Salut à tous,
 
Cela fait depuis l'été dernier que je ne viens plus, voilà déjà ce qu'il s'est passé en août:
 
Un road trip avec une 1602 de 1973, c'était un peu comme une envie forte depuis des mois. Arrivé au début de l'été, nous devions préparer ça et le faire, pour de vrai.
Je voudrais donc vous faire partager ce road trip de 4576 km. Beaucoup de photos, plus de 7000, et une selection de ce qui représentent le mieux ce voyage.
 
Les règles imposées à ce voyage étaient simples: GPS interdit, nous ne devions utiliser qu'une carte routière, et autoroutes interdites, seulement les routes départementales, et surtout les autres, plus sinueuses...
Aussi, nous voulions rouler le plus possible la nuit, ou tôt le matin / tard le soir, afin d'éviter non seulement les embouteillages assez fréquent sur la côte, mais aussi pour la température (il a fait une après-midi jusqu'à 55°C dans la voiture)
 
Nous sommes partis de Bourges, dans le centre de la France, direction Grenoble pour prendre la route Napoléon. 370km de routes jusqu'à Antibes, du bonheur. Nous sommes resté une semaine
sur la côtes à Cannes, à se promener sur les routes du Col de Turini, à découvrir les routes de The Persuaders, et nous avons mis 7h30 pour faire Cannes - Monaco, sans jamais s'arrêter, au lieu des 30 min nécessaire si l'on avait pris l'autoroute.
 
Un début de trip qui commence très bien. Après être passé par St-Tropez à 7h00 du matin pour éviter le monde, direction Béziers en prenant les routes côtières. Après avoir passé la nuit là-bas, vers le nord pour faire une des journées les plus marquantes des trois semaines de voyage, mais aussi une des plus épuisantes: traverser les Cévennes. Et les routes ne sont pas du tout aussi larges que celles de la N7, la route Napoléon !
C'est très étroit, beaucoup de virages à l'aveugle, des éboulements un peu près tous les 2 km, mais quel régal. Nous n'avons croisé que 5 voitures en 8h de routes dans la chaine montagneuse, autant dire qu'on était tranquille.
Une semaine passée ensuite dans le Gard près d'Alès, dans le petit village de Rochegude, puis retour vers Bourges en prenant les plus petites routes possibles de l'Auvergne.
 
Pour ceux qui parlent anglais, voilà un résumé plus en détails:
 
" A nice road trip through the best roads we could find in the South of France. That's what we wanted when we first thought of our next summer.
 
My name's Amaury Laparra, and with Clément Daventure, we decided to realize our very first road trip together, something that has to be memorable. We are studying interior architecture and design in Paris. We both agree on the fact that these are the best studies we could have get, but nothing can be as pleasant as driving wherever you want to. We are beginners, and I think the first "one" is always more pleasant than the next.
 
Clément bought the car in May. A 1973 BMW 1602 with 72 000 km on the clock. A beautiful Sahara color, and no problem to declare: a classic car in perfect condition, ready to travel thousand of miles !
As soon as we were in vacation in July, we began to prepare the trip. The first idea was to impose strict rules we had to respect all along the travel, as we wanted to do it with the most of the 70's spirit we could have. So the first thing was to ban the GPS Navigation, we will use old road maps only. Then, we also wanted to avoid the heat, the tourists, and above all the traffic jams. The French Riviera is well known for the abundance of tourists during the summer. Without any air-conditioning, we did not want to stay hours and hours stucked on road with 55°C inside the car. So we decide to drive as much we could during the night, early in the morning or late in the evening. Doing this, we will avoid the heat, probably few tourists, and make the travel more pleasant (driving at 4 a.m. in the Col de Turini mountain is a rare moment really unforgettable).
 
After a month of preparation, we had our route. The departure has been set in Bourges, in the center of France. The August 9th, we left this little city, heading toward Grenoble. The trip began calmly, the roads were easy and quite straight apart from few around Clermont-Ferrand.
However, arrived in Grenoble, we were exhausted of the 8h drive. We parked the car at the very beginning of the Napoléon Road, and slept in few seconds. Five hours later, just before the sun rise up, we get up and left. We knew the Napoléon Road (the Nationale 7) we will drive on during the next 400 km was famous, but we did not really know why. We were just so impatient to see how this one is great. And getting up at 4h30 a.m. with absolutely nobody on the roads except us gives an extraordinary feeling. Windows down, the cold morning wind brushing our hair, and the map on the knees, we drove. Nothing could have been better for us, everything was calm, we were alone, the engine was cold, the light was totally superb as the sun was rising up… I think the true road trip was beginning right now, on the Napoléon Road…
 
Every mile along this road looks different, and every new bend means a new pleasure, even if it's always zigzags across a rocky landscape… the views are most of the time stunning. I remember arriving for breakfast in one of this little historic village, where there's the marketplace with all these old women and men, wearing the beret, all these scenes and colors that plunge you in a true film atmosphere. The 1602 really fitted to this theatre setting. We did a little stop in La Tuillère, a little village along a moutainside, did a 30 minutes sleep under a tree and went back on the road. We needed some rest because this part of the Napoléon Road seems tricky and really windy from what we saw on the map and heard from different local guys in the café. You can be tired, but you are, in a certain way, proud of being able to live unique moments that nobody else has seen.
 
The road was indeed really like a giant slalom, but what a blast. The view was truly spectacular, and the road was wide enough to make the drive quite safe. The kind of roads where you can go fast, and this is fun to drive there with the resonance of the BMW sound along the mountain's flank. After around five hours of drive, we arrived in Antibes. The French Riviera, the sea and… a huge storm that came from nowhere ! During one hour, it was raining very heavily, the roads were a true onrush of 25 centimeters of water. That was quite funny, finally on the coast and it's the apocalypse. I had to get out of the car to take few photos when the 1602 was rolling. The scene was awesome, nobody in the streets, Cannes was dead, and half an hour later, the sun came back. Nice first vision of the city !
 
