Author Archives: StevenE

On Friday 15^th April 2011 Stephen Green and Steve Eccles joined the Reveiller ride out to Honfleur in Normandy.

There 12 riders making the trip, all members of the Essex Advanced Motorcycle Group.

The Meet
As ever the worst part of the trip was the early morning ferry from Dover at 8.00am, meaning that the Essex contingent met at 5.45am just south of the Dartford Crossing.

We debated whether the weather could be trusted and we could take leave of our winter gortex. Inevitably we decided we could not, and then had four days of superb sunshine!

The Journey
We took the A16 from Dover down the Pas de Calais coast which is now an excellent dual carriageway/peyage which runs past Le Toucquet and Deauville, followed by an excellent cross country route via Abbeville and Blagny-sur-Bresle, and then the B26 and D149 to Doudeville. 

At Doudeville, we split off from the main group ride which was travelling to Honfleur via the Pont de Bretton.  Steve Eccles is not keen on massive bridges and the Pont de Breton makes the Dartford Crossing look like a humped back bridge! It’s a huge suspension bridge built in 3 or 4 different sections spanning the mouth of the River Seine and is quite overwhelming.  

We had a good start to the scenic detour, we both parked up in a car park in the centre of Doudeville, the rest of the pack rode off and then the police closed all the roads for some sort of bizarre fete.  Most of the population of the village and their children appeared in procession at the main crossroads festooned in empty plastic bottles.  There was much hilarity and we had to wait for 30 minutes till the road re-opened!  When the road did re-open a French peasant of some vintage, in an even more vintage Citroen, reversed into the fully loaded GS.  The pannier was in fact open for some map reading exercises and was pushed up and off the bike. The GS stood its ground though and we both hammered on the top of the French car until it stopped. The peasant was very sorry (“je suis desole”) and there was no real damage done.  In fact the Citroen came off worse than the GS.  That particular pannier had already had an episode some years earlier of bouncing down the road fully laden earning Steve Eccles the nickname “Barnes Wallace” such was the similarity to a bouncing loaded pannier to a bouncing bomb, especially when it bounced through a pack of 16 following motorcycles!  There is another pearl of wisdom to add here, always check your panniers are locked on!

Anyway, back to the ride, we took a detour down to Jumiege where there is a fantastic little car ferry and an Abbey which enabled us to cross the Seine in some style and it was only a slightly longer route to our hotel just outside of Honfleur. 

We stayed at an excellent 3 star lodgis hotel at Criqueboeuf, for the 3 nights.

Ride Out Day One
The first ride out day was to the D Day landing beaches of Normandy, driving past the British beaches of Sword, Juno and Gold, and stopping for lunch at Arromanches, where there is a superb visitors centre and fantastic view of the old Mulberry Harbour.  This was the beach that became the bridgehead for the invasion forces. 

Further along the coast at Omaha Beach we visited the American cemetery beautifully positioned above the landing beach.  There are 7000 US graves in the cemetery which is beautifully kept.  This was of course the beach that Saving Private Ryan was set, although we are not sure it was the actual beach they used for filming. The riding along the coastal roads in Normandy was fairly congested, two of our group took a detour out to see the tapestry at Bayeux.  The Triumph TT600 got dreadfully hot as did its rider!

Ride Out Day Two
The second ride out day was a pure unashamed riding route with excellent scenery.  We drove out to Liseux and Bernay on excellent D roads.

On the return leg, Steve Eccles again detoured around the Seine Crossing via the car ferry meeting up with the group on the North Bank of the Seine, for a section, before again hedge hopping his own way back to Calais avoiding the motorway.  The balance of the group with Steve G remained on the official route.  Group riding is slower than riding solo even with the marker system being deployed through the various towns, so all arrived in Calais at about the same time. 

About 30 miles out of Calais, a BMW K1200S decided to throw a piston through its engine crankcase, its entire oil reservoir spilled onto the back wheel and the motorway.  Thankfully both BMW and following riders were able to avoid calamity and get over to the hard shoulder where the BMW was recovered. It later transpired that the repair cost was over £5,000.  On a BMW with 5000 miles on the clock this was surprising and the dealer has contributed to the costs; it had been fully serviced some weeks earlier which makes the breakdown all the more surprising. 

At the end of the day, the BMW was ridden well within its limits through the trip and one can only suppose there must have been a serious defect within the engine for this to occur.

It does illustrate the importance of having good European breakdown assistance, our rider was recovered within hours back to the UK and managed to get a ferry just one hour after the one being aimed for.  We would certainly advise all riders in Europe to take out specific European breakdown cover, medical cover and also to carry a European Health Insurance Card.

On nearly all the rides we have done together with EAMG in Europe, there has been one incident whereby recovery was necessary whether it be a puncture, a smashed radiator (SV650 riders beware) or an engine blowout!

Thankfully, our bikes both ran beautifully.  The Boxer engine might not be the most sophisticated but it is very effective. 

The only other incident was that Steve G had a run in with a dodgy oyster in the restaurant and so would wholeheartedly advise avoiding such things when on a biking trip.  There can be little worse than riding 300 miles across France on a dodgy oyster as Steve learnt to his cost. 

It is now some months since the trip; we shall be planning another one as soon as we can.