First Foreign Bike Trip.

[yambabe]

First foray into foreign shores by bike completed.

Weather could have been better, resulting in less mileage than originally anticipated, but overall not too bad at all. Will definitely go again, but maybe when the weather gets a bit warmer next time!

Soooo, bikes got checked over, packed up and ready to go

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and we rode down to Bournemouth Wed night. It was bloody cold and took a long time to get there then as usual despite having a google map printout and google maps on my phone it took us forever and about 4 different taxi drivers to find the blasted travelodge! Hot shower and bed soon warmed us up. Late start Thursday, topped up the XS with oil (this became a regular morning routine but it did very well for a 30-year-old shed that has only been back on the road after nearly 10 years for 2 months) and headed over to Poole for the ferry.

Way too early so we did the sensible thing and went to the pub! One good hearty lunch later we got onto the ferry and settled in for the 6-hour crossing. Boring as hell for me, MM spent most of it outside throwing up.

Luckily met a chap on the ferry with a place in France who was headed in the same direction as us so he led us theough a dark, cold, windy Cherbourg to the hotel we had pre-booked for that night. Didn't get much sleep, spent most of the night listening to the wind howling along the hotel roof and the rain battering the windows...........

Friday was windy and blustery showers when we set out, resulting in a change of plan. We'd originally planned to head along the Brittany coast, but the weather was looking a bit yeuck so we went for the coast of the Cherbourg peninsula instead.

The wind stayed strong but the rain cleared and we even had some sunshine as we reached the coast at Carteret

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and headed south.

The coast road turned out to be an absolute gem, especially the last section from Granville towards Mont St Michel, sea on one side, fields, forests & pretty villages on the other and a lovely dry twisty road that was wide and well-surfaced and barely any other traffic!

At this point the rain and hail were threatening again so we headed to Avremanche to find a hotel for the night.
Watched the sunset over the Mont St Michel bay

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then a good dinner and another early night, battling the wind had been hard work!

We set out again and went down for a close-up look at Mont St Michel, but the weather was rapidly deteriorating again so we didn't stay too long and didn't bother with any pictures. One odd thing though, in the carpark at the landward end of the causeway was a line of about 10 Delorean cars, looked like they'd been there for ages. Wierd.


Stuck to the coast road but the wind was against us and it was really hard work. The bike would barely rev to 4.5k, and progress was slow.

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We made it to a lovely place called Cancale, up near St Malo, but by this time we were totally knackered fighting the wind so that was Saturday's stopover place.

Not a bad choice as it turned out as it has some of the best oyster beds in the world

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and the seafood restaurants on the quay were to die for! So yet another really good dinner, then back to the hotel to spray Ralgex on our aching shoulders and arms.

Found the weather forecast for Sun while flicking through the tv channels in the room, and oh dear. Snow forecast for Brittany, snow forecast for south, snow forecast for more or less everywhere! What should we do?

In the end we decided to shoot back east on the motorway and have a look at the Normandy beaches, as that way we would not be a huge distance from Cherbourg to get home on Mon if the weather did turn really bad.

Not a bad decision as it turned out, but although we missed the snow thankfully we got caught in a massive rain shower, and this was the only day we got totally wet. Found a hotel on Omaha beach and managed to get a pic of the cloud that got us........

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Once we were in the hotel and dry again we went for a walk along the beach to pay our repects to those who died there in 1944.

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It was very moving, and very sad. Lots of monuments and museums, so an enjoyable if somewhat sombre finish to the day.

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Monday we then followed the coast up the east of the peninsula, passing Utah beach and finding again some lovely roads to play on. Ferry home was quick, boring and free of seasickness! but at Portsmouth getting off was a disaster, never seen anything so disorganised in my life. Took us nearly two hours to get out of the port (and that was on the bikes!) as they had 4 ferries dock at the same time, and only 2 booths open checking passports..........

Yet again it took several taxi drivers and finally a very friendly policeman to find the travelodge, was freezing by then too!

Last of all another boring wet ride back up England and finally home. Phew! Just over 900 miles covered, about half and half France and England, on a 30-year-old XS650 and a 14-year-old ZR400. Overall a fun experience that could have been so much better if the weather had been better.

Next tour is likely to be Scotland in May or June, watch this space.....
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Sod falling in love, I wanna fall in chocolate.

[Charlie]

very nice Joe, looks like you had a nice ride despite the weather!

I want to go riding around for a few days back to back when I finish my exams.
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Past: Honda x8rs, Honda City fly, Honda Hornet 250, Honda VFR750, Yamaha xt600e.
Current: Honda CBR929RR & Yamaha XT660Z Tenere

[roper]

Pretty hardcore bike trip given the conditions.

Makes you think when you see those open beaches just what sort of bravery or even madness it must have taken to run up them while they were being lashed with machine gun fire.

What where the facilities for tying down the bikes on the ferry like? Did the ferry personnel offer any help with lashing them down?

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Cracking photos there, especially like the sunset pic and the huge looming cloud! That one makes me think about where my waterproofs are, sitting here.

Know what you mean about the cold, did a mountain-biking trip a few weeks earlier than when you went, absolutely bitter on those flat, wide open plains that time of year.