Millau and the Gorges du Tarn

[MooN]

I think I had planned 1500km for this trip and door to door was 1508km according to the trip meter on the bike. it also showed 24h50 minutes riding time ( a little less in reality as I don't always switc the engine off when stopping for a pic or  slapping the sat nav or whatever but call that "saddle time" and it'd be about right) fuel consomption was around 5,8L per 100 km. 

I left home on wednesday morning under clear skies and temps of around 8 to 10 deg c. The first stage was south to Clermont Ferrand on roads that I have ridden many times before. 

Crossing the Loire, westbound at Pouilly sur Loire 

I rode south on the left bank of the Loire for a while further before stopping for a coffee break. Budget restrictions being what they are ( and I'm something of a cheapskate at the best of times...) coffee from a flask was the order of the day and I just stopped at a convenient spot at the roadsiide by the river. 

 

Tigger in full touring Mode: 

despite the sunshine, I still had thermal liners in jacket and trousers at this point.

I picked up the A75 southbound shortly after this at Monmarrault and as the weather rapidly deteriorated I hunkered down and concentrated on "making progress", switching from the "scenic" gps app to "Coyote" which warns of any speed cameras or dangers on the road as well as basic navigation. I really didn't need any avigational aids as I simply had to run south untill junction 37. This was a boring, if reasonable short interlude just concentrating on the road ahead and despite the rain keeping the speed needle around 140km/h  ( the French Autoroutes are limited to 130 under normal circumstances, but in rain are limited to 110 and 140 on the tigers clocks gives a real speed of around 135, hence the usefulness of advance warning of any speed cameras, mobile or otherwise. ( it's not an infallible system, but for 50€ a year it only has to avoid 1 10 km/h exess speed fine to be viable. )

Once off the Autoroute, the road eastwards from Marvejols to Balsieges, before joining the Gorges du Tarn proper was  superbe. The weather was still cold and damp, with 10/10ths cloud cover but only actually raing in brief showers. These showers are much easier to deal with wearing waterproof riding gear rather than having to stop and clamber in and out of rain gear every half hour. 

then the start of the Gorges du Tarn proper.

 

 

 

riding down the Gorges was stunning, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it, there's certainly nothing on this scale in the Uk. Having the road to myself, mostly due to the bad weather was a bonus cos I imagine it would be heaving with bikes and camping cars during the summer. The main problem was actually staying on the road which winds seemingly endlessly downwards hanging onto the edge of the mountainside, on a balcony to go around a buttress, through a tunnel from time to time, squeezing through a gap between the cliff face and an outcrop, never straight or level or of equal width for more then a dozen yards and all this on a wet surface whilst gawking open mouthed at the incredible scenery.   Wow! just... Wow. Once it was over and I was nearly at the bottom I realised I had taken no pics, just too gobsmaked by it all to function normally. 

It was about 18:30 when I rode into Millau from the west. I had provisionally booked a bed in a local "Gite d'Etape" ( bit like a youth Hostel) which, using my sleeping bag and sorting myself out food wise, would only cost me 15€ ( remember what I said about being tight fisted?)  It was raining steadily now and when I stopped at a supermarket to grab a salad and sandwich for my supper, I phoned ahead to tell him I was about 15 minutes away.  I mentioned I was just getting some food and he said " you can't eat here." I new that they weren't doing food cas I was the only guest, but I had previously said that I would grab a sarnie on the way in. He now decided that he wasn't  happy with me eating a sandwich in my room either! Bearing in mind it was now pissing down I told him he could fuck off and hung up.  

ooopsss...

Google to the rescue ( much as I hate to admit it the smartphoe is a very useful tool in this sort of situation, it took me about 3 minutes to find the nearest hotel mercure / Ibis ( 800m away) and book a room for the night with free undercover secure parking for the bikeand breakfast included for 80€ ( tight fisted up to a point...) 

I already had food for the evening and the welcome and service at the hotel were excelent and I mad good use of the facilities which were far superior than I would have found in a gite d'etape. 

The view from the hotel room window 

 

It was too late to go and look at the viaduct / suspenders bridge and as I had planned a short easy run the next morning I decided to leave it till then. 

 

 

 

 

[boboneleg]

Interesting to see those roads and scenery in those weather conditions, the Gorges du Tarn is spectacular isn't it .

