Expected mileage on a small bike
 

I have a 250cc trail bike and am thinking of riding it into europe in Sept. Not sure where - one of the ports in France will be my starting point.

I've done this lots of times but usually on a much bigger bike and have never ridden the 250 more than 100 miles in 1 day.

How far could I realistically expect to travel in 1 day avoiding the motorways?
Unless extremely easy, I'm not looking for trails - my off road experience is very limited.

I only have 2 weeks holiday and am on a budget so I can't fly my bike somewhere exotic although that would be amazing :)

miles
 

As an average anything between 100 to 200 miles a day is a very easy goal , if you need to cover more miles you can push it to 300 miles but you will be riding pretty much all day . The good news is in Europe distance are smaller and for example you can cross France riding 600 miles fron north to south and every few hundred miles there is someting great to visit. Actually you will cover pretty much the same distance if you had a bigger bike and were riding secondary road as speed limit are pretty low and cops / radar are waiting to take some nice pictures of you if you do not respect the limit.

I found 250 miles a day was the uncomfortable limit on my XL250 Honda, much more than 100 was enough on that seat. I would suggest sailing to Calais or Ostend and you can then see a little of France, Belgium, Holand, Germany and Luxembourg in your two weeks without constant riding, You should never be more than 100 miles from somewhere interesting. :scooter:

Anything over 300km will become rather dull in my opinion...

Since getting my Enfield after 5 years with a BMW I can say this. Max cruising MPH does NOT equate to Miles Per Day. Although the BMW could handle cruising speeds near 25MPH faster than my Enfield, In practice if anything I seem to do more miles each day on the Enfield. I could do more miles per day on the BMW but it would not be as comfy or enjoyable as on the Enfield.
part of it is the more relaxed ride and part much less need to stop for fuel.

I do prefer using the D roads and whenever practical avoid the peages.

I can do 300 miles a day and enjoy it but would not choose to do much more.
That is six hours riding at just over 50mph with one stop for fuel.. but I do tend to break a days riding into three parts,

My suggestion is just to go with only a few key 'targets' to visit, and keep an open itinerary. If you leave yourself plenty of time, I'm sure you will still find lots to see and do.

I agree. It would be a mistake to try to measure the value of your trip in miles covered. Give yourself a list of things to see, places to go but accept that you don't intend to do them all. Ride as much or as little as you want for the duration of your trip and see what you see. You can always do it again to pick up some missed bits or re-visit the places your really liked.

I have done a couple of trips that were to a tight itinery and it's a killer. You find yourself getting stressed out and grumpy. Not really the point of the exercise (or maybe perhaps exorcise) now is it.

Have fun and report back.

Funny, I never thought about it before. I don't think I've ever paid attention to miles per day. I don't think it's ever occurred to me.

thanks for the tips
I'm not particularly concerned about how much I ride in 1 day, I was more concerned I may overplan the route & head too far south under-estimating the return journey - gotta go back to work :(

Unless I take the expensive Hull ferry, just riding to a south coast ferry & back is 3-4 days of a 2 week break. I'm not a lover of cities but am interested in architecture, ancient sites and adore mountains.
Appreciate ideas of places to visit in northern europe in a suitable radius :)

Motorail
 

Elaine, have you thought about Motor Rail? That way you could ride south to your heart's content and then rather that slogging it back up through Europe just put yourself and the bike on an over-night train and be back nearer a Channel port by morning. Yes it is a little more expensive than riding, but factor in any overnight stops you might have made on a long journey back up and it behind to be more comparable.

As for mileage, unless you're planning on charging down the Autoroutes the deciding factor is probably the comfort of your seat, not the size of your engine. I've got a 125 but the ride is very comfortable so I could sit on her all day at 50-60 mph so in theory I could do 400-500 miles. Of course I never would as I'd miss too much.

Good Idea. Have vaguely looked into this before so I had another look today. One way seems reasonable - shame that France have closed down their system.

They haven't, although they have scaled out back a bit. What actually put this in mind was a report in one of the French bike magazines. Does seem you have to get yourself to Paris though. Oh and duck as you load your bike onto the train.

thanks! quite right about the train in france and it's very reasonable too:
Autotrain | Rail Europe