Ethel is ready for Europe - again !

Just 24 hours to go and this year's adventure begins. Like the proud
old lady she is Ethel is standing patiently in the stalls aware from
all the goings on that something big is in the air. She is fuelled up,
all oils checked and good, tyres inflated and just waiting to be
loaded up with luggage. The stuff sack with all the camping gear and
lightweight jacket is ready to go on the back seat and the pannier
liner bags are filled and ready to load. The top box is planned out
for maps and valuables leaving enough room to stash the helmet
securely.
A great tip was to download TYRE for Tom Tom. This free download from
a very friendly Dutchman makes itinerary planning a doddle. Anyone who
has gone backwards and forwards with Tom Tom trying to do this will
know what I mean - the standard waypoints system on Tom Tom is a
fiddly nightmare. With TYRE you twiddle about all you want on Google
Maps until you have want you want, save it and then download to Tom
Tom. Finding the itineraries on Tom Tom is a series of steps but soon
grasped. TYRE explains this on its site somewhere - I had a genius on
hand to help me do it thankfully.
So now I have stored a mainly D route set of itineraries from Le Havre
- Sens de Bretagne ( to meet British bikers France again ) - Rennes,
for 3 nights with the Gabfesters, to visit St Nazaire and who knows
what else - then on to Port St Foy with an ex pat Gabfester -then down
to Carcassone via the Canal du Midi to Val D'Aleth - up via national
parks and D routes to Lyon and Nancy - then over to the Eifel to meet
up with the Flyingbrick rally for 2 nights just down the road from the
Nurburgring and finally a motorway dash through miserable Belgium, yup
rain predicted there as always, to come back through the Chunnel.
Ethel has 63385 miles on the clock and may well put on 2500 more by
the time we are done.
Watch this space for daily updates and on Twitter @quimbling.