Well thats all from me, spouted off to long already.
Cheers

Forgot to mention that Viamichelin will also give you french Speed Camera sites, road works, and over useful information on Hotels & Guest Houses, places of interest etc. They use to have a scenic route parameter, which in most cases did the same as the michelin maps and choose the green shaded roads or Biker roads.

Spot on, that bit through the Massiff Central is awesome !!! Did it coming home last year 2 up on the ST2, can't recall many straight bits :devil::devil:

Nice is 2 days - nice?
 

Just a short note to thank everyone for the input!

Lot's of good advice and some difficult choices to make for the journey.:burn: