Ok so me and my mate will be doing the euro tunnel from Folkestone to Calais on the morning on the 14th and then 822miles to Barcelona & then back on the same route on the 18th.
That's some going! Have you planned your stopovers in France? How long are you planning for the return journey?
No stop overs in France moily( apart for fuel , smokes & food)we going to do it in 1 day we get to Calais around 720am so we planning on arriving at our hotal around 9-10pm , that's if all goes well.
Well in that case, take lots of Pro-Plus with you and watch out for those pesky Gendarmes. If you do that in that time then deffo enter for the Iron Butt some time!
A couple of years ago we did Santander to Murcia and that was with no satnav crap weather getting lost almost running out of fuel( one bike rolled into the petrol station) and that took us over 11hours . But we did stop for a few hours to dry off, & the way back wasn't much better but that's another story.
I think I would fly - to do it in a day will be a killer, you will be dead next day, then have the nightmare to do it in reverse - fuel / euro rate high. You won't have much option but motorway all the way I don't think - can you not add an extra half day before and enjoy the trip a bit - say work till lunchtime on first day the go direct from work to tunnel and do a chunk of the route.?
We were going to do the Portsmouth to Santander but the dates we could go and come back didn't match that of Brittany ferries (silly asses). So next option was Portsmouth to St Malo but that would only save us a 100 or so miles so between me and my mate we came up with the idea of riding the whole way. Yes I know it's a little on the long side but it could be fun or then again it may be crap but either way I'll be telling all you lot about it.
I can tell you that to get to Andorra from Le Havre (which is significantly shorter) even when leaving the boat at 07:00 is tough - If you look at the distance from Calais vs Le Harve / mid channel crossing its miles longer - I've ridden that route to Andorra in a day about 5 times now so trust me when I say you wont make it intact / sane / safe to Barcelona I would aim for somewhere south of Toulouse - perhaps Ax Le thermes then enjoy the twisty roads over the pyrenees past andorra and over to Ripol and down to Barcelona Don't want to sound too much like your dad etc. but its simply far to far from Calais on a Blade to do it in a day. (but feel free to prove me wrong!!)
It's going to be a helluva long day, that's for sure! The 0720 train would have left Folkestone at 0550 (UK time) so you would have to realistically be at the terminal before 0515 to stand a chance of getting on it, but let's say 0500 to make sure you do get it. Then you'll have 820 miles on autoroutes capped at 130kph (80mph) in the dry and 110kph (68mph) in the wet: so you'll probably average around 65mph overall when taking conditions, traffic, roadworks, toll booths, etc. into account, making the riding part come to 12.5 hours. Fuel/rest stops will average about 20-30 minutes and need to occur every 100-120 miles. French service stations on the autoroutes are consistently located around every 20-25 miles or thereabouts. You're looking at 8 fill-ups over the distance (7 if you can fill up at Folkestone the night before), so account for 7 x 20 minutes = 2.5 hours for stops, making a grand total of 15 hours travelling time from Calais to Barcelona, leaving Folkestone accom at 0430 and arriving Barcelona at 0030, 20 hours later and with short rest stops. I don't know about you but I'm knackered just thinking about doing that trip!
Ok after listening to you all, the plan now is to leave on the Thursday and over night in Riom then make the rest of the way to Barcelona on the Friday & do the reverse on the return leg too
If you go route 2 on the 2nd day I can give you an epic route past Andorra then over one of the best roads (aka Cow shit road) down to Ripol over Col de Tosses towards Barcelona - from Touluse its all good, at least you will enjoy that without a doubt -
Have a look at this - please give it some serious thought - its epic! Toulouse, France to Barcelona, Spain - Google Maps can send you link to that route on video if you want to watch it first
Here you go [video]https://vimeo.com/channels/pyrenees/33665663[/video] First 30 mins should give you an idea - its an awesome route, if you do it DO NOT take the tunnel unless its really raining!
