[Closed] Driving to the Alps

The long part is through France of course - we stopped at Cambrai as the rest was all straight road ro the Swiss Alps.

Stop off at lac blanc bike park in the Alsace, time your crossing right and you won't miss a days riding! Hot tip

I've always done it in one go apart from stopping there the night before, riding the following day then hot footing it to calais

It does go quick. Yorkshire to Saas Fee in one go. Four in the car with two drivers. Not the most fun but more time climbing.

18 hours door to door (Birmingham to alpe d'huez) with a couple of piss breaks and a lunch stop.

We're stopping overnight in Travelodge before going through the tunnel following morning.

Two of us to share the driving, couple of food stops along the way...

You don't say where you are setting off from, but its only 8 or so hours drive from Calais.
And it's nothing like spending 8 hours on UK roads. Far easier and less effort.

I've done it many times on my own from York and I certainly wouldn't waste time doing an overnight stop.
With more than one driver it would be a lot easier obviously.

for me I prefer to stop in France and go through the tunnel at night, but best place for me is near Reime where you can pick up a few cases of Champagne, or a palce called Bone,(not sure on the spelling) which was an amazing place, stopped a couple of days. It's raison d'etre is wine, loved the place and the vinyard cycle path

I normally get a late night chunnel then stop in a travel lodge just outside Calais and drive the whole way the next day. I have driven the whole way through the night before, but I was 10+ years younger and quite happy to miss a nights sleep back then.

or a palce called Bone,(not sure on the spelling)

Beaune, lovely place to stay. There is great place there that serves big steaks cooked on an open fire in the middle of the restaurant. Smells amazing 😀

Cheers guys. We have a flat booked Sat to Sat but we have both since managed to get the Friday off. We thought leaving a day early and stopping over would extend our holiday and leave us less tired. Our biggest worry is our bikes. Beaune sounds ideal but we need somewhere safe to store a few thousand pounds worth of bikes. We are going in a Ford Focus and the bikes will be on the roof.

We've stayed at Campanile motels and never had a problem taking bikes into our room.

As above 8 hours from tunnel so a days drive. When I've stopped it's tended to be at French side of the tunnel (Formule 1) having got a late crossing having been at work during the day. It totally depends on when you'll get through the tunnel - if you drive till dinner stay somewhere then an early start would get ou to resort just after lunch. I would not stay anywhere with bikes on roof

So when will you get to French side of tunnel ?

Beaune is lovely btw, heart of the Burgandy wine region and some interesting xc riding through vineyards plus national park "next door"

Edit: if you have Friday off why not leave Thur after work, stop at F1 in France overnight and arrive PDS on Friday evening - an extra night somewhere will be cheap and get another days riding ?

Overnight from Hull to Zeebrugge so you get a good night's kip, then a full day drive. We did it last summer - in Morzine by 7pm then started a Photoshoot that lasted till 1am.

Overnight from Hull to Zeebrugge so you get a good night's kip, then a full day drive. We did it last summer - in Morzine by 7pm

Good advice if you live in the North of England (or Scotland)

Not so good if you live on the South Coast 😉

I'm just going through the process of booking a hotel for doing exactly the same thing (only we're further south in the Alps).

Stayed in a place called Chaumont before which was a nice town for a wander round, something to eat and a few drinks. Take the bikes in the room with you (stay in a budget place and you probably won't see any staff!)

Also stayed in Beaune, it's lovely as others have said. We only had an afternoon wandering round, didn't do the place justice really, could do with having a day or two seeing the sights.

Good advice if you live in the North or England (or Scotland)
Not so good if you live on the South Coast
POSTED 4 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

We did it in one go from Bristol last year, getting an 11pm ferry and catching an hour or two of sleep about an hour the other side of Calais. The 5-6am stretch is the worst - both of us nearly dozed off at the wheel.

We've got a hotel in Saint-Omer this year.

We will be travelling from Bucks so Hull is probably a bit of a detour 😀
While it sounds great to leave on the Thursday, my alarm goes off at 0500 and Mr TW an hour later. We won't get home until late, so realistically we won't be leaving until Friday morning.
Formula 1 looks cheap and if we can take our bikes into our room that would be perfect. We are thinking we will stop about Troyes. Then we can enjoy a slow journey with lots of photo stops on the Sat.

