Met up with Dave Morris at Le Havre port. He being happy to follow we set off on my carefully planned itinerary.15 minutes and umpteen U turns later we were still trying to leave Le Havre.After discussion we scrapped the scenic route and droned down the autoroute for ages. Upon arrival at La Porte I asked the stereotypical aged French countrywoman which is La Porte to be told they all are ! Taking pot luck I led us down a track at random and lo and behold it was the right one. Nice welcome and tea and cakes with the BBF followed. Ex IOM racer Lost a Spanner then treated us to a quick zip to the Etap in Rennes. All hell broke loose at reception as they insisted that our prepaid bookings were only reservations and we must pay again. I had lenghty discussions with the guy and the Paris office after we had paid twice only to get the news that we were right in the first place and would now get a refund. Very pissed off to have needlessly blown a big hole in my cashcard for this. Ho hum Vive La France. Tomorrow summer jacket and St Nazaire at last.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Friday, 23 April 2010
France day 1
Bit of a panic this morning with dead Ethel. Out of fuel but fuel light did not go on. Trekked to gas station in winter kit and bought can of fuel. Still dead. Turned out to be damp fuses and away she went. Now on Norman Arrow en route to Le Havre.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Winter work on Ethel
Ethel has been treated to a new Odyssey maintenance
free battery. So far this does what it says on the tin. It has sat there untrickled through all that minus degree weather and really does spin up the motor much quicker than before. I also fitted Goodridge braided hoses,new pads and fluid.As a disc brake novice I was inundated with horror stories of bleeding out air bubbles. I bought a Mnotrax Little Bleeder one way valve kit - it took 15 minutes each side, job done !
Ethel went straight through her MOT with an advisory that the exhaust clamp has deteriorated. Bit of a mystery this as it appeared to be all there but the end can did wobble - it always has ! Solved by the Flying Brick Forum. There is a mica sleeve insert that slips over the manifold and the can goes over that. Got one next day delivery from the very efficient Motorwerks and now have a very quiet Ethel with less whistling sound and no pops on the over run.
Ethel seems as ready to go as I am and is running sweeter than ever. I'll do an oil change before we go to Europe and hopefully that will be it.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
free battery. So far this does what it says on the tin. It has sat there untrickled through all that minus degree weather and really does spin up the motor much quicker than before. I also fitted Goodridge braided hoses,new pads and fluid.As a disc brake novice I was inundated with horror stories of bleeding out air bubbles. I bought a Mnotrax Little Bleeder one way valve kit - it took 15 minutes each side, job done !
Ethel went straight through her MOT with an advisory that the exhaust clamp has deteriorated. Bit of a mystery this as it appeared to be all there but the end can did wobble - it always has ! Solved by the Flying Brick Forum. There is a mica sleeve insert that slips over the manifold and the can goes over that. Got one next day delivery from the very efficient Motorwerks and now have a very quiet Ethel with less whistling sound and no pops on the over run.
Ethel seems as ready to go as I am and is running sweeter than ever. I'll do an oil change before we go to Europe and hopefully that will be it.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Winter over at last ?
In the words of the old Cream song " You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever, so you rode upon a steamer to the glad lands of the sun "
Well the fast cat to Caen may not exactly be that but it's a start. At the end of April we are off to Europe again - at last.
Trigger for the trip is the Gabfesters forum taking a 4 day dash to France and back so we'll start off with them. At the end of that we'll go South with a member of British Bikers France and then off on our own in the direction of Carcassonne - equipped for camping !
After that it's up the East side of France and over to the Eifel to join The Flying Brick forum for their weekend meet.
Cannot wait to get going.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Well the fast cat to Caen may not exactly be that but it's a start. At the end of April we are off to Europe again - at last.
Trigger for the trip is the Gabfesters forum taking a 4 day dash to France and back so we'll start off with them. At the end of that we'll go South with a member of British Bikers France and then off on our own in the direction of Carcassonne - equipped for camping !
After that it's up the East side of France and over to the Eifel to join The Flying Brick forum for their weekend meet.
Cannot wait to get going.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Monday, 9 November 2009
Duxford Remembrance Day 8th Nov 09
Took the swoopy non motorway route to arrive just before the NAM brigade. This year was disappointing in that no historic aircraft flew but this was made up for with a free museum pass. Just shows how much has been added since I last went and everything was in an old hangar. Now there are sparkling glass halls with B17,B52,Blackbird, Typhoon,Liberator and loads more in the US hall plus a land warefare hall complete with a Normandy Experience. Best was an ordinary hangar with the doors open with a Hurricane and F109E in working order just standing there.