[MooN]

Day 2 

With an easy mornings ride planned for today I had a bit of a lie in and wallowed in the luxury of a a hotel for a while, which then included numerous visits to the breakfast buffet where their strategy of supplying mini croissants and pain au chocolats in the hope that people just take one failed miserably. I also managed to sneak my flask in for a passage under the spout of their coffee machine...

I looked up how to get to the viewing area for the famous Millau viaduct but the only answer seemed to be via the autoroute and the bridge tolls. Not happy about that ( tightwad!) i determined to get my paper map out and work a route where I could get close to the viewing area without paying.  As I loaded the bike in the garage, the hotel handyman came out of his little workshop in the courtyard so I asked him.  " of course," he replied, " you go up to Le Cavalerie, but you'll see nothing today..."  The cloud base was effectively low in the valley, but I decided to try anyway.

 

 

 

The road going on from that view point had a sign saying " narrow road. passing dificult. Use passing points." That sounded like fun, and as it went in the right direction I decide to give it a go. Steep and narrow it was, and at the top there were some lunatics preparing to leap off the hill top with a tent strapped to their backs ( parasailing I believe they call it) but in almost zero visibility!?  Nutters I tell you! I mahaged to get one pic of the scenery through a break in the clouds 

but the rest of the mornings ride was done in miserable conditions, cold, wet and at an average of about 30km/h as the visibility was at times down to about 50 metres and these mountain roads don't have barriers...

I eventually ended up in Capestang around half 12, having had an interesting jaunt off road when the road leading into Capestang had a big barrier across it saying " Road closed for maintenance" no other information and no deviation signs. I turned left and let the Scenic nav app re calculate the route. I had, unfortunately NOT ticked the box marked "avoid gravel or dirt roads" which wasn't a problem usually as I had the planned route prgrammed in but once off the planned route... nothing difficult or nast, just gravel and dirt for about 5 km whilst we boxed round the closed section, and then we arrived at the port in Capestang as the sun came out.

 This was my nights lodgings, and a handy restaurant right on site provided a Burger, chips and salad Lunch for 16€. The plan was to raid @Tango's larder and fridge for evening meal as he had, perhaps foolishly, suggested he feed me that evening. Unfortunately my oppo who runs the base here and who was not working today had left a message to say that he'd be coming in specially this evening so 's we could go for a meal. I couldn't decently refuse, so had to indecently turn down Tango's very kind offer of turkey curry. 

Once I'd fed and watered, i rang Tango to see where he was at but the phone number he'd given me didin't work... My immediate thought was " shit, somebody's warned him...".  Well I had plenty f time so I left him a PM on here ( wonderful clever things these 'ere smart phones) and rode the 30 odd minutes into Narbonne where I'd stop and see if he'd replied, if not then I'd go see the sea.  He had replied and still denies he gave me a duff number on purpose...

 I spent a pleasant couple of hours drinking his tea and grubbying his sofa with my roadstained person and I can safely say he's another person off this forum who's a thouroughly nice bloke and meeting him was a bonus to the trip. Thanks @Tango. 

 

 I had to run out on him before his Mrs came home and was predictably late for meeting my colleague but hey, I'm supposed to be on holiday right?  At least this way the company paid for a feed. 

 

[MooN]

14 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Interesting to see those roads and scenery in those weather conditions, the Gorges du Tarn is spectacular isn't it .

I think it's the only time I have ever used the phrase " You have got to be fucking kidding me!" in the context of scenery. 

[XTreme]

Great report Chris.......fantastic pics!

But they're taking the piss with prices!

The best hotel in town here is only €50, and that Burger & Chips would be less than a tenner!

Those Frogs are giving you an assfucking I'd say!

Trust in the Dago Peasant my man! 

What you say @Tym?

[Skippy]

Cheap as patatas fritas down here eh @XTreme?

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

@MooN great stuff. Love the pics and the write up. Chuffed your wife got you a proper phone, they make life a lot easier, well they do so long as you're not a social media sucker.

[XTreme]

13 minutes ago, Skippy said:

Cheap as patatas fritas down here eh @XTreme?

When I hear the prices elsewhere (particularly UK) it brings it home Ray.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

11 minutes ago, XTreme said:

When I hear the prices elsewhere (particularly UK) it brings it home Ray.

They even give you free food here just for ordering a drink!

