Roadracers in France

Quick blast down the peage from Calais to Rouen to get rid of the tedious Pas de Calais stretch and then onto the twisties around the Neuf Chatel En Bray area where the topography gets a bit more interesting. Not a bad run over mainly backroads to Amboise, the sense of mysterious adventure helped along by the sometimes strange directions of the SatNav unit - which is pretty much essential for bendy backroad riding if you don't want to be stopping to look at maps every 5 minutes. So a slightly roundabout route - 411 miles but more entertaining than autoroutes.

Amboise is truly a lovely town nestled in the heart of the Loire valley, on the River, about 20 kliks east of Tours. There is a huge Chateau literally at the back of the Hotel Belle Vue, where we stayed, not a bad hotel, but a bit pricey for what it is as the rooms are not that quiet, unless you have the suite of course, huh Monsieur Keith? After the exploits of the previous day we decided to just follow one GPS navigator and Wayne led the way with TomTom.

The weather on this day was much better as we headed south, at times avec gusto, which was excellent to give the Blade a good run. Bearing in mind that this was the first trip of any distance I had ridden the new RR5 Blade on, it was a bit of a honeymoon period. With full luggage on board, about 10-12 kgs held down by a couple of bungy straps and a large Velcro flame proofed strap (to avoid melting on underseat exhaust, didn't work though!!) I saw an indicated 181 mph and she was still pulling - this was when John on his Gixer 1000 and myself were doing 4th gear roll ons. His K5 literally leaps ahead of the Blade on initial throttle response, but once the Blade gets going, there's very little in it. This seems to be the way the Blade delivers it's power, seemingly there is very little torque mid range and all the power comes by the bucket load from 7K onwards. Takes a bit of getting used to, but excellent fun on the twisties.

Shortly before lunch, after a 30-40 mile high speed section on main roads, we suddenly started to get a lot of oncoming traffic flashing their headlights, so time to slow down. Sure enough, no more than a mile or so up the road there were 3 or 4 gendarmes standing in the road .. waiting for us, perhaps? Anyway, John carried on to greet the gendarmes with his best pigeon French and the rest of didn't. Being of a more cautious disposition we decided to pull up short and sidle off quietly down a side road and split up.

Three guys headed off across country while Keith and I ended up about 300 yds further back up the road we had just come down. We could see the point where John had been pulled over, but now there was no one there. All very odd, maybe we wouldn't see him again. I was starting to feel guilty and maybe I should have followed him like a lemming .. never to be able to walk properly again. I know we were in France, but police are police and have you ever seen Midnight Express? Anyway, these thoughts were momentarily enforced when said gendarmes drove up the single track road we had used to avoid them! As they passed they gave us a stern look, but as there was only 2 of us we could have been anybody and not necessarily les Anglaise Terribles. They then turned onto the main road and cleared off. Very odd we thought, as soon as we had dispersed so too did they.

A quick stop for lunch, much amusing banter and haranguing about the right and wrong thing to do in such a situation etc. I won't bore you with the details, suffice to say, just leg it and live to argue another day! By now time was pressing on and our chosen destination for the next 5 nights was Le Puy en Valay, about 200 miles away, so we had to crack on. Only 290 miles today folks, I was cream crackered!!! Blade was good though, but seemed to have strange front end feel to it that I couldn't pin down.

Monday: Early morning the sky was grey and tres threatening. Croissants, excellent coffee, jus d'orange, pain au berre, avec marmalade and other fruity jams/confitures summed up brekky, all very French indeed, bloody lovely it was too.

Le Puy is a pretty enough place, but a bit hilly, and very religious. It's on the pilgrims' trail to La Compost Heap or something like that, so loads of weary types with sandals and backpacks wander about looking for churches.

Due to the weather being a bit undecided and possibly dampish we went for a wander round town to get our bearings and then went out later for some lunch to a place called Annonay, then we found 18 miles of twisty heaven being the D534 from Tournon to Lamastre. Wow, this is what we were here for, then we took the D533 and the D15 back toward Le Puy and home in time for tea. Tea? Beers more like!!

