South of France Bike Trip Report May
12-16, 2004
Rent motorbikes and cruise
around the South of France for a few days? Absolutely!
The crew was:
Our Froggie Host, JB Lierre from Jukebox, France.
Audio Pals: The Vanimal from Manley
Labs, Jamey from Soundtoys, Kevin
from Unity Audio UK,
Fletcher from Mercenary
Audio.
PACA Chase Car: Erica from Universal
Audio and her fiancé Bey.
May 8 - 11, 2004, we all endured yet another trade show, the AES in
Berlin. The show could only end too quickly as we were all dying to get
off geek-duty and onto the bikes. After ze rendez-vous at Le Train Bleu at
the Gare de Lyon we boarded the TGV for the zippy three hour ride to
Avignon in ze Zowz de Fraunz where we were greeted by Dave from Moto
Provencal, purveyor of the motobike hire joint. Erica and Bey rented a chase car for the group. After
quickly dropping off our belongings at the hotel, while Les Chatons
engaged in activities consuming more than 5 minutes despite our
constant pounding on the door and threatening of cameras, we trekked down
the hill to check out the Kir Royal offerings in St. Remy de Provence
before consuming a fine Provencal meal, which was one major reason we
were in ze Zowz de Fraunz, now wasn't it ....
 |
|
Dave from Moto Provencal and Bey show off their appetizers.
In the morning a bit prickly after a long night with countless bottles of Vin Rouge we foolishly signed our lives away with Dave and got our rental bikes. Fletcher mounted a Softail, The Vanimal grabbed a little 883 Sportster, and Kevin acquired a BMW 1150. JB's Triumph was already there waiting for him. By the end of the week we would be joined by Japanese, Italian, and more Triumph 2-wheelers, just to be sure all nations were properly represented.
Vanimal got her iPod and Etymotics going...
And off we sped off towards parts unknown...
ok. It was Montpellier we were headed towards for lunch.
There we met up with JB's tattoo artist-friend, Phil, and his babe, Laura. We stashed our gear at his studio and enjoyed a lovely fresh lunch on a square. We took the afternoon to speed along the windy coast road to Marseille. Joined now by a very exhausted Jeff and his Ducati who had endured a long rainy ride from Paris, we checked into a nice little hotel right on the Vieux Port and enjoyed another amazing dinner. The morning start was delayed by a pointless visit to the Ducati shop searching for some brake work that was not to be, although JB had no trouble scoring a new rear tire quickly somewhere else and J.S. joined up with us.
We had plenty of time to pose for this picture because
Bey-driving-chase-car was somewhat lost for about two hours trying to
get to us from the parking garage around the block. Go figure?
From L to R: JB, Jeff, Jamey, Kevin, Fletcher, J.S., & EveAnna
It took awhile to work our way out of the Marseille traffic... green light means "go".
| From Marseille we headed up through some amazing
twisting roads for some surfing action.
|
 |
 |
We were Apt to find a good spot for lunch so we appropriately chose the town of Apt, but not that I have any pictures of it except for this. |
After lunch gathering ourselves for the next leg.
The day was packed with scenic riding...
Well, so was the whole week, so don't hold me to when these photos were taken...
