Côte d’Azur Party, 7-8 May 2010
St. Tropez 2010
The start of the riding season brings with it ‘our’ chance for some early sun - well it should have, it did last year anyhow. This year though France, indeed most of Europe experienced un-seasonally bad weather!
Anyway never mind about that it’s the trip, the journey, the experience, friends oh and the cost, well never mind the cost eh it’s a holiday! Our ride down started on the Tuesday morning with an 08.20 tunnel crossing - we (Jane and myself) bumped into Rob Warr and his friend at the terminal, they were getting the next training and were bombing straight to Beaune from there. Meanwhile we were taking it easy with a fairly short jaunt down to Reims the capital of the champagne region - hic.
Normally on this leg of the journey you expect the weather to be, well a bit English really - it didn’t disappoint. Still no problem lunch and dinner in Reims is something we rather like to take part in and the following day we ourselves would be in Beaune. The journey started the next morning with cold and wind, we met on chap on the way who said he was going to Grenoble for that day - good luck. In fact we saw him again about 150 from St Tropez the next day and he said he gave up after about 50 miles. For those reading this later in the year thinking about 2011 I’d hasten to add that 2009 saw very nice weather, warm and sunny with three days spent in the pool.
Anyway Beaune came and went, on towards the south coast and eventually arriving on Thursday afternoon. We stayed at the same hotel as last year on the St. Tropez Marina and town side, quiet, expensive but it had a pool. There was a couple of UK plate Harleys there, one was Monarch of the Glen, a Warr’s creation from a CVO Ultra for it’s owner who has a liking for all things Scottish, bizarre really when you consider it’s not his country.
The other bike belonged to C&F member Mark Corbidge, a more affable chap you could not wish to meet, his was the CVO Street Glide. I by comparison ‘only’ had a 103" Ultra Ltd to go with these 110" big boys!
The weather was now reasonably warm and with the arrival of Friday night saw the C&F gathering on the marina side by Kelly’s Irish bar (talking of which we’d met Frank and his wife earlier in the day). Plenty of C&F people turned up with not quite so many Meridan folk this year, assistant director Dave Mann was there though with Karen his other half and we road back to Beaune with them on the return leg.
Several of the Warr’s custom bikes were displayed that evening outside the bar including 24 ridden by Warr’s custom supremo Charlie Stockwell who built it too.
Saturday morning saw the gathering of our clan at the Warr’s HQ villa near Gassin for gassing, coffee and breakfast. Ready to rock we departed with around 50 bikes, John Warr leading and off towards Toulon. The ride was in good weather, my face got a little red from the sun and went nearly without incident, ok a few got lost near the end in Pampellone but they found us on the beach eventually - no names ok, no names. The ride was good, the beach bar was good with a load of food laid on followed by the ritual handing out of the chapter ride badges. Pictures duly taken the group started to drift off back towards their own locations around the bay.
Saturday evening brought a memorable experience when whilst at dinner with Mark Corbidge we met an American couple who asked us if this was like Daytona. We chatted for the rest of the evening and then got invited back to their super-yacht for drinks. This was a big boat at 175ft with a crew of 13 on board, it was now gone midnight but we got a tour of this $25 million gin palace followed by drinks n’ nibbles - fantastic.
Next day of course was the reality check of the return ride, some thought they would be flying home - oh but what about the volcanic ash!
Nick Deal - C&F Road Captain