2017 Clermont Ferrand & Millau

  Col and I couldn't decide where to go for our 2017 trip, we talked about Ireland, Scotland and 

Le-man all because we wanted a cheaper trip than the last 2 years. Eventually on a cold December night in the pub and after watching a re-run of a Top Gear episode, we came up with the Millau Viaduct and Tarn Gorge in the South of France.

 The plan was to do it over 5 days, 3 days of riding once we had got there and again this involved the van and a 13 hour drive.

The  Viaduct has been on our visit list in the past, but we have not been quite close enough to it before.  In January I looked for a hotel with secure parking, that was bike friendly and not too far from civilisation so we could enjoy the area when not on the bikes and the obvious choice was Clermont Ferrand.

 When I looked on Google maps it was about a 2 hour ride down to Millau and the viaduct, so thought that a far enough distance for a day out. The rest of the area closer to the hotel on the map had some bendy looking roads, so thought it seemed a good destination.

 July came and we collected the van. Eurocar again supplied us with a van with only 1000 miles on the clock, unfortunately for the 2nd time, it didnt have air-con which is what we asked for, or cruise control and worst it was also a transit custom, which I know far to well as being the most broken into van on the market and it can be done in about 40 seconds, so we were rather disappointed as we loaded the bikes. 

 We set out at 4:15am made our booking on Euro-tunnel and headed off deep in to France. The journey was event free only traffic we encountered was through Paris which lost us about 45 minutes.

We pulled onto our hotel carpark at 18:15 French time. We used  The Comfort Hotel next to the hospital and a petrol station, its not far off the main roads out of town, has a tram stop outside, some English speaking staff, was clean but tired looking and the car park was secured and kept the van hidden from the road so just what we wanted. 3 stars ***. The tour de France also used the same hotel the 1st night we were there.

 Day 1

  We were asleep for 10 hours so when we woke up it was after 9am, it was raining when we opened the curtains and we watched the sky as we ate our cornflakes. There was alot of blue heading our way so looked at the map and spotted a race circuit not to far away, I said lets go see whats there. It was closed and we could see nothing, apart from old volcano stacks, lots of them, I said lets wing it, we will just head up and eventually find something to look at, Col agreed as there was not much option. I lead for most of this ride, taking the N roads which looked like they were headed up hill, eventually we came across a shop, which looked good to get a drink from, but it only sold cheese.

 I took out my smart phone, looked at the maps and noticed we were close to a road called the D996.
 "This looks twisty, its gotta be good, its named after the Ducatti 996" I said, and was only 6 miles away, so we set off in that direction.
 To get there we followed the D983 which  takes you to the top edge of a volcano, we stopped for a rest and to admire the view.  The cauldron was along down to the left and full of trees.

Eventually we reached the left turn onto the D996 which in reality seemed better than it looked on the map, the corners just kept coming and the ribbon of tarmac was race track smooth, the road kept climbing taking you to heights where your higher than the low lying clouds covering our visors with a layer of drizzle, eventually we came out the top of the clouds and found the 1401 mtrs summit of col de la croix Morand and stopped for a magnum at the little gift shop.

The clouds lifted as we sat there and we could see a lake bathed in sunshine along way below us, so Col said shall we go there.
 I looked at the map and the D996 went passed the lake so we set off down the hill to Lac Chambon. We found a Lakeside hotel called Belle Vue and stopped for a drink watching the world go by for over an hour. The clouds on the mountains started to look threatening so we continued our journey back towards the hotel.
A few more miles along the road was the Chateau de Murol, an impressive looking hill fort, the clouds were gaining on us so we moved on, but the clouds had straight lines to follow, we had the twisty road and inevitably they caught us, we took to hiding under the trees until it stopped raining and headed back to the Hotel. 

D996   9 out of 10.

Day 2

 The weather app said that day2 was going to be the best weather of the 3 day, this was going to be the day to go on our longest trip of our few days away. We got up early opened the curtains to a grey clouded day, but at least it was dry.
 We set off in the local rush hour traffic which was like a Sunday morning in the UK, headed down the A75 towards  Millau, as this was the purpose of this trip, to ride over the Tallest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduct. The previous night we watched how it was built on Youtube which put us even more in the mood for seeing it.
  The Journey there was around 2 hours, it threatened to rain numerous times, even dropping cool over the taller mountains that the route took us. The dark grey threatening sky seemed to be endless and I was fearing the worst for the photo opportunities.
  We were only about 5 or 6 miles from the bridge when it first came into sight. The grey clouds came to an end and blue patches seen here and there, and bigger patches of blue over the bridge and the gorge below. I saw the turn for the visitor centre and we went to have a closer look.
  We left the bikes on the carpark, the walked up the hill to the viewing platform which is just a bit higher than the 245m high road deck of the bridge.  The Viaduct is built over the river Tarn, and was built to re leave the traffic problems through Millau.
The Millau Viaduct is 2460m long, has 7 pillars, The tallest pillar is 343m tall which makes it taller than the Shard in England and the  Eifle Tower making it the 4th tallest structure in France, the shortest pillar is 77m, which is still a long way up!

We took the photo's and headed back to the bikes to ride over it. There was a Toll to pay, this was a little confusing as it didnt show what vehicle you were paying to take over the bridge, we went to a lane that showed a picture of a car and a bike, posted your credit card in the slot and the barrier lifted so we pulled away, not until you get home do you actually see what you paid, we both paid 8 Euro the price for a car....

We crossed the bridge and gave each other a thumbs up, as if saying "thats one more thing off our bucket list!" We took the next turn off and followed the road so we could next ride under the bridge for a few photos, refuel and dinner in an air conditioned MacDonalds in Millau as it was warming up quickly.

 After Dinner we followed the road up through the gorge to a road that had appeared on an episode of Top Gear where the 3 presenters had some fun on a zig zag of a road running up the mountain. This was the village of Les Vignes and the road the D995.  The Gorge was lovely the river runs to the right of the road which had a number of tunnels and hairpins, its very touristy and there were a lot of camp sites, so the road speed was limited.
  We took the left turn onto the D995, by now it was hot the forecast had said 29 degrees but in leathers it felt hotter. We climbed the road out of the gorge, the heat effecting Col more than usual so I stopped and waited for him in the lay by near the top, where the Top Gear presenters had filmed part of the show. The journey back from there was another 2 hours, but the cooling breeze helped make it more bareable.

Day 3

 We had no plans for day 3 just to ride around and explore similar to day 1. We set off in a different direction, after spotting on the map the D216 another twisty bit of tarmac to the south west. This road was nice and the weather was good at this point.

 At the time I didn't  realise where it was headed only to end up back in the same place as we did on day 1, which wasn't all bad as we got to ride the D996 again, but this time it was wet. Infact so wet we had to get the waterproofs out which is a mood changer and the ride is more for the hell of it than enjoyment. We called it a day in the early afternoon after another stop by Lac Chambon and went back to the hotel and planned to spend the evening in the city, which was most impressive.

 All in all I enjoyed the trip and would definately head to that area again, the weather could have been more generous to us, but we have some new roads to add to our Ultimate Roads section.

Summary
Date:- July 2017
Weather:- 5 mixed Days 22-26 degrees
Hotel:- The Comfort Hotel - Claremont Ferrand - gated parking
Miles:-1860, 1370 in a van
Fuel Cost:- 1.22 approx
EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col
Aim:- To ride over the Millau bridge