2025 European trip

[Rynglieder]

Tomorrow I will be filing the panniers ready for an early start 10/07/25 for this year's trip.

I've given the GTR an oil change, new oil and air filters and swapped out the shaft oil – I'm wondering if not doing the plugs will come back to bite me, but I chickened out. It's also had a new Angel GT on the back, I think there's enough meat left on the front.

The map shows an approximation of what I hope to achieve, although the Bing map has calculated on motorways, which I will largely be avoiding. The true route will be more direct in some places and decidedly more wiggly in others.



If I survive it I'll let you know how I get on when I'm back.

[Kiwifruit]

Have a great trip Pete. Look forward to the pics and report. Safe travels 

[KiwiCol]

That looks an amazing ride, how long are you going to take to cover that area?

[Rynglieder]

18 days all in, that is to say 17 nights in unfamiliar beds.

As usual I have tried to keep the milage at under 200 a day – I've done more in the past, but it's an age thing. Besides, I like to stop and look at stuff.

For anyone interested in how I go about planning, I've attached my regular spreadsheet. One tab summarises the trip, the other tab then gives a bit more detail on what I hope to visit and notes on waypoints that I have included in an attempt to persuade the Garmin Zumo to take me on the sort of roads I want to ride.

There's usually a bit of tinkering required between the initial concept and the final bookings (there's often not a decent / affordable hotel in a town that I might have preferred to stop at). Pre-booking rooms means you are pretty much locked-in, but there is some flexibility during each day; if it looks like a solid wall of rain I may as well just ride directly from hotel to hotel using motorways if necessary. It's also not impossible (but unlikely) that some of the mountain passes may be closed due to snow or ice, hence doing this run in July rather than September as I have done for the last two years.

It will be interesting to compare where I actually went against where I intended to go. Whatever happens I expect I'll be back with a couple of hundred photos.

[GSXKING]

Your stories of your journeys always make good reading mate and now I see the level of commitment you have to your planning I understand why. The history you've seen and reported on has been flabbergasting at times. I look forward to yours and Hooli's reports in the not too distant future. Safe travels to you both     

[Rynglieder]

Well, I made it there and back and of course there were the odd few tough moments where I just wanted to see a hotel receptionist handing me a key, but it was on the whole enjoyable.

Day 1, Home [GB] > Lille-Seclin [F] c.300 miles

As ever, the run down to the English Chanel was an exercise in fighting motorway tedium, interspersed with coffee and cigarette breaks around every 60 miles. I'd decided to take the Chanel Tunnel outbound this year having used ferries for the last four trips – I'd given up on the tunnel as being more expensive and not much quicker but thought I'd give it another chance.

Sure enough, when I rolled into the Folkestone terminal with time to spare, I was confronted at the check-in kiosk with a message saying that services were running approximately 30 minutes late. After kicking around the car park for an hour I finally got the call to the boarding queue. As opposed to the ferries, bikes are last on and last off which felt as if it was dragging the process out even longer. Of course, once finally let loose on the open roads of France I was busting for another smoke, so my progress was further self-impeded. Having got that out of the way, there was a 25-mile ride northward to where I would connect with the A25 for Lille – more or less at the point where I would have disembarked from the Dover-Dunkirk ferry if I had stuck with tradition. I rode most of the way to Lille in uncomfortable heat mentally adding up all the lost time (some admittedly self-inflicted), and the extra cost and concluding that the tunnel is no great shakes.



If things had gone to plan, I should have brushed the edge of Lille on motorways before joining the A1 where I would exit for Seclin, a suburb to the south. Luck was not on my side though and the A25/A1 link was closed for construction works resulting in some major tailbacks. As you know, I'm not a fan of filtering, especially on the GTR which has something of a fat arse, but I gave it a bit of a go and I have to say that my fellow motorway inmates behaved with good grace and left a decent lane for bikes to progress. I exited into the city centre along with hundreds of other frustrated Frenchmen until I could find somewhere safe to pull over and coax a new route out of the Zumo "avoiding motorways" – if I'd let it just recalculate, I'd have been back at the end of the queues.



It led me to the Hôtel Première Classe Lille Seclin without any real drama. It was as I had fully expected most definitely a budget hotel, with rooms stacked like rabbit hutches. A man can survive there for a night, but wouldn't take his family for a fortnight.



After check-in, a shower and a change of clothes I sought out the nearby McDonalds and a bar before bed.

Day one done and dusted, it should get better from here.

[Globalrider]

Nice! pretty much did that route and further down to the boot of Italy on the 14 - safe ride!  

[Hooli]

I see you're doing Lake Bled, I've tried to get there two or three times & always failed for various reasons. I'll make it one day as it looks beautiful.

