Day 3 - Tignes

We woke up this morning and the weather didn't look very promising. A lot of grey clouds and poring rain ... Well we decided to pack the bikes in any case and give it a try. We left around 9h30 and drove up to the Alpes. We started with the Col du Colombier. As it was still raining and as the mountain was hanging into the clouds, we took a steady pace and didn't take any pictures.

Coming down the mountain, it stopped raining and we arrived at Chinaillon to take some lunch. It stopped raining for about an hour and a half. As we were ready to start riding again, it started raining again as well. Bad timing ... We continued our trip however and were rewarded with a nice and sunny afternoon that allowed us to cross some nice areas. See the shot below to get an impression:

The summary of the villages that we passed today: La Baume, Les Gets, Morzine, Cluses, Flumet, Beaufort, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Tignes (where we are staying for the night).

We also passed by the "lac de Roselend". Very nice. And afterwards made a stopped at +/- 1800 m altitude. Took a coffee. Have a look here :

The last half an hour gave us a big shower of rain again ... Let's hope the weather is better tomorrow. We have a lot of big mountains to cross then (> 2700 m of altitude ...). We decide to boost our energy with a bottle of Pommard of 1999. Nice way to end the day :) We'll be back tomorrow with more info ...

Day 2 - Towards Thonon Les Bains

Right - as we didn't have internet connectivity yesterday evening, we decided to post the update of yesterday this evening. So we drove up from Friday evening's place up to Thonon-Les-Bains, which is one of the villages close to the "lac de Genève". See the picture for a nice shot of the lake:

Rain showers came in late yesterday afternoon, as you can see. That's exactly what we were confronted with on the next day. See next post for more info. In the end, we had a fabulous ride through the Jura region in France, using both national and departmental roads.

By the way, the commercial was done by Nicole Kidmann :)

Lunch in Arbois (Jura).

200kms further and we arrived in Arbois. We stopped to take a quick lunch. Nice roundabout where the terraces are located :

This is the post of our first day that took us from our hometown (Knesselare) up to Contrexéville in France.

We left this morning at 7h30. Look at these shiny horses and some of their riders. Ready to take up the big task, as you can see:

We left at 7h30, took the E40 in the direction of Namur and afterwards left the highway to pass Dinant, Givet, Sedan, Verdun, Neufchateau to drive up to Contrexéville (close to Vittel). Yes both towns are linked to those famous water brands. Although I must admit that we decided not to have any water during diner, but went for some Rosé wine instead. Hé, we are in France. What did you expect ? Sounds a bit like that commercial of (what's her name again ... ?). So we arrived at 18h30. So that's a trip of about 11h. Nice for a first day.

By the way, we found the Golem creature (of the Lord of the Rings, remember) in Neufchateau. Gave quite a chock. I was fast enough to take a picture :

Now after a second look, I saw that it was my buddy:

Ouf...

Right, that's it for now. We will kill some extra Rosé wine now and probably leave somewhere between 9h and 10h tomorrow morning. 380 kms to go. Looking forward to it ...

My buddy has decided to clean up his bike a bit as well. A splendid VFR it is, fully equipped with tank bag, top case, etc. Have a look at this nice picture just below... Aaahhh we definitely start to feel the thrill and look forward to our trip ...

Inner bag

Just bought an inner bag that nicely fits the top case. Next step is to take all the baggage needed and store it into all the luggage compartments that I have available now. Something to do for the days to come...

As the start date of our journey is approaching, it is time to prepare the motorbike. And that's exactly what I did today. I removed the seat cap and mounted the top case. This is the first time that I did that and I am surprised about the additional weight that is generated on the bike when I take of its main stand. I'll definitely will need to take it for a spin in the days to come, to make sure that it indeed doesn't impact too much the riding experience. If needed, I'll switch to the alternative - being a bag that can be fixed on the rear part of the bike' seat. I'll post a new message once the test ride is done :). By the way, here you can find a picture of the Honda VFR, nice and clean, with the top case.