Euro-Moto Trip

That sounds like a great day - I’ll map it out tonight and see what I can fit in.

Did a cannonball from Milan to Marseilles via Genoa today. Wanted to go via Turin bu the mountains through there were being slammed with thunderstorms. Got away with mostly light rain and about half an hour of truly crappy weather today.

Did find some time to sneak off the autostrada down to the coastline of the Italian riveria - absolutely beautiful, but absolutely high traffic. Got fed up and continued on the highway, just really stopping for gas and coffee.

Here’s an Imgur link to the bike photo that won’t display above:

https://imgur.com/a/Lqh1XBt

Now the downside, is about a mile away from the hotel I noticed something dangling from the bike. Lo and behold, the right front blinker popped off:

https://imgur.com/a/epBOx0b

Now I’m going to take a guess and say Honda never silicone gooped their flashers onto the bike? It looks like someone else busted this off and silicone’d it on as a temp fix. Probably flew off when I hit one of the high speed sections of the highway.

The rear mounting post is busted, and the bracket is nowhere to be found.

The front post is fine and the bracket is still attached… with its screw.

I’m going to let the rental place know and see if they want to just have me do a road repair and see what comes of it.

Worst case a new flasher is $50, and they don’t look hard to find.

The piss of it is I rode right by a Honda motorcycle dealer probably 100 miles back. Oh well.


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Why do I think the company who supplied the bike will be well aware of these defects, and not too hassled if you go ahead and make a temporary fix.

You will also discover that most Motorcycle dealerships in France and even many parts/accessories people only work on Tuesday to Saturday.

If the indicator is no longer attached then you can always use hand signals - you remember - stuff which you had to learn when you passed your first driving test...

In the meantime - Have fun

SkiMad

 

Well holy crap wind likes to toss around fully faired bikes. First time riding one.

40mph winds gusting higher along Cote de Azur today and the VFR felt like a balloon in the wind.

Arrived in Millau tonight after another few hundred miles of riding mostly on the autoroutes but I diverted farther inland via some departmental roads and I believe national roads to try and get away from the wind.

As much as I’m still glad I didn’t bring a GoPro, coming down D809 and seeing the valley open up with the Viaduct backdropped against the whole thing made me want to pull over and snap some photos, but then of course there was a nice rainstorm just as I was coming down into the valley.

Whatever. I’m gonna stop griping about the weather.

Trying to figure out if the winds will be worse or better on the viaduct tomorrow, it’s massively high up, but has some wind screens.


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Spent an extra night in Millau because first off, the village is beautiful. Lots of windy little alleys and shoppes (Extra p and gratuitous “e” intentional ^_^) to get a little lost in.

Bonus was that the winds died down significantly, made riding the viaduct a truly enjoyable experience. The scale of the thing is just staggering. Tallest in Europe to the top of the pylons, and an engineering / project management feat. It was constructed for €500M… I’m shuddering thinking what this would’ve cost stateside when some pol would have rushed the planning process for clout and caused inevitable construction delays. Anywho.

https://i.imgur.com/BBHeVMo.jpg

Headed up on the river Tarn to Les Vignes where I paused, had a look around and grabbed a coffee. The age of these places is still bewildering to me, being from the states, where something from the 1600s is “old”.

Millau and this valley have been inhabited since the Bronze Age.

https://i.imgur.com/wsf0Gfy.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/z2PXjVc.jpg

The road between Les Vignes and Ipsagnac were the best riding of my (admittedly short) time riding so far. Natural curves and twists all along the valley and a generous speed limit for a narrow two lane road made for a blast of a time, even if I never really left 2nd or 3rd gear .

Also - an aside - bless the French drivers in the countryside. They *move over for you* when you’re in a motorcycle going faster than they are. This absolutely blew my mind.

Of the four or five that did, most of them had a big grin and gave the finger-in-a-circle-and-point-forward gesture. Still shocking to see people that recognize motorcycling as responsible recreation.

Some photos from Ipsagnac, where I had a surprisingly American sized lunch:

https://i.imgur.com/Nlv6dhm.jpg

And then stopped in Mâcon - enjoyed a little rooftop live music and drink, where the Police Nationale saw fit to run a spy operation on me…

https://i.imgur.com/FHLp6tv.jpg

Anywho, off to Doubs this morning for some more valley riding, I’ll stay somewhere in the countryside before hitting Vosges, and then start a four night stay in Strasbourg… which was really the point of the whole trip.

Skimad - thanks a million for marking up the map, it’s become the main tool in using to generally plan my routes.


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I'm green with envy...and glad that you're having a blast and sharing it with us.

