Home to Portsmouth
One Friday afternoon in late June saw myself and Rob meet up at the garage on the A449 to pair intercoms for our ride down to Portsmouth on our first motorcycle tour together in 13 years. Rob was keen to go on tour again and ride that shiny new Triumph Tiger on foreign roads, so by the end of April I had worked out an exciting 10 day adventure departing the UK at the end of June. Neither of us fancied a long two way crossing sitting on a boat in the Bay of Biscay or that horrendous ride along the M25,M26 to/from Folekestone either so we settled on getting a ferry to Brittany with a return from Santander instead. This would give us chance to ride in both countries and pick out some interesting routes with the central Pyrénées being the main attraction since i'd never yet ridden there and always wanted to ride that famous N-260. Watch the short video or read on to find out more ..
We were soon up and over Birdlip Hill with a single stop just south of Marlborough at Choppers Cafe for jam on toast followed by a very pleasant Summers ride through Winchester and in to the South Downs countryside. It was good to get some rider observation in on the way too with intercom analysis of hazards and positioning since Rob is looking to take his advanced rider test soon so all good practice. I had prepared the daily routes in advance to suit our choice of navigation e.g. phone based using the MRA navigator app as well as routes downloaded to my trusty BMW Navigator 6. Our Ferry departed heading for St Malo at 8pm we had plenty of time to get there refuel near the port, get through passport control and ride onto the ferry with plenty of other bikers. A bit of an odd bike tie down on the ship 'Bretagne' this time, right next to railings by the ramp which made it quite awkward to get access to my pannier so I had to unload first before pushing the bike close in to the rail and we both cautiously chose to use spare seat pads to protect the panniers in-case the boat rocked the bike on to the rail. We soon found our shared cosy two berth cabin and settled in for the night crossing after a very good evening buffet meal in the a la carte restaurant. At last after all of the planning we were well underway!
A calm night aboard the Bretagne and we docked around 8am on Saturday disembarking the ferry around 9.30am with us upsetting the middle-aged men in lycra (MAMIL) cyclists by cutting in front of them before passport control, much to my amusement as you could tell they weren't all that happy. Play 'em at their own game I thought! (he he). We both chose to have breakfast on the road but unfortunately our idea of finding a local patisserie or cafe came unstuck for a while when I got all mixed up with road sign options - was it Dinan or Dinard? It was a while since I'd plotted the route to take us next to the Chateau so I started to question the GPS directions. We took the road to Dinan regardless, but couldn't find a suitable cafe to park so a few laps around the town and losing each other around the one way system. At least the intercoms were helping us stay in touch. Eventually we parked up on the outskirts and sat outside a nice cafe enjoying our croissant and coffee before taking off in the direction of Paimpont and Pipriac via the department roads. Our plan was to skirt around the big cities avoiding the autoroute until picking it up later in the day south of Nantes.
A nice morning through Brittany and some of its pretty villages before arriving in Couëron around lunchtime just in time to embark the small river ferry that crosses the Loire. Even better it was free and much more interesting than heading inland to cross the big by-pass bridge around Rennes. By now the weather had brightened up warming us up after a cool drizzly start to the day. On the other side of the Loire we stopped to refuel in a nice little riverside town of Le Pellerin but unfortunately with what is the madness that are French Cafes, Bars and Restaurants closing at lunchtime (this caught me and Mark out last year too) we were forced to make do with a Snickers bar and bag of crisps from the local Intermarche (supermarket)! Not ideal given the distances we were covering, and for a while we were concerned we had covered only a third of the days distance until I remembered the afternoon would put us on the autoroute just south of the river. After riding through a very flat nature reserve near Pont-Saint-Martin, and then along narrow farm lanes we joined the A83 slightly north of where I'd originally planned for about 60 miles or so on the toll road and exited near Saint-Jean-de-Beugné.
In the late afternoon we were riding along some of the best roads of the day quietly cruising the D37 crossing rivers and canals in the Charente department and then south via the D112 and D5 before finally rolling in to Rochefort around 6.30pm. Just when you think it’s all gone well yet tired hot and hungry, the road across to our hotel via a lift bridge over the marina basin seemed to be stuck in the up-right position. Somehow we missed the lighted diversion sign and I swear it wasn't lit the first time we arrived in to town so this meant we were riding around in circles trying to figure out how to get across town. In the end we found the diversion but the next challenge was to find the hotel itself. Tonight we were staying at Hotel Residence Arsenal but neither of us could figure out where its entrance was and how to get inside. Being a historical site with limited signage the nearby buildings seemed inaccessible too with heavy iron gates. Rob stayed in a car park with the bikes and in the end after a long walk I discovered how to gain entrance and after a brief tour of the facilities including explanation that we were staying in a one time food store for Louis XIV French Navy I concluded that the high security could only be there to keep English bikers and French peasants from stealing food! We both had a very nice suite each, perfect after the long ride and reasonably priced too. Fortunately for us as it was getting quite late so we soon met and headed to a very nice restaurant set under arches for a few beers and nice bruschetta style pizza to review a long tiring but mostly enjoyable day on our first leg ride through France.
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