Fellow Bike Nuts!!

Would love to plan a long ish trip around Europe next summer, around school holiday time. Approx 4-6 weeks is what I have in mind, with suggestions for places to visit and so on welcome. Would love to plan a RTW or the like, but self employed and can't be sure to have the funds for that, what with the current work climate, but this is definately doable.
Was thinking of keeping it cheap ish, maybe camping during the week, supermarket s and bbq's, hotel it at the weekends ?????????

I'm 40, single,London/Essex based, like a laugh,love a , and will take the piss out of most people, but expect the same treatment in return !!

Thought I'd throw it out there, see what response comes back. Cheers.

Sounds good. Time scale about right. Location right, as long as it is south. Not in to freezing my Azz off in the snow and wet. Do two or three of these a year. Just come back from Faro. Four week's away.

Have you done one like this before? Tenting and keep the money for petrol and pop. Not as such a drinking man, but do take of the wine once in a while. If you go in the school holiday's the price's will be high. Travel in May or September and the cost's are half. A mid week crossing with Sea France, Booking a return at the same time will set you back less than £40. I'm in Norfolk. So an eye ball could be on the card's. Not into travelling with a cross dresser, or an axe welding nuttier.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

I know what you mean about the prices, but camping is so cheap anyway and the price of food and drink doesn't change. Admittedly the ferry/tunnel might go up in price, but in the grand scheme of a 4-6 week trip, I think this extra cost is negligable.

Think it's a bit shallow not wanting to put up with my ponchant for a suspender belt though!!!

Drop me a line here
Journeyman933910(at)aol.com
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

I think that a month or so in europe i enough time to cover a lot of ground, without breaking your balls. Normally when on bike trips, I try to avoid motorways as much as poss, and limit daily mileage to between 200-250, and have at least one day a week off the bike, if not 2. Based on 250 a day for 20 days, 5000 miles is quite an easy, relaxing schedule. That way if you are on the bike at 10 am (ish), the days riding should be done by an easy 5 pm, leaving time to see something of the place you've stopped. All this riding till 8 or 9 pm, rush rush rush, doesnt seem like pleasure to me. There are times when the day doesnt go quite to plan and its necessary, but not on a daily basis.

My thoughts were initially to start off towards the east/ south east, down through Germany, visit Auschwitz, Croatia looks appealling, then who knows what, in between making our way west, italian dolomites, alps, pyrenees, etc..

......to take in a motogp en route would be good ???

I can live with that. For insurance purposes it would be best to stay with-in the EU. What about out of Calia, across Germany. In to Poland to see Auschwitz. Then make you way down to the black sea, Across northern Greece. Ferry on to Italy. make your way North and then see what time and money we have left?
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

I live in Prague in the Czech Rpublic so if you are passing through let me know. I can show you some great routes and places to visit. Hungary, Austria and Germany is only 2 hours ride away. I run a Expat Motorbike club here in Prague so we can support you if you get any problems and show you some good cheap pubs.
We are planning a trip to Norway, Denmark and Sweden next year so you can join us if you want, We did a 9 day trip of Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Lichtenstein this year just 3666kms so I have planty of maps and advice about routes for there.
Glad to help where I can, good luck.

Lee:

I usually do a 4 to 6 week ride in Europe every year, starting out of Switzerland.

One thing I have learned over the past 10 years is that it is better to focus on "one region" per year, rather than being too ambitious about hitting a whole bunch of different countries. If you get too ambitious about covering ground, all you are going to see is the yellow stripe on the road and the gas stations at the side of the road, and they all look the same no matter where you go.

This year, I did a tour "around" the Balkan region. Literally around, because I didn't want the insurance headaches that come with going into most of the former Yugoslavian countries, so, I just circled them all. There's a post here that shows my route and has some comments.

I think that you got things correct when you wrote:

However, I think you might have made one math error - 5,000 miles total (which is longish, but certainly do-able in 6 weeks) does not equate to 2,500 miles out and 2,500 miles back. After you factor in wandering around, looking at interesting places, staying in the same place for a few days on several occasions and using that place as a base to do day trips from, I think that the furthest you should plan on getting from your home base is about 1,250 to 1,500 miles straight-line distance, maximum. This is particularly true because you ride like I do - staying off the motorways and sticking to the smaller roads. When following those kinds of routes, 100 miles on the odometer usually equals about 60 miles as the crow flies.

So, I suggest to you that you pick a 'region' - could be Northern Europe (Benelux, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Northern France) - maybe even stretching east into Austria; could be the Iberian peninsula; could be Eastern Europe; could be South-Eastern Europe (like I just did) - but for goodness sake, don't try to cover the whole darn continent, you will just wear yourself (and your tires) out and not really see much of any place at all.

I've always preferred to plan my trips as 'circles'. This allows me to easily keep a perspective on how much time I have left vs. how far I have gone, plus, if I get really interested in what I see in the first half of the circle and wind up spending 80% of my time on the first half of the planned trip, I just abandon the second half of the circle (save it for next year) and head straight back home when my vacation time is up. You can see an example of that on the map I posted - I did the portion from Patra (Peloponnese) to Zurich airport in 36 hours.

Some additional thoughts, generic in nature:

- You mentioned that you like to have a day or two a week when you are not riding the bike. Me too. Never underestimate the benefit of sleeping in the same place 3 nights in a row - it is like a vacation within a vacation. It's possible to travel continually and stay in a different place each night for about 5 to 7 nights in a row, at which point you will get pissed off with the burden of packing things up each day (most especially if you are camping!). Plus, after 5 to 7 days of riding from city to city, you will want to 'not even see the friggin' motorcycle' for a day, which means staying 2 or 3 nights in one place.

- Also consider that you might find a place that has a lot of interesting stuff around it, and elect to stay in one place for 3 to 5 days and make day trips out and back in different directions. This is generally more relaxing than riding to a different town every day, no matter how much you enjoy riding the bike. It's also a heck of a lot less expensive... you get to know the place you are staying in, food and lodging costs drop, and you don't spend as much time in the saddle every day. The days suddenly become 25% longer, because you don't have to break camp in the morning, and set up again in the evening - you just 'come home' to whatever hotel or campsite you are staying at.

- Weather has a huge effect on how much you will enjoy the trip. On my tour this past September, the daytime high temperatures didn't drop below 30°C until I got off the ferry in Italy on October 1, and I never once took my rainsuit out of the bag. So, the time of year that you plan to do the riding should, in theory, significantly influence your choice of where to go.

Michael