Euro-Moto Trip

Hey all -

Booked flights in and out of Milan for late august to early September. 16 days total.

Renting a 1999 VFR (I believe it will be banana yellow, which brings me great joy) for the trip with (2) 22L saddlebags, and looking to stay roughly inside the red circle.

IMG_0049 by Ribrickulous posted May 28, 2023 at 4:06 PM

Only “must” right now so to ride around Alsace-Lorraine, the area around Strasbourg. My mother’s father’s side of the family is from that region.

Aside from that, looking for any recs on routes, logistics, places to stay, etc. Generally not looking to stay in cities, I’m assuming the bike will be more of a hassle than anything for that. Though, I will make exceptions to that for exceptional experiences.

Planning on bringing my jacket, gloves and boots, and buying a helmet there (hopefully with a DOT sticker as well so I can ship it back, but I don’t want to deal with shipping/checking gear ahead of me - whatever I bring will need to fit on the bike).

Very much looking for any help narrowing the gigantic slew of options available =)


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Your image link is not active.

Once you upload an image you need to decide to embed the image or add a thumbnail.

 

Fucking tapatalk… hold please.

edit: should be good now

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Sounds like a great trip!
I've not been to the area, so I'll be watching for the updates so that I can also enjoy your trip.

 

Oh my - there are so many great places to visit within that area and I live pretty much in the middle.

Do you want suggestions as in addition to the usual tourist hot-spots like Nice, Monoco and Venice and I can offer a few riding routes which will take longer than the motorways but the VFR will be totally at home on...

Stelvio Pass, Milau Bridge & Tarn Valley Gorge, Doubs valley, Grand Route des Alpes...
(check out on Youtube)

Have you decided on camping or hotels/B&B accommodation? The latter is more costly but means you do not lose a couple of hours every riding day putting up and dismantling tents, and on such a long trip you will be thankful for laundry facilities.

You might find some of the stuff here of interest.. http://www.lifford-cooke.com/motorbiking/

There has been a recent update to the EU approved helmets specifications - for now dealers are still allowed to sell helmet complying with the older ECE 22.05 specification - but all newer helmets will carry the ECE 22.06 label.

You may be lucky and find a helmet which has also been tested to US Sharp standards. however competition from online sales means that very few sales outlets carry all brands of helmets in all sizes. It may be worth emailing the bike hire company to check if they have helmets for sale or hire or can recommend a nearby place selling motorbike accessories who with advance knowledge of the size and test specifications you are looking for can possibly arrange to get in a suitable helmet especially if you need Bluetooth coms to connect to a GPS or mobile phone.

Meantime have fun deciding what you want to do and when.


SkiMad

 

Meanwhile, if bringing a helmet back to North America, I wouldn't worry much about having a DOT sticker. I very much doubt anyone will be checking or even asking, and many states have repealed helmet laws to make them optional. ECE is better anyway IMHO.

 

That’s *exactly* what I’m looking for - unless I’m going from one great road to another, I’d rather not be on motorways (I assume these are he US equivalents of an interstate) at all, or as little as I can possibly be.

If I get a big list of great rides I’ll populate them all and then decide how to best link them all up.

I’ll check out the ones you listed and line them up - any more please keep the, coming! I’ll also be using the Scenic app to fill in other routes.

Thanks for the tip on the helmets - I’ll inquire with the company, MotoTouring Italy (also will leave a review once the trip is done). NYPD is unfortunately thirsty for any ticket they can give, so if it’s not DOT approved as well, it’ll stay in Europe.

Hadn’t really thought much about camping - was going to try and find inns and bnb type places along the way. Is camping relatively easy to do anywhere?


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The only advice I’d give is DONT CAMP

 

Well now I need to hear more


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The time taken putting up and taking down tents every day quickly gets a chore and finding campsites can be problematic - look for Camping municipal in the town/area you intend stopping at. It also means your riding day and the distances you can cover get a lot shorter. In general you are better off finding B&B try the likes of Ibis value hotels are fine - however their marginally cheaper bargain basement "Hotel F1" sites can be pretty awful.

I have annotated your map with a few places which you may want to consider visiting.




I am hoping to fly over to LA to meet up with Long and borrow his 5th Gen for a couple of weeks riding in the West Coast later in September, but I may be around when you are over and could possibly arrange to meet up if you are passing Lake Geneva, or even see if there is a spare room at my hotel in the Abondance valley. Just PM me.

SkiMad

 

What skimad said

There’s numerous specialty biker accommodation sites like this https://www.rideandrest.com/

 

Thank you both!!


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Some more https://www.thebikerguide.co.uk/bikerfriendlyaccommodationfrance

 

Looks like I’ve got rain rain rain in the area the trip is planned… flying out tonight (landing Friday), supposed to start moto-ing Sunday.

Will probably do some hardcore planning while rained in Saturday in Milan.

Glad I’m flying in after the heat wave but sheesh.

Trip is going to be about chasing sunshine!


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I know this is not a Ducati fanboy site, but I'd encourage a visit to the factory (it's in a suburb of Bologna) just to see how they build the bikes and visit the museum. They encourage moto visitors so parking and gear storage is no problem. I was there in February and it was an interesting place to go, no photos as they won't allow that in the factory.

Hope the weather gods are cooperative.

 

Appreciate the tip!

I’m going to tune into the Italian weather channel once I’m set up at the hotel and figure out if there’s somewhere within 1,000 KM that’s not buried under a rain cloud for the next two weeks.

I could definitely pivot to an Italia tour and come back for Strasbourg another time if the weather points me that way.


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Buongiorno da Milano



I shall call her, “Bumblebee”, unless something better strikes my fancy.

Edit - tell me that Tapatalk won’t upload the damn photo?


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Hit the "loop" button on this link and you will see a western europe weather forecast from now to 14 days out. May help you work out where may be dry.

https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi...ZOOM=0&WMO=&ARCHIV=0&LOOP=1&RES=0

We had a storm forecast for earlier today - which turned out to be 30 seconds of intense rain and then it stopped. Weather is getting very unpredictable - so the best trick is to watch out for angry clouds and pack a decent rain suit where you can get at it quickly.

If nothing else the Italians make great coffee - have fun.

SkiMad

 

You were spot on - torrential rain for the entire night forecasted was actually one 5 minute squall.

Gonna make the run to Genoa tomorrow followed by Nice, will stay either there or Marseilles depending on how far I want to ride. Either way will get me to the Millau Viaduct the day following - first “riding landmark” I’m going to hit.


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Have fun - The Millau bridge is enormous. This is the view from the service area on the North side of the bridge. I am not sure if is still around, but back in 2007 they also had a visitor centre located below the bridge - which went to great lengths explaining how this was an amazing French achievement and only in the margins acknowledging that it was actually designed by Norman Foster.

Hey ho - if you have time you might want to check out the minor roads running to the east along the River Tarn valley. The Tarn has carved a stunning canyon - OK no match for the Grand Canyon but in the context of Europe it is vast, and as a result the roads along the valley have to twist and turn often with massive overhanging cliffs.