Up again for a hearty breakfast of carbohydrates with grey skies threatening. Off for a spin in the hills heading south. About 5 miles out of town Dave (being a pilot and experienced at inclement weather forecasts), decided to turn back. He knew better. The further we went, the more bleak it became, so we too headed back after 20 miles. Popped into the rubbadub for a beer and a coffee, let the weather clear and then set off again, but this time in a northerly direction. John was leading the way with his gravel roaded magnetised bike in full flight. Upon reaching a town we'd been to the year before we took some back roads that last year were covered in gravel. This year the local French council had decided to do the remainder of these roads so we set off down them. I was cursing these as I remembered the mess they made of my last Blade and this one was far too new for this sort of thing, but you could thread your way through most of the gravel. However, once we hit a part of the road that was wet tar, I drew the line, turned it around and headed back.

For some reason the French like to resurface a back road and then leave it, not like us Brits at all, but that is one reason we go there, because they are French and we are not. Anyway, on the way back it gave me a chance for some good photo opportunities of some stunning scenery. I must admit I really do love that part of French Vichy France, it's truly spectacular! I was back shortly after lunch time, so had a pizza, a beer and then went for a wander round the local tourist traps, what a fantastic place Le Puy is to say the least.

Now things may get a bit sketchy here as the PDA I was jotting bullets down on to do this article was a bit short of battery life, so I now only have a foggy memory to go on. I've also lost my map that I had all the roads marked out that we'd taken on different days of the trip, but next were two days of exceptional riding on some excellent roads and the Gorge Du Tarn is sticking fondly in my memory as being of stunning beauty, bendy, up hill and down dale for mile after mile. This really was what we had travelled this distance for.

Back to the Blade then. The front end feel, or should I say lack of front end feel? Well, whatever you call it, it certainly was not behaving like my old RR-3. I'd given it more compression damping to try and get that feel, but it just wasn't there. Grip was there, as evidenced by the black lines the front tyre was leaving on the warm tarmac ... all the bikes were laying nice smooth darkies exiting bends but it appeared my Blade was the only one leaving front tyre darkies, weaving back and forth along the smooth curving rear darkie, so to speak. Whatever it was causing this strange phenomenom I had no confidence chucking the Honda into a bend. Now it could have been one of a few things;
1. Could be that I'd had an 'off' recently, but that was the rear going, not the front that caused the high side, naturally,
2. Could be my fork settings?
3. Could be the Bridgestone BT014R, fitted as standard.
Forget the first two, let's concentrate on the tyre shall we? OK, so before I set off for this trip I had a new set of Diablo Corsas sitting in my garage, but I didn't fit them because:

· If I took the BTs' off, they'd never get used again.
· Far too much tread left after only 500 miles running in period.
· Surely, if these tyres are fitted to most of the litre sports bikes as OE, they must be good?

So, I opted to take the BTs' with me to wear them out. This I did, in fact I can honestly say I have never worn out a front tyre in the same time I had worn out a rear and yes, the tyre pressures were correct.

As time wore on, the front end and what was going on in my head got worse and I lacked more and more confidence. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel, DtP had Diablo Corsas on his RR5 Blade and he was chucking it about with ease, so the trye had to be the thing. Then one of the guys told me had read an article about tyres in a bike mag and the testers all declared the BT014R front as having a serious lack of feel. But hey, Ron Haslam has no problems with them round Donington, but then again, I expect they are brand new or just scrubbed in then. Sorry, I'm going off at a tangent here, so more of this in en autre article. Suffice to say, I should have pondered Keith's comment that the front darkie was wiggly whereas the rear was straight and true.

Friday: Today we had to head back toward Amboise. The best route to take was really the most direct as we had a way to go. So after 4 hours and about only 90 miles under our belts, we had actually gone about 40 miles north of where we started; in fact, we had nearly gone back to our original starting out point for our lunch stop! This strange method of navigation had absolutely nothing to do with GPS, this was down to a condition/illness that one of our group had been struck down with and later diagnosed as 'compulsive riding disorder'. The symptoms for which being the following;
· An iron arse.
· A nose for sniffing out the roads covered in the most gravel.
· The longest route possible going east then west, when you really need to be heading north.
· A very persuasive nature.
· The promise of a road that equals the Holy Grail. Ha ha, did that ever exist?? Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam may think so.

Anyway, a welcome stop for lunch and then we find John's got a rear puncture - poetic justice of a sort. An amusing interlude of sticky goo and strange bits of rubber followed and the leak was stopped. We then pressed on, but general impatience meant that John got left behind at a petrol station (pumping his tyre up!) just before we hit a short bit of motorway... my fault probably for not thinking laterally. This is where mobile phones come in handy. We met up eventually and pressed on, now making up time.

