UK to Greece - too much for a newbie
 

Thinking of going from South East UK to Greece and back in a week this summer. Will be sticking to motorways where possible. Is this too much for a newbie?

Isn't it a couple of thousand miles one way to Athens? That's a lot of riding for a week to go there and back.

You'd be much better off picking a closer destination or only riding one way and having someone ride your bike back. That way you can pick the more interesting route and not just the fastest.

I should have added that I plan to go via Ancona in Italy in 2 days with 1 night's stop in Switzerland (probably Basel) and take the overnight ferry across to Igoumenitsa in Greece. This will mean a couple of 500 mile days on motorways through France, Switzerland and Italy. Once in Igoumenitsa it is a 200/250 mile ride to Thessalonika which is where I am headed.

What's the point?

Just ride around the M25 continuously to put the miles on your odo and tell your mates you went to Greece and back.

They'll never know the difference and nor will you.

Doc - you make a good point. The reason I am thinking of doing this route is that I don't have a huge amount of time. In addition I have minimal experience on a bike let alone touring so I thought it would be better to stick to the main roads for my first tour. I am planning to surprise my family who will be holidaying near Thessalonika and stay with them for a couple of days. I will probably take a bit of a detour through the Alps on my way back depending on how things are going. I guess all I am asking is, is this a stupid thing to do for someone with minimal experience?

Really it would be a bit stupid even for an experienced rider, how many days in your week? If you want to surprise your family, assuming they would appreciate the surprise:blushing:, I would go by plane. I watched a youtube clip today by an experienced rider who said that a 300mile max per day is really enough. Is overland travelling all about racing there and back then telling your mates at the pub, yes I've done that one,? I think not.

Just checked London (you don't say where in the SE you're leaving from/returning to) to Thesaloniki on google maps. The shortest distance is 1664 miles. So return, lets say 3500miles. In 7 days... 500 miles a day. Every day. doh And you say you're a novice rider. Is this a wind-up?

Different people have different ideas of what a m/c trip is all about. Very very few would come up with the same idea as you.

As suggested, do some loops of the M25, or even M4 - M5 - M6 -M1 - M25 to break things up a bit. Or fly and rent a bike there.

Oh yeh, the "night boat" from Italy to Greece: I recall it took 36 hours when I took it. That was a while ago. Maybe ships travel 3x as fast these days.

Good luck!

Yes.

Cheaper to fly to Greece, rent a scooter, surprise your family, relax for a few days and fly back.

On the other hand, if you are young and need some stress in your life and don't mind riding all day every day on the freeways have at it. I've done crazier things that make me smile when I think about it.

Best,
John Downs

You don't say what kind of bike you will be driving. If it is a sport bike, it would be incredibly uncomfortable. If it is something like a BMW R1200GSA, with an upright riding position, it would just be uncomfortable .

Driving 500miles/day wouldn't be any fun and to do that you would have to be on motorway almost all the time. Driving a bike on a motorway isn't much fun. No scenery, lots of traffic, stress, pollution, noise and buffeting if you are going fast, etc. Mentally very tiring, etc.

I am planning a novice trip to Norway soon, but don't want long slogs up motorways, apart from the first day from Northern Germany to Christiansand on the Norwegian south coast. Last year I drove to Oslo in a motor home and it was mentally quite tiring, so we had 2 nights there to recover.

Flying out and renting does sound much more sensible and enjoyable. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Grey Beard

I think people have given you the right advice, fly and rent. I've done 750 mile days but only because it felt right on the day, I'd never plan to do more than 350 and would be more comfortable with less than 250.

You'd probably (<--note the deliberate choice of the word "probably") survive the experience, but you wouldn't have much fun doing it. I did a ride like that a couple of months after getting my first bike--it had eight or ten thousand miles on it when I left. I was in no shape to do much of anything when it was over, and I had a couple of days when I was so tired that if anything had gone wrong--an animal or bit of trash in the road, a flat tire or error of judgment--I'd have gone down. Is this surprise visit worth risking your life for?

It gets easier if you've got more experience....but still, most people would choose not to bother. There's a reason for that.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

probably
 

Undoubtedly - much cheaper to fly and hire.

