6 countries in a day - tomorrow

Don't stop there, it's impossible to find anything quick to eat and
that includes the service area by the airport.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

It's incredibly boring though and now has (very) long SPECS sections

 

It's a long horrible and expensive slog. Never again, in one day.
Last year I went up to Reims, stayed in an Apartment then Calais the next
day. Much more agreeable.

 

Shouldn't day one include home to Calais?

 

I know. I'm not looking forward to it, but it'll be a necessary evil to
avoid the second day being even worse. And at least it'll be in the car,
on the Brno trip we're doing 450 miles a day on bikes.

 

That's the evening of day 0.

 

Are all of them so fucking shite that driving straight through them is the
only way to go?

 

Oh, well in that case, it'll be no problem at all. Assuming a
reasonably comfortable car. I've done such trips in one day on quite a
few occasions.

Best time, IIRC, was about 12 hours door-to-door from Milton Keynes to
Tignes.

 

Not if you want to spend your time at your final destination it isn't. I
used to hop on the bus at Victoria coach station at 4pm on a Friday,
arrive in Chamonix at 9am the next day, drop my camping kit off at the
site then go straight up the mountain to get on the ice. Catch the last
telepherique down at 6pm and sort out the tent then be back on the first
telepherique in the morning.

If you've only got 2 weeks to cram in as much as climbing as you can
then it's the best way to do it (on a tight budget) because you can grab
some sleep on the bus whereas using a car means you have to take your
turn driving.

More than once I did a weekend break involving catching the Thursday
bus, sleep above the snow line on the Friday and Saturday nights then
head down and catch the Sunday night bus before going in to do a
nightshift on the Monday night. You could get 2.5 days of climbing on
the Mont Blanc massif for under £100 if you were prepared to tough it
out a bit.

 

I like to make the journey part of the holiday is all.

 

We'd often do something similar from the UK. Leave London around 5pm,
tunnel across and drive down as far as we could before our eyes
closed, then doss in the car for two or three hours in a service area,
before continuing on and arriving at resort for the first lift up. Ski
till last lift on the Sunday (or whatever other last day it was) then
do the same in reverse, arriving at the office in time to put in a
good day's sleeping at the desk.

From here we then used to achieve the same result with a nice stop in
our favourite Kyriad in Annecy old town on the way down and just get
back a bit late in the Sunday night. Not often needed now, of course,
and on the odd trip to the frogalps we'll be happy to spend a day
getting there, as we did for a ski course a few weeks back.

 

Me too, though if time is short I've been known to take the 'head-down
and devil take the hindmost' approach.

 

That's what we're doing on the way down. Two day slog to Riccione, two
days at the GP, then five days in the lakes and four days heading back
via Austria and Bavaria.

On most of the driving days it'll be a case of driving in the morning
and sightseeing or chilling out in the afternoon.

 

You should know that that's nothing in some countries; I used to
regularly ride between Canberra and Adelaide in a day, and that's 50%
longer.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

500 miles isn't a long day if you're up early enough. When I was seeing
Bee I'd jump on the ZZR11 when I got home from work on Friday and ride
up to her place just south of Glasgow in the evening, spend the weekend
there including doing a ride-out and then ride back to Flitwick on the
Sunday. Total mileage for the weekend about 950 to 1000.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

I'm massively jealous. Anywhere 300 miles from here and I am still in
the same state.

Fraser

 

I imagine long rides here are massively different to Europe due to the
complete lack of bends in the roads here.

Fraser

 

A
ussie (proudly): "I can drive in my car for hours and never leave my
home state."

Brit (thoughtfully): "Yes, I had a car like that once."