Conquering Fear on Tour de France Routes
By Robert Navin, #212529
Riding a motorcycle through the French Alps to tackle the legendary twisties of Tour de France routes is a thrill tempered by a dose of fear. There’s the good kind of fear, the kind that keeps you sharp and safe, and the bad kind that can freeze you up and make things dicey. Finding the sweet spot where healthy caution meets relaxed fun is the trick. For two Americans pushing their limits on unfamiliar alpine roads, this was a two-week crash course in balancing both.
This adventure was my friend Bruce’s brainchild. At a BMW club meeting, he lit up talking about carving through the Tour de France’s alpine routes. Bruce logs 15,000 miles a year and teaches motorcycle classes, and he was hooked on the idea and excited to practice his rusty high school French in Paris. I ride maybe 3,000 miles a year when the weather’s nice, so I was curious–not sold. My near-fluent French caught his interest, though, and he waved off my skill concerns. “I’ll handle the planning,” he said. “You just show up. I’ll navigate, and if I zip ahead, I’ll loop back for you.” Sold! We booked bikes, helmets, flights and hotels for August 2022.
In late June, Bruce’s wife dropped a bomb: “Honey, you’re not going. I bought a house and you need to sell ours.” Bruce was out, and I wondered if I could handle those mountain twisties solo. After a sleepless night, I decided to go for it. My wife, ever supportive, secretly recruited my old Peace Corps buddy Mike to join me. Mike rides less than I do and called the trip “insane” months earlier. After a cash bribe from my wife and some nudging from his adventure-loving girlfriend, he was in. I echoed Bruce’s pitch: “I’ll take care of everything. Just ride. We’re a team.” Mike’s dry humor was a bonus I didn’t expect.
Bruce took the time to walk me through loading GPX files into the BMW Connected app. I practiced tight turns on the Blue Ridge Parkway and joined Cone Camp for slow-speed drills. The Harley guys showed me I still had work to do. Mike prepped too, taking two motorcycle classes and conquering Mount Lemmon.
We chose Moto-Plaisir near Geneva for our rentals. It was near the Alps, stocked with BMW motorcycles and close to an airport with direct flights from Dulles. They had 69 bikes ready when we arrived; Mike picked a Triumph Tiger GT Pro (he rides a Bonneville T100 at home) and I got a BMW F 900 XR (I’m used to an F 800 ST). The higher seats gave us both some jitters. GoPros weren’t available, but honestly, our rides couldn’t top the epic Alps videos already out there.
Our first headache turned out to be Bluetooth issues. Mike’s rental wouldn’t sync with my Schuberth R2 helmet, and while I could get TomTom directions, I couldn’t get both TomTom and Mike’s voice at once. We muddled through, with me toggling between the TomTom and the road to relay cues to Mike. Later, we ditched voice comms so I could focus on directions, which only led us astray three times. As far as problems go, it was annoying but not disastrous.
Bruce mapped out a 12-day counterclockwise route, but I flipped it to clockwise for better weather to see Mont Blanc (15,774 ft). Reversing the GPX files wasn’t easy, and I didn’t set the TomTom to a parking garage, so we scrambled to park (illegally) in Chamonix, barely making our cable car to take us up 12,605 feet. Altitude sickness hit me hard—I nearly fainted—but the clear, wind-free view of the retreating glacier was worth it. Visit soon; it’s shrinking 98 feet a year.
From Chamonix, we rode west to Annecy, south to Chambery Gap, and passes–which they call cols–like d’Allos (7,382 ft, 33-time Tour de France route), de la Bonnette (9,193 ft, 6.8% average gradient), de Vars (6,916 ft) and d’Izoard (7,743 ft). We looped around la Meije’s 13,000-foot glacier, crossed Lac du Chambon’s dam, hit Pont de Claix, Thonon-les-Bains and the Route des Grandes Alpes to Morzine, then went back to Annemasse. The northern Route Napoléon from Chambery to Gap was a historic highlight.
The passes were intensely narrow roads, some barely 1.5 lanes wide, with flimsy barriers of gravel ridges, wooden rails or just police tape where rockslides had wiped them out. At Col de la Bonnette, I dodged altitude sickness worries and a kid bombing down on a skateboard. The 70-mile view of Italian peaks was unreal, shared with motorcyclists, cyclists and even an old VW bus that passed us. A cyclist in her 50s, unfazed by the climb, snapped our photo and shrugged, “This is what we do.” It was humbling.
Col d’Izoard’s 7% gradient and 34 Tour de France appearances tested us. Mike, battling anxiety, admitted to a foot-down moment in a twisty. “Two seconds of lost focus after eight hours in the saddle ain’t bad,” I told him. His mantra: “Focus.” A pro photographer caught us in action, and we bought the shots online for posterity.
Not every highlight was a twisty. On a straight valley stretch, a Ducati rider on a bright red bike signaled, “Wanna race?” I declined, grinning as he vanished over the horizon. In Thonon-les-Bains, we shared a hotel with 70 junior Tour de France riders, all of them lean, agile and backed by seven vans and other vehicles filled with serious support crews and their tools. Bicycling is serious business in Europe!
Navigating traffic circles was tricky. France’s “ronds-points” vary; some give right-of-way to vehicles in the circle, others to those entering. Mike struggled to keep up in multi-lane circles, risking rear-enders. Toll booths were another hassle, beyond what they usually are for motorcycles; I skipped a few $2.50 tolls, earning a $115 fine from France’s Directorate of Highways after trying to sneak through with cars. Mike’s hand cramped from gripping too tight, and he dropped his bike a few times at low speeds. Moto-Plaisir charged fairly for minor damage. Fatigue and anxiety were real, but Mike’s openness let me adjust routes and offer support. Over dinner, we laughed off the stress, sticking to one riding tip a day.
My wife texted mid-trip, “Is this a motorcycle adventure or a food tour?” It was a fair point. Family-run inns served local gems like tartiflette (cheese, bacon, potato casserole), fresh caprese, sauerkraut with sausage, and baked perch with Raclette. Desserts like crème brûlée with vanilla ice cream or Calvados flaming apple tarts were unreal. One night, we ended up at a French steakhouse chain, staring at cow and sheep portraits while their kin sizzled on the grill. Lodging was tight, as Europeans flocked to the Alps to escape hot weather that summer instead of to the Mediterranean to enjoy it, making scarce the usual surplus ski lodge rooms, but Booking.com saved us nightly.
Looking back and reflecting honestly, we used four methods to manage our fear and anxiety about the trip. Mike and I were honest with each other, sharing our concerns up front and agreeing on routing and route changes along the way. We checked in with each other daily–sometimes hourly–to make sure we stayed on the same page. We learned a lesson about our gear, resolving to test everything before riding to avoid having to work around issues like subpar comms. Finally, we supported each other with reassurances and kept coaching to a minimum to keep our stress levels low. We also made sure we had fun during our time off the bikes.
Despite the fun we had, it wasn’t a perfect trip. A slower pace or an extra week would’ve boosted the fun. As Neil Peart, BMW rider and Rush drummer, put it in his book Roadshow, “Adventures suck when you’re having them.” Funny later, nerve-racking when they’re happening, but worth every twisty.
