Deux ans de bitume, de mauvaise foi et de flat-twin : le bilan garanti sans concession
- La canicule à 40°C dans la vallée du Rhône où chaque feu rouge devient une séance de sauna suédois en combinaison de cuir.
- L'orage cataclysmique à Laguiole qui te fait passer de 33°C à 19°C en trois secondes chrono, avec option grêlons gros comme des billes qui mitraillent le casque.
- Le vent du Sud à Valence qui essaye de te catapulter dans le décor avec le charme discret d'un rouleau compresseur.
- La culture : Pèlerinage sacré au musée Porsche à Stuttgart pour communier devant la McLaren-TAG F1 de Prost, tout en mangeant un plateau-repas sous le cantilever.
- Le folklore local : Se faire choper gentiment par un policier allemand, carnet de souches en main, après avoir remonté une file derrière une Mercedes en feu. Bilan : 15 € d'amende. À ce prix-là, c'est cadeau, ça rembourse à peine le papier !
- La haute gastronomie : Du saucisson mangé sur le réservoir à l'alpage du Col de la Biche, jusqu'à la lasagne fumante chez les potes à Bologne, en passant par le bistronomique chic à Laguiole après avoir évité la foudre.
Two Years of Asphalt, Bad Faith, and Flat-Twins: The Unfiltered Breakdown
Spoiler alert: no, the bike on the right doesn't always have right of way, the sun doesn't only shine in Italy, and Bavarian traffic cops have a severely limited sense of humor when you attempt a wild lane-filtering maneuver on the B500.
Two years. Over 15,000 kilometers carved into the odometer—from the muddy verges of the Cévennes to the slick cobblestones of Palermo, not to mention the volcanic craters of the Azores. A quick check-up? The rear tire is shredded, my liver is barely recovering, but the touring soul? Completely nourished.
The Gear: From High Engineering to Competition "Scoobies"
Let's be clear: motorcycle touring is the delicate art of cramming your entire life into two hard panniers and a dry bag. And when that's not enough? You bolt a tow hitch and a trailer onto the back of a brand-new flat-twin. It's classy, it's German, and it means the wife can pack her extra shoes without shedding a tear. Well, in theory. In practice, you end up rebalancing the whole setup every 200 km on the highway just to stop the rig from swaying at 125 km/h.
And when the airline rejects our 23 kg of Bavarian steel? We adapt! We upgrade to the heavy cavalry in Ponta Delgada: two absolute racing beasts... Honda SH 125 scooters boasting 53,000 km and a venerable age. Two "scoobies" pinned to the stop, permanently locked under the magic 3-liter mark per 100 km. With a €12 daily fuel bill, we gave consumer power a proper thrashing while absolutely dominating the dizzying drops to the fishing harbors.
Weather Forecasting & Route Planning (or Pure Biker's Bad Luck)
A good route is simple: three waypoints on the GPS and ten thousand twisties in between. But the weather always has a agenda of its own:
The 40°C heatwave in the Rhône Valley, turning every red light into a Swedish sauna in full leathers.
The apocalyptic thunderstorm in Laguiole, dropping the temp from 33°C to 19°C in three seconds flat, complete with hail the size of marbles battering your helmet.
The southerly gale in Valence, trying to catapult you into the scenery with all the subtle grace of a steamroller.
Doesn't matter. We ride with the wind in our faces, boots resting on the cylinder guards, taking in the scenery (whenever our visors aren't caked in three layers of bug splatter).
The Hall of Fame: Mountain Passes, Feasts, and Pitfalls
On paper, we ticked every box. We wore down rubber on the Auvergne magic square (Croix Morand, Croix Robert, Puy Mary), cooked the brakes on Austria's Sölk Pass, flirted with snow on the Cayolle, and showed off at the top of the Galibier under a dramatic late-afternoon sky.
But the real trip is also about:
Culture: A sacred pilgrimage to the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart to pay homage to Prost's McLaren-TAG F1 car while eating a cafeteria lunch under the cantilever.
Local Folklore: Getting pulled over by a friendly German officer, ticket book in hand, after filtering past a burning Mercedes. Damage: a €15 fine. At that price, it's practically a souvenir!
Fine Dining: From roadside sausage eaten off the fuel tank at the Col de la Biche, to steaming lasagna at our friends' place in Bologna, to a posh bistronomic spot in Laguiole after dodging lightning bolts.
The Bottom Line
Between an emergency flight home from Brindisi after a petty breakdown in the depths of Puglia and hundreds of "unavoidable" highway miles just to get back to our beloved local twisties in the Chevreuse Valley, these two years haven't exactly been a quiet ride.
Then again... apart from a footpeg scraping the tarmac a little too close, who would've noticed the difference? Zero regrets. When are we rolling out again?