This 'making up time' can of course have consequences. Somewhere very much in the middle of nowhere Keith 'turned off to follow his Navman' (c. John), although it was in fact due to a complete loss of forward motion on the R1. A faulty connection in the ignition was triggering the immobiliser. It would work for a little while until the connection got hot and the resistance rose, then pouf (or rather BANG BANG as the engine cut and loud backfires ensued) ... no forward motion. All very distressing on your own in a darkening rural wilderness.

Anyway, five of us arrived into Amboise 10 hours after we'd set off. Ten hours to do 290 miles?! Mmmmm, doesn't make good reading does it. Still, should keep numbers down for our next trip.

8.00 pm - two hours later Keith turned up, after nursing his bike and rather sick ignition system all the way. Luckily it was a lovely summer's evening, albeit a bit fly-spattered. He had no road map to follow but the little magic Navman got him home even if it was partly on unmade roads ....

Saturday: An uneventful run back towards Rouen and then onto the péage for the last blast to Calais and the train. The Dieppe / Newhaven run is better, even if you do have a spend 2 hours on the Seacat with a bunch of drunks!

Departure from Newhaven was at 07:30 on the Super Seacat to Dieppe, destination that night to be Amboise in the Loire Valley. The total mileage was about 240 from Dieppe, so not a great deal to contend with, but this was to be carried out on D roads and the odd N road, so it could take some time. The ride down was rather uneventful with us travelling on mainly familiar and enjoyable roads through Neufchatel-en-Bray, Forges les Eaux, a spot of lunch at Lyons la Foret, through Les Andelys and then on to the Tours area of the Loire valley.

We actually made fairly good time, but all the way the weather looked ever threatening and many a wet road we rode, but it never actually rained upon us, of which we were thankful. The worst part of this day's journey was to be the N184 which was rather derrière numbing to say the least. However, relief was at hand in the shape of comfy seats in the lounge area of the Bellevue Hotel and a cool beer in hand.

That night we had dinner in an outdoor restaurant in Amboise overlooked by a magnificent castle. A lovely summer's evening, until it rained. A lot. Not to be easily put off our al fresco dining we persevered through this for a while under a rather large umbrella type affair, which soon assumed the rainproofing qualities of a piece of toilet tissue, so we had to give in and retire to the Hotel for a nightcap ... and left Andy asleep in the lounge, giggling to ourselves as we all tiptoed away leaving him snoring quietly.

Aurillac was to be our next destination where we were booked into a hotel for 3 nights. The roads were a bit patchy in terms of being wet and dry and not that challenging until we got to Aigurande in the afternoon. They now became a much higher quality and far more enjoyable to ride fast. The first good section was from Aigurande, through Gueret and on to Bourganeuf where we stopped for lunch.

Sunday in France is not the best day to try and obtain fuel on anything other than a motorway and even less so after midday. Upon leaving Bourganeuf we were running high on miles and low on fuel. We reached Eymoutier and I took the gamble of not leaving the town until I found some. Not advising the others of this gamble Keith and I took off in the opposite direction and managed to blag some from a couple of off duty plod that were using their French credit cards to obtain some from a supermarket. The use of one of these cards is about the only way you can manage to get petrol on a Sunday, so once our tanks were refreshed, we set of to find the others after leaving messages via mobile phones. We found them in the woods several miles further on with a couple of fuels lights starting to flash, so back to the town to fill up.

The nearer we got to Aurillac the better the roads became in terms of being dry and also being bloody fast. The scenery in this part of France starts to change dramatically, hugely scenic and all that. The last road we rode this day was the D922 from Mauriac to Aurillac and it was, is and always will be stunning! It's very fast with extremely high speed bends, something of which I'm not used to at all. It takes a while to judge the entry and corner speed accurately, but practice makes perfect.

Once booked into the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux by the lovely Stephanie we all met up again, got showered, changed and wandered a few yards to a restaurant where tales of daring do, heroic wheelies, high speed bends and offending comments towards Andy's Paul Smith shirt were in abundance. Again, another very enjoyable day, but not for Andy's shirt.

We were to spend the next day discovering what the local roads through the Massif Central had to offer. We had got as far as Pigeac, (not very far at all in fact), when proceedings were halted by a wheelie that was none too agreeable to the Datatool immobiliser fitted to a new Gixer. Enough was enough and it had kicked in with the fuel pump now refusing to operate, probably in protest of the amount of wheelies the bike was now starting to perform.

After about 3 hours of diagnosing the fault and many a phone call to the UK, we decided that the offending alarm/immobiliser needed to be extracted from the bike. The problem was what wires to cut?

