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Planning a 20 Year Reunion / Turned ride report

I arrived in London on Wednesday to beautiful weather, but hey, this is England, and most of my riding has been in the rain, so I haven't taken any photos. Lucky for us that my mate, Paul created a video of my visit on Thursday morning before the rain.

Paul promotes a beach race on the Yorkshire coast, and is a fascinating guy. He's got me posing with his shovelhead and with his old Dodge pickup that I helped him find parts for. It was a fun visit!
 
I spent all day at Oulton Park watching my ex-BIL race the UK Porsche Boxster Cup series., but what I really want to post is this picture for Tim. šŸ˜1000003507.jpg1000003506.jpg
 
Hi all, landed in the UK a week ago, and so much has happened that it's hard to keep up. We took the Chunnel to France on Monday AM and had a 12 hour day to get to Dole in blistering heat (41 C). Most of our riding wasn't that fun until the last three hours or so. Tuesday we rode through the French Jura which served to remind me that something about riding in rural France speak to my inner hooligan! We ended the day in the Alps at Gap, where we've stayed for two nights.

There's so much to tell, but a phone is a less than ideal input device for long stories, so I'll keep it short tonight with two updates.

First, I still love the Versys, a bike that truly rewards being absolutely caned. I'm riding with good riders on bikes with twice the displacement, horsepower, and brakes (late model GG's), and it can be a struggle sometimes, but when I lead on some of tighter stuff I can make them struggle too. Even a middleweight that can punch hard gets bested going toe to toe with a good heavyweight, so I have to stick and move, as it were.

Second, today we went after three high, technical passes, Col del la Cayolle, Col des Champs, and Col d'Allo in absolutely shit weather (rain and lightning), and it was honestly hard work, but we've been riding together twenty years, and we loved it! It's good to be with friends. We had our earliest completion time, getting in at 6:30. Col des Champs was new to me, and a blast with more switchbacks than you could shake a stick at (estimate more than 20 on the east side and at least a dozen more on the west side).1000003535.jpg

Tomorrow we head to Grasse in perfume country to set us up for the start in Nice.

Here's a few pics. There are many more.

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flying_hun said:
First, I still love the Versys, a bike that truly rewards being absolutely caned. I'm riding with good riders on bikes with twice the displacement, horsepower, and brakes (late model GG's), and it can be a struggle sometimes, but when I lead on some of tighter stuff I can make them struggle too. Even a middleweight that can punch hard gets bested going toe to toe with a good heavyweight, so I have to stick and move, as it were.
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Make 'em earn it Hun!!! :ride
 
Not many photos today. We had a relatively easy ride down to Grasse, just above the Riviera. We had a change of plans because yesterday kind of beat us up due to weather and challenging roads. We got to our hotel right at 3, so I've got another photo for Tim :teeth Plus a BARF represent photo.
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The riding today was mostly D roads, fast and flowing with mostly good surfaces. We were on a fairly rough one early in the day when we encountered a BUNCH of Renault Alpine A310's. I didn't know there were that many of them in the entire world, plus a smattering of other 70's rally exotica. More to say than I have time to post. More later.1000003536.jpg1000003538.jpg
 
A couple of observations. My French is almost non-existent, yet the French seem to greatly appreciate the effort. Many French drivers are extremely courteous to motorcyclists, but some are very aggressive. The last bit is not much different from the States.

As for navigation, Dom preloaded a lot of the route into his Garmin, but I led yesterday and today just using Google maps. The "avoid highways" and "avoid tolls" settings plus a few waypoints got us on some great roads.

We've seen a number of tour groups, lined up like ducklings coming down the road, with one nationality in particular taking their half out of the middle on single track roads. I'll leave it to you to speculate. The point of this is to say, I have zero desire to be part of one of those groups. I prefer the spontaneity of doing it on our own. Yes, I know I'm with friends, but I've done it solo too. Push the boat out, man! It's an adventure! If it all goes sideways, people will show up to help.

Last for now, if you're coming to the Alps, bring your "A" game. The riding can be serious as a heart attack. There's times when you have to be pin sharp with your line and wheel placement. I can feel myself getting sharper as the kilometers go by. Starting out with 4-1/2 days of riding on the left in the UK does wonders for one's neuro plasticity. At this point I'm feeling better about my riding than I have for some time.
 
Hi @flying_hun,

Love following along, thanks for posting :thumbup I was wondering how your new way of eating is working out on the other side of the pond? Has this influenced any destination or rest stop decisions? I ask because I have a particular way of eating and spend some time thinking about how and when I will eat when I am away from home.
 
Das MotorRad said:
Hi @flying_hun,

Love following along, thanks for posting :thumbup I was wondering how your new way of eating is working out on the other side of the pond? Has this influenced any destination or rest stop decisions? I ask because I have a particular way of eating and spend some time thinking about how and when I will eat when I am away from home.
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Mixed. I brought some of my meal replacement bars with me to cover the gaps when I can't find anything suitable, most frequently for breakfast. We've all eaten a bunch of salads. Dinner is generally not as hard, and portion sizes have been reasonable in France, and one can always choose to not eat everything on the plate. Of course, I'm in France eating French food, which I love, and I'm going to enjoy some things that I don't eat at home. I'll recover later. Most of the places we've eaten have had pretty good variety, so there's usually something that works. Plus, the practice here is to post the menu outside so that you can see what's available before sitting down. If one place doesn't have anything suitable, another place will.

