Spain/Pyrenees/South of France - Things to see, roads to ride

[Heff]

Interesting thread (thumbs)

A few of us from Northern Ireland will be doing the Pyrenees in September :side:

A lot of very helpful info on here as it's our first time in that region (thumbs)

[drdaveboy]

i got the boat from portsmouth to bilbao stayed at pyrenees motorcycle tours b and b did 4 days around there before heading up to millau ,tarn gorge then on to annecy ,nurburgring and home. would happily do all the same again although I'm thinking after my black forest trip in july heading harz mountains , poland ,czech republic , austria then italy france and back home (september)

[Wapping]

Here you go, I've mapped it out very roughly using my suggested routes.

1,500 miles or thereabouts. You think you'll have 11 days. If you take off say four days for seeing things, that's 7 days or justover 200 miles a day; well within your estimated target.

Does the route need fine tuning? Yes, of course it does but it should certainly give you something more to work with.

Richard

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Sa ... 23&t=m&z=9

[Scott_rider]

That looks a good route B) ...I'd suggest, maybe, a detour south to take in the Milau bridge ? And if time is short you could miss out Lyon and head north straight up to Clermont Ferrand, picking up the route again south east of Paris, near Corbigny/Avallon, maybe ?

[steve172]

Richard has certainly gone beyond the call of duty here, will have a good look over all the info with a whiskey or two.

[Simon_100]

Richard has certainly put in a lot of work, but missed out Spain - and a huge section of the Pyrenees - altogether!

I've lost track of the thread in detail but did you not want to go to Spain for some reason?

Regs

Simon

[dibbs]

A good route Wapping, we might be following a similar one but starting at Calais and ending up at Bilbao! im trying to make up a route to show the others so can you tell me how I go about dropping the green pins on the google map to show the route?

Thanks

[Wapping]

Richard has certainly put in a lot of work, but missed out Spain - and a huge section of the Pyrenees - altogether!

I've lost track of the thread in detail but did you not want to go to Spain for some reason?

Regs

Simon

Yup, that's (mostly) right (thumbs) It's probably worth explaining why:

He wants to land in Santander (I think that's where the Spanish bit comes in) then 'do the Pyrenees', then travel eastwards to 'do the south of France' then up northwards to 'do the Alps' and 'do the Black forest' then on to the Channel (exit port unknown) and back home to bonny Jockland. This is in 11 days or under, camping with his father, doing no more than 200 to 250 miles a day, all on great roads (naturally) including one of the French gorges. As he could quite happily spend five or six of those 11 days just in the Pyrenees, going down into Spain a bit or cross-crossing into France and back I had to draw the line somewhere or he'd run out of time or be boosting his daily maximum mileage quite a bit, just to get home.

I simply put into Google some of the place names suggested in this post:

Direction: West to east

Start: Pau

End: Tarascon sur Ariege

Distance: 330 kms

Pau > Laruns > col d'Aubisque > col du Soulor > Arrens-Marsous > Argels-Gazost > Luz St Sauver > col du Tourmalet > ste Marie du Campan > col du Aspin > Arreau > col du Peyresourde > Bagneres de Luchon > Fronsac > col d'Ares > col du Portet d'Aspet > St Girons > col du Port > Tarascon sur Ariege

You'll see several of the iconic cols and plenty of the excellent roads that join them up.


Obviously, he'd probably not start in Pau, it was simply a route I'd ridden myself at some point so it was easy to copy. I then did nothing more than hacked a line along roughly where the fellow wanted to go and asked Google to do the rest. If nothing else it gives the chap an idea of what the rough direction is and what the approximate total and daily average mileages might be. No doubt you, I or anyone could add in all sorts of roads, things to see, places to go all within the basic 1,500 miles and maybe make it 2,500 miles but it's not our holiday with our dad. For instance, I committed the cardinal sin of omitting the Millau Bridge, too :whistle: That I also missed out Oradour sur G, will condem me to hell for eternity, no doubt. Just for a laugh, I left the whole of the Alps out, too.

He now needs to start doing some homework himself, empowered by whiskey (with an 'e')

[Wapping]

A good route Wapping, we might be following a similar one but starting at Calais and ending up at Bilbao! im trying to make up a route to show the others so can you tell me how I go about dropping the green pins on the google map to show the route?

Thanks

You can do it one of several ways.

The easiest to start with is to get your starting place displayed on the map. Then click on 'Get directions'. You'll maybe have to enter the start point again into place A, sometimes not.

Then add the first place you want to go to into box B and click display route

Then click on 'add destination' and insert that place into box C and click display route

Repeat as necessary

The route will recalculate each time. You can change the preferences (miles / kms, avoiding highways / tolls) in a very basic way, too.

You can reorder the places quite easily. To do this add a blank box as tge final destination and use it to drag places into and out of.

When you are near enough happy that the suggested route goes near enough where you want it to go, you can fine tune it to your heart's content by dragging the route about. There is a bit of a knack to it but you'll get the hang of it, no doubt. The great thing is that you really can't break it, so play around.

[Wapping]

A good route Wapping, we might be following a similar one but starting at Calais and ending up at Bilbao! im trying to make up a route....

Have a Google of: Create routes in Google maps

There are some good tips on how to do it and quite a good UTube video, too