Not good news was that one of the NAM observers who taught me a lot was recently nerfed off his K1300GTSE on a local roundabout in a classic SMDNSY incident. He has bruises but the bike has cosmetic damage which on a £12k+ bike can be staggering to fix.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Not good news was that one of the NAM observers who taught me a lot was recently nerfed off his K1300GTSE on a local roundabout in a classic SMDNSY incident. He has bruises but the bike has cosmetic damage which on a £12k+ bike can be staggering to fix.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Thursday, 5 November 2009
IAM bike test pass !
After a year's training on Sundays, with a bit of a gap this summer, I
applied to take The Test a few weeks ago. The examiner contacted me
and requested a selection of dates and today was the one chosen.
I had done a series of Mock Tests, some results were declared as
nearly there, others with very nearly there, one not there at all but
all had the usual positive NAM critique and suggestions on
improvements. So after every Sunday the week's riding has been an
extended practice period to try and bring all the required elements in
to play.Every now and then at the end of a ride I have reckoned that
that was the one. Too bad no examiner saw it.
Well, today was the day to stand up and be counted. I had wished for a
cold, dull day and preferably raining. Reason ? Less traffic, speeds
are lower and expectations of adding " sparkle " to the ride are
lower. Someone must have been listening because just as we met up the
dull grey skies opened and down came the rain. Great.
After a briefing on what was expected off we went. Ethel closely
followed by the examiner's Blackbird.The route went through towns,
shopping areas, villages, open countryside and dual carriageway stuff
with hazards galore on the slippery roads. Having flunked the last
Mock Test when I completely missed the 30 signs in a village and
whizzed straight through at 60 I had decided that today dull would
have to do and stuck rigidly to the indicated speeds even though I
know from the satnav that they are 10% optimistic.
No matter how many times you go out observed it is still an unnerving
experience to be aware that someone is closely watching what you are
doing. I am quite used to being in very close, 1 metre, company with
another bike ( just so long as a qualified IAM rider is aboard ) but
somehow it plays on your mind.
So today was a super legal soggy trundle around for an hour ending up
with a bunch of Grade 1 scores and all the rest at Grade 2 ( scores go
down from 1 to 5 ). Job done !
Thank you everybody at NAM for showing me so much that I never knew
and never letting me forget that, in the words of today's examiner,
when you stop learning you are dead.
applied to take The Test a few weeks ago. The examiner contacted me
and requested a selection of dates and today was the one chosen.
I had done a series of Mock Tests, some results were declared as
nearly there, others with very nearly there, one not there at all but
all had the usual positive NAM critique and suggestions on
improvements. So after every Sunday the week's riding has been an
extended practice period to try and bring all the required elements in
to play.Every now and then at the end of a ride I have reckoned that
that was the one. Too bad no examiner saw it.
Well, today was the day to stand up and be counted. I had wished for a
cold, dull day and preferably raining. Reason ? Less traffic, speeds
are lower and expectations of adding " sparkle " to the ride are
lower. Someone must have been listening because just as we met up the
dull grey skies opened and down came the rain. Great.
After a briefing on what was expected off we went. Ethel closely
followed by the examiner's Blackbird.The route went through towns,
shopping areas, villages, open countryside and dual carriageway stuff
with hazards galore on the slippery roads. Having flunked the last
Mock Test when I completely missed the 30 signs in a village and
whizzed straight through at 60 I had decided that today dull would
have to do and stuck rigidly to the indicated speeds even though I
know from the satnav that they are 10% optimistic.
No matter how many times you go out observed it is still an unnerving
experience to be aware that someone is closely watching what you are
doing. I am quite used to being in very close, 1 metre, company with
another bike ( just so long as a qualified IAM rider is aboard ) but
somehow it plays on your mind.
So today was a super legal soggy trundle around for an hour ending up
with a bunch of Grade 1 scores and all the rest at Grade 2 ( scores go
down from 1 to 5 ). Job done !
Thank you everybody at NAM for showing me so much that I never knew
and never letting me forget that, in the words of today's examiner,
when you stop learning you are dead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
