Tomorrow morning me and three mates are off to the South of France to enjoy their fantastic roads (and hopefully weather). Plan is to leave tomorrow morning, stop over in Beaune for the evening and set off on Saturday morning to the villa we have rented in Tourrettes-sur-Loup up in the hills near Nice. Our wives fly out on Saturday and will spend each morning/afternoon dossing around the pool, shopping or day tripping but getting back in time to make our tea. Same route on the way home next Friday/Saturday.

I'll try to update this post with pictures as we go plus add a map or two of our routes for those that are interested but especially for Meldrew who I know has a keen interest in such matters.

Now that's my kind of holiday , looking forward to seeing the photos

I'd like a few photos of a french village bakery shop window if you have time .Mon ami

Brilliant, I love that sort of ride. Have a great - SAFE - time.

Typical! Woke up to thunderstorms. Pissing with rain now and leaving in a couple of hours. Looks like we will be riding through it most of the way. So, for the third year running, looks like we'll be getting wet on our first day.

Enjoy yourselves and look forward to some pics

Just a little update.
First day on the way there and it was pretty uneventful. Four of us, me on my FJR, another Steve on an R1200RT, Rick on a Triumph Tiger and Paul on a brand new 2015 Ducati Multistrada that he picked up just over two weeks ago and dropped it twice in the space of 30 seconds while running it in! Managed to damage the side cases, snap a clutch lever and completely snapped both hand guard brackets which mount the indicators and brake fluid reservoir. Couldn't get the parts before we left so had to gaffer tape them on. Of course, we had to stop after an hour to re-tape them and made a more permanent repair on the Eurotunnel train. Luckily his partner picked them up from the dealer and brought them out with her.
Completely forgot to set my app each morning so no maps for Meldrew to look at.
We are staying in a villa in the hills behind Cagnes sur Mer/Antibes.

Did a run yesterday - nice weather on the way there, totally shit on the way back!
A couple of pics.





Weather changed when we were there and we had to come over mountain road in a thunderstorm with the road literally covered in crap and landslide shite. We had to borrow an umbrella just to get our waterproofs from the bikes. Heres an idea of what it was like:



We're having a break from riding today as the wives fly home this afternoon. We're here until Friday though so I may update later. Au revoir!

pikey wrote:I'd like a few photos of a french village bakery shop window if you have time .Mon ami

Here you go. It was shut!

Ah yes, the new Ducati. You couldn't make this up. We only heard the abridged version of the drop from him but we got the full story from his girlfriend who is a friend of all our wives and was with him at the time. He dropped it when his foot slipped in the gravel when pulling up at a posh hotel in front of a dining room full of guests. Despite having every electronic gizmo on it there was no tip-over cut out and with the music blaring out in both their headsets, they didn't realise it was still running and in gear so as he picked it up, it took off again and promptly dropped on the other side! She said that when it dropped the second time, it started going round in circles with him running round trying to reach the kill switch. According to her, it was reminiscent of a Benny Hill sketch and afterwards it looked like someone had been doing doughnuts in the gravel drive of the hotel. We've phoned the hotel but alas, there's no CCTV of it.

He had to leave us on Thursday to go home, get his Ferrari to go back to Lille on Saturday with his fellow Ferrari club members on an away-day. Currently the 'strada is back at the dealers for: non existent rear brake, brake warning light keeps coming on, broken pannier straps, warped top box lid, oil stained sump cover (was done at first service and will not clean off), corroding foot pegs, poorly fitting panels, poor stitching on the seat, washers bodged behind the headlamp to make it fit straight, badly squeaking front brakes, serious water trap in the rear swing arm that means the lower shock mounting bolt remains submerged under half an inch of water, rattling clutch to name just a few faults. Not good for a three week old £17K bike! He's very fond of exotic, expensive, temperamental, poorly built, Italian shite!

A few pics from my phone, haven't downloaded pictures from my camera yet.

At the Verdon Gorge:


Ricks flycatcher helmet:


Pulled in behind a McLaren in a French motorway station who was on his way back to Yorkshire. Said he had a few more fill ups before he got home. He knew very little about bikes because he said to me "You must get, what, a thousand miles from a tankful on that thing"!


Copped a feel of a nice pair of tits on the train home.