 

Alright - late but better than never. Will wrap up the rest of the trip in this post.

Did manage to hit the Doubs valley that day - more spectacular canyon riding - plenty of curves that you could take as fast as you please - traffic was blessedly light on D437. Bucolic scenery - rolling hillsides and the such - all around, which was the preview for pretty much the rest of the trip.

Crashed in a smallish town called Pont-de-Roide and happened on a really wonderful mom and pop restaurant called la cle d'or in the town. One of those places where the owners are genuinely passionate about his business and it shows in everything that happens there. Great food, great atmosphere, and all the "regulars" spent probably 5 minutes chatting with the husband-wife duo that run the place when they came in. Hoping I find myself back there sometime.

Anywho. From there it was on to the Vosges mountains east of Strasbourg - a few hours on the motorways and I let the Scenic app (highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't) take over to plan a route through the mountains and it didn't disappoint. The weather was foggy for the most part but it led to some great contrasts from "peaks" (they're only a few thousand feet) to valleys.

Found some cattle at the top that just couldn't be bothered to stay on their side of the road... some other tourists shooed this calf back to the right side... and it promptly went back to the apparently much tastier patch on the other side. Not that I almost ended both of our lives on my first pass or anything... ungrateful little future hamburger...

IMG_4912 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

IMG_4910 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

Popped into Strasbourg for four nights and parked the bike - wanted to spend more time in the city and did a few wine tours around the region, including finding out that my maternal grandfather's family has been making wine in the region since the 1600s. Probably gonna go back and claim birthright on that sometime soon.

Happily started every day with a saunter over the area near Cathedral Notre-Dame de Strasbourg. Those bells are something else coming from the states.



Spent a good four nights in Alsace/Strasbourg and then high-tailed it to the French Alps by way of Switzerland to meet up with Skimad4x4.

Hit some Swiss traffic on the way:



I can confidently say that we rode around in circles for a full day in the Abdondance and neighboring valleys (his words, not mine) and they were quite picturesque. The bikes looking out over Lake Geneva:

IMG_5005 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

The same vantage from right up against the fence:

IMG_5003 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

A shot in the forest:

IMG_5001 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

And by mid day the weather had gotten hot enough for us to seek a little shelter at a restaurant under a canopy. The manager was great, albeit a little too attentive and very willing to "sample his own product", probably a bit too much for his business's own good, but still. 10/10 good boy.

IMG_5007 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

Disaster struck for a bit when for the first time in like 1,500 KMs I forgot to unplug my quadlock charger while we had the bikes stopped. I had it hooked up right across the battery because I wasn't about to go rooting around in someone else's bike for switched power. A few minutes of minor panic on my part and a helpful construction worker with jumpers later and we were back on our way.

We did manage to pause on our way back to Abondance to snag a photo with Mont Blanc in the background. You can juuuuuust barely see it peeking out of the clouds over my left shoulder - right side of the photo.

IMG_5011 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

We grabbed some decidedly American sized pizzas for dinner:

IMG_5014 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

But had to part ways the next morning. Cheers Ski for showing me around your valley - had a blast! Hopefully you or others managed to polish off some of the Alsatian wine I left behind

Another quick jaunt through Switzerland on my way somewhere else took me over the Grand St Bernard pass (not the tunnel, the actual pass).

This photo is from the Italian side, showing the original hospice across the lake, and what I think is the roman road Napoleon marched his army over in one of the gallic invasions. I remember overhearing someone talking about it while taking a coffee break but I haven't been able to find the factoid elsewhere. I choose to believe... because that's pretty dope if true.

IMG_5015 by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

The roads leading up to and out of the pass are fantastic - all switchbacks on the Swiss side and a good mix of straightaways and switches on the Italian side. I will break for a minor rant here. The French and the Italians seem to have their road maintenance down to a science. I don't think I saw a single pothole or tar snake the entire time I was in either country. The Swiss on the other hand, Jesus Christ. I'm willing to assume I just caught them on an off year or something, but they had some of the worst road surface I've encountered on either side of the Atlantic. /rant.

I digress. A few hours on the Autostradas later and I was back in Milan to say farewell to Bumblebee.

71578893203__C8D2ACDA-AD85-4826-B7CB-D6EC2DCF3E0C by Ribrickulous posted Oct 8, 2023 at 10:24 PM

The return was made a bit easier because I managed to snag a business class upgrade on Emirates on the way home. The god damn plane had a full bar/lounge setup. My new hot take is that all planes should have full bars and lounges.

Thanks for following along all - and once again, HUGE thanks to SkiMad for marking up that map. Would've been a totally different trip without it.

 

Lovely! Thanks for taking us along.