Le Mans 24 Heures Motos

Myself and a couple of mates have only had our licences a short time. One of them decided to ride to Le Mans for the 24 hour race over the weekend (21st - 22nd April 2018).

So we booked ourselves onto the Portsmouth - Caen ferry on Thursday night, and a return on the Sunday night. I found us a hotel in the town so we could avoid the mayhem of the event campsite, and I prepared myself mentally for the longest and toughest riding I'd done to date.

First up I headed from Peterborough to meet one of my mates in Clapham Common. What should have been a simple route on the North Circular turned into a slightly more direct route down Abbey Road, through Marylebone and Mayfair, over the Chelsea Bridge next to Battersea Power Station. It was hot and mega busy, but it helped me gain confidence in traffic and my ageing Bandit 600 coped very well. From Clapham Common we headed out on the A3 to meet the others at South Wisley services just outside the M25. We both enjoyed free cake from Starbuck's, the others arrived late but we had claimed a couple of extra pieces for them before the store closed.

We then convoyed down to Portsmouth to try and find Fish and Chips, but ended up with awful dirty burgers from some dodgy hole-in-the-wall takeaway.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.7974446,-1.1056931,3a,28.1y,74.32h,85.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sP4o_UqpbVt9TGaxe9PmeLQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

My lack of experience showed up as we tried to check-in at the ferry port. I decided to get my passport out whilst in the queue, and then rushed to move off and realised I didn't have enough appendages to hold the passport and make a nice controlled stop. I got away with it though, only just rolling passed the window and not dropping the bike as I wobbled to a halt! Boarding the ferry was fun, despite a long wait. They really cram bikes in and it wasn't good for the rider in our group who was very proud of his smart BMW K1300S.

Coming off the ferry in Ouistreham we were greeted by an orange sun trying to burn off the mist that was rising from the marshes next to the canal. It was glorious. We used back roads towards Le Mans, and stopped in the stunning Falaise for an even more stunning breakfast.

We didn't ride into the race circuit, instead using the tram system which allowed us to wear shorts and t-shirts and have a couple of beers. If we were hardcore race enthusiasts we would have camped their, but our plan was just to explore the event and see some action, but not watch every moment. Sunset and night racing were great spectacles, though nothing matched the French National Anthem, jet flyover and sprint start.

We checked out of our hotel on the Sunday morning and headed North on the motorway towards Omaha Beach to take in some WWII history. The tolls were free for motorbikes

Our final destination was Caen for some dinner and I tested my riding skills with a few circuits of the town centre looking for a place to eat with parking in view. My confidence has grown massively and I'm now feeling relaxed in most situations I encounter. So much so that I decided to take an alternative route home, completely solo, to avoid the M25 at rush hour. I thoroughly enjoyed it apart from being a bit chilly. I was even filtering through traffic carefully and confidently.

I would upload some photos, but the first thing I did on getting home was bung my phone in the washing machine so I need to spend time recovering the memory card!

Nice write up.

Good idea to clean the phone of any pics like that after a weekend away with the lads.

Nice write up.

Good idea to clean the phone of any pics like that after a weekend away with the lads.

Must have been some right shockers on there to go to that extreme

sounds a good trip that. That burger place does look pretty special, surprised you survived to tell the tale.

[mention]goat[/mention] I only had chips, fortunately!

I should have added that my Bandit was a great bike for the trip. I'd had some issues with it stalling prior to the trip, but my local garage seem to have resolved this by cleaning the carbs and setting the idle a bit higher. Fuel economy was really good - I got from Caen to Northampton and was only down to 2 out of 5 bars. That's about 150 miles of riding. I probably could have got back to Peterborough but decided to refuel rather than risk it, and I needed a pee break anyway.

@goat I only had chips, fortunately!

I should have added that my Bandit was a great bike for the trip. I'd had some issues with it stalling prior to the trip, but my local garage seem to have resolved this by cleaning the carbs and setting the idle a bit higher. Fuel economy was really good - I got from Caen to Northampton and was only down to 2 out of 5 bars. That's about 150 miles of riding. I probably could have got back to Peterborough but decided to refuel rather than risk it, and I needed a pee break anyway.

Yes....there's no fuel stop you would rather have just taken than the one where you thought it would "be OK" until the next one....

Sounds like a great trip! One that I'm sure you will remember for a long time. Well until the next one

I assume the weather stayed on your side?

Sounds like a great trip! One that I'm sure you will remember for a long time. Well until the next one

I assume the weather stayed on your side?

Oh yeah, it was pretty much sunshine the whole time. I was wearing cheap Kevlar Jeans, a base layer and my Furygan Serpico jacket without the liner, and that was enough. We had a few drops of rain on the Sunday. Riding home early on Monday morning was a bit chilly, and I had more layers on then but I was on motorway and moving quite a bit faster.

Sounds like a great trip, thanks for sharing.