Fri 23rd July: Arreau to Carcassonne - 191 miles

 

The weather this morning was an improvement on the last two days which was a great relief because today we started our journey home. Our destination today was Carcassonne however before we left the Pyrenees we'd planned a nice route that would take in a few passes first.

 

Leaving Arreau the first pass of the day was the now familiar Col de Peyresourde. This took us into Bagneres-du-Luchon and from there we crossed into Spain over the very pleasant Col du Portillon. This pass was another one that was new to me and although there's not a great deal to see at the summit, the ride up the D618A on the French side, and especially the ride down the N141 on the Spanish side, makes this diversion very worth while. No sooner had we entered Spain than we left again, on the N-230/N125 towards St. Beat. I hadn't been to St. Beat since 2007 but immediately recognised the right turn that took us over the Col de Mente and ultimately the Col de Portet d’Aspet.

 

In 2007, when I rode the Portet d'Aspet a number of times, unbelievably I'd missed the monument to Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli. Tragically he died on this pass during the 15th stage of the 1995 Tour de France after crashing on a descent. This time I made sure I stopped to pay my respects.

 

 

 

Stopping off to see Casartelli's monument was also a good opportunity for us to stretch our legs and get some refreshment, Haribo sweets courtesy of the Tour publicity caravan.

 

 

Coming down the other side of the Portet d'Aspet I recognised St. Lary - a village where I'd stayed in 2007. From St. Lary we took the D618 up to the D117 and then followed signs to St. Girons and Foix. At Foix we headed north on the N20/E09 towards Pamiers where we picked up the A66 and A61 motorways to Castelnaudary. The final run into Carcassonne on the N113 rounded off a pretty much perfect day of riding.

 

This evening we weren't actually staying Carcassonne, we were staying in Trebes, a small town just outside, at a place called Evasion Hotel. At €52 a night it was reasonably priced however for the second time this trip TomTom had problems finding our hotel. Once again though I can't blame TomTom because although the hotel address was given as Trebes it wasn't actually in Trebes, rather it was on the N113 between Carcassonne and Trebes.

 

Besides its address we couldn't fault the hotel. It was ideally located for us to get staight on the motorway tomorrow morning, and to get into Carcassonne this evening. Both of us had been to Carcassonne before but it had been a while so we were keen to dump our luggage and leathers and take a look around.

 

 

There are dozens of places to eat in Carcassonne however I can recommend the homemade cassoulet at L'Ostal des Troubadourst. For those of you interested and who don't know, cassoulet is a rich, slow-cooked bean stew or casserole that originates in the south of France. There a few regional variations, Toulouse and Carcassonne for example, but the best known comes from Castelnaudary, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Cassoulet". It is named after "the cassole", a deep, round, earthenware pot with slanting sides that the dish is cooked in. Typically it contains meat (usually pork sausages, pork, goose, duck and sometimes mutton), pork skin (couennes) and white haricot beans.

 

 

Travelling home via Carcassonne added an extra 200 miles to the journey, not a great a deal in the scheme of things, but we were pleased we made the effort and it was a nice way to end our stay in the south of France.

Sat 24th July: Carcassonne to Commentry - 359 miles

 

The next couple of days were never going to be pleasant, not so much today, but certainly tomorrow, so thankfully this morning we awoke to brilliant sunshine. Today we were going to be on the motorway pretty much all day but at least it was interesting motorway, or as interesting as a motorway gets.

 

Our route today was simple, A61/E80, A9/E15, A75, A71 and finally a nice run on the N144 into Commentry, near Montlucon. We'd planned three stops, first stop was Millau and its famous viaduct for a break and photo opportunity, second stop was about 50 miles further down the road for fuel and lunch, third stop was Commentry, our destination.

 

 

The Millau Viaduct forms part of the A75-A71 autoroute axis from Paris to Montpellier and spans the valley of the river Tarn. It opened for traffic on 16th December 2004 and at the time was the tallest bridge in the world. It's 2.46km long and the average height of the roadway is 270m.

 

The toll for crossing the viaduct on a motorcycle was €3.90 and like most people travelling eastwards we stopped off at the service area just before the peage. For a good photo opportunity get off at J45 and take a look at the bridge and the surrounding views.

 

 

As it transpired today didn't leave us feeling as tired as we'd expected to be. The bike performed brilliantly and because we hadn't really rushed, just spent the day cruising making good progress, we arrived at our hotel, Le Lyon Vert, feeling happy and relaxed. At €50 a night the hotel was reasonable. It was clean, tidy and peaceful, but very dated.

 

The highlight of the day, well mine, was getting 196.2 miles from one tank of fuel and averaging 53.3 mpg - and I wasn't hanging about. Running the GSX-R1000 in 600cc mode returns fantastic fuel ecconomy, even two up and fully loaded with luggage.

Sun 25th July: Commentry to Le Touquet - 392 miles

 

Yesterday was a high mileage day but today we needed to rack up nearly 400 miles to get to our destination, Le Touquet-Paris-Plage. That meant another day of mile munching on the motorway but unfortunately today's weather forecast for northern France was rain.

 

Once again our route today was straightforward, A71, A10/E05 to Paris, A16 to Abbeville and finally the D40 and D940 for the final run into the seaside town of Le Touquet. We'd fuelled up last night so with that in mind theoretically we only needed to stop twice today, first stop would need to be around Paris, the second near Abbeville.

 

As it transpired, the rain that was forecast for northern France only made a fleeting appearance on the run into Abbeville and in a similar way to yesterdays ride, today wasn't as hellish as we'd expected it to be. Again the bike performed brilliantly and again we just cruised along making good progress. Apart from passing all the Tour de France team buses and cars on the motorway the ride was pretty uneventful however our hotel for tonight, Be Cottage Hotel, was worth the effort of getting to Le Touquet. At €85 a night it wasn't cheap but for somewhere notoriously expensive like Le Touquet it was quite reasonable.

 

 

The thing about riding on motorways for long periods of time is you get a lot of time to think, so here's something to consider. By the time this trip is over we'll have travelled more than 2,500 miles and spent about £300 on fuel. Considering the price differential between fuel bought at motorway service areas and fuel bought in towns, and because most of our fuel was bought at E.Leclerc or Carrefour off motorway, I calculated that over the entire trip we will have saved more than £40. Or to put it another way, we got 350 free miles.

Mon 26th July: Le Touquet to Bewdley - 267 miles

 

Initially we'd wanted to spend some time in and around Le Touquet before heading to the Tunnel, but in reality we'd had a great holiday and just wanted to get home now. Our Tunnel crossing was booked for 11.50am however we arrived at check-in just after 9.30am and managed to get on the next train that was leaving.

 

The ride home from Folkestone, or Dover for that matter, is always the worst part of any trip abroad. That's just my opinion. It's 200 miles of motorway broken up by one stop for fuel. In our rush to catch an earlier train we'd skipped breakfast so 30 miles up the M20 we stopped off at Maidstone services for a coffee and chocolate croissants.

 

And after one final stop on the M40 for fuel, we finally arrived back in Bewdley at 2pm and our Pyrenean experiment, er, adventure, was over. I always like to come away from a trip having learnt something new, so here, in no particular order, are the top five things I learned from this trip.