Route Napoleon - 5 day thrash or 7 day bimble, courtesy of RiDE

Wapping

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RiDE magazine this month, December (or as they call it, February) has a nice article on the Route Napoleon, a fun road to ride for those so inclined to do so

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Will get the magazine, but anyone want to explain the significance of the "Actual Route" and "Planned Route" in the bottom lefthand corner of the page Wapping posted up?
 
Yes, they couldn't reach the tunnel due to the snow and had to turn back (read the article the other day )
 
Just planning similar route, taking in the Vercor region for May next year. May not be able to do the high stuff though.

P.S. their road markings are confusing , trying to follow the route on a map......
 
P.S. their road markings are confusing , trying to follow the route on a map......



They (RiDE) simplify it so that it fits nicely into a box on the page of a magazine. If you want to see confusing, see some of the posts that start: “Me and my mates....”

Have you tried to download the routes and looked to match them up?
 
You may need to update your browser: it works fine for me at home as well as in the office. What won't work at the moment are the bits going over roads closed by snow: standard Google Map cleverness, rerouting to avoid bits like La Bonette when they're shut. However, download the GPX to your desktop (click "Export", select the GPX option) and open it in Basecamp. Assuming you have it set to ignore seasonal road closures, it'll snap itself to the correct roads.

And yes, the little maps with intermittent road numbers won't necessarily guide you round the entire route: that's why we do the download. The maps are there purely to emphasise that (a) the route has been plotted and (b) to give a rough impression of where/how far we went. But to reproduce it at a scale that can be followed... that would require a road atlas...
 
But to reproduce it at a scale that can be followed... that would require a road atlas...

Or a simple Michelin map of the area.
With no need to piss about on a computer. :augie
 
Don't rush it...too nice.
Yeah, get a decent map, an imagination...and a bit more of a life :D
 
I've done it over 10 days , The highlight for me was doing some off road tracks including coll de tende .
 
Agree; don't rush it or 10 days if you can. France is a beautiful country and a quick motorcycle blast is simply a quick motorcycle blast.
 
Thrashing it would be Castellane from Calais in a day and a day back again. Doable, for fun.

The suggestion in RiDE is not cast in stone. Many bods on this site are limited for time, so haven’t got the luxury of 10 days to bimble along. Use it or alter it as much as you like, nobody will mind. Rest assured if the magazine had published, Route Napoleon in 14 days, someone would be along to say it was boring and not enough hooning..... and to demand the name of a biker friendly hotel.
 
Thrashing it would be Castellane from Calais in a day and a day back again. Doable, for fun.

The suggestion in RiDE is not cast in stone. Many bods on this site are limited for time, so haven’t got the luxury of 10 days to bimble along. Use it or alter it as much as you like, nobody will mind. Rest assured if the magazine had published, Route Napoleon in 14 days, someone would be along to say it was boring and not enough hooning..... and to demand the name of a biker friendly hotel.

Are you trying to suggest that bikers are fickle?
 
..... and to demand the name of a biker friendly hotel.

English owned and with a full English breakfast of course.

I agree with Ride, 7 days is enough to have a half decent run, personally I am not a huge fan of Route Napoleon but it gets you down towards the bottom of RDGA quite quickly which you can then work your way back up, 10 days gives a lot more freedom to stop for more than one night at a good spot (or two) to loop around the nearby passes.

I tend to blast the first and / or last day on the Motorways which frees up at least one extra day in the mountains, I find this easier on the way out when I am looking forward to the trip, a long day of motorway coming home is always a real drag, but sometimes needed to make the trip work, especially when time is limited.
 
I tend to blast the first and / or last day on the Motorways which frees up at least one extra day in the mountains, I find this easier on the way out when I am looking forward to the trip, a long day of motorway coming home is always a real drag, but sometimes needed to make the trip work, especially when time is limited.

Totally agree with this, First day off the boat is a heads down blast ,get the boring bit out of the way, its a necessary evil of traveling to the Alps.
 
Totally agree with this, First day off the boat is a heads down blast ,get the boring bit out of the way, its a necessary evil of traveling to the Alps.

When you pile off the ferry (I assume in Holland) on day one, where do you zoom to for your first overnight stop?
 


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