Hi all, this is my first time on the site and I've already learnt so much!
I bought my first bike (Yamaha MT-09 Tracer!) a few months ago and I'm planning on driving from Bergen, Norway to Bergerac, France in July with my girlfriend. We are just starting to plan, and I'd be really grateful of some help with this!
I guess my main points are:

1. How far can I realistically expect to go in a day?
I read about people going straight for 12 hours, and others saying they never ride more than 5 in a day.
What's the sensible option here when planning? And is it best to plan in miles or hours?

2. How do I find the best roads?
I'd particularly like to visit Amsterdam, so I'm reckoning on getting there from Bergen, via Kristiansand, Hirtshals, Hamburg.
How do I choose my onward route from Amsterdam to Bergerac? I'd love to do some riding in the mountains, but it's obviously a little out of my way... Switzerland is famous for its mountain roads, and that's the kind of thing I'm aiming for. Switzerland itself isn't a must, but those kind of roads give the idea!

3. Accommodation - pre-book or turn-up and hope?
Obviously things can go wrong. I love planning, and so my ideal trip involves every hostel/hotel booked in advance. I understand that things are more likely to go wrong on a trip like this, so I'm reluctant to book everything up in case we get so behind schedule that we miss our bookings! Is the normal thing to just turn up and look for somewhere once we arrive?

Does anyone have first-hand experience with these routes? Alternatively, where can I find the best information?
Thanks in advance for any help...
Tim

For question 1., I usually aim for six hour a day unless I want to put in a big day to get somewhere. I'm not an advocate of "Iron-butt" style days and find that with a reasonable start in the morning being on the road by 09:30 latest, six hours in the saddle and a few stops throughout the day leaving an 18:00 or so finish gives a good balance.

For question 3., in Europe I usually book one night ahead. That way, I can decide based on how I feel, local attractions and maybe the weather forecast, how far I want to travel the next day without the concern of having to find somewhere to stay which can sometimes be a little stressful in high season for example.

Just me; your mileage may vary. Literally.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Hi Tim and welcome. Presumably it's a return trip and you'll be riding back to Bergen afterwards? In total that'll be close to 6000km (with a detour or two) so quite a respectable distance.

Bike travel is really all about a whole series of small problems that you need to solve as you go along. The first thing with planning is to be flexible. Don't treat "the plan" as something to be stuck to regardless. That way lies misery. If you get a sunny day, good roads, nice scenery etc you might want to keep going longer than on a wet, cold day on a boring road filled with trucks. If you've not done much in the way of long distance bike travel before you may well find it more tiring than you thought, particularly in difficult conditions and you may not cover as much distance as you hoped to.

Your pillion passenger almost certainly will find it more difficult than you as there's not much to do sat on the back and after a few hours it can become somewhat boring. So for the first day or two take it easy - frequent stops and shorter days. Widman's six hours riding split over a nine hour day is probably as much as you'd want to do - and on normal two lane roads that'll probably take you around 400km. Unless you're used to it you'll find lots of muscles ache at the start of day two! Even when you are used to it you'll be doing well to cover more than 600km in a day without using motorways.

It's hard to advise on pre booking hotels vs just turn up as it depends on your route, your (and your girlfriend's) personality, whether the area is rural or touristy etc but as a general rule I allow an hour or so to find somewhere if I haven't pre-booked. So if you were going to arrive at a pre-booked hotel at 6.00pm I'd start looking for somewhere from about 5.00pm (or in the darker months, before it gets dark). If I get the chance I'll research the area for that night's stop over breakfast to get some idea of where to start looking. It used to be guidebooks but these days hotel wi-fi and the internet is probably easier.

Every time I've gone to Amsterdam I've pre-booked the hotel (or my wife has!). That's partly because I don't like travelling round a big city looking at random for hotels and partly because often the price is better booking online vs just turning up.

Hi Tim

I've biked from Normandy to the Pyrenees several times and a good on-line source of route info can be found at www.bestbikingroads.com. They also publish a waterproof, A5 size guide to biking roads in France (The Best Rides France).

You could swing east (via Chateauroux, Gueret, Eymoutiers, Tulle..) and take in some of riding in the Massif Central before heading west. Between the Massif and Bergerac there are some great routes following the many gorges - Cele, Lot, Dordogne - that feature several testing, switch-back roads up the sides as well as beautiful scenery.

Hello Tim
well if you want to enjoy so follow the road where it will take you to
usually i make 3 legs of my route for the 3 coming day but always flexible (due to weather people i meet on the road sight seeing and so on ) all i know is i have to be in my last point on the exact date ( but that is my personal way of travel on motorbike )
usually i know that i have to cover 500 km today for example i start to do most of it in the morning so lets say i will do 300 km or 350 km fast then i take small roads go for sightseeing ride slow take time to take photos videos for the rest of the 150 km and so on
so my opinion it is all what you want to do
the main thing is to enjoy
of course as you are travelling with your girl friend let here do some of the plans places to stay and so on cause it is not so funny to be pillion for long hours doing nothing ,
good luck and perhaps we meet on the road as im planning to ride to the North Cape coming july and August (working on the route yet Egypt - italy - Switzerland - france - belgium Holland and further up )

Welcome Tim!

As others have said, plan for less - not because you cannot ride the whole day, but because you have a pillion as well. Solo, I'd start around 9-10am and arrive 7-8pm, this would be a comfortable day for me. I can push this longer but its a bit of a stretch. But your pillion would want to take more breaks and see more stuff (you get a joy from riding, but for many pillions its boring). So you would cover less with her and don't push for long riding days - I broke up with one girlfriend that way .

If I'm planning to stay in a hotel, I try to book one for the coming night by 2pm - by this time, I have pretty good idea where I am planning to end up this day. Thankfully, its super-easy with booking.com or similar apps, and some hotels give really good discounts for same day bookings as well if they have unsold inventory.

For the route, I've tried both planning everything or going with a flow, what I found best working for me is to have milestones on the way (often tied to, say, ferry bookings) - e.g. "I need to be in Nordkapp in 9 days", and then I manage the route for the coming days based on the mood/weather - which may mean I take one really short day for a rest, but the next one is longer than usual.

Main thing - enjoy it and please report back how did it go!