If you’ve never been, France is a really interesting country to explore on a bike, with a wide variety of scenery, wonderful beaches, and thousands of small villages, all distinctly different. Add to this, fairly quiet roads, a very pro-motorcycling attitude, a fairly high standard of driving, and cheap and high quality food and accommodation. What more are you waiting for?
Firstly, choice of bike. I’ve been a couple of times on my Skorpion, and over 20 years ago on a BMW, but you could tour easily on a 250. Indeed, if you kept the daily mileage down, and avoided motorways, you could tour on a 125. Former MZ Rider editor, David Usher, did a camping holiday with his wife on a TS 150, details at: http://www.siltec.co.uk/places/tour82/mztour82.htm , so don’t let having a small bike put you off. In 1983, when I was on a BMW, I met a couple from Glasgow who were on a camping holiday in Switzerland on an ETZ 250.
Now to prepare your bike for the trip. At the very least give the bike a service and check that your tyres, brake pads and chain have enough life left to complete the trip. This might seem obvious, but I’ve met British riders arriving in the South of France with bald tyres with an expression of ‘how could that have happened?’
I’m not going to write a big list of what tools and spares you should take, but I would suggest: enough to tighten anything likely to come loose, fix a puncture, replace a broken cable, plus some bulbs and fuses would be enough. Hein Gericke sell a small round tin with enough bits to repair or replace any broken cable. I’ve had one for about 5 years, but have yet to use it. (Item no: 31321320000 Cable Repair Kit). A small selection of nuts and bolts, cable ties, and some gaffa tape will allow you to carry out rudimentary repairs, and won’t take up too much room.
As for luggage, I’ve always used hard panniers, but soft luggage, or even a large sportsbag bungeed on the rack would do, as long as you’re careful where you park. Bike theft seems to be very low in France (most bikes are left on their steering locks, frequently with a helmet left on a mirror), but that’s no excuse for complacency. When I rode an ETZ 250 I used to use a tankbag. As it had to be held on with a luggage net due to the ‘strange’ shape of the tank, I soon started using a child’s rucksack. I put my valuables into this and could easily carry it about when I parked. Whatever luggage you use, ALWAYS pack your things in plastic bags; your panniers might not be as waterproof as you’d like to think. Riding all day in the rain, then camping and finding your sleeping bag is soaking doesn’t bear thinking about! Always give your bike a ‘trial run’ with the luggage fitted so you can get a feel for what the bike will handle like with the extra weight, and also to see if anything works loose. You don’t want your luggage to fall off on the way to the ferry. See luggage page http://www.mzskorpion.net/page13.htm
Talking of ferries, the next question is how to get there? The shortest route is Dover - Calais, but I would avoid the nightmare journey around London and take another route. I’ve used the Portsmouth - Cherbourg route, which you can take overnight and arrive in France after a good sleep and ready to go. I’ve also used Weymouth – St Mâlo, staying overnight in Weymouth before catching the morning ferry. Alternatively you can use the Rosyth - Zeebrugge overnight sailing, a bit expensive, but the ride from Belgium to France is a lot more interesting than riding the length of England. Take a look at http://www.aferry.to for a lot more options
Three ‘Top Tips’: Firstly, always pay for your ferry tickets with a credit card as this will give you some form of travel insurance and will refund your costs if the ferry is cancelled. Secondly, put everything you’ll need overnight on the ferry into a small bag (toilet things, change of underwear, shoes for walking about the boat in, MZRC pyjamas, (available from the Regalia Officer soon)), this avoids having to lug a pannier about the ferry (I’ve seen people doing this), and take a cable lock to lock your helmet onto the bike, you don’t want to have to carry this about as well. Thirdly, when you’re booking your passage, don’t be tempted to save money by getting a ‘reclining chair’ rather than a bed in a cabin, you won’t sleep. Reclining chairs are not only stunningly uncomfortable, but you’ll be next to a selection of flatulent snorers and hyperactive kids contriving to keep you awake. You will also be positioned under a loudspeaker which will give you all sorts of safety announcements in numerous languages throughout the night, so sleep is out of the question.
