Our current RiDE Guide to France has been four years in the making…

Work on this project may have begun almost as soon as 2013’s original Guide to France appeared, when readers began suggesting roads we could have included in that one, but that was a slow process. The active work really began in 2016 as notes were cross-referenced, final routes were plotted and ferries were booked, ready to return to France. This time, we did things differently. Our second lap of France was shorter than the first and pointedly less comprehensive: we were returning to photograph places we’d skipped past on the first go, where we hadn’t shot enough pictures, or where we’d been hit by rain. We also started not in France but in Spain, taking the Brittany Ferries service to Santander so we could begin in the south.

The lessons from previous RiDE Guides helped: our routes were more logically planned and we’d learnt from the first French trip that a string of 400-mile days that have to include time-consuming photoshoots is neither practical nor healthy. This time, we stuck to 250-280 miles a day. The two bikes, a Triumph Tiger Explorer XCA and Tiger 800 XRT, didn’t miss a beat, from 38°C in the Pyrenees to biblical rain in the Auvergne and north-east France. After covering just over 2200 miles in eight days, we boarded a ferry in Caen to return home.

Triumph Tiger 800 XRT

Price: £10,900
Engine: 800cc 12v dohc inline triple, l/c
Power: 94bph @9250rpm
Torque: 58lb.ft @7850rpm
Transmission: Six-speed chain drive
Chassis: tubular steel trellis
Front suspension: 43mm upside-down forks, no adjustment
Rear suspension: monoshock, adjustable rebound
Front brakes: 308mm dics, 2-pot radial calipers
Rear brakes: 255mm disc, 1-pot caliper
Front tyre: 100/90-19
Rear tyre: 150/70 R17
Wheelbase: 1530mm
Rake/trail: 23.9’/92.4mm
Seat height: 810-830mm
Fuel capacity: 29 litres
Kerb weight: 216kg

Triumph Tiger Explorer XCA

Price: £15,900
Engine: 1215cc 12v dohc inline triple, l/c
Power: 137bph @9300rpm
Torque: 91lb.ft @6200rpm
Transmission: Six-speed shaft drive
Chassis: tubular steel trellis
Front suspension: 48mm upside-down forks, semi-active damping
Rear suspension: monoshock, electronically adjustable preload and semi-active damping
Front brakes: 305mm dics, 4-pot radial calipers
Rear brakes: 282mm disc, 2-pot caliper
Front tyre: 110/80 R19
Rear tyre: 150/70 R17
Wheelbase: 1520mm
Rake/trail: 23.1’/99.2mm
Seat height: 837-857mm
Fuel capacity: 20 litres
Kerb weight: 278kg

Please note: This page contains the routes for The RiDE Guide To France which came free with RiDE magazine in July 2017. These website pages are not regularly updated, so please check all critical information before you travel. All route files are in .gpx format. Garmin and BMW users can download the main file, which contains all the routes. TomTom users can either download the individual routes or use the MyRouteApp (depending on the age of your device). For many routes we also have Google Map links. However, as Google Maps will not plot routes over seasonally closed roads, such as high Alpine passes when they’re shut, so these may not work for every route all year round.