[ST] MOTARD 2005

["Emile Nossin" <Emile@xxxxxxxxxx>]

http://piloot.smugmug.com/gallery/828616/

MOTorisation Alpine Rhone Decouverte 2005,
or how my little motorcycle club (in this
case consisting of me (BRG) and Markus (red
Sprint) and Kees on his R1150RT) discovered
the Alpine region west (the ancient mountain
range of the central massif) and east (the
French Alps) of the Rhone river. This we did
last week, starting saturday sept 10, arriving
back on sunday the 18th (week ago).

The route took us from Holland thru Belgium,
thru Paris (quick pic of the Arc and the Eiffel
tower) to the southern part of France in the
northern, volcanic part of the central massif
near Clermont Ferrand. After spending a day there
we went to the southern end of the central massif,
over the highest bridge of the world (designed
by the Eiffel company), thru the Tarn canyon to
a little town from where we made a trip thru the
Cevennes national parc. After 2 nights here we
rode thru other canyons in the Ardeche region,
crossed the Rhone river and rode to the French
Alps where we stayed a few days. There we enjoyed
Europe's highest mountain, the Mont Blanc, and
enjoyed a bunch of beautiful local roads and
cols (passes), many of them also very well
known from the Tour de France (the motorcycle
guys in that tour are called Motards). To get
back home we took 2 days and made a stopover
in the Vosges mountains, also known for it's
beautiful motorcycle roads and Tour de France
etappes. So all in all a Tour de France, riding
down the tires (well, my rear tire at least which
I replaced with a Michelin Pilot Road there) to
the canvas and behaving generally like your
average French police motorcyclist (which in
the US or UK would be labeled as a hooligan).

At first my Sprint didn't behave very satisfactory
in hairpins, later I found out the strong effect
of a square Metzler Z6 on the back (after 14.000 km).
The new Michelin on the back gave me back all the
confidence in the bike. Of course amazing fuel
economy again, even though I really drained all
the adrenaline from my body trying to outbreak
Kees with his telelever-R1150RT-integral-powered-ABS
when shooting down at 140 km/h over a local mountain
road, looking at a 140 degree blind turn with some
tar stripes and gravel, then blasting off full throttle
to decrease this huge silver fairing in my mirror,
seeing the road in front of me sweep left and right
while the triple engine howled it's roar thru the
French valleys. After these mountain races the RT
usually needed about 3 liters more than the Sprint :-).
Ergonomics were fine on the really long stretches
as well, although some cold days and chilly cols
gave me some pain between the shoulder blades as
my body was probably trying to squeeze the warmth
back into the leather jacket, which was a bit too
cold for some of the weather. We all had heated
grips and we all really needed them at some moments.
For the majority of the trip the weather was warm
and outstanding though.

The regions we rode were amazing and because of
the season we had great riding weather without
the risk of serious dehydration and we had the
roads all to ourselves. Food in France is of course
splendid, prices were fine as well and we met some
wonderful, friendly people throughout the week.

I am still adding captions but since it's in Dutch
it doesn't really matter except that the links to
certain accommodations (if you're interested) might
not be there yet. I can recommend (if you have
broadband and have some time on your hands) the
slideshow feature (button above the pics). There
is also a customizable slideshow feature when you
click on the top white slider at "style".
http://piloot.smugmug.com/gallery/828616/
Enjoy!

Emile
www.piloot.com

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