One thing you will need when you travel abroad is money. I’ve never understood how some people manage to make such a song and dance out of changing currency, it couldn’t be simpler. Travelling to France and Belgium means you’ll need Euros, readily available in most Post Offices in the UK, and my bank (RBS) allow me to withdraw money from my account in Euros without commission as long as I give them a day’s notice. Even changing money in places like Thomas Cook isn’t that expensive, so you’ve really got to be trying to get ripped off. You don’t have to exchange much money anyway as when I was in France I never failed to find a cash machine that would take my RBS bank card, unlike Belgium where I couldn’t use any. Also, just about everywhere takes credit cards, using the same small card reader we use here. One time in France the card reader even changed to English when my card was put in.
The only time you’ll have a problem is at petrol station. Other than autoroute service stations, petrol stations almost always close on a Sunday. However, many advertise themselves as being open ‘24 hours, 7 days’ (24h 7j, as they put it), but this means that when they are unmanned, petrol is dispensed using a bank card reader which only seems to read French bank cards. So always remember to fill up on a Saturday night. Watch out for holiday Mondays, petrol stations frequently take these as well.
When buying petrol, remember that supermarkets are the cheapest and autoroute service stations the most expensive. Petrol is a bit cheaper than in the UK, and diesel is a lot cheaper. Basically, any MZ will run on the cheapest French petrol, which despite being sometimes labelled ‘85’ is actually 95 octane. Sometimes it’s called ‘Euro 95’, just avoid ‘gasoil’ which is diesel. Sales of petrol are frequently based on trust; you serve yourself, go to the pay kiosk, and tell the cashier how much you’ve bought. This means you either have to known how to say numbers in French, or carry a small notebook and write down how much you’ve bought, and then show this to cashier. Also, most petrol stations, even those attached to big supermarkets, tend to close for lunch, so if you arrive at 12.01, you might have an hour (or more) to wait.
Once you’ve bought petrol the next thing you’ll be looking for is oil. Almost every supermarket has a motorcycle (and car, and bicycle) section, I don’t think I was in one which didn’t sell semi-synthetic 2 stroke oil and full synthetic 4 stroke oil (handy for us Skorpion owners).
Next thing on the list is food, and that’s one area without any problems. Every village in France has at least one café which will sell coffee, wine, and meals of some sort. Even the most basic café will sell sandwiches, and most do hot meals. Needless to say the quality is much higher than the UK and they’ll be a lot cheaper as well.
Around lunchtime many roadside cafés sell very cheap (<10 Euros) meals. These are referred to as ‘prix fixé’, ‘menu fixé’, or similar, and usually consist of a very good and very substantial 3 or 4 course meal. There may be a choice of main course, but sometimes only one. Bear in mine that in France ‘menu’ means a fixed meal, and not as we use the word. (What we call a menu, they call a ‘carte’)
Only problem is if, like me, you’re a vegetarian, then don’t expect to eat a hot meal while in France. Vegetarianism is a concept they don’t understand, so you’ll eat a lot of cheese sandwiches and taboulé (a North African dish of cous cous, peppers and sultanas). However, I did once ask in a café if they had any vegetarian meals and they gave me a plate of all the non meat based things they were doing that day. If it’s a nice day, why not stop at a supermarket, buy some fresh bread, cheese, pâté, etc and have a picnic? At the side of most main roads there are ‘aire de repose’, picnic areas with tables under trees, sometimes a toilet or at least a standpipe, and sometimes a van that sells steak and chips. These are signposted as ‘Aire de ….(name of site)’, and picnic symbol.
Driving in France is really easy as the roads are mostly very well maintained, the standard of driving is fairly high, and the roads are mostly quiet (except in August when the French are on holiday). Drivers are very ‘motorcycle observant’, basically because almost everyone has ridden a moped or motorbike at some point in their lives. In France you can ride a 50cc at 14, a 125 at 16, and bigger bikes at 18, so even schoolkids are used to bikes. It’s amazing to see 14 year olds riding mopeds and scooters to school, but I don’t think they’ve got a particularly high accident rate.
Motorists always seem to be able to see motorcyclists, don’t pull out in front of you, and if you approach them from behind on a country road, they’ll pull over to the right to allow you to overtake, giving you a friendly wave as you pass. Only thing to watch for is that overtaking cars pass very closely and will pull in rather abruptly in front of you. Don’t take it personally; it’s just they way they drive!
