My first attempt at a ride report so please bear with me!
The original scheme was proposed by a friend living in the UK, who, like ourselves was keen to revisit the "Bol" which returned to Paul Ricard near Toulon this year - the last time it was there was 1999 but the last time I went was 1989.
Our UK based friend (Tiger 955i) and his mate (RSV) arrived at our place in the Dordogne mid afternoon on Wednesday having ridden through heavy rain for most of the journey. I was still fitting the new tyres to my bike (R100GS) and changing oils etc.. I'd had to cut the silencer and collector box open to remove lumps of metal that had come lose and reweld them which had delayed the more routine servicing. So Thursday morning (raining) was the first time the bike had run for some months and the first time my missus had been on the back since our trip to Barcelona in August 2014. I seemed to have assumed the role of chief navigator and was riding very gingerly for the first 100 miles or so to bed the tyres in, I'd also fitted a new disc and brake pads which showed no signs of working for quite some distance. It's a bizarre feeling on an old airhead when the back brake (drum) is actually more powerful than the front.
The lunch stop at Figeac saw a major improvement in the weather and the ride on to Millau was on dry roads and pleasurable. The RSV had a near miss when a Bulgarian trucker forgot to look in his mirror when he swung out around a slower car and the RSV was about halfway past. Fortunately, quick reactions on the riders part saved the day. In Millau, we stayed in the Hotel Voyageurs which turned out to be an excellent transit hotel (cheap, clean and does what it says on the tin). When we arrived there were already 10+ Brit registered bikes in the carpark so we weren't exactly pioneers!
Day 2 we followed the D991/D999 to Le Vigan and onto Ganges which is a nice windy road over the Causses Aigoual Cevennes and stopped for lunch at Quissac about 30km before Nimes. Quissac is a quaint little town made up of one way cobbled streets. We found our way to the heart of the town and the only cafe in the place which referred to itself as a 'BAR-SNACK', so before we settled ourselves down I asked the lady behind the bar what snacks she had available she replied along the lines of 'Oh no, we don't do food, you'll need to go to the snack bar for that', silly me, I thought it said snacks outside but I broke the news to the others gently as my wife has been known to get a bit upperty when someone advertises a service they don't offer, anyway we sloped off to the little snack place about 100 metres down one of the one way streets and had a very cheap and perfectly adequate lunch so the day was saved. We decided to follow main roads through Nimes, Arles, Aix and Marseille to try to make the circuit at a reasonable hour but were a little delayed when the RSV overheated in the dense Marseille traffic. Close to the circuit the volume of traffic was horrifying, both bikes and cars. Hundreds of Gendarmes were slowing things down even more.. The circuit itself was organised? chaos. We eventually arrived at the Pinede campsite which was even more desperate. Once we found a space to put our tents we set about clearing the thorns and hammering pegs into the rocky ground. We were all surprised to see the large number of motorhomes and cars on the site many formed into mini compounds with bunting tape surrounding a motorhome, several cars, a fleet of bikes and the dining tent/bar with generator (and flood lights). Back in the day everyone turned up on their bike carrying all their own gear but these support crews meant that many riders didn't need their bikes to get home so amused themselves by revving the bike against the rev limiter whilst either flicking the kill switch or spraying easy start into the air filters (or both at the same time) to produce large sheets of flame from the exhaust, this went on all night although the one closest to us (about 20 metres away) finally blew the engine at about 7am.
The circuit was a good walk - more than a mile from the campsite, the only toilets available at the halfway point - these were disgusting by about 8pm of Friday evening.
We watched some of the Bol d'Or Classique on Friday evening and then 'enjoyed' a very greasy cheeseburger and chips with some watered down Kronenburg.
On Saturday morning we headed off for supplies and breakfast at Le Beausset. It took a while to get out of the circuit and getting back in took even longer. We found breakfast at one of the cafes in the town square, it was really very pleasant to sit and enjoy a coffee and croissant in civilised surroundings, even the toilet scored 4 out of 10 compared to the -200 rating for those at the circuit. We watched the start of the race at 3pm and spent the rest of the afternoon investigating viewing points on the circuit. We spotted the old campsite area across the other side of the mistral straight but this is now completely abandoned (and inaccessible). The top end of the circuit has seen a lot of development with hotels and corporate hospitality areas, all totally unrecognisable from when I was last there.
Saturday night on the campsite was a bit quieter than the previous night. We tried to get a reasonably early start on Sunday morning although when we got up we were surprised to see that the campsite had already thinned out considerably. Getting out of the circuit was slow going but once away from the area the traffic eased. We'd booked a hotel in Le Lavandou which is about 50 miles east on the coast. It turned out to be a really nice place and the Hotel California was by far the best of the trip.
