France / Germany Day 8

It pissed it down in the night and all morning which meant packing up camp in the wet.Net result you end up feeling as filthy at the start of the day as you do at the end.
A wet ride all morning and yup the trousers leak at the crutch despite a can of waterproof spray on em. The rain stopped and we had mile on mile of arrow straight roads with some great empty swoopy stuff and some sudden wicked bends. In France those chevron signs for corners are very expensive and they do not have many of them so when they do put one up it is going to be a mother of a bend. They also like to build garage forecourts with advers camber exits to lead on to adverse camber roudabouts , usually with a sprinkling of that fine gravel dust that takes your front wheel out in carparks.
Gas stations come in various flavours. You can have ones with no queues because they take French fuel cards and nothing else, hypermarkets that take anything but which incredibly shut for lunch, LeClerc and Super U, small town ones where you are taken in to the accounts office to pay, motorway ones which draw their staff from the same surly, bored pool as anywhere else.Toll booths are pointlessly varied too.
You can whizz up and instantly pay by card or you can have the infuriating fumble of taking a ticket which you need to produce at the other end. It is popular for truckers to drop said tickets at either end or both or for someone to not realise that payment is by card only having entered the booth thus provoking a splendid French horns chorus.There are also manned ones with windows set at truck height so you wave your ticket and card hopefully about above your head hoping no one fumbles or the ever present motorway howling cross wind does not snatch it away.
Surprised at how timid German bikers are at filtering and when they do they get in the way.Luxembourg drivers are fast and aggressive, the Germans are fast but prop up preconceptions by being taken completely unawares by anything not in The Plan.They howl into roadworks for example despite all the warning signs and today a mangled car at one point was the result and cause of a long delay - except for Mr London Rider ahem...
Got a very friendly reception from the Flyingbrick brigade and was amazed at how much attention Ethel got amongst all their stunning specimens. The handlebar muffs, safesac, 12v socket with different adaptors and the Airhawk seat - complete with bouncy cheapo air pillow after the original punctured were a hit, the broken top box lid, pound shop padlock, filthy screwed up tent and plastic petrol can lashed on any old how somewhat less so.
Rideouts have been organised with Teutonic thoroughness all of them with maps and grade of riding style. Touring, quick or mad fucker. I have signed up for Touring ride #2 please.200 km at 1000 Prompt it says. Oh yes you sign your own button badge and wear it - all we need now is Leslie Crowther.
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