European tour 2014 "The Journey To France"

The journey to France

Well after months of planning and organising it was the day for the off, and our European tour was going to begin. The morning was bright with broken clouds and everything had been checked and double checked.  I was the only one left to get fuel as everyone else had had the hindsight to fuel up already.

Soon the cars were packed and the time had come to depart. I raced off ahead to fuel up and the others were to meet me at the garage. I had had a quick look at the travel and knew that the M25 was going to be block no matter which way we went, so once fuelled we headed off towards the Dartford crossing, the journey was pleasant for a motorway ride. The sun was shining the world was many shades of green, the fields bright yellow with the rape harvest in full bloom.  Yes it was lovely a means to an end to get to the chunnel quickly.

 

However after we’d gotten through the road works with little fuss we came to a halt just two junctions from the Dartford crossing. We then averaged about 6mph for the last 8 miles. The heat from the engine was at some points too much. We juggled our way through the toll booths and headed toward the M20 travelling slowly so everyone had a chance to catch up. The M20 was empty as we soon were making good time so I decided to take the opportunity to make a quick stop at the services. This proved to be a very popular decision as everyone was in need of a stretch.

After a short break, and time not really on our side we made the last 20 mile dash to the chunnel. Well we would have but my bike decided it wasn’t happy starting; I was a bit annoyed as I had just brought a brand new battery. We got it started and headed off. Although when we did arrive my bike decided to stop. It is here with hind sight that I should have stopped my holiday and called the recovery service to collect me and take me home, but NO! I pushed the bike through the barrier and stopped the other side. I then managed to get a jump start and headed to the train. I rode through all the check points and the train was in sight but the bike wasn’t happy and decided to stop again. I decided that I could push it the last 100 yards and deal with the problem the other side. Surely it was only a battery and like you can get them anywhere, RIGHT!?! We were on the train in time for our scheduled departure and France was now just minutes away.

 

The journey through the tunnel was a nice rest bite, but the bike was dead. There was no life in the battery and on the turn off the key the dash glowed dimly. Had I made the wrong decision to push on? It was a bit late now to have second thoughts, but I wasn’t going to let it spoil the holiday. We called for help via the help button and I requested a jump start, the people on the train were exceedingly helpful and got me going again. Surely if I could just get to the first hotel, buy a cheap battery charger and charge the battery overnight all would be ok. But as we left the station my engine management light lit up. I didn’t want to take the chance the hotel was about 30 miles from the station and most of that would be motorway so I pulled in at the services and regretfully admitted defeat. The recovery people were called and we sat the long sit awaiting their arrival. Finally they arrived, in the traditional late fashion, a promised thirty to forty minutes obviously was translated wrong and should have been an hour to an hour and a half. I said to the recovery driver, I just need a battery. He looked at me and said “I check”. I just wanted to get back on the road and was convinced all I needed was a new battery. We managed to jump the bike and as it ran he tested the charge. It was knackered there was no charge coming from the bike at all, so sadly she was raised on to the back of the truck and taken away.

 

With what I was told, there was little hope of me seeing her again this holiday. The mechanic said I will get your bike to the specialist Monday, but the recovery agent said there will be no one open tomorrow as its Sunday and bike shops in France don’t open on a Monday. My brain calculated that if the bike got to the shop on Tuesday, they most likely wouldn’t look at it until Wednesday, order parts and if lucky fix it Thursday or Friday, by which time we should be in Switzerland.

 

It was now dark; I had to put behind me what had happened and deal with the situation now. We had reshuffled the luggage and seating arrangements and headed to the hotel. I had planned to avoid driving at night but this was a necessary evil. It was not nice but some 40 minutes later we had arrived at our accommodation for the night

No one had eaten since lunch, but with the stress of what had happened no one was hungry. So we went to our rooms and bedded down for the night to see what tomorrow would bring.