Very few French riders seem to use their bikes for touring (if you see a bike with panniers you can assume it’s not French), so they are very interested if they see a bike with luggage and a foreign plate, and will come up at talk to you, ask where you’re from, where you’re going, etc.
One mistake a lot of visitors to France make is trying to do too much. Just because you can do 300 miles a day, doesn’t mean you have to. Unless you’ve got somewhere in particular to go, don’t plan too far ahead. I’ve often stopped in a town for lunch and ended up spending the rest of the day there as it was so interesting. Likewise, I’ve stopped in some places that had nothing of interest, so headed on. Again, unless you’re in a hurry to get somewhere in particular, I would avoid autoroutes, as all you’ll see is main roads. Take the country roads and you’ll see a lot more. I would also avoid the word ‘peagé’ like the plague. This is a toll motorway, very well surfaced, usually very fast, but very expensive. There is always an alternative route, which is guaranteed to be more interesting.
Riding in France is fairly relaxed, (I didn’t hear a horn being sounded in two weeks), but you should be aware of some of the motoring laws. Most importantly, DON’T SPEED IN TOWN. The French police are very strict on this, and although there’s no speed limit signs as you enter a town, between the sign with the town name, and the sign with the town name scored through, the speed limit is 50 km/h (about 30 mph).I once saw a policewoman hiding behind a tree with a radar gun, 50 metres from the ‘end of town’ sign watching for people speeding up towards the sign. Secondly, always give way to cyclists. They have right of way over motor vehicles, even when entering roundabouts, so look out for them. If you’re involved in an accident with a cyclist, expect to be heavily fined.
Speed limits are less strictly enforced out of town, but watch out for speed cameras, they are usually well signposted, but the French police have the power to fine you on the spot. If you’re using the peagé, they time you between paystations to work out your average speed. So be warned!
When travelling for two weeks, one problem is carrying enough clothes. What I’ve done is carry enough for 3-4 days, wash them in a hotel room at night, put the wet clothes into a plastic bag, then the next day stopped at an aire de repose, hung them from ‘clotheslines’ made from lengths of string stretched from the bike to a nearby tree, and let them dry while having a picnic lunch.
Alternatively, you could buy clothes as you go along. Look how cheap clothes are in Asda or Tesco, they’re as cheap if not cheaper in big supermarkets like E.LeClerc and Carrefour in France. I bought a reasonable t-shirt for 1.50 Euro (about a pound), so you could afford to buy then discard clothes as you go along.
Now you’ve got to find somewhere to stay. About 20 years ago I used to camp as France is full of good quality, and (by British standards) very cheap campsites. At a ‘normal’ commercial French campsite you’ll find good clean toilets and showers, usually a shop (a supermarket at the bigger sites), a bar/club, sometimes even a swimming pool. They do get busy, so try to find one fairly early. Good value are camping a la ferme where a farmer turns a field into a campsite (and no doubt gets a huge EU ‘set aside’ subsidy), adds toilets and showers, and sells farm produce (milk, eggs, cheese, bacon, etc) to the campers. I’ve stayed at a few of these and some have had fantastic scenery. Even cheaper are camping municipal - council owned sites, fairly basic but very cheap and frequently free.
The reason I stopped camping in France is the existence of cheap hotels. Almost every town has at least one budget hotel, and they are usually signposted from the town’s outskirts. Main hotel chains are: Formule 1, BB, Etap, etc, websites at:
http://www.etaphotel.com
http://www.hotelformule1.com
http://www.quickpalace.com http://www.villages-hotel.com
http://www.envergure.fr/campanilefr.html
http://www.hotelbb.com
Cost is around 30 - 50 Euro a night for a room, plus 3.50 - 5 Euro for an ‘all you can eat’ breakfast. If you’re travelling south in the summer it’s worth paying 10 Euros extra a night for a room with air conditioning, climatiseé, it could make the difference between sleeping and not sleeping. The hotels tend to be located at cheap locations, so sometimes they are in industrial estates, at motorway junctions, or sometimes behind retail parks, which can mean they are a distance from restaurants, so don’t leave finding one too late if you’re looking for something to eat. They are frequently built next to each other, so it’s worth going to each one and getting a brochure, which are usually in a rack by the door so you can plan your trip as you go along. What I like about these hotels is the clientele. Outwith the major holiday period, the other guests are overwhelmingly French, mostly pensioners or ‘business travellers’ so they tend to be quiet and go to bed early. One exception was a Formule 1 in St Nazaire which was full of construction workers. I often work on sites, and French workies are just like their British counterparts - loud and boisterous, but suddenly silent at 9.00 pm as they all go to bed to get up for a 7.30 am start.
