Sunday - Reims to Home

Today was always going to be a big ride home and over 400 miles. Steve decided to get up early and take a direct route via the A26 Motorway for Calais and get an earlier crossing. We said our farewells in the bar last-night as I decided to stick with the planned route (the red one in the map above). This took us up out west of Reims then up through French countryside to join the Motorway 30 miles of  Calais. I thought I may regret the longer ride later but since most of my riding in the UK will be Motorway why not stay off the slab for as long as possible and enjoy the French countryside.

After a lazy breakfast, I left the hotel at 9 am. Quite a few of the others had already left by this time so a nice gentle Sunday morning ride out of the City, a short stretch of  A4 Motorway first and exit to head toward Soissons, then a fine ride picking my way through sleepy villages. I came across the WW1 Oise-Aisne American Cemetry stopped to take a look around, over 6000 US Soldiers lost their lives fighting in Marne-Aisne region put my phone on charge and rode on. 

One of the small villages was holding some kind of event, there were cars and congestion everywhere with people walking down the road. Couldn't quite make out what but the traffic congestion held me up for quite a while. Possible Church gathering or something. Further on, about 20 miles I came across Steve Freeman and Cliff sat at a small cafe, I turned the bike around and parked up for a while to enjoy a coffee and chat with them. Nice location, sat in the sun. Just the right temperature. Who wants to sit on the Motorway I thought.

From this point on I stayed behind Cliff and Steve for a steady run on to Calais with a brief stop at Albert in the Somme to get a photo of the famous Basilica of Notre Dame des Brebieres. 

I had read quite a bit in the past about the battle at Albert and how the golden statue of the virgin Mary was hit by a shell but left hanging there. The myth was that whoever made the statue fall to the ground would lose the war.  The statue became iconic to thousands of troops who passed by to see it slumped on it's side. The Basilica was completely destroyed and rebuilt after the war.

Myself and Steve said farewell to Cliff at the Tunnel Terminal - we had been offered a slightly earlier crossing Cliff decided to take it, I preferred to take a rest and check out some Duty Free for Helen and grab a quick bite. In the end we got a slightly earlier crossing, said our farewells before tackling the nightmare of the M20, M26 and M25 south and the blustery headwind. I opted to ride the M40 home as far as Warwick / Stratford and then via Henley in Arden, Redditch and Bromsgrove to simply get off the drone of the Motorway. Arrived home at 7 pm to late Sunday Lunch and glass of Cider.  

Excellent tour, amazing roads and scenery and great company - 2519 miles in 9 days. Probably the toughest yet averaging 279 miles a day many of which were on twisty Alpine roads. My new GS was superb, and I discovered the different ride modes are much better than I first thought e.g. the Dynamic converts the bike completely improves the throttle response and handling on the mountains, Road mode is great for every day comfort riding and the Rain mode is really useful in the wet as it does calm the bikes power down. One feature I really found useful was the hill assist - holding the bike and all of its weight hands and feet free in traffic jams and road works - even to stop and take a photo. The TFT connectivity worked flawlessly and so did the Navigator 6. Myself and Steve could and did use the intercom to aid our navigation and chat as we rode along as long as we were in line of sight - the VOX connect option worked really well too. Can't wait for the next one - whenever that may be 😉

Please  come back later for more photos and Go-Pro footage when I get around to uploading.