Have you riden/driven on the right before? Take care if you haven't - Mark's definitely right to use the word 'probably' above.......

Thanks for all the responses - very helpful (well most of them :smile2:). Based on the feedback and some doubts I was having (which is why I posted initially) I have decided to do something more modest for my first tour. Haven't decided what to do yet but possibly a run over to northern France once I have got some UK miles under my belt which brings me to another question - how much experience do you think is necessary before anyone should attempt a ride over to the continent?

Generally speaking, if you have to ask, you need more experience. Confidence and mental focus are equally important to having the physical skills to ride a motorcycle.

You gain confidence by riding. I remember in my youth when a 500 mile ride seemed like a big deal. And it was to me. I was new to riding and a bit unsure of taking such a long ride.

I had so much fun and it was so exciting I couldn't seem to stop going on longer and longer rides. So I guess my advice is to stop now while you can. I'm just kidding of course. :mchappy:

What was the question? Oh yes. My advice is to take your seven day vacation and head wherever your heart desires. Try not to stress yourself out. Look at it as training for longer rides. If you make it over to the continent remember to keep your left shoulder next to the center line of the road at all times and counter clockwise around the roundabouts. Being from the US I was given the opposite advice when first riding in the UK and keeping my right shoulder and throttle hand next to the center of the road and taking the roundabouts clockwise was the advice that saved me, especially when making left and right turns when I was most apt to get confused.

Have fun!

Kindest regards,
John Downs

Enough to ride safely in the UK. And the ability to remember to ride on the correct (right) side of the road on the continent.

I was going to suggest that if you want to spend your week gaining riding experience take a trip to the north of England or even Scotland and back. But having seen the weather you are having even this might not be a good idea for an inexperienced rider, riding in poor conditions requires a lot more concentration than in good and an accident is much more likely, I would go with a previous suggestion and fly to Greece, hire a bike there and take to some small, quiet roads.
Alternatively why not actually go on holiday with your family for at least part of it and do the above?

This is probably the best answer, just go over to France and take a ride around and set no 'end of day' targets and just enjoy.


Quote;Thanks for all the responses - very helpful (well most of them :smile2:). Based on the feedback and some doubts I was having (which is why I posted initially) I have decided to do something more modest for my first tour. Haven't decided what to do yet but possibly a run over to northern France {quote}

So which responses were not helpful? Was it the ones that suggested you were a little ambitious in your proposed trip?

Do it, let us know if you survive and when you're back, let us know how far you ACTUALLY got :thumbdown:

If you do UK <-> Greece in 1 week, then you will almost certainly qualify for the IronButt hall of fame: www.ironbutt.com

If you would rather enjoy yourself, then spend time on little roads touring western europe and avoid the motorways! Can't get much better than France IMHO.

Assuming you do venture onto the continent (no reason not to) do remember about the Priority a Droit. It is NOT just in France, but in most of Europe as far as I can see. Certainly, you have to be careful in Germany with that rule in 30km and also in some 50km/h zones.

The other question we should ask is, do you already have experience driving a motor car, or have you just passed your driving test for the bike? If so, are you limited on power of the bike engine, etc. as you would be if you had just passed the test in Germany (unless you are older).

Experience driving a car certainly helps as you will have acquired some knowledge of Road Craft, etc.

Grey Beard

If you do venture over to northern France the only advice I would give would be to use a petrol station on "your" side of the road.
That way you'll be facing the right way to rejoin the road on the correct side.
Bon voyage.

Go For It.
 

A few days in Northern France without massive targets sounds a good idea. I reckon do it now, while you are still thinking conciously about your riding. If you get a lot more UK experience things will become "automatic", you'll have to fight the "automatic" instinct on your first trip abroad and force yourself to do things "backwards" i.e. pulling out on the correct side of the road, checking over your shoulder and in the mirrors.

For what it's worth, if you still fancy a ride across the channel, then I'd second the suggestions here about northern France.

