Things had been going far too smoothly for me and, sure enough, Murphy's Law struck just as soon as we got off the ferry in Caen. I was trapped in the harbour area by a set of traffic lights which had jammed on red. In preference to spending the whole of our holiday stuck in the harbour complex, I waited a respectful interval and then ignored the lights. The rest of the ferry traffic followed my dubious example.
The French pronounce Caen with an exaggerated nasal accent. it comes out something like con in conqueror. Apparently, it you get the accent wrong it means something anatomically rude. Well, I thought Caen looked like a caen of a place when I viewed it from the western ring road during the morning rush hour. I immediately wished that I was at least an hour further away.
The preparations of my Kawasaki GT750 consisted of an oil and brake fluid change. The latter made a real improvement at the lever. It seems that air in the brake fluid builds up slowly, and in secret, to make its presence known at the most inappropriate time; much like flatulence. The suspension was set to halfway between the max and min pressures, a fine compromise for all but the worst roads when softer from pressure would have been more comfortable. My mate was riding his Yam FJ1200 which needed no preparation. Every time that it's wheeled out of his garage it is in mint condition regardless of the high mileage on the clock.
I had been apprehensive about the French rules of Priority to the Right, but in practice their road signs tell you who has priority. At Domfront we made a coffee and sandwich stop and I lost my heart to the waitress at the cafe who made the mistake of smiling at me. The local bike shop had life size murals painted all over the showroom windows. Customised mopeds seemed to be the craze. I think the French permit a lower age for starting out on two wheels.
South of the river Loire everything changes for the better. The weather is less Mancunian, the people are more relaxed and the quantity of traffic is reduced. I guess that it is much the same as in Britain, where the quality of life improves in proportion to the distance you are from the capital. The temperature was reaching the high thirties and the tar on the road was molten, and in places stuck to the tyres like mud but after a few yards was thrown off.
We were supposed to be going to Provence for our hols, and I confidently left the navigation to the FJ owner who in working life flies planes. When we ended up in la Rochelle his excuse was that he had been navigating by the seat of his pants. which had become twisted.
La Rochelle is worth visiting, but not in July/August when anyone under six foot is likely to be trampled on by the crush of tourists. The local cafes do their best to discourage visitors by doubling or tripling their normal prices. The old harbour is interesting and picturesque whilst the new marina is so huge it dwarfs the UK’s puny attempts at emulation.
The two wheel fun starts on Saturday evening. All the bike enthusiasts turn out to preen in front of the cafes that line the harbour. The world's spectrum of posing tackle goes on display. Everythlng imaginable from race replicas, Harlsys, tourers, etc., but alas no British iron. Even the mopeds got in on the act, a lot customised with braced frames, alloy wheels and expansion chambers.
I didn’t possess any camping gear and, anyway, we wanted to travel light. so it was a case of taking lots of money and finding hotels, which are better value for money than those in the UK. We found prices spread from about £14 to £28 per night for a two bed room, loo, bath or shower. All the hotels, with one exception, were spotlessly clean, although the furnishings of the cheapest hotels were well worn and frayed at the edges.
We left La Rochelle in the relative cool of the early morning on a Sunday. This was lucky because yet again I tangled with a set of red traffic lights. Somehow I’d crept into a traffic lane exclusively reserved for the emperor, buses or something other than motorcycles. The only other person awake to witness my embarrassing predicament was a Frenchman on a pedal bike. Alas, he could not resist the opportunity to loudly broadcast my stupidity to the still sleeping city. Amidst much arm waving he shouted in a manner usually reserved for apprehending wanted Nazi war criminals. It was all the encouragement I needed to ignore the lights and with a cheerful wave to the still enraged cyclist I let in the clutch and rode off.
That day we rolled east to Agentat, a picturesque town on the river Dordogne. Its claim to fame used to be barrel making. Since wine is one of the pleasures of my life I took a keen interest. The barrels were despatched in specially built boats down the river to the wine growers of Bordeaux. Because of the strong currents the boats couldn't return up the river and were broken up and made into more barrels.
My idea of good touring is to use deserted roads and head for remote countryside which means that l have to steer away from main routes and large towns. To succeed in this I have to carry a stock of maps. Also, I make slow progress across these maps, however, the quality of the progress is infinitely superior.
From the Dordogne we started to climb into the Massif Central. This is a kind of plateau about 3000 feet above sea level. The countryside is similar to Derbyshire, only wilder. We came across a village whose sole inhabitant was a small dog that was having an enormous crap in the exact centre of the road. This sight stuck in my mind because the place was so poor that it couldn’t afford signposts. Naturally, we took the wrong turning and had to retrace our wheel tracks only to find the dog still there, still crapping. i couldn't get the image of that damned dog out of my mind for miles and miles.
We were rolling along in dense traffic in some town or other when suddenly the van that was behind me pulled alongside and drove me off the road. It is an extremely unnerving experience to have someone try to kill you for no good reason. Luckily, there was not much of a kerb and I was able to get back onto the read without crashing or indeed running over a ped. The creature in the van did exactly the same stunt to some unsuspecting car driver and then turned off down a side street. There was a lot of hooting and shouting. I guess that the driver was one of those jerks that get aggressive after a drink.
