Motorcycle roads in France

Five different countries, as far as riding goes

Deciding where to ride in France is mostly a question of what kind of road you enjoy, not how far you are prepared to travel. The Northern Alps give you wide, fast, high passes with long sweeping curves and a short season. The Pyrenees are lower, narrower and steeper, with far fewer camper vans and livestock loose on the road all summer. The Massif Central, in the middle of the country, is the one visitors skip and locals rate: mountain roads of a similar standard with a fraction of the traffic.

Further south, the Var, the Alpes-Maritimes and the Ardeche are tight, technical and rideable almost all year, which makes them the obvious choice outside the summer window. The west, Normandy and Brittany, has no mountains at all but a dense web of small roads, no seasonal closures and the shortest crossing from the UK.

• Big Alpine passes and long climbs: Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Hautes-Alpes. June to October.
• Narrow, steep, quiet mountain roads: the Pyrenees. May to October.
• Mountain riding without the crowds: Auvergne, Cevennes, Millevaches. April to November.
• Tight, technical, year round: Var, Alpes-Maritimes, Ardeche.
• No passes, no closures, closest to the Channel: Normandy, Brittany.

When to come, and the mistake most visitors make

The high passes decide the calendar. The Iseran and the Bonette, the two highest, usually open in the second half of June and close some time in October, and the dates move by weeks from one year to the next. Planning an Alpine trip for early June means risking a closed barrier and a long detour down the valley, which removes most of the point of the trip.

The other mistake is riding the famous places in the middle of a summer day. In July and August the Verdon gorges, the Ardeche gorges, the road round Lake Annecy and the Galibier are saturated: you spend the day behind camper vans on roads with nowhere to overtake. Two things fix it, and both work. Ride at eight in the morning, when the same roads are empty. Or ride twenty kilometres away from the famous name, where there is almost always something just as good and nobody on it. June and September are the two best months everywhere in France.

Getting there, and riding in France

From the UK, the short crossings put you straight into Normandy or the Nord: Dover to Calais and the tunnel from Folkestone for speed, Newhaven to Dieppe and Portsmouth to Caen or Saint-Malo if you would rather sleep on the boat and wake up closer. For the Pyrenees, the long crossings from Portsmouth and Plymouth to Santander and Bilbao skip the whole of France and drop you an hour from the mountains. Flying in and renting works well for the Alps through Geneva, for the Cote d'Azur through Nice, and for the south west through Toulouse or Bordeaux.

A few things catch visiting riders out. You ride on the right. CE-approved gloves are compulsory for rider and pillion, and you are expected to carry a high-visibility vest. Motorways are tolled, and the barriers are awkward on a bike, so keep a card somewhere you can reach without taking your gloves off. Speed limits drop when it rains. In rural France, fuel stations are sparse and many close on Sundays, so fill up when you can rather than when you need to. Rules change, so check the current requirements before you travel rather than trusting a page you read once.

Plan it before you leave, not on the roadside

A normal car satnav optimises for time. On a motorcycle that is exactly wrong: it avoids the small roads, pulls you back onto trunk routes and makes you miss the reason you came. On terrain like the causses or the Millevaches plateau, the difference between the fastest route and the good route is total.

Working the route out in advance, on a big screen with the map in front of you, changes the trip. You see where the passes are, you spot the dead ends before you ride into them, you check the total climb rather than just the distance, and you keep the route for next time. That is what Waver's planner does, and you can use it without creating an account.