Quick bike trip to Normandy, France

Paul from Open roads bike hire delivered the BMW R1200GS Adventure – bloody hell that’s enormous!

Trumpet looks a bit down-in-the-mouth to be left behind

 I set off down to Dover, caught the Eurotunnel train and was off down the A16 from Calais in no time, sun shining, French roads all smooth tarmac and no traffic, this has the makings of a good trip. First toll booth, on tiptoes balancing the bike with its full fuel tank while I fumbled for the ticket, felt it start to overbalance, couldn’t hold it, down she went in a graceful flop. Red-faced with embarrassment, I somehow managed to heave the behemoth upright and ride off with trembling legs – oh well better to get that over with early in the trip I suppose!





First nights accomodation

 Stayed the first night in a lovely Chateau near Abbeville, the vegetarian owners made me so welcome (and prepared me a special evening meal) that I decided to stay in the area the next day. Wandered out next morning into biking nirvana – long straight empty road throttle wide open, then hairpin, hairpin downhill into impossibly picturesque mediaeval village looking like some perfect film set, then uphill hairpin, hairpin then spat out onto long empty straight full throttle again.

This was repeated pretty much all day, each day. I travelled down to Bayeaux to see the war museum, war graves and the famous tapestry we were taught about at school; carried on further into Normandy to Dinan, another amazing medieval city, complete with 3km of walls. 



British war graves at Bayeaux cemetary



Bayeaux cathedral

Water mill

Picturesque Dinan

 At each place I managed to find vegetarian food, even if it was only goats cheese salad, but I enjoyed every minute of it – managed to average around 300 miles a day on those fabulous roads, couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Five days later I rocked up back at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais, quick return trip and I was home for tea. Knackered but happy.

Looks a bit precarious - but has been there 500 years or so

Guess what they serve in this roadside cafe?

75bhp isn’t exactly going to set the road alight....

But it’s not a bad result for my 18 yr old Thunderbird; when new the standard bike made 67bhp. The guy in the dyno shop did say that the silencers are the main restriction, he reckons he saw another 10bhp when he pulled the baffles, but as they’re already loud as hell that’s not an option. Maybe I’ll look around for some better ones.

The up-and-down blue lines at the bottom show how bad the fueling was, nice steady red line shows it now.

In a hilarious follow-up to comments on Bobskoots blog regarding the level of service he gets from his bike shop, not only did this guy manage to scratch the tank on the Triumph – the bike ran out of petrol about 3 miles down the road! As I’d filled it up before I took it in I was a bit surprised when it coughed, spluttered and conked out, by the time I’d pushed it down the road and up and over a railway bridge to the nearest petrol station I was knackered, especially as the sun was blazing down.

Ah, the trials and tribulations of running an older bike.

Down by the river......

We spent another pleasant day on Sunday, strolling along beside the river at Marlow; a strange droning noise from the river caused us to turn and see this............

He likes cars, he likes the river....why not combine the two?

Handsome wooden boat ready for the picnic

And it was.... a thumper

You have to love canal boat names

LF blocking the time on this sundial

The Triumph is yet again languishing in a garage - I put her in to a local dyno-tuning place in an effort to get the running better, evidently it needs new jets & a good tune up so I've left her with the garage until it's sorted, hence my reliance on Shank's pony.

Check-up went well

I had my six-monthly check-up at Christies in Manchester last week; the evening before I spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the pub with Nikos after first drooling over his accessory-loaded GS (I want one!); anyway, the examination went well, should have at least another few riding seasons left in me, so that cheered me up considerably.

On Sunday went for a walk in the park with LF, lots of blossoms out, it was almost like spring.

The spring weather has even infused my ride to work; this morning I challenged my co-worker Jim to a race to work, we were sitting at the traffic lights at Chiswick bridge, me on the trusty trumpet and Jim on his 125 Vespa. I took off like a lunatic, Jim getting smaller in my mirrors, weaved in and out of the traffic around Shepherds bush, up and on to the Westway where I could open her up for a minute, then down into Paddington – 8 miles in double quick time. You guessed it, I parked up, took off my helmet, and here’s Jim arriving all cool on his Vespa not one minute after me. I felt like Dick Dastardly.

Oh, and I’ve hired one of those BMW GS’ for a long weekend tour of northern France, off in a couple of weeks…need to get the ferry booked, route to plan.

