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Well.....I turned 40 this year and had in mind a trip abroad for the first time on the bike. Initially I was thinking about Norway and up to the Arctic Circle and got chatting with my best mate Neil about it all. He was up for a bit of a ride out as well but he is a warm weather man so we looked further south. My only real destination in mind was to cross the new Millau Bridge in the south of France and Neil fancied a ride through Andorra in Spain.
Both of us are on a budget so we are camping almost all the way - only 1 night in a hotel in Gibraltar So with the help of Google earth we formulated a plan to ride to Gibraltar and back .
Rough plan :- The Route ( From Neils web page - link later )
Day 1 - Friday 14th September = Middlewich - St. Malo (via Portsmouth) - 370 Miles.We will be leaving Middlewich shortly after lunch to head towards Portsmouth and will be taking the overnight Brittany Ferries boat to St. Malo.
Day 2 - Saturday 15th September = St. Malo - San Sebastian - 480 MilesOur first day 'abroad' will see us travel down the Western side of France, through Bordeaux and across the border into Spain the same day. We shall be camping just outside San Sebastian.
Day 3 - Sunday 16th September = San Sebastian - Cuenca - 310 MilesA slightly shorter day's (but still significant enough) travel to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the town of Cuenca. Again another night in tents.
Day 4 - Monday 17th September = Cuenca - Gibraltar - 434 Miles. This will be a very challenging ride through some fantastic scenery. Gibraltar will be at the end of a long, hard day's ride. A night in a hotel on the Rock awaits us.
Day 5 - Tuesday 18th September = Gibraltar - Benidorm - 452 MilesTo indulge in the contrasts that Spain has to offer, we shall head towards Benidorm along the coast road of the Costa del Sol.
Day 6 - Wednesday 19th September = Benidorm - Andorra - 377 MilesIf we make it out of Benidorm the next day, then day 6 will see us heading towards the Pyrenees mountains and the principality of Andorra.
Day 7 - Thursday 20th September = Andorra - Bergerac - 370 MilesDay 7 will see us head back into France and initially towards Perpignan. Our route over the famous Millau Bridge will then take us north towards Bergerac and another camping stop.
Day 8 - Friday 21st September = Bergerac - St. Malo - 338 MilesOur final day in France will see us head near to St. Malo for a final night.
Day 9 - Saturday 22nd September = St. Malo - Middlewich - 370 MilesOn the Saturday morning we board the ferry back to Portsmouth and a final leg back to Middlewich in the evening.
Total = 3501 Miles / 5634 Kilometres
I would guess it will be closer to 4000 miles with the odd detour / back roads etc.
During a planning meeting Neil had the terrible news that his mom was seriously deteriorating from a long term illness and was in hospital . Sadly she passed away that night. Marge had been ill for a while but the shock of losing your mom, wife , sister is unimaginable to me. I know these are days that must happen to us all but it puts some perspective on the rest of your life for sure.
In light of this Neil wanted to take some positives out of the whole thing and as a mark of respect we are dedicating the ride to his mum and through our respective employers and friend we will try to raise some money for Cancer Reasearch. To this end he has written a web page for the tripwith a donation page link.
Neil also managed to blag a half page feature in his local paper !
I took all my camping gear around to Neils house and we had a sort out. Somehow I seem to have loads of camping gear and pretty much 2 of everything.
Neil put his tent up in approx 8 minutes so no problems there,
Neil is using my canvas stretcher type camp bed with a self inflating mat on top and I have bought a single air bed with a small air pump that runs of my bikes power supply, it inflated and deflated with the pump in 2 minutes.
My luggage is 2 x alli side box's and an alli top box and 1 rubberised roll bag.
The side box, are packed below:-
Left Box - left to right-
Right box - Left to right
Small (black) waterproof bag with rain top and pants -
(Blue) 3m square ground sheet / spare tarp(Black) Large bag with tent
Left Box Packed up - The waterproof kit bag and waterproof gloves will be in the top of this box if I need access quickly on the road.
Right box - Left to right
(Black) Small cotton sleeping bag / liner
( Red ) very soft pillow
( Black) bag with inflatable bed and elec pump
(Blue) large sleeping bag
(Olive) Tarp to give us cover over the gap between the tents in harsh sun or bad weather.