[Barbastro K6]

You forget my Spain, unless you flee from the sun and the best food

[Rynglieder]

Day 2, Seclin [F] > Maunhausen [L] c.200 miles




After a rather sparse breakfast befitting of the hotel, I made my way out before 08:30, straight into more heat. Another annoyance was that the despicable Zumo had stitched me up again. Planning all of the routes on Garmin Basecamp and cross-checking them against Google Maps had shown a consistent distance of travel but somehow in transferring them to the Zumo, the route seemed to have grown by 100 miles or more. I had to resort to picking out the waypoints one at a time and live without the overall distance to travel.

The route for the morning's run toward the Belgian border didn't hold much promise even at the planning stage. The Hauts-de-France region is generally uninteresting and served up a series of short straight roads broken up by roundabouts and non-descript villages. Not actually unpleasant, but nowhere to wind the bike up or lean it over.

After an hour of progress at (officially) never more 50 or 80kph, I made my way into Condé-sur-l'Escaut, the first planned stop of the day. There was no specific attraction for me here, but Google maps had suggested a café next to a lake and it seemed a good place to seek out for a coffee break. As it goes, I was too early for the café but took the opportunity to take a short walk around the woodland and lake shore and then into town to seek out a cold drink. Surprisingly for such a small town there were trams to dodge. Maybe I'll look into why such a place is entitled to an expensive light rail system if I can be bothered.



I was soon into Belgium on roads that were broadly the same, but at least there was now the odd exciting road junction or set of traffic lights, the locals probably come out on an evening to watch them change. I don't want to be too unkind about Belgium, I'm really quite fond of it, but to really enjoy it on a motorcycle you do need to keep well south of the E42 motorway.

Eventually I broke away from the main roads and meandered through a series of rural byways to the small town of Thuin on the River Sambre. My carefully researched plan to hit the car-park at the side of the river was foiled by the presence of a local market and I was left to pitch up in a backstreet above the town. Still, at least I got my coffee, a cold drink for the top case, a look at the river and a snap of the medieval belfry. There was a bit more that could have been explored here, but as ever I was conscious of time so it will get added to the list for a revisit.



There was a mixed bag of roads that led me to Givet, a nice variety and now up to 90kph on rural roads, I've commented before that the extra 10kph seems to make such a difference to headway, especially when you can stretch it just a little in open countryside. That said, Givet lies in a wedge of France that rudely pokes into Belgium, so I had to watch the speedo again as I approached. I stopped for a smoke at the side of the River Meuse and took a repeat photo of the Fort of Charlemont on the opposite hill, but once again I didn't linger as I had spent an afternoon up there on my 2023 trip.



Continuing westwards, up the hill and out of the valley I broke back into Belgium within a matter of minutes.  I was now in the Ardennes area, one of my favourite places to be let loose with my bike. A land of hills, forests and curvy roads made up for the toil of actually arriving there. Just before 4 o'clock I rolled into a parking space in La Roche-en-Ardenne and spent the best part of an hour off the bike roving the streets of the busy little town below its castle, on the banks of the Ourthe.



The final ride on minor roads into the Grand Dutchy of Luxembourg was just as rewarding and at about 17:45 I arrived at the small hamlet of Munshausen, just south of Clervaux and sought out my hotel. This was a much nicer affair than last night; a curious complex of buildings of which the reception was the local tourist information office, catering facilities were in a restaurant building and the bedrooms were in a separate block wrapped around a courtyard a couple of hundred metres down the hill. Although there were three other bikes on the car park, I got the impression that the business was focused on equestrian aficionados, given the surrounding fields of horses and stable-like outbuildings. There was also a handful of goats, one of which was constantly sneezing as I sat with my cigarette on a nearby picnic bench. Life must be hell if you are a goat with hay fever.

I squeezed a couple of beers from the bar before bed, satisfied with my afternoon ride and with the familiar Eifel and Hunsruck mountains to look forward to the next day.

[Rynglieder]

I see you're doing Lake Bled, I've tried to get there two or three times & always failed for various reasons. I'll make it one day as it looks beautiful.

I did get there and it is beautiful - but think Lake Windemere on a Bank Holiday - absolutely heaving with tourists and a struggle to even park a bike. I'd suggest planning it slightly out of season if you want to go.

[Barbastro K6]

routing france - macdonalds ??

[Rynglieder]

You forget my Spain, unless you flee from the sun and the best food

I had a good run around Spain & Portugal a few years ago, you can find that report here: https://gsx1400owners.org/forum/index.php?topic=3719.0

I also rode the Pyrenees in 2014 and the Picos de Europa in 2011, both on the GSX1400. The trip reports were on the old forum which closed down maybe I re-post them at some point or perhaps draw them all together in a blog.

I'm considering Northern Spain for next year's trip, but there's competition...

[Rynglieder]

routing france - macdonalds ??

I know it seems odd, but I'm a very picky eater if I don't know what it is I won't eat it!

Not unreasonably, most menus in Europe are not in English, so I often latch onto a McDonalds where I can just change the language and dodge any unpleasant gerkhins.

I'm not actually a big fan, but If I spot a McDonalds on the route it gets waymarked as a possible replacement breakfast or a substitute for an evening meal.

