560miles in a day in France.

[rumppole]

Myself on the Daytona 600 and 6 other friends on an assortment of bikes, ranging from tourers to choppers (lowest cc is 535) are headed to Les Struels in southern france for 7 days.
The trip is 9 days long with us staying overnight in Calais on the outward and homeward journey.
The majority of the group, with the exception of myself and two others have never toured on the bikes before.
The organiser wants to cover the 560miles from Calais to Les Struels in one day.
I'm confident I could do it but I'm unsure as to whether its feasable or even possible considering many of the group are touring virgins.
You guys on here have far more in the way of experience than I do, whats your opinions? Possible or not?
Tank range on the greediest bike is about 85miles. 10 mins to fill up, another ten to have a cig, choco bar etc. 20-30mins per fill up, about 7 required per leg of the journey. Then food breaks during the day and leg stretches. Despite route planners stating its an 8hr ride I'm more inclined to believe 15+ hours.
Possible for newbies or are we daft for trying?
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[Kris]

It's entirely possible to do 560 miles in a day.

The key is discipline at fuel and toll stops, and keeping a constant pace on the autoroutes. It's always tempting to faff around and have a choccy bar etc but if you all have the same mindset and stick to a routine you can cut lost time to a minimum.

Our trick when doing lots of autoroute miles was to keep an easily accessible pocket full of change and small notes. You'd pull up at a toll, get your ticket and put this in a zip pocket on the tankbag. At the pay booth you'd have the ticket and change to hand. No extra stopping and hunting around for cash, see?

At fuel stops we'd take it in turns to pay for fuel. If I was paying, my mate would pull up at the pump first. Then I'd pull up alongside him and we'd fill up both bikes. I'd then paddle infront, park up and go in and pay. Whilst I was paying he'd take a glance at the map and lead until the next stop. Next time we'd swap places.

We usually kept a cruising speed of roughly 85-90mph, which still saw good fuel economy and meant we were doing about 100 miles every 1 3/4 hours over the span of the day. I'd give ten/eleven hours for your planned 560mile jaunt, bearing in mind I haven't seen your route.

Oh and it's always good to get an early start and to stop for a nice lunch break of around 30 mins. Take in water etc, rather than coffee or such. If time is an issue (like it was on our first trip ) then stops can be 'Evian and marsbar' splash'n'dashes. Mind you, we were doing 300+ miles a day on D-roads so it was to be expected.

Hope you have fun.
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[Itchy]

If its autoroute its easy , and you can effectively sit at 80mph for 7 hours but on that 7 hours + 1 hour for fuel stops + 1 hour for food stops.

on N roads and D roads not a chance.

if you really really want to gun run as I call it , you start early , you drink a minimal amount of water to reduce toilet breaks , you skip lunches and only stop for fuel and eat bars of stuff while riding.
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[TheDonUK]

Its possible,

After i had toured spain and france on the outward leg, i ended up in Montpellier, southern france on i think saturday night and needed to be back home in london for Uni on monday morning,

I woke up at around 9, left the F1 hotel at around 10 and pretty much non-stop blatted up the autotroutes hitting paris at dusk and then pushing onto London at 2-3AM...

90mph was about the slowest i went, with numerous blasts to 120+ to break the monotony.

I dont think it was quite 1000 miles but near enough for me, Btw this was done on a Bandit 600, not some hypertourer, so it can be done. Its just a case if if you want to.

Would it be possible to leave a day earlier?

If not heres a good tip to cheat the french government out of a fair price for an excellent motorway system.

When you join the auto-route you get a ticket from a machine to indicate where you have started, and then when you go through various tolls (usually at or near large cities and towns) its calculated on how far you have come.

Just say in a sheepish way you have lost your ticket and remember the name of the last big-ish town, I was forced to do so as my money was rapidly running out, but in doing so i got from Montpellier/Calais for no more than 10 euro... which aint too bad

And like Kris says, if you are serious about covering big miles the time you spend not moving, be it for petrol/pissing or whatever have a far greater impact than doing 100mph instead of 90mph.

Go for a ride if you can with the people you are going with, see if they are the kind that pull into every second layby for a fag-break and a chat and to get rid of "cramp", or if they are actually capable of riding for more than a couple of hours...

I have yet to find anyone who can ride seriously so i prefer to tour alone, might be worth finding that out before you make a demanding schedule...

[feef]

On our trip in 2006, we did 500 miles in a day. Got off the ferry at Bolougne Sur Mer at 10am and arrived in Lyon at around 9pm. This was riding with 100mile tank ranges.

We did a 40/60 mile split. One was a splash'n'dash and one was a leg-stretch. We were sitting at around 85ish all the way down, sticking to autoroute.

On the Autoroute, don't be tempted to use the credit-card payment barriers to save a few minutes.. they can only detect cars and trucks.. so you'll pay the car rate, and not the bike rate. It's worth taking a few minutes to pay at the manned booths as it'll save a fair few quid.

a
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[Kris]

[feef]

[Vin]