Le Petit Voyage

After a lot of signs ups on Tracker and lots of excellent communication via email, around 15 LAMkins descended upon France for a day trip designed for riders unfamiliar with touring on the continent.

The day before leaving, six of us met at Westerham for a wonderful twisty ride, sampled the delights of Folkestone's historic Grand Burstin hotel and a delicious supper at a local pub, but sadly only after saying goodbye to one of our number, Charles, who suffered a failing alternator and had to turn back home only to get stuck on the motorway waiting for recovery.

After making our way through the faffage of ticket, passport, and vehicle checks, Le Shuttle was a fun experience and after a surprisingly short time, we were out in the sun and riding on the right hand side of the road! This is where the fun really began, with mile after mile of twisties, hardly any cars, loads of opportunities for sprightly overtakes, and wonderful scenery to top it all off! Perhaps the stand out thing for most of us, though, was the quality of the roads. None of blighty's potholes blighted the surface, whilst signage and paintwork was visible and well maintained.

A few delicious coffee and food stops later and we were coming off the twisty roads for a short blast of motorway back to the terminal in Calais. What a wonderful day out, I can highly recommend it if you'd like to experience riding abroad for the first time. Though be warmed, France's quality roads and respectful drivers may have you hankering to return no sooner than you've made it back home!

Tim Watson