Dolomites June 2009: Etreaupont to Belfort

 

Day 2: Sun 7th June 2009

 

Ride: Etreaupont to Belfort - 285 miles

 

Todays mission was clear, get from Etreaupont to Belfort without falling off, or eating too much, or being silly. Clearly a full three out of three wasn’t going to happen, and in reality it didn’t matter weather or not they made Belfort as they had plenty of time before the rendezvous in Arabba, so the intrepid outriders mounted their bikes shortly after a hearty breakfast of strong coffee, bread and jam and some more strong coffee.

 

 

As usual and seems to be par-for-the course on any BBOT outing, sat-navs are disagreeing with the best route. But as certain members of the BBOT team “dissed the sat nav” in 2007 and were punished with extra lashings of rain for their school boy errors this mistake was not to be repeated. Therefore the Tom-Tom attached to Pete’s GTR would be the lead nav, and backed up by Gaz’s Garmin. The other great advantage to using Petes nav and not so obvious to the reader, is that even with a latest specification “self steering cruise control navtronic super get you there in a jiffy” machine mounted to Gaz’s CBR1100XX, he would still end up in the sea looking for Paris as our fast friend has no sense of direction. This is a great shame, as if he was both fast and had a sense of direction, he would get there a lot quicker than most - but we have discovered he needs the speed as he covers twice the distance to any one point!

 

The weather was forecast to be showers for the day, but ever the optimists we set off in leathers only to stop 10 minutes into the journey to don our waterproof suits. Heading off down the XXXX our plan was to pass through Reims followed by some French B road action. The route picking up the D994 though to Bar-le-Duc onto N135 followed by D966 toward Neufchatell was superb, and not due to any prior knowledge. With the weather clearing south of Bar-le-Duc the trio had managed to stumble across roads that gave some good speed runs, flowing bends and convenient stops. The route come highly recommended as an alternative to the tyre squaring Autoroute if you have the time.

 

Belfort was on the horizon but the group had split, with Mark and Gaz taking in some even quicker spurts, the they became separated at the critical right turn moment. Nether the less, they all arrived within 10 minutes of each other and trundled into the Hotel Tonneau d’Or for a shower and out for beer and food. Tonights meal was a pizza in the old town, with bed at a respectable time for the next days journey into Switzerland.