They haven't bought into the savage ideals of capitalism, working out how to get every cent from every interaction at every opportunity isn't their bag. I love it. 

Last saturday a taxi driver took us to pick up a very large food order, I needed him to wait while I picked it up and then give us a lift home. I explained I was happy to pay for the waiting time, he wouldn't have any of it. Back home that clock would have been started and kept running double time. 

He picked up a mate of his en route and they both jumped out of the car and helped bring the bags into the house. Its a different mentality. 

[MooN]

Day 3

Capestang - Ambert.

this one is photo heavy. The scenery was f'kin awesome and the roads were pretty good too. 

 I was up early, 06:00, cos I wanted to be able to take my time today as the GPS said 7h 27 minutes riding time. Factor in to that the fact that I tend to take a break every hour or so, plus a longer break at lunch, photo stops, refuelling etc then I based my plan on taking 10 hours to get to destination.  I haven't done a 10hour day on this bike, nor on any bike since I was about 20 years younger so this was something of a test and had been planned as such. I was away by 7 and hopped on the autoroute for an hour to skirt rapidly round the north west of Beziers and get the boring bit out of the way. I exited the autoroute and stopped for a coffee in a car sharing bay right by the autoroute entrance.  looking north, this is where I was heding

Once I'd climbed the switchbacks almost to the top I was rewarded with a view south over the plain

The more observant of you will notice that tigrou now has an airhawk seat pad that wasn't there yesterday. I had it with me but didn't know if I'd need it or not having never needed it on this bike before, but ...yeah... I needed it! It's not miraculous but it allows me to push the stops further apart. 

over the top and down t'other side into the next valley. do you see the switchbacks on the road below? 

 

Down into the valley and up the other side, over the crest and down again, it just goes on and on... untill the gps lost the plut completely and sent me up here ( this where I discovered that I hadn't set the "no gravel or dirt" button and also where I had to remove the liners from jacket and trousers cos it was getting hot in the sun and sodding about with a fookin great fully loaded bike on tiny steep gravel tracks had me in a muck sweat. This is where I turned round. another time and in other circumstances I would have welcomed it but not here, not alone, and not fully loaded. As usual the image just doesn't convey how steep this was. I had to back track 15 minutes to get back on course which annoyed me as I really didn't need to waste the extra 45 minutes all that had cost me. 

the bloody thing sent me up another clearly signposted dead end half an hour later which cost me another 20 minutes fucking about trying to figure out what was wrong. Clearly it wasn't able to apply the new settings to a previously recorded route and in trying to get me back on track was using the settings as per the original route... I looked up the next waypoint on the route plan which I think was Florac and used coyote to get me there. from there I could then bring the Scenic app back into play as I was back on the original planned route. I stopped in Florac for Lunch in a small restaurant, Simple steak chips and salad 15€, Aubrac steak so VERY good but it took forever and I spent an hour and a half there in all.  

 Once out of Florac the road started climbing again up towards Mende and the high plateau. 

 

the road culminates at around 1400m altitude and some of the minor cols wre still closed

 

 The temperature dropped pretty fast as the altitude increased as well and I soon regretted having taken the thermal liners out. The liners in my jacket are very effective but somewhat fastidious to put in and out. I stopped here and as a compromise put the rain liner in on it's own which though not thermal, is an effective windbreak. 

 There was still plenty of snow around and the wind was bitterly cold so I didn't stop here for long but pushed on down into the valley beyond.

 

 I came across a roadsign that I didn't know existed. Well, as they've gone to all the trouble of making a sign an' all, be rude not to really... so I did and much fun it was, steep tight twisties, poorly surfaced and absolutely blind. No room to pass either but luckily I didn't meet a tractor or a herd of cows coming up the other way. 

 Once out of this valley it was a fairly straight forward run up the N88 to Ambert

Once I got to ambert I fuelled up ready for the next day, bought some food for the evening and rode the final 6 km to the Auberge de Jeunesse ( Literally Youth Hostel) where I can't help feeling something of an imposter, not really being part of "La Jeunesse" anymore  I had the entire place to myself for the evening and the warden only appeared to put more wood on the fire, take my 17€ for the night and tell me to help myself to the kitchen and equipement.