Right Box packed up
Box Lids - I have fixed duct/gaffer tape to the underside of the lids for emergencies - I have used this twice in the past both times to fix visors when clips have been lost on mine and neils helmets - I also plan to velcro 2 small foam pads to the underside of the lids . These will be cushions for the top of the box's as we will be using them as camp chairs at night
Back/Top box - Left to right from top row down
( Blue box ) First aid kit
( Blue nylon bag) cooking pot / kettle and condiments
( Clear round tub) duel fuel cooker and firestarter
( Clear bag ) Misc tools / spares like elec connectors tape etc
( Black cannister ) 2ltr petrol can
( Black square box ) Tyre inflator powered of the bikes power socket )
( Black/yellowRoll ) BMW tool kit - I will put this back under the seat to save room
( Metal cannister ) spare emergency tyre repair foam
(Coiled) 2m long cable lock -
(Black pouch) Packsafe steel mesh bag - good for putting jackets /helmets etc in and locking to the bike- cannot be slashed etc
( Black oblong box ) Small socket set >13mm and various screwdriver heads etc
( Oblong metal ) Ali wind shield for cook stove
(Small yellow package) Hi - Viz vest
(Large yellow) Spare rubberised roll bag - in case we buy anything !
Top Box Packed
This is the bike loaded - The bag on the back seat has personal stuff , clothes and such. The mesh around it is called a pacsafe , it's a wire mesh bag that expands and has a thicker draw wire around the opening which has a small padlock .This allows me to lock the bag through the metal loops on the ali' box's and also acts as a soft backrest .
The weekend before we left we had a bit of a fettling session sorting our tool list , bungees and loads etc . Neils Dad Alan ( Officially the nicest man in the world ) came over and had a quick spin on the VFR !
With everything ready on the bike the last problem we had to sort was our bike to bike radio's . My system is made by Autocom and Neils is by Starcom . We have had the kit on our bikes for well over a year but never had them working satisfactorily. We spent an evening riding up and down various duel carriageways at Neils's place trying different settings but to no avail. Neil could hear me up to 100 miles per hour pretty clearly but I could only understand Neil's vocals upto about 40 then it sounded like a bad train announcement after that. We even swapped bike so that we could hear what each others kit sounded like but still couldn't sort it .Neil called starcom next day and they suggested we got down there ( to Peteborough ) and they assured us that the kit would be fully sorted that day. So we both booked a day off ( Wednesday 12th - 2 days before we depart ! ) and rode down there. Neil tried out a piece of saddle gel that I had to see if it helped his butt on distances .
As I had removed the cover a while back ( I intended to insert the gel into my current seat foam ) Neil shoved it down the back of his leather pants , however halfway to Peterborough it had moved it's way around to halfway down his left leg ! Here he is shoving a large lump of jelly down the back of his pants in a laybye !
At Starcom the girl in the office made us a much appreciated brew whilst the tech' guy made adjustments to the unit on Neils bike and we rode off to try it. We did this half a dozen times without sucess . It didn't help it was a boiling hot day and we were standing about in full kit whilst adjustments were made. In the end I asked the guy if we could get in his car with my radio and follow Neil so that he could hear exactly what I was hearing / or not .
This helped as he understood the problem better and he deduced the problem was with Neil's radio. This was the last thing we thought it would be as it was a good quality make. We tried the ride out with a borrowed Kenwood radio and it worked fine ! I could hear Neil clear as a bell at illegal speeds.. perfect !
The bad news was Neil had to shell out £140 for a new radio and charger . Then the guys persueded me to buy a previous model Kenwood ( ex display ) and charger with a spare battery for £70 ! I didn't really want it as I had 2 Motorolla radios 3 batteries and a charger already ( although the are 10 yrs old ) but theory was they were more compatable and also if we were going to do this trip we might as well do it properley . Neil duly paid for both on his credit card, top mate eh !
One other thing , My Autocom cable didn't fit the Kenwood radio so after a quick converation with the Autocom office they gave me the number for the BMW dealers in Peterborough who were the nearest dealerwith one in stack . Neil's gps got us there and I got the cable , I also bought a tiny 'o' ring I needed which was causing a small but persistant leak on my fuel tank quick release valve. So another job sorted.
The radio's were better on the way home but not perfect as I was still using the old kit as the new Kenwood batteries were not charged.
OTHER PREPERATIONS
- Documents required were passport / bike insurance / european AA recovery / Log book and ferry ticket. I photocopied everything and also had spare keys for bike / locks etc. Neil carried my set and I carried his .
- I updated my Archos media player and added a couple of new films a few new audio books.
- I nipped into Hein Gerrike and bought a bike cover in case we had to park in a public place.
- Wrote down important numbers and family addresses for postcards etc.
- Picked up 300 Euros from post office
Bike electrical charging of Camera / Mobile / Archos / GPS on the move - PICS TO FOLLOW-
All things considered at this stage we were as ready as we were ever going to be .
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