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Northern France 2010

My 955 mile "Warm up" trip for my forthcoming trip to France Spain, Italy & Switzerland, Summer 2010.

This is a trip I did in April 2010, a long weekend "warm up" trip for my Europe tour in the summer, This time I have new luggage to try out (well, second hand new panniers, cheers Taz!) I previously used oxford soft luggage, yes it's good but a pain in the @$$ if you want to take it on & off as I personally strap it down probably too excessively for safety. So I decided on full Givi top box and panniers set up, I have to admit I hate and detest the look of them and swore I would never ever have a set fitted on my bike, errr how times change lol, must be an age thing hahaha. So having established the hard luggage is butt ugly and making your bike look like shite but I was impressed on how practical the boxes are for getting on and off the bike.

Having said earlier this was a short warm up trip my Europe trip, I haven't use the bike much for a good 18 months except for local riding, I've missed the big ride outs, and it was about time I blew the cobwebs off the bike and make sure there was not going to be any teething problems for the big Europe trip.

Day 1 Saturday 10th April 2010

Home (Derbyshitre) to Calais,
We set off early Saturday morning from our home in Derbyshire to get a lunch time crossing on the Channel Tunnel, , nothing much to say about the ride down that I haven't said before elsewhere on the site. Road works, speed camera's and delayed Eurotunnel crossing what more can you say!
Once arriving in France we went straight to our hotel. We stayed at the Cottage Hotel in Coquelles, Calais which was our base for the trip. The Cottage hotel is nice little biker friendly "no frills" 2 star hotel, we dumped our panniers and top box and off out on the bike to the infamous D940 coastal road heading towards Boulogne, stopping off along the way to view the sites and scenery of this great coastal road, I've ridden the D940 many times (Well quite a few times anyway lol) and is hugely popular with the French bikers and its worth crossing the channel just to ride this road. The roads gets very twisty at Cap Blanc Nez on steep hills, it's a popular place just down the road from Calais and has a memorial and war bunkers on top of the cliffs quite eerie really, its was nice sunny day but up at the memorial it was thick with cold sea mist when we first arrived but within half an hour i had cleared again, The D940 has a mixture of long straights, long sweeping bends and really tight bends up and down steep hills. I admit I have rode better roads but there's something about this road, maybe with it being on the coast which has seen some horrific battle scenes of the world wars.

While at one of our stops on the D940 I noticed the front tyre had a bad spot on it and didn't like the look of it, it was getting late afternoon and found someone to ask if there was anywhere to get a bike tyre fitted. Luckily there was one in Coquelles, funnily enough I knew Coquelles quite well and had never seen this bike shop before (Moto Expert) I got there just as the shop was shutting, and to my surprise (with the help of a small cash bribe to the mechanic) they agreed to fit me new tyres. I can't thank the guys enough at Moto Expert, a great bunch of people www.motoexpert.fr 

Day 2 Sunday 11th April 2010

Calais to Pierrefonds (Compiegne, Nr Paris), and back to Calais

Calais to Pierrefonds? where's Pierrefonds? I hear you say, to cut a long story short, the BBC film "Merlin" TV series at Châteaux De Pierrefonds, using the Châteaux as Arthurs castle, my wife being a fan of the TV series has been wanting to call in on our way past when we have been to France to have a look at it but have never had time to.
Today would be a long day in terms of mileage, at over 300miles. We set off from Calais, a glorious sunny morning and got on the A26 Autoroute with little or no traffic, cruising along 80mph+ with no cars to get in our way, just the way I like it! I just love being out on the open road, bike is running great, I'd forgotten just how much I love motorcycle touring. The thing I love about riding in France is they do seam very biker friendly and if you keep away from big towns then it's unlikely that you will hit any traffic jams at all. From the A26 we then join the A1 Autoroute heading down towards Paris until we get Compiegne and then take the local roads for the last 10 miles or so. 

We arrived at Pierrefonds, and it was a truly picturesque place and a quiet little town, if this place were in England it would be packed solid with thousands of tourists. Parked up the bike and had a stroll around, and up to the Châteaux, inside the grounds, there was the film set for the Merlin's village for the TV series, the Châteaux was huge but unfortunately it was closed so we didn't get to see inside the place, although it is normally open all year.


For the return journey back up to Calais, I set the Sat Nav non motorway and took the local roads.

Day 3 12th April 2010

Calais to St. Valery-sur-Somme,  and back to Calais.

A cloudy start to the day, I decided to venture back onto the D940 at Calais and follow the road down the coast, stopped off at Sangat for a pic (right) of the bike next to the sea, the sea as you can was slightly choppy here, as I said earlier I like the D940, it is a very nice road to ride, until you get to the centre of Boulogne with the traffic, I'm not a town or city bloke, I like to out on the open road or on the country roads, From Boulogne we headed to Le Touquet, Just before le Touquet we saw a D940e sign so I thought that I'd take a look, it only went for about a mile and became a dead end at the edge of the beach. We stopped here for a while had a look a the beach, and large concrete bunkers from the war line up along the beach. At le Touquet although yet another town it is pretty picturesque, the resort dates back to somewhere that wealthy Victorians came on holiday, the are still Victorian buildings in the old town. The Beach and promenade are stunning (pic to left), by the time we arrived at Le Touquet it was wall to wall sunshine although there was a bit of a breeze blowing. From here we got back on the D940 and headed for St Valerie sur somme a bit further down the coast out in the country on the open road, and this is what I love, mixture of corners and some fast long sweepers to get the bike leaning right over and to bed the new tyres in properly, it was like this all the way to St Valerie. From St Valerie we headed back to Calais without going near any towns, only tiny little villages on some excellent roads inland away from the tourists. Back in Calais I refuelled the bike ready for the return journey home.

Day 4 13th April 2010

Calais to Home (Derbyshire),
Well, time to come home, the cottage hotel is a biker friendly hotel and has "Etape Motards" in one of its windows. I loaded the bike up and took a last lot of pics before we set off for home. We got to the Channel Tunnel and literally rode straight on the the train carriage for the first time ever and no queuing. Before we set off to France my wife asked if it was possible to get to France on a single tank, In theory I thought it could be possible at a push, I knew I'd tried it before but didn't like letting the fuel level go too low on motorways so I've never actually done it. So I thought that I'd give it another try!  The fuel gauge as you all know has 5 bars, with the last bar for nearly empty has two stages, solid bar as normal with flashing petrol pump icon, then as the fuel level gets critical (1.75 litres) the last bar flashes along with the flashing petrol pump icon. I generally fill up at around 100-120 miles occasionally at 160 miles and never goes below the last 2 bars, this whole trip I had been letting the fuel level go lower than normal.  From full the first bar stays on for a fairly long time generally 75 miles or more on a run. This tank full the bar segments I got the following mileage ,  (full = 1st bar, and Nearly Empty = 5th or last bar.) 83miles for the 1st bar to vanish, 30miles for the second bar to vanish, 20miles for the 3rd bar to vanish, 53 miles for the 4th bar to vanish. 32 miles on the last solid bar on arriving home with a total of 221.9 miles out of this tank so far and the last bar still not flashing!!

The End. For now!!