Having left before breakfast we were starving by mid afternoon, so stopped at a cafe where we had salted ham sandwiches. The feeling of well being lasted four hours; most of the next 24 hours was spent on various loos. Thank goodness that none of them were of the hole in the ground variety with no toilet paper.
Once we had regained sufficient control of our digestion to permit travel without nappies, we gingerly continued to Le Roziers to see the gorge at the river Tarn. Beautiful scenery with a road that meanders alongside a tree lined river, all set in a gorge with vertical rock faces that tower above for hundreds of feet. It was excessively hot, the Kawa deciding to wind me up by playing the I'm not going to start game. Fuel vaporisation had made an air lock in the carbs. Just when I and the battery were giving up all hope of a successful start, it cleared itself and all was OK again. It then developed an oil leak from the driveshaft housing. It worried me for a few days and than mysteriously cured itself. That night we met an American couple and swapped tales into the early hours.
It pays, literally, to be especially careful in built up areas. All locals speed in town. If you reason that you will be protected by travelling in convoy with them you may be in for an unpleasant shock. Frog plod are reported to enjoy sporting activities, such as taking you out from the speeding convoy of traffic and fining you... besides, going slowly reveals all sorts of details that would otherwise be lost to you.
Most French drivers share the same lack of awareness as their British counterparts. If they are capable of thinking and driving simultaneously they certainly aren't thinking about driving. Even when they have no intention, or chance. of overtaking they drive with their front bumper tucked under your GB plate. One solution is to accelerate away... collecting a £90 on the spot fine. Or you can wave them past when such civil behaviour is so unusual that they promptly miss a gear and the opportunity.
After a week we finally rode into Digne which was our destination in Provence, a tourist trap but the girl at the Tourist Office was extremely helpful in booking us into a superb little hotel a few miles outside town. Our luck was holding because just after we checked in a gigantic and violent thunderstorm unleashed its fury. Lightning was cracking off all around the hotel and during dinner it zapped the local substation. instant blackness. Despite this the meal was the most delicious I have eaten.
Both of us had been looking forward to going up an Alpine Pass, the Cell d'Allos at 7500 feet. The scenery became more and more magnificent the further we rode up the mountains. At 5000 feet we went through a ski resort, boarded up for the summer. The last 2500 feet of the climb became impressively steep and really twisty. The hairpins required bottom gear and the incline was so steep and the air so thin that if the revs dropped below 3000rpm in any gear other than first the engine died.
The splendour of the summit was breathtaking. The storms had washed away the heat, dust and haze of the previous weeks. It was a perfect day with a cool breeze and the sort of pin clear visibility that always gives me hope that maybe I don’t need to wear glasses after all.
There were just rocks and patches of snow, short grass and masses of tiny Alpine flowers of unbelievably intense colours. Eventually we had to leave, the lack of traffic meant we could freewheel as far as the ski resort. Past there I started the bike on the roll down another hill and was shocked to see that the tacho, lights and other electrical goodies had ceased to function. I stopped, turned off the engine and tried again. All worked okay then. That evening we ended up in the Manky Parrot hotel (I don't recall its real name) in Castellanne. it had only half a tarnished star but was very cheap.
The room had a defeated look and hadn't been cleaned in weeks. The manager invited us to eat in his restaurant but we didn't fancy another day on nappies. Next morning we purred off along a scenic route through the Canyon of the Verdon, vertigo deep with sheer drops on one side of a road only one and a half lanes wide. Great when exiting blind corners and meeting huge coaches. Later, I was swinging around the corner without a care in the world when I caught the toe of my boot on the ground. Only when I stopped did I discover that the sole had been ripped away.
The hotel outside Apt was amusing as the staff tried to explain, by mimicking flapping wings whilst simultaneously doing bird impressions, that the main dish that night was a meal of cooked blackbirds or some such. We ate out. Next day we stopped off to see the Fountain of the Vaucluse... a dead loss, packed out with tourists, along walk and no running water at the end of it. All the hotels were full in the town which we had chosen for that night’s stop We rode on to Vaison and found a B at B with a lockup.
Having somehow lost a day somewhere along the traii we decided to use the autoroute to make up for lost time. Less traffic than on our motorways, fewer junctions and less roadworks. The tolls have to be paid after the end of each stretch, a ticket bought at the beginning of the route. Service areas are bleak, selling only very expensive oil and petrol. The days cruising took us about halfway across France to Tours on the Loire, where.the Pizza joint caught fire before our eyes, the chef paying too much attention to his girlfriend.
The final day was spent looking around the Normandy landing beaches, the remains of Mulberry harbour and the photogenic town of Port-en-Bessin. It hadn't rained for weeks but the next morning heading for the ferry at Caen it was bucketing down. The steering went light on every bit of white thermoplastic paint on the Bayeux ring road which is where the town keeps its entire quota of pedestrian crossings.
The journey took twice as long as it should have on account of a road sign that was only viewable from the opposite direction. In spite of these ordeals, we arrived in time to be waved to the front of the queue of cars and eat my emergency supply of croissants.
I love France, despite nearly being murdered by a drunken van driver, and recommend you all go there, whether on an MZ125 or Gold Wing, you'll enjoy it.
Marc Sivrac
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