When I go to France I want to go to places French people go to, so the last thing I want to meet is other British person, that’s why I like these hotels.
One thing you will need is a good map. I’ve used the Michelin ‘orange’ map that covers all of France on one sheet, plus an AA Road Atlas for more detail. The Michelin map marks ‘scenic’ roads in green so if you’ve got a choice of routes you know which one to take. The AA map was produced by IGN, (the French Ordnance Survey), and it’s worth looking for their logo when buying maps. I’ve also got a Garmin Quest GPS system. In France, main roads are very well signposted, but the more rural a road is, the worse the signposting is. The GPS in invaluable on roads like this, and is well worth every penny as it encourages you to explore the more remote parts of the country.
The next question is when to go. The end of July, and August are when the French take their holidays, so it can be very busy in the popular areas. I remember camping in the Cote d’Azur in July, and it was so busy that I was unable to find a campsite that wasn’t full, so had to camp ‘rough’. Also, the traffic is a lot busier, things tend to be more expensive, and it can be uncomfortably hot in the South. I’ve been in May and the weather was fine, and most of the hotels were less than half full, but even this late in the year the high passes in the Alps and Pyrenees are still closed by snow. June and September are probably the best times. If you’re travelling with no firm plans, it’s worth watching the weather forecast (Météo) on television each night and look for the areas on the map with sun symbols and ‘chase the weather’.
Don’t expect anyone in France to speak English. The level of English speakers is probably about the same as French speakers in Britain. This means you’ll need a phrase book. Plenty are available; ones I’ve used have been published by Collins, Berlitz, and the AA; so a quick look in a decent bookshop will find you one. I’ve found the French to be very helpful and willing to ‘work with you’ to make yourself understood if you make the attempt to speak French first. However, if you ‘expect’ them to speak English they’ll be less than helpful. Smiling and being able to say ‘I’m sorry, I cannot speak French’, in French, goes a long way. Other useful books are the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide to France, and the Lonely Planet Cycling France book gives lots of details of tours using back roads.
At the very least, you’ll need to take your passport, insurance certificate, logbook, and your European Health Insurance Card. The EHIC extends NHS treatment to other European countries and is available free at Post Offices. (UK residents only, other EU nationals should check if they have a similar system, non-EU residents should take out health insurance). Recovery insurance is useful as well, unless your bike is worth so little you don’t mind throwing it over a hedge and hitching home. I would always make a couple of photocopies of each of these plus credit cards, bank cards, ferry bookings, etc. just in case you lose something at least you’ve got a chance of getting home. You could scan all of them and copy them onto CD-ROMs, or e-mail them to yourself if you’ve got an e-mail account that can be accessed from a cybercafé. That way you can obtain a print if anything gets lost. Likewise, carry a spare set of keys, but don’t keep them with your ‘normal’ set, and don’t lock them in your luggage. If you’re carrying a pillion they should hold onto one set.
So, to tour in France all you have to do is go and do it. Then when you have, write an article for the website!
Norman
Useful Websites:
Advice on driving in France: http://www.drivingabroad.co.uk/content.aspx?page=driving-in-france&navid=13
French road signs: http://www.drivingabroad.co.uk/content.aspx?page=french-road-signs&navid=45
Advice on driving in France: http://driving.drive-alive.co.uk/driving-in-france.htm
Lots of info here: http://www.day-tripper.net/drive-infrance.html
Bison Futé, a French government department that deals with roads. Lots of info about traffic hold-ups on their website (in French): http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/diri/Accueil.do
Driving info: http://www.driving-abroad.info/driving-in-france
More info: http://www.alltravelfrance.com/France/Car_Rental/Driving_Tips.htm
List of campsites:http://www.campingfrance.com/index.jsp?lg=uk
Another list of campsites: http://www.les-campings.com/gb/index.html
Touring info: http://www.touringeurope.org/
Public holidays in Europe: http://www.touringeurope.org/dates/index.html
Good motorcycling section: http://www.touringeurope.org/links/index.html