We stayed a week in Cannes, living in a house close to the sea. At the beach during the day, (the BMW was having a rest in the parking), in the different little gastronomic restaurants of the historic area the evening. Cannes is a pleasant city, and we were surprised not seeing more tourists in the streets as we were in August. The August 17th, we left Cannes at 5 a.m. and head toward Saint-Tropez. We always wanted to see what it was like out there, without the massive amount of tourists. Driving along the Mediterranean Coast during two hours, we arrived in St-Tropez for the breakfast. This is a beautiful typical village you can find on the South coast of France. And at 7 a.m. driving in the port, we were just stunned by the calm: there was nobody in the streets except the bakeries or cafés that was slowly opening… we ate few croissants and went back on the road. The way until Béziers were long and straight National roads, with a lot of olive tree cultivation on each side of the route. As there was no need to speed there, it took us the day before arriving in Béziers. It was a long relaxing drive, we were not to much tired and enjoyed the evening in a friend's house with a great dinner to take some energy before tomorrow.
The sleep was heavy and effective, and at 4 a.m. we get up, both in a great shape. The route was simple: we needed to go North until the Cévennes. It was very dark, the town was almost without any lightspots, and it was even worse when we get out of Béziers. We could only see the lights of the dashboard and the very subtle gleam of the end of the night. While trying to see where we were exactly driving, lighting the map with a bad pocket torch, I remember being both a little bit scared when we suddenly lost the vision of the road in front of us: no more road markings during few seconds, and we, just like that, stumbled upon a big right corner. Clément did a huge movement with the wheels, while braking, the tires shrieking, and we passed it. That was close !
After half an hour of driving, we made a mistake in the route, and instead turning right, we turned left. But actually that wasn't really an error, because where we arrived turned out to be stunning. We went down a little country road that turned into a track… we hesitated a few seconds before continuing, and we stumbled in the middle of nowhere in a very large place
In the time of 24 hours we went from Cannes, a touristic and well-known city along the Méditerrannée to a totally desert spot far that looked like Moab in Utah. We were far from everything. It was 7 a.m., the sun was still behind the mountains, and everything was so quiet. We were both astonished by this ethereal landscape, covered of thousands of red rocks. The kind of place that leaves its mark on a road trip. We stayed 2 hours there, taking shots of everything, and went back where we had to turned right. The road was also very similar to those you can find around Utah or Colorado: a large one with predictable bends, and on each side, desert lands with few bushes here and there… we really did not expect to see this kind of environment here !
 
We drove one hour before arriving in the Cévennes. The average population density out there is 14 inhabitants per km², so we did not expect to see a lot of people all along the day. And this was confirmed very quickly: during the next 3 hours, we did not even see a car. We went through few wonderful historic village entirely made of stones with slate roofs. Alone in the mountain range of the Cévennes, most of the little villages we met are fascinating. It was as if we were 50 years backwards, where inhabitants are living in another time. That's always great and beautiful to admire. An old men stopped us in one of these hamlets to invite us to take a cold drink in his house (we were so thirsty, the water we had in the car became really to hot to be drinkable !). He told us it's been 60 years he lives there, and no doubt he will die here. A nice man with whom we spoke during almost one hour.
Back on the road, still in the Cévennes. On the map, we had seen few paths drawer in red which means "Damaged or very dangerous roads". Here we go, those ones will be our roads ! First it began with a large road (5 meters approximately) with a lot of hairpin bends, like every 100m (during 8 km)… then, it became even worse ! There weren't large roads anymore; only a car could drive at a time. As the 1602 is not a powerful car, we did not need long straight roads. During 40km, the roads we were driving on were the best we had since the beginning of the trip. And during 40km there were only bends, bends and bends, and absolutely no straight lines. For the next 3 hours, it was a true heaven for us and our car. The roads became thinner and thinner, and if another car was coming in the other way, we had to either brake hard, or prepare in advance what will happen at the next bend… there was everytime a bit of tension before each bend we approached, and this feeling was irresistible… Traffic was so light that the most saintly would be tempted to drive very fast, but the roads demands respect though. On the right side, there was a huge cliff. Get it wrong and you choose between hurtling over a precipice or into a mountain. We drove up the Mont Aigoual (1567m) and went down until Alès always taking these insane little twisty roads. Unforgettable.
Arrived in Alès, we knew we had lived something terrific. We stayed one week in my grand father home, in Rochegude, a beautiful village perched on a hill near Alès. A long and great day of 12 hours of driving, we were exhausted but happy. After a week of canoeing, motorbiking and relaxing in the Gard, we had to come back to Bourges. 400 km of roads through Clermont-Ferrand, under a rain storm all along the route, not the best part !
 
To conclude, it was our very first true road trip, and one thing that is sure: we will do it again. With a classic car that would be even better. We are preparing the 2011 summer, probably in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, with three other cars of the same range (Triumph Spitfire, Bmw 2002, Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV), and that could be even better.
During three weeks, we drove exactly 4,573 km through France. As the 1602 was totally original, the damper were really soft, so we need to get used of them in the bends. However, even with these soft ones, the BMW is stunning when it comes to grip the road, and it performed well during the whole trip, with no glitches, no overheating, no oil leaking."  
 
 
 





















 
 
 
 
 
Le reste des photos:
http://www.autogespot.com/nl/item/ [...] -1602.html
 
Pas un problème à signaler avec la 1602 sur tout le long des 4500km, pas de fuite ni de chauffe, que de bonnes choses.
 
Amaury