 Day 4 

Today was just planned as a long slog home, so I was up at 7 and away by 8. the weather was ok but a heavy rain front was moving north and I was determined to outrun it.  I crossed the Loire eastbound at Gannay sur Loire and took the only pic of the day

 I planned on a lunch stop at Chatillon en Bazois or thereabouts and came across a nice looking restaurant in a village called Ahuy I could find no menu posted outside but the phone came into its own again, and that was an inspired decision, their menu's started at 56€!  ( remember that tight fisted thing?)  I hightailed it outta there like i'd been bitten

 despite what the internet might say, there are NO restaurants still open in Chatillon en Bazois... As I rolled into the supermarket car park in search of a sandwich I saw a tiger 800 xcx fully loaded alongside a honda x tourer loaded with panniers and top box but no extras. I parked alongside a found them sitting outside in the drizzle eating a sandwich having suffered the same fate as I, lied to by the internet and let down by the restaurants. we chewed the fat briefly and the pair left heading North ( a guy and his grand daughter, believe it or not)  on their way home from a short " shakedown" trip in preparation for a trip to mongolia that has obviously been put on hold for the moment as riding across russia is clearly out, and most of the "stans" still have closed borders. 

they'd suited up in rain gear befor leaving which was fine, as it meant that it promptly stopped raining .

 

 I grabbed a sarnie and something to drink and headed off in their wake. I soon caught them up but didn't need to push past as I soon turned eastwards as they headed north and west to pick up the main road back to paris. I found a bus stop to have a break in, out of the rain which had just started again but more out of the wind which was picking up.  I Gambled a bit on fuel usage in order to not have to stop for a final fuel-up as the weather fron was pretty much up with me by now and I was trying to make it home in front of the main body of rain.  I did so with 70 odd km range showing ( reserve light comes on around 60 usually) and 15 minutes before the rain came down like a cow pissing on a flat rock...

 I'll add some stats later  but I now need to go wash the bike.

 

[XTreme]

30 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Its a different mentality. 

Very much so!

And like I said at the start, be yourself, be relaxed, smile, and say hello to people!

Because even when you don't have the words, your manner will say it all.

[XTreme]

16 minutes ago, MooN said:

their menu's started at 56€!

FFS! 

You're making me glad we didn't go to France!

[boboneleg]

Excellent Chris, great photos as well.  I'm sure you enjoyed getting away for a few days  with some time to yourself 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

I completely agree with boboneleg. Great pics. Lovely write up. Im always happy to see/hear someone who has responsibilities gets out on a trip. Food for the soul. Manner from heaven. 

[Pedro]

I really enjoyed that, really nicely written! Thank you for the effort.

What GPS do you use?

[Tym]

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

 

What you say @Tym?

Rooms next door are $350 a night min two days.  

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

18 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Very much so!

And like I said at the start, be yourself, be relaxed, smile, and say hello to people!

Because even when you don't have the words, your manner will say it all.

Generally I am a relaxed sort. I know the British are understandably not a particularly liked breed but I have had the warmest of welcomes. Lots of smiley eyes even in places as dull as the supermarket. I'm a bit frustrated now with my lack of spanish language. Thats something I have to tackle asap.

[Tym]

7 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

G Lots of smiley eyes even in places as dull as the supermarket. 

Not surprised based on your pics to be honest, old saying, pretty girls can have fun anywhere. 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

6 minutes ago, Tym said:

Not surprised based on your pics to be honest, old saying, pretty girls can have fun anywhere. 

Thanks lovely. Generally I do

[Motobiker]

Memories @Rob M

[boboneleg]

2 hours ago, Motobiker said:

Memories @Rob M

Gay 

[XTreme]

14 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Gay 

Yesterday you were on about @Mawsley trolling.....now you're trolling Bob!

Has everybody here lost their fucking mind?

[Motobiker]

5 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Yesterday you were on about @Mawsley trolling.....now you're trolling Bob!

Has everybody here lost their fucking mind?

Looks to me like copying Six like he’s some kind of positive role model has become a thing on this forum. 

[XTreme]

21 minutes ago, Motobiker said:

Looks to me like copying Six like he’s some kind of positive role model has become a thing on this forum. 

I think he's been fairly restrained for a while though........he doesn't seem to have upset anybody recently at least.

So it's a start I suppose!

[Rob M]

Nice report @MooN and great pictures. I really liked that area, would love to go back. Like @Motobiker said, great memories.