:Worship_9TRHEA:

Day 6 � Sunday 12 Oct 08
 

Got up early for a quick start homeward. I intended to get about halfway through France and camp or book in to B&B depending upon how I felt whilst fitting in a few more Cols and scenery.


16 Initially I set off North to Borg San Dalmazzo and the turned west and over Col de la Larche arriving there and back into France at 8:30am. I was still quite cold but warming up fast.

http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1616.jpg

17 On the way down the French side of the mountain.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1617.jpg



A short while later I entered a long tunnel but could see in the distance that it was blocked by something but could not see what.

18 I proceeded with caution and was presented with this cuddly chaos.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1618.jpg

19 Then it was a take over bid but a cute one.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1619.jpg

25 26 Col du Lautaret
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1625.jpg
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1626.jpg

31 North of Col du Galibier
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1631.jpg

32 Looking down on St Michel du Maurienne and the first motorway home.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1632.jpg

It was now after 12:30 and the pretty stuff (relatively speaking) was now over and it was time to hit the trail, big style.
I hit the motorways with a vengeance. I kept the speed to about 76mph on the speedo which is really about 70 mph and kept it there.
The little devil on my shoulder said “do you really want to pay for another chap hotel”, “nah came the reply – bums holding up well, lets see if we can do it in one hit”, so I did. I paid about 37E in tolls for the motorways



At about 11pm I pulled into a service station to fill up and was about 150miles from Calais. A guy named Nick (I think) pulled in on a very dirty 1150 GS with, also with a sheep fleece on his seat. I laughed and we started to chat. He was on his way back to Nottingham from a 5 week trip to Morroco. We were both doing well with the mileage, he had set off that morning from the French Spanish border.

35 Nick and his 1150GS.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1635.jpg

I eventually got to the port of Calais at 12:30am and having previously thrown my ferry ticket out with other rubbish had to sheepishly wait while the receptionist retrieved my details and confirmed that I had in fact prepaid for the ferry.

That sorted, the next ferry was due to leave at 3am. Lovely – not.
I queued up with the other cars/vans and there was a bunch of blokes that were taking their cars back from a custom car competition in Holland. There were some cool looking cars.


37 A Honda Civic

http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1637.jpg

41 A Citroen Saxo (I think) This one is on the cover of "MAX POWER" mag this month.
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1641.jpg

44 A Mitsubishi Evo
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1644.jpg

46 A Honda S2000 (I think)
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/k...d_DSCF1646.jpg

I then took my fleece off the seat and used it as a pillow and laid down next to the Ten and went to sleep on the tarmac. Old habits again. I was woken by the boy racers driving off and jumped on the bike loaded it on the ferry, went upstairs and promptly went to sleep on the floor again.
The boat was late getting in to Dover (even allowing for the time difference). 100 more miles to go and I arrived home at 6:30am (7:30 CET) having been travelling for 24 � hours and covered a road distance of 835miles (1243km). I walked into my house to be greeted by my eldest daughter and ended up ironing her trousers for work – back to reality.


To sum up the trip:
The bike performed fantastically and it has installed a lot of confidence in me. I was astounded by the way it coped with the ski slope when fully laden. It cruised very nicely at 76mph (speedo) at 4500 rpm where it has a sweet spot and the vibrations are very low. However, when needed the throttle will still get you out of sticky situations.
Prior to the trip I ordered a 14 tooth front sprocket and although it would have dropped the motorway speed a bit, it would have made the trails a lot easier as first gear is too high. It did not arrive – my good luck again!


The trip was absolutely stunning if not hard work. I have a very sore butt and only used the fleece for the trip down and back. It makes the seat too high for normal use but it seriously saved my butt. It was hurting before I set out for home and actually eased up during the trip.
I will do it again but this time SWAMBO will be on the back and the tent will be left at home.


I covered 2234 miles on 176.8 litres of fuel and that equates to over 57 mpg.
All that remains is to wash the bike but I have to say it looks better dirty.