[Rynglieder]

Day 3 Munshausen [L] > Aschaffenburg [D] (probably c.250 miles, but who knows?)



After breakfast and shoe-horning the bags back into the cases, a quick check on the Zumo confirmed its intention to stick about 100 miles of secret riding on my trip if I dared to follow what was in its little digital brain. Once more I was left to select the first way point and trust that it was going to take me on a pleasant route there.

The ride started out with a quick fuel stop in Marbourg but no sooner than I had ridden 50 metres off the forecourt I was confronted with a road closure; at this point I was blissfully ignorant that it was to be the theme of the day. I did a U-turn and headed off in the opposite to my intended direction. Through a series of minor roads that I didn't have any agency in selecting (but were nevertheless just the sort of roads I would have chosen) I made my way to the border with Germany at Dasbourg Pont.

Now hoping that the satnav would get me back on track I followed it to the village of Preischeid, where once again I was confronted with barriers across the road inviting me to go away. Another U-turn and run back to the [410] followed, I was now on a detour of the detour.

Frustrating though it was, any selection of roads in the German Eifel region will throw up a satisfying ride and it was early in the day, there was plenty of time to recover my schedule. The next two hours were exactly as this trip should be, winding though the countryside with gentle curves and changes of elevation, just right for the GTR.


 
Just after noon I descended into my beloved Mosel Valley, parked the bike up under the river bridge and extracted a coffee from my usual café. The camera stayed in the top-case, I've probably got enough photos of this area already, but it didn't stop me taking 15 minutes round the old town and wishing I was staying longer.

A tunnel from the riverside road took me up though a series of tight curves into the Hunsruck massif which sits between the Mosel and Rhein rivers, once more I was on known territory with good riding to look forward to. Sure enough, at 14:25 I reached the town of Langenlonsheim, just beyond which lay the historical Felseneremitage which I had intended to visit. Once again, I was confronted with a row of barriers sternly blockading my onward route. I pulled up and perused the map on my phone, but there didn't seem an obvious way round. I could perhaps have walked it in about 20 minutes, but it was too hot and humid to contemplate in the bike gear, so the fixture was scratched.

I pressed on, "my" selected route had become a mere fantasy, and all I could do was select my next waypoint and hope for the best. The Zumo directed me out on the [420] and within a few miles I began to get a bad feeling, destinations ahead were crossed through on the signposts but I progressed in the hope that I was not supposed to reach them. I can only assume that the little box of tricks' intention was to take me over the Rhein on one of the little vehicle ferries, perhaps the "Rheinfähre Landskrone" at Nierstein, but inevitably I ran out of [420] before I ever got there.  I selected a road at random in the hope that I would find a diversionary route or anything that might be a helpful recalculation, but after a few minutes of aimless riding through small villages I pulled up, had a smoke and reluctantly changed the Zumo's settings to allow it to use the Autobahns and find the quickest way to my hotel for the night.

After just a few minutes of back-tracking I joined the [63] autobahn and settled to my cruising speed of about 130kph with a careful eye on the mirrors as (invariably black or gey) German saloons flew past at about 200kph. Looking back through my video as I write this, I have to say the route I was directed on makes no sense whatsoever. I was switched to the [60] near Mainz, followed by a touch of [67], a helping of [3] around Frankfurt airport, ejected onto the [5] to go south for quite some distance and finally expelled at Darmstadt North. During this motorway escapade another fill-up was required for the bike. A tank full usually lasts me a day, but I reckon I had exceeded my intended milage by about 50. Other than watching my fellow road users there was not much to entertain me, but I was curious about what appeared to be a catenary system in place over lane 1 of the A5 Autobahn – are electric trucks with pantographs coming?



Next up was a bizarre tour of Darmstadt's commercial suburbs, finally leaving the town on the [26]. That is, up to the point where I reached Dieburg. Another town, another set of barriers – at least there was a decent diversionary route signposted for this one and after a few 30kph back-streets I was back on course with not much more than a mile or so added.

The final run into Ashaffenburg was easy enough even if a little lacklustre, and I was delivered over the River Main bridge straight to the Hotel Wilder Mann where I docked the GTR in the car park entrance way as there was no space available. I offered to the receptionist to move it if necessary, but she said it was fine and I was just left to hope that other users would take care when entering the car park.



Due to my motorway milage I had arrived in town with plenty of time to explore. It's unusual for me, but the camera hadn't had much of a workout so I took a few shots before settling down in an Imbis bar with a beer and pizza.



It has been an excellent morning and early afternoon, but a bit of a disappointing last hour or so to my ride. On balance though, a good day, frustrations but no disasters. On review, I simply can't understand why once I had arrived on the [3] Autobahn past Frankfurt airport, I was not just directed to stay with it until I reached Aschaffenburg, I don't know where Darmstadt would need to figure in the equation at all. Note to self; if diverted, spend more time with a proper map.