I am going to the French Pyrenees for two weeks in August, planning on doing lots of riding over the two weeks visiting Andorra and doing a trip to Barcelona.
I was going to get the motorail or the ferry to Bilbao, but that is going to cost between 800 and 1100 return, so I’ve decided just to ride down probably taking 2 or 3 days each way.
Has anyone got any recommended routes or advice? If the roads are good I don’t mind taking the long way…
Troyes, Grenoble, Menton x2, Montpellier, Andorra la vella x2, Brive la gailliarde, Troyes, Arras.
11 days, 2500 miles. Best holiday ever had, would go tomorrow but circumstances conspire against me, bugger.
Route Napolean down to Menton from Grenoble is awesome. Canyon du Verdon, breathtaking. Axe La Thermes to Andorra, simply stunning.
Try this when you get to the top of the Pyrenees. Set of gently in first then soon as you’re rolling snick into neutral. hit the kill switch then see how far you can go before you need engine power. This takes some skill to negotiate the hairpin bends but your riding will become ultra smooth.
Make sure you take wads of cash with you as Andorra doesn’t have any normal shops, it’s all designer or electrical, with every other shop a m/c accessories store. a real eyeopener I can tell you.
We’ve made several trips down that direction, trying to take a different route and stop in a different place each time. Places I’d return to at the end of the first day (we try to stop by 5 pm):
Orleans, Tours, La Rochelle and Troyes.
Down nearer the Pyrenees, Toulouse is an interesting town. Pau is rather upmarket and you should book ahead if you want to stay there, as they have lots of events.
The Dordogne is excellent for roads and Sarlat is a nice place to stay. If you’re looking for fun roads, check out the viamichelin website and find the twisty roads with the green line running along side. Invariably worth checking out.
Carcassonne is interesting, but a bit on the touristy side.
If you do decide on a ferry, the one to St. Malo is only 8 hours and that’s a nice little town.
August is when the French go on holiday, so you might find a lot of good restaurants are closed.
I did last week of june/first week july. All the roads were empty and got round avoiding the tour du france.
Also wasn’t overly hot either. Having said that, leaving Andorra at 8 in the morning we had 30 degrees, but had ice forming on us at the top of the mountains in freezing fog.
Plan for an average speed of 40mph and max of 250 miles a day, this should make it comfortable.
Thanks for the info!
I’ve pretty much decided to spend 3 days getting to the Pyrenees, setting of Friday night for an over night ferry, heading down through France arriving on the Monday where I am meeting up with family and have a base to stay.
I won’t be riding every day when I get there as I want to spend some time with my family (who don’t ride) but I am planning a few days round Parc National (close to where I am staying), a two day trip to Andorra and three days into Spain (med and Barcelona), before heading back on the Thursday to get to London for Saturday/Sunday.
I’d love to go over the Viaduc de Millau but I do get a bit of vertigo 
As I don’t want to plan fixed overnight stop offs (and it would prob be expensive) I won’t have hotels/b&bs booked, so with it being holiday season I will probably camp (possibly exception of Barcelona). Is it easy to find campsites en-route?
This will be my first tour in case you hadn’t guessed
For those who have never been there, here`s a picture.
I prefer the pics of Millau Viaduct.
This is just up the road from where I will be staying:
It’s part of the Col du Tourmalet - one of the hardest parts of the tour de france. Looks like it could be fun…
I stayed in Etap, Ibis or Formula 1 hotels. dirt cheap and all booked on t’internet beforehand. You can travel relatively light and still have somewhere to stay overnite where you can just throw your kit in a corner and sh8t, shower, n shave before hittin the town for a fill up with scram n beer.
Couldn’t be ars*d with all that muckin about trying to erect a tent at the end of a day when your nackered.
Imagine if it’s pssn down, how you gonna dry out all your gear? At least with a hotel you got some respite against the elements. But of course it’s all personal choice.
Yes, a bigup for formula1 hotels, E25ish for a clean double room. Not sure how safe the car parks are for bikes, france always used to be 10x worse than the UK for thefts, and, iirc, all the frog bikes are castrato, 100bhp, making a British bike even more attractive…
Watchout for speed traps outside calais, les gendarmes like to lighten your wallet as a way of saying bonjourno…
The only thing that I’d pass on is that you have a brand new tyre on when you leave. While some people think we pay over the odds here for goods I have a mate who was taken for a ride for a rear tyre when in Spain. Also, if your on a sports bike then I’d be looking at 300+ miles a day. IMO you need the first 50 miles to get over the hang over and find some good roads. Then top up the petrol and from 10am until 5pm you just have some fun 
.
ps. I’d go for the train over the boat. fast and you can change your times without a problem (so far).
25 euro a day is probably not much more than a campsite, I like that idea - I assume they get booked in August though?
I was all set for the train, but not at £1100 pounds…
What is costing £1100? We got a return ticket on Eurotunnel for £70 and rode the rest of the way. No need to catch a train to Spain, all you need is a SatNav and a map to have a load of fun 
Exactly the conclusion I had come to!
The quote was to put the bike on the train at Calais and get off at Toulouse - 1 bike, 1 person.
I was expecting < 300 return and it to give me an extra 4 riding days down South…
Think the hotel website is www.accor.com but you will need to check for def.
Think you can only book up to 100 days in advance, and be careful that you actually do book n pay before hand coz they can be real sneaky beggers and give your room away if you don’t arrive by 7pm and havent actually prepaid.
There are many great rodes down to and back from Spain. You can find many places on the way that are around 25euros a night. Spain was nothing special IMO. The roads in SouthEast France are bang on and if I had to do my week down to Spain again I think I’d stop just before that big bridge and stay there. Amazing roads and good prices for places to stay.
Places mentioned so far
If I can add my two pennies worth.
The way we went was from Southampton to Cherburg then a ride down the Atlantic Coast road via Tours, La Rochelle, Saints, Charante Maritime ,and Bordeaux.
Stopped off at Formula 1 hotels and made a detour to Le Mans on the homeward leg. You can ride on some of the circuit which is public road and the racing museum is not to be missed
N85 Route Napolean is awesome, everything you ever want from a road… hairpins, sweepers, straights - miles and miles of it
The Route Napolean monument is at Gap as you drop down into the town on a series of hairpins
Loads of roads like this…
Video of our trip last year…
http://www.boxhill.co.uk/videos/ticklerwdedit.wmv
We stayed in Ibis type places… the only one we booked was at Draguignan which was our base for the week… On the way down we stayed at Dijon & Grenoble, the way back we took a day less and just stopped at Grenoble, but that required a motorway hop after grenoble…
Ditto N85. Is really really steep n twisty.
The best bit was just before Gap, the stench of cooking brakes from the cars we passed was really overpowering.
Found it hard to get into a rythem on the N85 as it’s such a stunning road it makes you want to go balls out. But on the other hand the scenery is also stunning so you want to look at that too.
Wherever you go down that area you are sure in for a good time, it’s just such an awesome place.