Just booked to stay in Beaune on the way back home so we can have another good look round.

This might help,
[url= http://www.stopoverconnections.com/mod_4/pages/index.php ]Stopover map of france[/url]

Choose your route and see whats close. much better than a cheap crappy hotel. and the booking is handled in english.

Anyone ever stayed at the Formula 1 in Bucheres?

For me either just before (Holiday Inn Dartford) or just after f1 etc calais or in the first 50km. Either take the early morning tunnel or the late evening one.

It's not too bad as a full days drive with plenty of stops.

@hammerite - Beaune make sure you visit the Hospice

@timid Troyes might be a bit early for a stop, I've stayed in a few F1's and they are much the same - no "en suite" but hard to argue at the price

Cant remember the place name, but we stopped at the hotel on the motorway where there is a huge chicken made out of chrome pipes. Anyone who has driven to the French Alps will know the one.

My advice would be to do as much of your driving on the Friday. All gites change over on the Saturday so roads tend to be really busy with long queues at the payages. From the south coast you can easily get down to, at least Bourg en bresse if not further, in a day.

If you are leaving Friday morning then you should be able to get most of the way even at a slow pace. We've done that skiing, stayed at the f1 near evian and been in morzine first thing sat.

Noted. Thanks for the advice we will look for somewhere a bit further on.

aye we are doing dundee - newcastle - Sleep - amsterdam - somewhere near lyon..... in july.

looking forward to the biking , not looking forward to driving all that way.

how ever for 3 weeks and the ability to take both mtb and road bikes and move around it should be worth it 😀

We stay over on the French Swiss boarder when we go to Verbier and just of the tunnel on the way back

Euro tunnel is cheaper/quicker than the ferry too .

You lot are going soft!

Just done Preston to Garda 1200 miles non-stop.

Morning at work so don't need to use a day's holiday.
Set off early afternoon - Tunnel for 9pm - Driving again by 11pm local.
Only stop to refuel, change drivers at 800 miles (two tanks).
Arrive Garda 11am - ready for uplift shuttle before 12 noon.

Previously, on route to Mega and needing to get some shut-eye, I've just crashed-out in a bivi bag on the Aires de service for a few hours. There's always somewhere quiet and grassy.

Also, +1 for the Hull-Rotterdam overnight ferry if you're in the North. We use this most years for family ski trips to Dolomites. On the raod for 9am - arrive in time for evening meal.

Newark to alpe D'huez in one hit. 22 hours including 2 pickup/faff stops and 2 hour ferry from Dover to Dunkirk

Wish we'd stayed over at the time, but glad we didnt as it mean't more riding when we got there.

There's a decent campsite in Chalon sur Champagne.
Couple of hours into france.

Chrismac - I think that's called Aire du Poulet de Bresse near Bourg en Bresse.

dantsw - depends on the vehicle and when you're travelling. £301 for us return in the Tunnel. £168 for the ferry - we're in a Vivaro van and travelling the first week of the school summer hols so it may make a difference. Ferry is good for a breakfast stop too, tunnel is good if you're in a hurry.

we did it stupid looking back we had a 7pm chunnel then drove through the night and ended up bolloxed and had to pull into a god awful service station and slept for a few hours.
[b]
its longer than you think![/b]

defo do a proper stop over

the roads are waaaaay better over there though, no lane hogging etc.

Two drivers min and insist the 2nd driver gets rest when not driving!

Be careful sleeping in aires! We stopped in one in an lev with 10 of us scattered about in and out of the van, one of the guys woke up with someone's arm through the side window rifling through a bag! They know you are knackerd so really do try it on!

The tunnel is worth the extra, it really does save about 4 hrs by the time you factor on arriving, waiting, boarding, waiting to sail, sailing, unloading etc and on a journey of that length it's worth missing that faff

We're going through the night in July, via the tunnel. Plan to swap drivers every 2/3 hours, and pull over for some kip if necessary.

If anyone is looking for a nice place to stay within an easy drive from Calais Tunnel/Ferry then I would recommend Arras.

It's an Hour easy drive from/to Calais. There is an Ibis right in the Centre, loads of nice bars and restaurants and a pretty amazing little town centre to have a wander round too.

[img] [/img]

[img] http://m.flickr.com/photos/cnosni/7861917560/lightbox/ [/img]