On Monday we headed up to the Verdon Gorge. Getting away from the coast was made a bit fiddly because the GPS map seemed to be well out of date not showing several junctions and roundabouts that now exist! After several photo stops in the gorge we stopped for lunch at the hotel. As it was later than expected we decided to only go as far as Digne les Bains which I duly programmed into the GPS and it showed a right turn out of the hotel heading back through the gorge. My sense of direction decided to ignore the GPS and turn left and within about 200 metres the thing decided I was right, recalculated and came up with an ETA about 20 minutes earlier than it's previous attempt - so what's that all about!
Digne les Bains seems like quite a nice town but, being Monday a lot of the restaurants were closed, so we took advice from the hotel keeper and ended up in quite a nice place with massively long flowery descriptions on the menu for what was basically meat and potatoes, and sadly, a price tag to match.
Tuesday was quite a long day heading back to Millau via Florac and the Gorges du Tarn. We stopped in Ales for lunch. Having never been there before, as luck would have it, I stopped on the pavement just outside a very popular Brasserie serving a huge lamb and vegetable 'plat du jour' for €8.50. Back at the Hotel Voyageurs in Millau we met a few of the bikes that had been there when we were there the previous Thursday. The town seemed as if it has closed down for winter over the intervening weekend but we eventually found a pocket of open restaurants and chose a Moroccan place which was pretty good.
Wednesday started off quite cold and we wished we'd brought the liners for our jackets. After a quick 'plat du jour' in Figeac it had warmed up enough for an enjoyable ride home arriving at about 4pm.
The trip was almost exactly 1000 miles door to door, despite the last minute preparation, the bike behaved perfectly once the front brake started to work again.
I always like to reflect on what we've learned from the trip and might be useful for the next one and on this trip I learned the following:
Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
The Bol d'Or is best avoided (might be fun if you're young and French).
It can get quite cold in September. We need to take more kit for which we'll need bigger panniers.
The French make some nice roads (but I knew that already).
GPS is all very well but I need a tank bag with a proper map pocket.
I need to take more photos.
All in though, a very successful trip and I look forward to doing something similar next September.
Photos attached:
View from the Hotel in Le Lavandou
Campsite at Paul Ricard on Sunday morning just before departure
Verdon Gorge
D991 Millau to Le Vigan
The original scheme was proposed by a friend living in the UK, who, like ourselves was keen to revisit the "Bol" which returned to Paul Ricard near Toulon this year - the last time it was there was 1999 but the last time I went was 1989.
Our UK based friend (Tiger 955i) and his mate (RSV) arrived at our place in the Dordogne mid afternoon on Wednesday having ridden through heavy rain for most of the journey. I was still fitting the new tyres to my bike (R100GS) and changing oils etc.. I'd had to cut the silencer and collector box open to remove lumps of metal that had come lose and reweld them which had delayed the more routine servicing. So Thursday morning (raining) was the first time the bike had run for some months and the first time my missus had been on the back since our trip to Barcelona in August 2014. I seemed to have assumed the role of chief navigator and was riding very gingerly for the first 100 miles or so to bed the tyres in, I'd also fitted a new disc and brake pads which showed no signs of working for quite some distance. It's a bizarre feeling on an old airhead when the back brake (drum) is actually more powerful than the front.
The lunch stop at Figeac saw a major improvement in the weather and the ride on to Millau was on dry roads and pleasurable. The RSV had a near miss when a Bulgarian trucker forgot to look in his mirror when he swung out around a slower car and the RSV was about halfway past. Fortunately, quick reactions on the riders part saved the day. In Millau, we stayed in the Hotel Voyageurs which turned out to be an excellent transit hotel (cheap, clean and does what it says on the tin). When we arrived there were already 10+ Brit registered bikes in the carpark so we weren't exactly pioneers!
