I seem to be drawn to areas with either current or historic border squables, here is the latest. Five of us, myself on 650 bandit, Ian on 1250 bandit, Colin on fazer, Ayman and Neil both on 650 V-stroms. Neil did a good job of organising an itenerary and sending us programms for sat-nav which we all have in case anyone got seperated. Unfortunatly our leader's sat-nav went fun bags-up after an accidental deletion on day one but this was not a big issue. We did about a thousand miles over three full days arriving in France on thrursday evening at Calais and i returned with colin and Ian on Sunday evening- the V-strom guys had planned some off-roading and returned 24hrs later.

We did a mountain run much frequented by French and German bikers called "La Valonne" which is a great twisty, some of the hairpins were a bit rich for me! The WW1 fortress of Verdun and surrounding graves were very sobering.



The places you find.....



To enjoy a pleasant lunch.... (L-R Cal, Ian, Colin, Neil and Ayman)



The view from the window of saturday night's gite stopover.




I was going to post some more but I'm having a few problem with image re-sizing, another day perhaps...

Sounds like a great time. I'd love to see some more pics.

Cool ride, looks like a fantastic buncha hills.

What's a 'gite' ? I'm sure you'll understand my not knowing, I'm American !

Nice pictures... thanks for sharing! I'd like to see more too!

Makes borat voice, "Make a-sexy time"

Quote from: ohgood on May 15, 2008, 08:27:11 AM
What's a 'gite' ? I'm sure you'll understand my not knowing, I'm American !

French term for a summer home or holiday home.

That's right, "Gites" is a term used in France to cover rustic countryside accomodation, you can rent old farmhouses or stay with families, it all comes under "Gites de France" - it's pronounced Jites with a "soft" G. The area we did most of our riding was in the "massive" where the French, German and Swiss come fairly close, that last picture is Ventron les Vosges, a skiing area in winter - there are some nice old towns like Colmar nearbye - more pics in due course.
This was a bit of a dry-run for me as I normally do my trips alone with no real plan and stop where i fancy. this way is much cheaper but requires a different riding discipline, I don't anticipate giving up my solo rides but I will probably do some more group rides as well.  The Jury is still out.

I much prefer the solo trips where just the wife and I go ride but a group of 4 gets a better room rate. Although this means no nookie and I get rather ugly looks from the 2 guys sharing the room when they have to share a bed and I get to curl up with my wife 2 guys sharing a bed is not as common here as it is in europe.

It would be nice to get some more couples that ride seperate bikes for spirited outings to share a room with but the few who do we aslways seem to have conflicting schedules.

congrats on the great trip...how about some more photo's with a write up?

Just to prove how lazy I can be here is a link to Neil's album/write up...

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/nhammy2/France08?authkey=hFPASJ1g-ng

looks like you guys had a good time. nice pics. 

I greatly envy your travels and freedom. Maybe one day...........I will be able to unshackle my ball and chain called "work" and join the free. Beautiful pix and times man. You look great. Keep it up as to whatever you're doing.

Nice pics, I especially like that WWI site.

Strassbourg was a stop on my 1994 European road trip (Mostly in a Spanish-made Ford Fiesta).  Beautiful area!   

The French side of my family (great grandparents, the DuBon's) were from somewhere in Alsace, but they spoke German.  (Lots of border-shifting will do that)

I'd love to take my 650 Wee-Strom!   How did the V-Strom guys like the trip?  I'd also love to put off-road tires on mine and do some light off-roading.

There are still quite a lot of gravel/shale roads in the area, farm roads with cattle grids etc and even some of the steep "high ground" roads. The V-stroms obviously coped better than the others, how the locals cope in the winter beats me. The last place we stayed at had 1.5m of snow in March, too late for the winter sports season when they had none so they were none too happy about it.

The two Bandits and the Fazer came back on Sunday night and the V-Strom guys, Neil and Ayman stayed an extra day to do more off-road stuff, unfortunatly late that afternoon there was a problem with Ayman's bike, some issue with the immobiliser, and after a two-hours plus wait for recovery he had to leave his bike there and hire a car to get back, his insurance/recovery firm were flying him out last weekend to collect it, I have not yet heard how he got on with that.

Looks like a fantastic trip, Cal.  I envy the ability to do international travel on your bike.  Must be incredible.  I loved the pictures from Prague last year as well.

I'll be in Germany (Bavaria) and France in early June, but not on the GS, unfortunately.  I am looking forward to the scenery and atmosphere.  Thanks for the write-up -- post more about it!