However, fate took a turn, my wife found it and picking up on the La Belle Etoile 'Rider Tour', suggested it may be an opportunity for myself and son to share our biking passion. The last chance' she called it; you never know, I'm 74 years old, he's just 22!
It could be an interesting dynamic, given the age difference and the experience of riders that often go for these tours, with a newly-qualified A2 licence holder, where circumstances dictated only 300 post-test miles had been covered and about to go on 1600 miles worth of roads, mostly on the wrong side! For a while I've been concerned as to the amount of testing and training, not to mention the cost, and its impact on getting new younger riders into biking before they can head off into the wide-open spaces and enjoy the freedom that motorcycling offers. So how did the 'suitable for all riders' tour go?..
The three days of touring France started on Monday, June 5. Before that we had to get to our base, La Belle Êtoile - a farmhouse in the Parthenay-Gâtine region of the Deux-Sèvres in western France - 300 miles from our home in North Wales to Portsmouth, followed by the 220 miles or so from Caen.
We'd booked through MSL Tours so it was all hassle-free, Brittany Ferries was, as ever, efficient, and before we knew it we were having early-morning breakfast on board before disembarking and heading south down the A88 to Le Mans. We figured starting on the autoroute was the best way to settle ourselves into the French roads, remembering our A2 rider was by this stage 600 miles into his post test riding experience. Using the A88 was definitely a good choice and we were getting some miles under our belt.
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