There's some things I love that I've avoided, like fish and chips in the UK. Some others posed too much temptation, like a freshly baked pork pie to which I succumbed. It was a conscious choice. The main thing for me has been carrying an alternative with me when nothing suitable is available.

I hope that helps.
 
We all woke up this morning exhausted, so discretion being the better part of valor, and liking where we're staying outside of Grasse, we chose to take today off. Mainly we've just walked around the town. I mean it's the South of France, why not. Of course one of the things I love about coming to Europe is the stuff you don't see at home, like this RG500 at a sidewalk restaurant. I thought of Lonster.1000003546.jpg1000003545.jpg
 
We began our recreation of the event today, leaving our hotel around 8:30 to ride down to Nice. It took us an hour or so to get to the start. Let me just state the obvious, Nice in summer is a mob scene, and effing hot! I led the first part of the day, and it was mainly hard work with lots of traffic until we were a couple of hours out of Nice, and riding up the Gorge du Cians. We stopped for lunch in Beuil at a cool little outdoor cafe. The town was fairly heaving with motorcycles, with even more passing by while we ate. As we had our lunch, a group of Italian riders showed up, and we continued to see them throughout the day. They left before we did, but they must have stopped along the Col de la Couilole because later while heading up to Isola 2000 I saw a group slowly reeling us in, but they ended up letting us go.

They caught up to us at the top of the Col de Lombarde, the first above tree line route on the Centopassi. We saw them leave before us and they gave us a wave, but somehow we must have gotten by them again. Now the Lombarde is about as wide as a golf cart track, and if a cager doesn't want to let you by, it's a challenge, so I took point. As we worked our way down through the hairpins (some remarkably banked like the old Bristol race track), I saw them catch up to us, so now things got serious. I didn't want to hold them up. We ended up separating again by the bottom. When we got down in Italy, Dom went back to the front and led us over the Col de Vars to Briancon and then over the Col l'Ecchelle to Bardonecchia to our rather spectacular digs above town. View out the kitchen window attached.

This morning our bodies which have all aged twenty years, and we're still exhausted.

Not many photos yesterday.1000003556.jpg1000003560.jpg1000003560.jpg
 
Subscribed! Amazing to see this recreation.
 
Dr_SLO said:
Subscribed! Amazing to see this recreation.
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Thanks, my friend. Your name came up in a positive way in conversation between Dom and me on this journey. I can imagine you and several other BARFers having a great time on this trip. I will say, this route was hard twenty years ago. We're all a bit knackered twenty years later.

Yesterday we rode the Col d'Izoard, which is a lovely pass. It was my first favorite Alpine pass. Then I managed to get us horribly lost, spending more time in Italy than intended. Oh well, we recovered, though as you can well imagine, dinner was a little late. ;)1000003564.jpg1000003565.jpg
 
Another day that didn't go exactly to plan, but has been great, in part because of that. It's a long story that I don't have time for now. It's late, and I'm exhausted. Did bag some big passes today. Col du Lauteret, Col de la Sarenne, Alpe du Huez, Col du Glandon, Col du Croix de Fer, Col de Telegraphe, and my major objective today, Col du Galibier (apologies for any mangled spelling).

There will be a magnum opus write up when I get home. For now, I just want to reference technique. Riding the Alps is about as serious a riding school as I can imagine. You can just feel yourself getting sharper day by day. The day we came down the Col de Lombarde, I was asking myself how I learned to do what I was doing through the tight, descending switchbacks, and I realized that I'd learned it through drills at ROMS. I sent Rich an email thanking him for that training. Any advanced training will make you better, ROMS gets you ready for the really sketchy stuff, and that's where the fun is!
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Hi all, we've been a little preoccupied. We're wrapping up our journey, and tonight we're in Annecy, heading for the Vosges tomorrow. We've had a wonderful time, and now it's time for a few confessions. Things haven't gone according to plan. As it turned out, we didn't complete a single full loop. We've had some great riding and so big and adventures anyway. I think we forgot how hard it was twenty years ago, and that we've all aged in the meantime, and that during the actual event there was no time for the sumptuous French lunches we enjoyed this year (see pics). I would argue that this year's version was better.

Let me give you an example. The other day we were intending to rerun the day four loop. We got ourselves to Briancon, over to the wild and wooly Col de la Sarenne, which is as spooky as ever to ride, though I was disappointed to find that the reports that the pave' culverts had been removed are true. Then we had a lovely long lunch on the Alpe d'Huez putting us WAY behind. One of my chief objectives of the day was to visit the Opinel factory in St. Jean de Maurienne to get a chef's knife for my partner. We ended up getting separated, and the lads carried on without me.

We communicated our plans via text, and I decided to take a shortcut back to Briancon via the Col du Galibier as the lads continued on the actual route. We both encountered a Biblical storm. They took cover in a grocery store, then when they were able they decided to shorten the route back to Bardonecchia by shelling out 36 Euros each to go through the Frejus tunnel, while I crept over the slippery Col du Telegraph in a driving rain.

When I got to Valloire, the rain was easing a bit, and the town was heaving with bikes, but I took little notice. Traffic was nearly nonexistent on Galibier, and I was congratulating myself on my navigational genius, so after obligatory photos at the summit, I took off downhill to the junction with the Col du Lauteret, encountering one car, which I promptly passed. As I approached the junction, all I saw were flashing blue lights and traffic barriers.

When I was finally able to talk to a cop, he told me the road was closed until the next morning at the earliest, and that's when the adventure began...

To be continued, I'm too tired right now...1190.jpg1189.jpg
 
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