(P.S. SWAMBO = She Who Always Must Be Obeyed.)

Nope, none of the above.

Just did not think of it. I will next time though.

Its a Weisse all in one thermal suit. No armour but fantastically warm and absolutely dry.

Despite only being 12mm it does make quite a practical diference and I am happy with is as it is. I did cut the sidestand down by 20mm. It also helps to compensate for the suspension relaxing.

On the long trip down and back, I had the fleece on and the reduced height was negated but it doesent really matter on long boring stretches. In fact it is an advantage as it allowed me to let my legs down for a stretch without my feet hitting the floor.

Thanks, I thoroughly enjoyed both the trip and the reporting of it.

Its a fairly basic GIVI that had the suckers and a fixing pad on initially. I took the pad off and used the clips to make up straps to fix left, right and under the steering head.

There were two problems with this, one is that I had to unclip the front when refueling and secondly the width of the bag at the back (nearest the saddle) was too wide and got in the way of my thighs when standing whilst on trails.

Having said that it was huge and contained all my toys, camera, spare gloves (not used) all my food and drink and maps. I cannot complain too much realy.

Thanks, I may have planned it, but after that it was fairly ad hoc due to my GPS malfuncion. I was very disheartened at first but after a day or so I got over it, got my act together and thought that I may as well make the most of it and then thoroughly enjoyed it.

I got it from Halfords about 6 months ago for a Ford Focus and never used it. The fact that it lit up was important for obvious reasons. It actually has 2 temperature guages (inside and out), a clock and a voltmeter.

I tried initialy to see if I could use it to monitor engine temperature but it maxed out at 80 dec C so was useless for that.

I ran it off the same supply as the GPS and heated grips. It is a relayed and fused supply direct from the battery with the ignition-on live supply coming from the red/white wire under the seat. If you want more info on this I will produce a simple set of instructions as this has cropped up several times recently.

As for the panniers, I was surprised to see that they are actually very strong, the bent in bit was the fixture settling within their bolts (i.e the footpeg bracket bolts etc. as far as I could see there was nothing that was actually damaged. As for the cases themselves, it is apparent that although the aluminium skin is thin and as can be seen dents easily, the internal plastic frame is actually very strong and supported about 2/3 of the weight of the laden bike (about 180kg) without any obvious deformation. They were full up which I suppose must have helped somewhat.

What problem did you have with the panniers ?

If I were to guess I would say the locking mechanism ?

When I got mine I was unhappy how stiff they were so I stipped them down from the inside and sprayed them with chain oil then put them back together and kept working the keys till they become loose.

Sorry missed your post earlier...

It was a TomTom Rider 1.

I have arranged for repair.

What a great ride, I wish I had the time to do something like that.

Thanks for sharing your ride with us.

Thanks Ray, Grewat stuff mustrb lkearn to type the sausage bfingers do not help....

The Batteries are fixed but not the user....

:YellowCrazy_J8GDC6:

I am as Green as the jolly greem giant.

Other that the camping, Cannoity sleep in the cold.

:D:D:D:hae18:

Now that's a nice vacation. Since I am new to the "off road" scene how do you plan these off road sections. Do you just make a right turn whenever you see a gravel road or are these trials to be found in a roadbook.

gr Patrick

Me too actually, I stole this route (or the bits I could remember) from a guy on ADVrider.com as per post No. 1 on this thread (see the link). This is the first time I have done anything like this.

The Germans seem to have a good grip on this situation for Europe and they have a good site. Unfortunately for us it is only in German. I speak some German but I still struggle with it.

http://alpenrouten.de/

From what I have learned you can use most of the ski access trails but not in the summer holiday season as it is full of walkers and cyclists and obviously not in the winter as it is full of skiers !
In Camonix, you were only allowed on the pistes after 6pm during the summer which was OK due to the long days and most normal human beings have gone to the pub by then.