 

European Tour 2014 "The Start"

European tour 2014

The start

A long time ago a man once said to me, words along the lines of, “there are two different types of people in this world, talkers and doers. Don’t talk your life away, do the things you want to do, you never know how long you have.” As a young man you think you are invincible, things can wait, you have a life time ahead of you, but as the years go by that time you thought you had, is suddenly dwindling away.

In 2008 I decided that I would try to pass my motorcycle licence and set myself 2 goals that I must do if I passed. The first was to buy a Kawasaki Ninja the second was to ride in the Alps. In 2008 I did pass my test and my first bike was a Candy Blue Kawasaki Ninja ZX9R. It was a little too late in the year for me to arrange any holidays, but in 2009 I took the bike to the Alps for my first Alpine biking adventure.

 

In 2012 I went back to the Alps this time on my Triumph Speed Triple. I had a great time and loved the mountain roads and although I had now been to the Alps twice I hadn’t done what I would class as a full blown tour. Both times I had been, I had rented a van put the bikes in the back and got the laborious motorway work out the way so I could enjoy the mountain roads, and once in the Alps I had a base to ride out from. This year 2014 would be different. It was my brother’s 50th birthday in June and he wanted to do a real full blown tour where we ride down then back again.

 

So the planning began, what would start as a simple biker trip soon turned into a family vacation, and a rough route plan would soon become a precision operation. One thing I had learnt from the last two trips was that to enjoy the time away I had to limit the riding to about 150 to 200 miles a day depending on the type of riding we were going to be doing. The next thing I did was to ask the others what they wanted to see and do, so that we all had something to look forward too. Armed with the information I set about marking paper maps with the points of interest and roads on the wish list along with countries we wanted to visit. Then with the help of google maps and my Garmin 350, which I had brought to help us on the last trip, I set about joining the dots. As it was now a family trip I also had to think about times, stops, fuel and hotels. Our touring convoy would be a real mixture. My brother would be riding his Victory Hammer S, my wife in her Porsche Boxster S, my son in his Honda Jazz and then me on my Triumph Speed Triple.

 

Finally with the route marked out and the total mileage calculated I could work out the rides for the days and the places we would stay each night. This was open to change until we had booked the hotels, so days riding and driving could increase or decrease depending on where the hotels could accommodate us.

After a family meeting, because the ride was too long, we agreed we would start a day earlier than planned. In fact it was only a half day just to get us down, through the Tunnel and into France, a journey of about 120 miles but it would make life a little easier over the first week. The accommodation was now booked, and it was a mixture of different star hotels to hostels, apartments and B+Bs. In total we booked 13 different retreats, over 14 days only staying in the same place once for two nights. This was probably the hardest thing to do. Everything was planned including 13 days of riding, one proper rest day to visit friends and pay our respects, plus two further rest days if needed.

The trip would take us from the UK into France then Belgium back into France then Italy, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Italy, Austria Germany Luxemburg, Belgium France and Home covering some two thousand odd miles. But like everything in life, nothing is set in stone and as the weeks progressed and I researched a little more, little changes were made to add interest to our journey.

About 2 weeks before departing I was making one such change to our routes when my Garmin decided it no longer wanted to connect to the computer. I was now faced with a problem. I called Garmin and told them my situation. They gave me some clear instructions on how I might resolve the problem and said if all else fails, despite your unit being out of warranty we will replace it within 9 working day for a new one at the cost of £75. I set about trying to fix it with the instructions they had sent. All the days riding were already installed I didn’t want to lose them. After hours of messing about, the unit reluctantly, once again connected to the computer. I was still unhappy with the situation but with now only 9 working days left before we set off I wasn’t going to take the chance of the new unit not turning up in time.

Just to make sure that things would run smoothly I back very thing up in writing with directions, name places and road numbers and also took the old faithful paper maps.

Everything was now all set to go, all the vehicles had been serviced, route plans duplicated so everyone had a hard copy in case we got separated. Every vehicle also had a satnav with the postcodes for each hotel entered into its memory. All we had to do now was wait.