Best Route From Calais To Valencia

Interesting thread, as i’d like to ride down to Denia next year ( 100km south of Valencia)

looked at ferry prices to Bilbao/Santander, they seem very expensive, so was considering riding from either ch tunnel or Caen

can’t decide if the extra cost of the spain ferry offsets the hassle ?

steve

 

Factor in all the costs of an alternative crossing, fuel, tyres, accommodation and the roads not being great if you're taking the fastest route. Then the Santander or Bilbao ferries make more sense.

 

Fully agree, why waste the time, effort, fuel and money on shlepping across France when for what may be a small premium you can get right to where you want to go quicker and arrive fresh to enjoy the really enjoyable roads.

We did it a few years ago before doing Biarritz to Andorra along the Pyrenees .....

 

I kinda think Clermont Ferrand will add a lot of time. It looks right on Google but believe me when I say it will add time. Go via Limoges, as per Bobt.
Fuel, use your sat nav and find any main supermarket chain, typically less than two minutes off main routes. The toll road services will have your eyes out, unless your really tight on time.

 

Btw, some good suggestions about other alternatives. Its little fun two days slog down to there. Taking N and D roads tbh not that realistic for time against speeding risk, because you would defo need to crack on. Zoom in on Google maps and see just how many villages on what looks like main routes that will give an idea how slow some of the progress can be.
Gillet jaunes seemed to have put paid to a lot of cameras around here. BUT some have been replaced with high level tech, well out of reach of even the most determined GJs.
Mobile traps, cops on bikes etc. tea time seems to be the busy time.

 

What c11.30am with a digestive biscuit ?

 

I average over 50mph including stops for fuel and food (every 2-3 hours) and rarely use toll roads. The 1000 miles from Calais to Valencia is two 10 hour days on the bike. If you’re prepared to pay for a bit of toll motorway then Calais to Rouen is all dual carriageway. Rouen to Chartres is mostly non toll dual carriageway and it is non toll dual carriageway (N10) from Poitiers to Bordeaux. That’s over 300 miles of a 500 mile ride on dual carriageway. So it is actually quite quick.

I find that sections of ordinary road help to break up the journey and keep my mind working. I can’t ride 5/600 miles just on motorway, I would die of boredom.

Personally I found the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao to be really boring. Other than read the only thing to do is drink, unless you are a fan of low quality cabaret entertainment. I’d rather be riding my bike through France on a motorway in the pouring rain. The ferry isn’t helped by the fact that at this time of year the Bay of Biscay can get quite rough, so the crossing may not be comfortable for everyone.

 

I've done Plymouth-Santander out and Calais home a few times. Makes a nice loop. This year we went from Calais to Antwerp for a night then Luxembourg for cheap fuel, autobahn through Deutschland and back into France before a day of Switzerland - crossingi France again in the evening. All to avoid the route down East France to the Alps.

 

The Plymouth/Portsmouth - Santander crossing is boring, but does save pointless motorway drudgery, or exposure to the Gendarmerie's fiscal ambitions on the Routes Nationales. Those sailings are great though if you get early morning sailings that disgorge you 24 hours later with a full day's ride ahead of you. We were unlucky to travel with Brittany Ferries in the aftermath of the engine room fire they suffered earlier this year, as a result of which, they re-jigged their sailing times constantly for a few months, which meant that we arrived in Spain at about 6pm, instead of 8am as had been the plan when we booked. We thereby lost the bulk of the day to get where we were going arriving in the dead of night instead of the afternoon, likewise coming back, we landed at 7pm with over 300 miles to ride home, making it more of a chore

 

Thanks Neal

know Xabia/Javea really well, its a lovely seaside town thats tourist friendly but not ruined

let me know when you are out, as we are there mosts months for at least a weekend so could maybe get a beer!

steve

 

have you ridden a long day/distance before?? also remember that it gets dark early now, in summer time its easy doing a longer day. i must be a wuss as i find 400 miles or 6-8 hours is enough for me and that was in summer.
i know youve booked already, but i got an overnight ferry Portsmouth depart 9pm Arrive 7am in Saint Malo giving a whole day to ride. I used peage when going long.....easy for petrol, predictable, good toilets, more expensive sure, but turning off and going to some small station then back - wastes a lot of time.
Good luck - it looks like two long days ride to me.

 

Misterpink is quite right. You’ll only have about 10 hours of daylight. Sunset will be at about 6pm.

 

Further south you ride, the longer the days are in the winter.

 

Yes. By mid November you have about 10 hours of daylight in Valencia and 9 hours in Northern France.

When riding back to the U.K. you’ll be getting fewer daylight hours as you head north. If you don’t like riding at night you might want to plan your route accordingly.

 

Yep, the ferry companies have done their homework regarding road trips.

 

Granted it still doesn't still quite add up but the convenience and ease of just rolling off the ferry fresh and ready to enjoy, pretty well immediately, some great riding pushes it over the line for me. Then there's the prospect of the slog home at the end of a tour if you're crossing via the channel.

Not averse to the idea of going via the channel ports if that's all part of the trip but schlepping across France in a day or two just to get to Spain is missing the point IMHO. If going with the GF it would be a leisurely 3 days across France and enjoy that part too, she doesn't like long ferry journeys.

 

Remember speed limits off the peage are low and there will be speed traps set up.

You almost certainly wont see them either and it wont be til two weeks later that you find out how many times you were caught.

 

This isn’t totally accurate.

There are sections of non péage motorway that have a 130kph speed limit and a lot of dual carriageways are 110kph. Last week I drove from Nantes to Dieppe avoiding all the péages. Nantes to Rennes is 110kph. Rennes to Caen is mostly 130kph. The motorway between Rouen to Dieppe is a mix of 130kph and 110kph. 300 miles in 6 and a half hours and I was strictly obeying the speed limit and driving very smoothly (I didn’t want to scare my 85 year old passenger). It did include about 45 minutes stopped for my passengers plus heavy traffic in Friday evening rush hour in Rouen. I would have been quicker on the bike.

Most speed cameras in France are signed in advance, so you know when to slow down and your sat nav warns you as well. Plus about half of them have been rendered non-operational by protestors.

Yes the police do set up speed traps, usually on the edges of towns where speed limits change, but if you are sensible you won’t get caught by them. The police are just as likely (if not more so) to set up a speed trap on a motorway. With a higher volume of traffic they are likely to catch more speeders. It is also easier for them to hide (usually on a slip road) and safer to chase and stop people on a motorway.

I’ve ridden and driven tens of thousands of miles in France over the past 20 years, much of it above the speed limit (like most of the French drive) and have only been fined once, gesticulated at to slow down twice, stopped for a tyre tread check once and an insurance check once. My French wife who lives over there gets caught speeding about once a year, but drives much slower than I do, she’s just inattentive.