Soldato
I thought I’d share a few details of the first big trip I took my new Caponord on, from Wednesday to Sunday last week. I left Ipswich Wednesday afternoon, picking up a couple of friends along with way before crossing the Channel on the EuroTunnel early Wednesday evening. We stopped in Saint Omer overnight and then carried on to Bouillon Thursday, where we based ourselves for rides out through the Ardennes forests on Friday and Saturday before making the long ride back on Sunday. The route back was more direct, as we were worried about the Calais immigration problems and didn’t want to get bumped to a later train, but we got off the motorways when we could. We didn’t go through a single toll all journey.
The Caponord performed pretty well. For company it had the new Fireblade and the 2013 Multistrada. The Fireblade certainly had more power but in the Ardennes forests, on often uneven roads, the Caponord and Multistrada were more comfortable and often just as quick. The Caponord was just about a match for the Multistrada but, if really pushed, the Multistrada’s extra power and what felt like slightly sharper handling and brakes made a difference. The Aprilia was certainly the easiest ride though. Both the Multistrada and the Caponord had panniers only, but were still capable of carrying a serious amount of gear. I carried all my clothing, a jacket, shoes, toiletries, my 5D Mk 2 camera and two lenses, various GoPro accessories etc with ease. Fully loaded the Aprilia rides pretty much the same – a little more effort needed to turn and brake.
Fuel consumption was good, averaging 42 mpg for the whole trip. On the longer motorway runs it ran at a steady 48 mpg – pushing hard through the forests the lowest I achieved was 32 mpg. I never got too close to empty, as the other bikes always needed filling first, but on the run back home I filled up after 170 miles and it only took 16 ½ litres in the tank (around 24 litres).
On the whole, I’m pleased with the choice of the Caponord as my new bike. It was bought specifically to cater for this sort of trip, realising that I simply don’t have the time any longer for more frequent weekend rides. It is the second Euro trip I’ve done this year (the last one I did on my old Aprilia Shiver) and hopefully I’ll be able to get three or four similar rides in every year from now on.
The journey and locations were hit and miss. Firstly, if anyone considers stopping over in Saint Omer on a similar route I can heartily recommend it. Wednesday night felt like a Saturday night (we went late on Wednesday to avoid taking an extra day off work) and the town square was buzzing. A good restaurant (Au Vieux Marche – just refurbished) and some cracking bars, in particular the Queen Victoria (not some British imitation pub). Bouillon could not have been more different. We selected it on the location and on one of us having ridden through before one summer when it was packed and bustling. Clearly, once the schools return and the summer holidays are over, the place reverts into a Saga destination and over half the town’s bars and restaurants were closed, leaving little choice. By 10 pm the town was mostly quiet. Nothing wrong with that, and you certainly weren’t going to be kept awake with partying into the early hours, but a little too quiet for us three set on enjoying riding during the way and enjoying nights out away from the other halfs by night. Quite a few other bikes coming and going through our time there though, and that made things better.
The roads were also hit and miss. As with other trips, you can tell when you’ve crossed the border into France as the road surface immediately improves. The Belgian roads are poorly maintained in quite a few places – mostly soaked up by the Caponord’s suspension, but still a few scary potholes every now and then. The forest routes were really good though – lots of curves and elevations – but I found some of them very closed in with poor visibility around corners, especially right handers, that left you with little confidence to push too hard. They were certainly the most challenging roads I’ve ridden on, and with a good 6 hours riding each day I was pretty exhausted by the end.
Between the three of us we ended up with around 8 hours of GoPro footage – that’s going to take a while to go through. Hugely enjoyable trip, probably too much riding on the days we were based in the Ardennes, and one I’ll definitely look to repeat in a couple of years’ time. For the next trip we’ve already decided that as the bikes have such good range and carrying ability we will not base ourselves in one place but move each day and try and get down to the Alps. It’ll probably mean a couple more days required, and that we’ll accept that we will need to ride some of the good roads with the bikes fully laden, but that wasn’t a problem on this trip.
Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed riding!
https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=I...=7&sz=10&via=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14&t=m&z=7
The Caponord performed pretty well. For company it had the new Fireblade and the 2013 Multistrada. The Fireblade certainly had more power but in the Ardennes forests, on often uneven roads, the Caponord and Multistrada were more comfortable and often just as quick. The Caponord was just about a match for the Multistrada but, if really pushed, the Multistrada’s extra power and what felt like slightly sharper handling and brakes made a difference. The Aprilia was certainly the easiest ride though. Both the Multistrada and the Caponord had panniers only, but were still capable of carrying a serious amount of gear. I carried all my clothing, a jacket, shoes, toiletries, my 5D Mk 2 camera and two lenses, various GoPro accessories etc with ease. Fully loaded the Aprilia rides pretty much the same – a little more effort needed to turn and brake.
Fuel consumption was good, averaging 42 mpg for the whole trip. On the longer motorway runs it ran at a steady 48 mpg – pushing hard through the forests the lowest I achieved was 32 mpg. I never got too close to empty, as the other bikes always needed filling first, but on the run back home I filled up after 170 miles and it only took 16 ½ litres in the tank (around 24 litres).
On the whole, I’m pleased with the choice of the Caponord as my new bike. It was bought specifically to cater for this sort of trip, realising that I simply don’t have the time any longer for more frequent weekend rides. It is the second Euro trip I’ve done this year (the last one I did on my old Aprilia Shiver) and hopefully I’ll be able to get three or four similar rides in every year from now on.
The journey and locations were hit and miss. Firstly, if anyone considers stopping over in Saint Omer on a similar route I can heartily recommend it. Wednesday night felt like a Saturday night (we went late on Wednesday to avoid taking an extra day off work) and the town square was buzzing. A good restaurant (Au Vieux Marche – just refurbished) and some cracking bars, in particular the Queen Victoria (not some British imitation pub). Bouillon could not have been more different. We selected it on the location and on one of us having ridden through before one summer when it was packed and bustling. Clearly, once the schools return and the summer holidays are over, the place reverts into a Saga destination and over half the town’s bars and restaurants were closed, leaving little choice. By 10 pm the town was mostly quiet. Nothing wrong with that, and you certainly weren’t going to be kept awake with partying into the early hours, but a little too quiet for us three set on enjoying riding during the way and enjoying nights out away from the other halfs by night. Quite a few other bikes coming and going through our time there though, and that made things better.
The roads were also hit and miss. As with other trips, you can tell when you’ve crossed the border into France as the road surface immediately improves. The Belgian roads are poorly maintained in quite a few places – mostly soaked up by the Caponord’s suspension, but still a few scary potholes every now and then. The forest routes were really good though – lots of curves and elevations – but I found some of them very closed in with poor visibility around corners, especially right handers, that left you with little confidence to push too hard. They were certainly the most challenging roads I’ve ridden on, and with a good 6 hours riding each day I was pretty exhausted by the end.
Between the three of us we ended up with around 8 hours of GoPro footage – that’s going to take a while to go through. Hugely enjoyable trip, probably too much riding on the days we were based in the Ardennes, and one I’ll definitely look to repeat in a couple of years’ time. For the next trip we’ve already decided that as the bikes have such good range and carrying ability we will not base ourselves in one place but move each day and try and get down to the Alps. It’ll probably mean a couple more days required, and that we’ll accept that we will need to ride some of the good roads with the bikes fully laden, but that wasn’t a problem on this trip.
Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed riding!
https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=I...=7&sz=10&via=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14&t=m&z=7