Lost in France*
- Simon Weir
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 18 minutes ago
*I call it "exploring" or "research"…
I love riding in France. Which is just as well, as I've just spent a sweltering week there. It actually started in Luxembourg, where I'd been leading a Chickenstrips tour. As it had been torrential when I set off from Norfolk, I'd put the mesh jacket down and clambered into the full GoreTex Klim suit... then inevitably over the days that followed, things just got hotter and hotter. Especially once I left Bruce "Teapot One" Smart to shepherd the tour group over the final 50 miles to the Eurotunnel... while I turned south on my own.
My bike for this trip was the astonishing supercharged Kawasaki H2 SX SE. I rode on the launch of the original H2 SX, but this new one is a mile more sophisticated, with adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warning, semi-active electronically adjusted suspension and basically all mod cons – as you'd expect from a top-of-the-range £26k sports tourer with 197bhp on tap. What stats and price tags fail to capture is just how it makes you feel… which is free. There's something about all that power that makes you glad to be alive and on the road. Twisting the throttle is like having sunshine injected into your veins and you leave the mundane world behind you (very fast indeed).
My first job was the classic one: escape northern France. I said I love riding in France, but let's be honest… it's a big place. It's the largest country in Europe, covering more than 210,000 square miles (that's nearly three times the size of Britain). Some bits are flatter than others, so the game is finding fun ways across them without resorting to the toll motorways. I have a couple of those up my sleeve – but the point of this trip was to ignore them as much as possible and try to find more. Without actually getting lost.
My first few hours on my own were a great mix of open, flowing favourite roads and some new ones… with at least one that I thought I was going to be new to me, until I recognised the windmills from last year's trip to Corsica. Still, I made good progress and got to my overnight stop in Chablis in time to walk into town for a meal. Next morning I made an early start, trying to get ahead of the heat. Plus why pay €20 for a hotel breakfast when there will be a bakery down the road selling coffee and a croissant for less than €5?
Again, I was mixing favourite roads with fresh ones, while watching the temperature climb higher and higher on the dash. By the time it hit 42°C I was stopping for a large bottle of water every half an hour, despite doing my best to keep to the shaded, wooded roads of the Corezze as I headed to the Dordogne.
I was gatecrashing my fianceé's family holiday – an annual trip she and her kids do with her best friend and her same-age offspring. I don't normally intrude, but this year they'd hired a spacious gite in one of my favourite places… and one that's suspiciously good for riding too! I had a rest day after arriving – and then another enforced rest day, when the French photographer I'd booked for a photoshoot called just as I was about to set off to meet him… and cancelled. I should be more sympathetic, as he'd injured himself riding motocross the day before, but I'd wanted some much better pics for this story than my efforts! No way to find a replacement at such short notice, though – so I just had to kickback in the sunshine. I know, you have your tiny violin out for me…
The return run, spread over the next two days, was what I'd call a negative success. I hopped on and off a couple of familiar roads but mostly I was testing new ways to link together favourite places. I did find a couple of cracking new roads but – especially as I got further north – I found quite a few to file in the "don't bother" box. But that's good in a way: sometimes knowing the roads to avoid is as important as knowing the ones to use…
Even so, despite the bumpy bits, the straighter-than-it-looked-on-the-map bits and the oh-god-I'm-melting bits, it was a fabulous run back. I saw bits of France I'd either not visited for years or never been to at all – wafted along in comfort and entertained with every mile by the amazing H2 SX. I admit that back when it first appeared, I wondered why a bike would need a supercharger. Now the more I ride it, the more I'm a believer… it's just brilliant!
Of course, things stopped being brilliant pretty much as soon as I rolled off the Eurotunnel in Folkestone. Miles of average-speed-camera 50s, terrible driving and then – the icing on the cake – the Dartford crossing was shut (almost put a different vowel there...) I was braced for a long wait, but actually it reopened after about 15mins, though the M25 on the other side was shut. Cue a long-winded run out to the Essex coast before cutting cross country through Suffolk to get back home. Just made me wish I was back not-quite-getting-lost in France again instead...