Day 2 we followed the D991/D999 to Le Vigan and onto Ganges which is a nice windy road over the Causses Aigoual Cevennes and stopped for lunch at Quissac about 30km before Nimes. Quissac is a quaint little town made up of one way cobbled streets. We found our way to the heart of the town and the only cafe in the place which referred to itself as a 'BAR-SNACK', so before we settled ourselves down I asked the lady behind the bar what snacks she had available she replied along the lines of 'Oh no, we don't do food, you'll need to go to the snack bar for that', silly me, I thought it said snacks outside but I broke the news to the others gently as my wife has been known to get a bit upperty when someone advertises a service they don't offer, anyway we sloped off to the little snack place about 100 metres down one of the one way streets and had a very cheap and perfectly adequate lunch so the day was saved. We decided to follow main roads through Nimes, Arles, Aix and Marseille to try to make the circuit at a reasonable hour but were a little delayed when the RSV overheated in the dense Marseille traffic. Close to the circuit the volume of traffic was horrifying, both bikes and cars. Hundreds of Gendarmes were slowing things down even more.. The circuit itself was organised? chaos. We eventually arrived at the Pinede campsite which was even more desperate. Once we found a space to put our tents we set about clearing the thorns and hammering pegs into the rocky ground. We were all surprised to see the large number of motorhomes and cars on the site many formed into mini compounds with bunting tape surrounding a motorhome, several cars, a fleet of bikes and the dining tent/bar with generator (and flood lights). Back in the day everyone turned up on their bike carrying all their own gear but these support crews meant that many riders didn't need their bikes to get home so amused themselves by revving the bike against the rev limiter whilst either flicking the kill switch or spraying easy start into the air filters (or both at the same time) to produce large sheets of flame from the exhaust, this went on all night although the one closest to us (about 20 metres away) finally blew the engine at about 7am.
The circuit was a good walk - more than a mile from the campsite, the only toilets available at the halfway point - these were disgusting by about 8pm of Friday evening.
We watched some of the Bol d'Or Classique on Friday evening and then 'enjoyed' a very greasy cheeseburger and chips with some watered down Kronenburg.
On Saturday morning we headed off for supplies and breakfast at Le Beausset. It took a while to get out of the circuit and getting back in took even longer. We found breakfast at one of the cafes in the town square, it was really very pleasant to sit and enjoy a coffee and croissant in civilised surroundings, even the toilet scored 4 out of 10 compared to the -200 rating for those at the circuit. We watched the start of the race at 3pm and spent the rest of the afternoon investigating viewing points on the circuit. We spotted the old campsite area across the other side of the mistral straight but this is now completely abandoned (and inaccessible). The top end of the circuit has seen a lot of development with hotels and corporate hospitality areas, all totally unrecognisable from when I was last there.
Saturday night on the campsite was a bit quieter than the previous night. We tried to get a reasonably early start on Sunday morning although when we got up we were surprised to see that the campsite had already thinned out considerably. Getting out of the circuit was slow going but once away from the area the traffic eased. We'd booked a hotel in Le Lavandou which is about 50 miles east on the coast. It turned out to be a really nice place and the Hotel California was by far the best of the trip.
On Monday we headed up to the Verdon Gorge. Getting away from the coast was made a bit fiddly because the GPS map seemed to be well out of date not showing several junctions and roundabouts that now exist! After several photo stops in the gorge we stopped for lunch at the hotel. As it was later than expected we decided to only go as far as Digne les Bains which I duly programmed into the GPS and it showed a right turn out of the hotel heading back through the gorge. My sense of direction decided to ignore the GPS and turn left and within about 200 metres the thing decided I was right, recalculated and came up with an ETA about 20 minutes earlier than it's previous attempt - so what's that all about!
Digne les Bains seems like quite a nice town but, being Monday a lot of the restaurants were closed, so we took advice from the hotel keeper and ended up in quite a nice place with massively long flowery descriptions on the menu for what was basically meat and potatoes, and sadly, a price tag to match.
Tuesday was quite a long day heading back to Millau via Florac and the Gorges du Tarn. We stopped in Ales for lunch. Having never been there before, as luck would have it, I stopped on the pavement just outside a very popular Brasserie serving a huge lamb and vegetable 'plat du jour' for €8.50. Back at the Hotel Voyageurs in Millau we met a few of the bikes that had been there when we were there the previous Thursday. The town seemed as if it has closed down for winter over the intervening weekend but we eventually found a pocket of open restaurants and chose a Moroccan place which was pretty good.
Wednesday started off quite cold and we wished we'd brought the liners for our jackets. After a quick 'plat du jour' in Figeac it had warmed up enough for an enjoyable ride home arriving at about 4pm.
The trip was almost exactly 1000 miles door to door, despite the last minute preparation, the bike behaved perfectly once the front brake started to work again.
I always like to reflect on what we've learned from the trip and might be useful for the next one and on this trip I learned the following:
Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
The Bol d'Or is best avoided (might be fun if you're young and French).
It can get quite cold in September. We need to take more kit for which we'll need bigger panniers.
The French make some nice roads (but I knew that already).
GPS is all very well but I need a tank bag with a proper map pocket.
I need to take more photos.
All in though, a very successful trip and I look forward to doing something similar next September.
Photos attached:
View from the Hotel in Le Lavandou
Campsite at Paul Ricard on Sunday morning just before departure
Verdon Gorge
D991 Millau to Le Vigan
) I know you were equally unimpressed with the place as we were.