We could (if we do not have one already - I will have to search) set up something similar on this forum. I will give it some thought.

OGR

Cheers Ray, pitty the TOM TOM couldnt handle the vibes, I like your idea of a routes section it would help speed things up for those of us with little time to enjoy tours.

I have already booked my ferry for next summer. The Alps look like a fantastic place to take the bike. I managed to get a decent discount by booking early and managed to get a Dover Calais ferry for �25 and the Bilbou to Portsmouth for �125.

To help with planning I have found a link called www.alpinepasses.com If you look at the maps page it gives links to all the cols in the various region, therefore providing a useful planning tool.

:seasaw:

Try this link as link in previous post didn't seem to work.

http://www.alpineroads.com/passes.php

xt660zrider, cheers for the link, they are good prices. That trip from Bilbao to Portsmouth is a great way to end a tour, there is always a few bikers to have a beer with.:sunny:

Thanx for the link:thumbsup[1]:

Brilliant.

One thought though. What we could do with is a site with truly rubbish roads going to truly wild places. Lets face it, the XTZ is not designed as a knee scraper. Maybe we could work on it but this and the German site are good places to borrow data from.

Thanks XT660Zrider. good find.

Can we do this Capt.
 

Capt,

Do you know if it is possible on this site to set up some sort of data bank like the one XT660Zrider pointed out and legally borrow their data (or links perhaps) ???

I mean this as opposed to a long list of photos/reports - if you know what i mean.

Ray

OGR, not quite sure what you mean?

vBulletin as far I am aware doesn't have any fetured users databases for people to set up and maintain, unless a clever clog here is able to write a DB that we can upload to our website I have no idea otherwise how to do this.

Thanks anyway
 

Thanks Capt,

It was a long shot anyway.
I am certainly not clever enough to design something. Maybe I'll collate something and try to post it. I'll have to think about it.
It will be a labour of love so It won't happen anytime soon.

Cheers Ray

Yeah I know all about "labours of love" you start one then you fall in love with the next and dump the other.... oh dear... :rotf[1]:

Old Git Ray, I read your whole report and all the postings there fae page 1, I`m on another bike form and about 4 weeks ago I listed a thread entitling it...SWISS ALPS... and I have had so much feedback about them.. an reading yours ...I want to go tomorrow... but as its winter I wont be going... but I do look forward to it in the better weather...I do want to go an usually go places myself... but a think on this occassion ad rather be in company of at least one other bike, or Pal..... ye took great pics. an thanks fur they way ye protrayed it... reading it in order of days felt as if we wir watching a film unfold.......... oh an a nearly forgot... I run wi a sheepskin as well an have done for around 15 years... I wouldnt go ANYWHERE without it....but always remember tae take it off the bike at nite so it doesnt get wet... it makes a great pillow.. an when yer bum gets sore. I usually fold it in half an it gives a better sensation....Thanks again......fae another Old Git .............Mabozzar am hittin 50 in June09...an 25 years married in the same month......Me http://www.xt660.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

John,

My mother was a Scot (RIP) and used to take us as kids to Motherwell every year, in fact I was beaten up for being a foreigner there once, my wife is a Scot and we used to have several cairn terriers.
I was doing very well with the translation till I got to Mabozzar.........What on earth does that mean ???

Don't suppose you used to beat up English kids did you ??? Just a thought, I am 52. :002:

Ray

Nowt wrong with being 52, we've obviously seen sense and got the right bike for our age!:beer[1]:

only just found this thread - absolutely brilliant Ray, well done and thanks for sharing, you've given me a good few ideas :)

Your welcome. Hope you have as much fun with yours as I do with mine.

Excellent Read
 

That's a great ride report Ray.
I like your sense of humour!
I love the fact you had to do ironing as soon as you got home. So like my place.

Cheers, Glenn

Great trip report there! Loving the pictures, you really did see some fantastic sights!