Le Grand Tour – E03 – TET France – Section 21 – Husqvarna 701

I’m continuing the push south along section 21 of the Trans Euro Trail (France) starting in Viennay and finishing in Rochefort. Most of the trails are a mix of big double, and fairly straightforward, single track running through forestry – however, the going did get tougher in a few places, as you will see in the video. The rain poured down for a lot of this leg, which made the trails a bit more of a challenge than they should have been, but it was still a good ride! Day 06 was a complete washout, i spent the majority of it hiding in covered car parks, bus stops and under trees – it literally rained non stop! #husqvarna701 #transeurotrail

I wish I had my tablet with me and some Michelin enduro mediums and a lighter bike. Oh, heat, heat. Okay guys, uh day five. Welcome back to the channel. Just to recap, yesterday uh we came from the town of Salmir following section 21 southwest all the way down to uh Pathna where we stayed last night. Going really good. Uh it’s mostly uh big double track through areas of forestry, some farmland, but mainly mainly really decent forest trails. Closer we got into Pathon, it started to get a little bit more gnarly and we had a bit of a technical ascent, but other than that, steady away. Now, today we’re continuing southwest and I reckon we’re going to end up Oh, maybe around here in the area of this marshy place. That looks quite fun. But, you know, hey, we’ll see when we get there. Uh, weather’s okay. Rained on and off all day yesterday. Supposed to be dry but cloudy today with the rain making an appearance tomorrow. Uh that’s it really. Okay, let’s get going. Haven’t had any more dramas since day two. Everything’s gone quite smoothly, which uh for some reason makes me think, you know, I’ve left something behind or I’ve done something wrong or, you know, but yeah, we’re ticking along just fine at the moment. Most of these tracks, like I said before, they’re big bike friendly, novice friendly. Only in a couple of places so far has it been uh technical, just really fun, pretty countryside, nice relaxing riding. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. was quite slippery today. Hopefully that’ll uh dry out by midday, but that was quite a bit of rain that came down yesterday and last night, so it’s it’s not really surprising. Just got to watch what I’m doing in the in the mud. I’ve got uh I decided to go for longevity rather than performance with the front tire. And it’s uh Pirelli Scorpion, not the STR, the Rally, but not the full knobbyby. And it’s all right in a straight line, but the peripheral knobblies, the one around the edges of the tire, aren’t that good. So that when you get in ruts, they won’t grip to come out the side like a say a tracker would. It’s not the end of the world. I mean, not put up with it. The uh plus side to that is potentially it could last the whole trip. I’ve got a Motos Tractionator Desert on the rear, which is a really good tire and uh I’ve been quite impressed with it. I’ll show you how it’s wearing later. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. That’s where I think it is. Am I going to be able to get through this on my own? [Music] Going to ping back. No. [Applause] All right, let’s go. Always like these ones cuz you just can’t see what’s down there. There’s always a bit of tension because could get to an impass and uh on a steep tight lane a little impass can be in problem grand. That’s not too bad. Turning the bike round if you need to for a hastiest escape can be problematic. one of those cases where I had to once it was that tight. I had to literally take all the luggage off, drop the bike. I couldn’t spin it on its side stand because it kept sinking in the mud. So, I had to take all the luggage off, drop the bike, and just pull it round, which is, you know, easily achievable. It’s just tiring. This is fun. Right. This lane looks like it could be interesting. That front tire doesn’t like wet rocks. Glad I’m going down this and not. Oh, [ __ ] There you go. Watch where your feet are going. Yeah, that traction desert isn’t too good with wet rocks either. down that part. What’s your balance? Which way? Over that lot. That’s very slippery. I wish I had my tubless with me. and some Michelin Enjoy mediums and a lighter bike. Get up. Oh, this is the downhill bit. I hope I don’t have to turn around and go back up that. That’ll be fun. Never forget the old adage, don’t go down anything you don’t think you could get back up. This don’t look too bad. I am sweating. Put the Gortex on and oh boy. Roasting. Right. I never took my Gortex jacket off. I just undone it because as soon as I got off the bike, it started pissing down. So, uh, yeah, let’s crack on. But, you know, little lanes like that are quite good just to boost your confidence. If you ride around on these big double tracks all the time, you can get loaded into a false sense of security. And not only that, your sort of fine motor skills aren’t getting used. So the first time you hit stuff like that, you start stalling, losing your momentum cuz you’re not used to it. Get a few tricky lanes in the bag and you know you’re your skills improve. You know what they say, use it or lose it. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, glad there’s a bridge. Don’t want to cross over that. Looks a bit deep. Now we look like we follow the river for a while. Plenty of little shalets down here. So I can’t see this stretch getting too testing. You have no idea. riding through this village. I don’t know. There’s bunt singing a net out. They might be preparing for some kind of festival, but I’m seeing all these weird sort of scarecrows. all over the place. Know what that’s all about. Be some mental black magic satanic satanic rights sacrificing children or something. Crazy. Look, let’s get the [ __ ] out of here. End up like the wicker man. Please, Mure, come to our festival. You’ll be the guest of honor. Well, absolutely no idea what that was all about. Although, mind you, if we’re being honest, we have some equally ridiculous festivals that go on in England. In fact, anywhere you go in the world, there’ll be some some crazy festival going on, won’t there? But if you’re not a local, it will just make absolutely no sense to you whatsoever. Well, the sun’s made an appearance. The uh terrain’s changing again. Suddenly got really flat. that little area that we just came through back there with all the canals. That was the the really swampy looking place that that we spotted on the on the map this morning. So, we’ve just come through there. Yeah, the land’s flattened right out. Now got these big long farmers fields. Still some wooded areas dotted about, but it’s become really agricultural. Heat up here. Heat up That’s a bit greasy [Music] line. This is day six, 9:00 in the morning, the third day of heavy I need to go out. I’ve got a couple of things I need to do cuz it slow down a bit. Lord knows. Anyway, let’s see. Keep my fingers crossed. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Well, bad weather is one of the perils of motorcycle travel, I guess. Luckily, I have my camping chair with me. Currently plotted up in the bike car, the bike park in the local intermarsh. It looks like it’s going to be raining for well till the end of time at the moment. The sky is gray in all directions and it’s been going solid for 3 hours with no time no sign of stopping. So, uh, I don’t think there’ll be any T today. Never mind. It’ll still be there tomorrow, I guess. All right. Just to summarize the last, uh, well, today, uh, it’s supposed to be a second day tagged on to the end of this video, but it has just hammered down all day and the entire day was lost. Uh, basically got to around uh, 3:00. As soon as I could find a hotel to book into, I just booked into it because it just rained and rained and did not stop raining. Everything, every single piece of gear I have to wear is still soaked through. So, I’m going to have to put that all on wet tomorrow to start a new day. Hopefully, with any luck, the next leg should be a bit warmer than today was. Hopefully drier. Hopefully, the trails would have dried out quite a bit as well. But uh but yeah, everything’s still going fine. Bike’s going fine. Nothing’s gone wrong with it yet. Uh editing is proven to be a right. Internet connection cannot be relied upon in when you’re traveling. You you have to sort of um take in account that sometimes things don’t work the way they’re going to work and you think you’re going to get all your editing done on one day and you end up doing doing half of it one night. Then you ain’t got an internet connection anymore. Of course, you can’t download any music or anything else. So, you have to do it the next night, so you end up working two nights instead of one, and you know, it it’s it’s grating on me at the moment. Uh, but I’m sure there’ll be a solution. Anyway, that’s the end of this video. See you out on the trails, hopefully, if it’s not raining tomorrow. [Applause]