Take the coast road south-west from Calais, Wissant, Boulogne, Etaples and so on. If you like beaches they're lots of them.
If you like quirky sights, somewhere along there (don't remember where) there's the remains of the channel tunnel that Napolean started to dig.
And endless little pensions to stay in.
Not normally crowded but I don't think I've ever been there in the school holidays, so wouldn't know about that time of year.

Also don't forget, the French police are pretty hot these days on speeding, and often the start of a speed limit is the sign giving the name of the village, not a number inside a red circle.

Or maybe the coast road NE to Ostend, Bruges and Gent. Bruges is one of the nicest towns in Europe and you get the best chips in the world there. And many would say the best beer as well.
And in my experience, if your French isn't much good like mine, the Belgians are more forgiving than the French towards English attempts at the language.

A little anecdote I'll always remember: looking for somewhere for lunch in a little French town, saw a pavement cafe and decided to do the French thing, ride my bike onto the pavement and park it right next to a vacant table.
But decided at the last minute there wasn't enough room between the two tables and went to park in the kerb.
Too late! The waiter had already seen my first intent and nipped over, and pulled a table right out of the way to leave plenty of room next to the table I first aimed for! :D

That sums up that France/Belgium region for me.
Much better than 25 laps of the M25, even if you stop off at Box Hill every lap....

Thanks again for all the very helpful responses. Northern France sounds like a great place to aim for for my first trip abroad. Used to holiday a lot there with the Mrs in the early days.

To give some background on me I turned 50 earlier this year and have driven for over 30 years so I'd consider myself an experienced and safe driver. I have also cycled a fair bit in London and all over the south east as well as in France, Spain and Italy without an accident (although have witnessed a few) so, whilst I would not begin to compare a bicycle to a motor bike, I have had extensive experience of being a vulnerable road user and how to minimise the risk of an accident. I also did ride (motor) bikes when I was younger both off and on road but, as it was 30 years ago and I never took my test, I consider myself a novice. I have been thinking about getting a bike for a few years now but the thing that has persuaded me is that so many of my friends have got bikes, including the sensible ones, and I didn't want to miss out on the fun. I have also been persuaded by a friend of mine (also 50 this year, got his licence a couple of months ago) to go with him to do a 10 day ride in India on a Royal Enfield Bullet 350 in December with Charley Boorman to raise money for UNICEF which I am very excited about.

Greece and back in a week was probably not one of my best ideas but it is a trip I would love to do over a longer period of time when I have more miles under my belt.

In my opinion none. I'd done less than 1000 miles since passing my test when I first went away on a decent sized trip. To learn you need to clock up time on the bike, and Europe is as good a place as anywhere to do that.

In terms of wether or not you can do it or should do it I reckon you could do it, if you wanted to. I did Greece to the UK last year and it took 3 days (ish) - but at that point we we riding two up as I had passed the bike I was on to Helen, who went off into Turkey and Iran on it. We stopped for a night just north of Rome, then pushed on to south of Lyon, then rode from Lyon to Sheffield. The last leg I wouldn't recommend to anyone, experienced or otherwise! We were on the bike for about 25 hours.

You would have to be really pushing it in terms of hours in the saddle, it probably wouldn't be much fun and the petrol and ferries would cost more than a flight and a weeks bike rental. On the other hand it would be pretty intense and I quite like really long days, but I also like really strong coffee.

hey mates don't do that in the Greek tourism, we are in crisis...


im kidding...

Too many countries, too many nice places to see in a week...

I think you just choose the good decision...

Have a nice trip...

Thessaloniki is a 5 day trip without to much stress, We used the ferry back from Ignoumenista to Ancona, its an overnight crossing run by Superfast, excellent, thoroughly reccomend it, so we left Thessaloniki one morning, had lunch in the mountains and were in Ancona the following morning (not a stressful day), Italy can be very busy around that part though so even using the Autostrada (expensive) there seems to be many hours in the saddle to achieve big distances
It's doable but if your not used to it you will find it a bit of a marathon!

I have ridden from Newcastle to Venice (where you get the Ferry to Corfu then mainland Greece). The riding bit was two solid, very long days on a 1200GS which much of it at 80mph. The ferry took another 1.5 days.

In other words ... don't do it!