Mayday walk

Not too much exciting riding going on at the moment here; I'm just using the Triumph to commute into central London every day - actually, that can be quite exciting, what with dodging wayward pedestrians and cyclists and avoiding murderous white-van drivers......anyway, the Mayday weekend dawned bright sunny and warm, perfect riding weather. Unfortunately, I'd somehow promised LF I'd go for a walk along the river Thames tow path with her. Sunday morning we caught the train down to Windsor, which is a quaint little village with the queens' favourite castle towering over it. First thing spotted was this very nice Honda Valkyrie. We strolled along all afternoon watching the boats floating by and admiring the houses, big, small or modern they all looked great in the sun. After a mid-afternoon stop for lunch, and a brief stop off at Runnymede to examine the memorial marking the spot where infamous King John signed the Magna Carta all those centuries ago, we arrived at the town of Staines early evening, 8 miles from where we'd started, jumped on the train and went home. 

Honda

walk the plank to get on the narrowboat

who says you need a big boat to relax on the river?

Runnymede, memorial to the signing of the Magna Carta

Spring blosssoms

Windsor castle

 Monday morning was another blue sky day, so we decided to catch the train back to Windsor, this time we walked upriver, again enjoying the scenery in the sun. We eventually reached Maidenhead, again 8 miles from Windsor, so caught the train home in time for tea. Although I'm a Londoner through and through, I must admit it was really pleasant strolling alongside old Father Thames, through ancient villages that seem not to have changed for centuries. Couldn't wait to get back on the bike Tuesday though!

rural church

houseboat

traditional house

queue at the lock

modern house

An unexpected day in the sun

Wow, this has been a roller-coaster 24 hours! Yesterday evening I somehow got sucked into one of those pointless arguments about nothing with LF, only this one escalated into the full-blown screaming kind where all reason goes out the door. So I followed in a mad rage slammed door mood into the rainy night. After walking around kicking dustbins and passing cats I finally calmed down and made my way back to the flat. Trouble was, reason hadn't returned with me so I decided to sleep in my car (huh, at my age!). Anyway, the expected fitful nights sleep ensued, waking at each night sound until the early morning light stopped me dozing, and I got out of the car to stretch. Wonders! The temperature had somehow risen to almost warm. Luckily I keep my motorcycle gear in the boot of the car as there's no room in our tiny flat, so I was soon togged up and riding off. Would you believe me if I told you I actually got too warm by about 11am, and had to unzip the jacket vents! It's like nature decided we'd suffered enough this spring; frosty on Friday morning, now Sunday is 18degC! Wherever I stopped, the cafes had dozens of bikes outside, people walking around in tee-shirts, ladies in skimpy shorts, Oh and by the way ladies, if you don't want guys looking at your cleavage, don't stun us - thick jackets and bulky sweaters to low cut tops in one day is just too much to take! Anyway, the ride today has been great, I'm resting now in a little park somewhere, drowsy in the sun. Guess I'll soon have to go home and face the music (and get a shower), but I'm going to try and keep this feeling going a bit longer. Thank you Father Sun for cheering up my shit day!

A fine day for a road test

A welcome change in the weather, Saturday dawned bright although still very cold. It seemed like the perfect time to try out the new heated grips, so I went out on one of those aimless rides that are so enjoyable. I headed down the A316 into Surrey, then decided to call in at Jack Lilley Triumph as they usually have hot coffee and some interesting bikes to look at while warming up. The new paintjob on the Bonneville really took my eye - shame its too small for me.

Anyway, as I was admiring it, I got chatting to one of the salesmen, and ended up taking a Tiger 800 out for a test. It seemed quite nippy along the dual carriageway, running up to 100 quickly enough and feeling very stable, although the noise generated by the tall screen was pretty high. Off into the twisty lanes and it handled quite well, all in all it did what it should for a new bike - it all worked, except that is for the gearchange, which was notchy and seemed to have more nuetrals than gears. The seat also seemed pretty hard and unforgiving; I mentioned both of these points to the salesman when I got back to the garage, he reckoned the gearbox problem was due to an incorrectly adjusted gear linkage, which you would have thought they would have rectified before letting their demo bike out! Obviously the seat problem could be rectified by eating more meatballs.

I realised I wasn't far from the local Suzuki dealer, so decided to take the chance to ride over there to see if I could get a demo ride on their Vstrom, as that seems to be the bike closest to the Tiger, on price anyway. What a revelation! It was comfy, relaxed, not that much slower than the Tiger and also did everything a new bike should, including changing gear easily! One thing both bikes had in common is that they were quiet, whooshing along rather like a motorised refrigerator.

Its good to ride these new bikes; firstly to help with that decision as to what to buy when funds allow, but also to put into perspective the views expressed in those bike magazines that seem to think these bikes are slow plodders. They're fast enough for me. Strangely enough, once I got back on the Triumph, it didn't seem much slower, and with the soundtrack from the exhausts bouncing back of the trees was actually more fun. I got home with a big smile on my face.