So we then stripped the other Gixer to use as a 'live' wiring diagram. This worked and 10 minutes later the broken Gixer was running again. Not sure Datatool security equipment should be this easy to remove? But nevertheless, who cares, our vacation could continue.

A while later we stop for lunch and promptly set off only for my Fireblade to forget it was a Honda with the headlight packing up. Not to worry, should only be a fuse? Nope, not a fuse, in fact, still not sure what it was/is, because the lights starting working again, but now the clock doesn't work. Never mind, the good fairy warranty can sort that out at a later date, with the headlight being far more important of course than knowing what the time is when you are on holiday.

We then happened upon Utopia. The Gorges Du Lot from Espalion through Estaing and up to Entraygues-sur-Truyere has got to be one of the best roads I or any of us have ever ridden. It hugs the cliff face for several miles and twists and turns it way through the Gorge. Taken at speeds well in excess of 3 figures takes some serious concentration, but by Christ was it worth it. This is now permanently marked on my map as a road to do next time that we're down in this part of France. Some care needed as the choice is cliff face or armco if you get it wrong! From here it was a very fast blast on more open, sweeping roads back to Aurillac.

The next day was to be trouble free with no mechanical gremlins getting in the way of our enjoyment. We spent most of the day searching out top roads. This doesn't really take much doing, as one glance at the map will ensure you are spoilt for choice. The only thing to be wary of is that the white coloured D roads and yellow coloured D roads, can be the difference between a bumpy goat track covered in gravel and and fast, flowing, smoother but challenging roads, which tend to be yellow, or at least on my map they do. However, this all goes out the window when you encounter the D990 to D590, from St. Flour, through Pinols to Langeac. This is about 25-30 kliks long and on the map is coloured red, but should in fact be a magnificent gloss white, it's bollocks!! Very bumpy, very loose with an ever changing surface and we did it twice!!??

The day after we took in more roads and even did the tourist thing of going up a mountain. We rode up Puy Mary, which is 1787 metres above sea level, as you ride up it's easy to feel a bit weird as vertigo kicks in when negotiating the roads that hug the side of the mountain, all you want to do is look down, but it's not advisable until you are at the top. Once at the top, you get a magnificent view of the surrounding region. You can walk the last bit, but in leathers and motorcycle boots it's not advisable when it's this warm.

That night we went to the Pont Rouge Restaurant in Aurillac and ate the finest meal I'd had all week. What a top end to a top day.

Next morning was the start of the journey back north. It was decided we'd take in some more of the better roads and skirt around the bottom of Clermont Ferrand and end up in Vichy for the night. With luggage loaded, we headed off toward St. Flour and again picked up the D990-D590 route to Langeac. Don't think we'll do this road again in a hurry.... Picked up the D906 north toward Vichy and stopped for lunch, if you can call lunch crepes and ice cream, at La Chaise Dieu. Then we took in some of the worst roads we could find for a 10 mile trip that took us back to exactly where we had just been with several hundred more stonechips gracing the bikes. "Let's stop arsing around and get to Vichy!!" was the battle cry. So we did.

By the time we got to Arlanc the heavens opened big time. A useful fuel station came to our aid to get us out of the rain, coffee in Ambert and then off to Vichy. Found a 4 star Hotel in the centre of town which was fine and not too dear for a 4 star gaff - the Aletti Palace hotel with lovely rooms, an outdoor pool and secure courtyard parking for the bikes. As big French towns go, Vichy isn't bad but I can't see the point in doing town centres when there's so many hotels in the lovely small towns and villages in the region.

Next day was a fairly straightforward run to Ambiose. An early start in lovely sunshine but it got hotter and hotter, and the temperature showed up a bit of a problem with the 2004 R1. First off, a lot of heat seemd to be working its way though and round the seat unit from the underseat pipes, most noticeable when running slow in towns. But worse than that, the fairing seemed to direct a lot of heat onto your lower legs, which became very unpleasant as the day wore on. And the faster you went the worse it got. Swapping to the 2000 model brought blessed relief .... bit too much of a compromise on the later bike for the stylish look?

Leaving Amboise gave us an easy ride back on the last day to Dieppe. Most of the roads in northern France are a bit boring so plenty of stops for confit de canard and a small glass of something help things along no end.

The trip was a resounding success and one I must do again next year. We had a lot of fun and did some great riding that you simply do not get the opportunity to do over here. I would say it was well worth the 1800 odd miles we did to get roads of that quality. But fit a double-bubble screen!