French / Spanish Trip June 2010

Sorry for the delay on this one, but it was a long trip followed by 24hrs rest followed by a new pressurised job start on the Monday for me. It's taken me a while to get my head around doing this but here we go. All parts are finished I'll post one everyother night or so. Well Spain it was then. Which idiot thought up this jaunt? and more to the point why did the rest of us idiots decide it was a good idea? We couldn’t change our mind, it would have been rude, so Spain it was then. The following culprits took part. Bogger, JJ, Newt, Diesel Dave, Sir Klipp, Chris, Nige and Jason. Fuzz and Sue departed on the first day for Northern France…Sensible people. Me ready for the off Mine and JJ’s plan of action, finally that is, was to get down to Sir Klipps abode South of Birmingham on the Thursday night, stay there and then the next day carry on with Klippy to Dover to meet the rest of the crew. We left mine at about 2.30pm and made good progress and got to Klipps at about 5.30pm. That night for me sort of went downhill a bit after that. nothing to do with the company I’ll have you know. Basically what happened was, was that we were chauffer driven, really, to the local pub in a rather grand Mercedes. Whereupon I consumed far too much alcohol on an empty stomach and talked drivel, mainly to the local scooter club which had turned up for a quiet drink. Back to Klippy’s (now Sir Clitty and his b###h, little Fanny). It transpires that Sir Clitt is an actual ‘Sir’ no,no really he is, he’s a bona fide Knight of the Realm. He has to change his passport, driving licence, everything to accommodate his new title. Riding with a Knight of the Realm, how cool is that? Oh where was I? That’s it. Back to Clitty’s for a curry, JJ, Clitty and His son were fine I was wrecked. I fell asleep at the dinner table, missed the curry, woke up went outside and promptly fell asleep on a door mat on the patio. I had to be man handled inside so I didn’t freeze to death. Good start, not. The next day we were up early, bikes loaded said goodbye to Nathan (Clitty’s lad and top bloke) and little Fanny, who had a right sulk on. The ferry crossing was at 3.40pm from vague recollection. We made good progress down the motorways. At the first stop we pulled up right outside the motorway service entrance where Clitty promptly fell over with his fully loaded bike on top of him…oops. Luckily only his pride was hurt. When we left the services Chris Hunt was there having just filled up with fuel. This was just North of London, coincidence or what? Chris said he was nursing the CZ as much as possible so we let him lead. Nursing it my arse. We were doing 60mph about 5mph faster than we had been going. We had a couple of short stops for fuel etc on the way to Dover, but arrived in good time. We went through the customs rigmaroll again. Have you got any, guns, knives, drugs or illegal immigrants on you? Did you pack your own bags? etc. No to all of course, Ahem, and on through to the waiting lanes. We were first there quickly followed by Diesel Dave and Newt, then Nige and Jason with Fuzz and Sue last, but certainly not least. The crossing is dead quick, by the time you’ve settled down and caught your breath it’s time to get your stuff together and head for the vehicle decks. Would the mighty CZ start? Kick, kick, kick….No chance. Chris pushed it up the ramp and managed to bump start it down the other side. Phew. It was only a short 12ml hop to the first campsite at Guines. JJ had previously asked Chris what was in the small unopened plastic bag perched on his bike. Chris casually replied that that it was his new, improved, superior 1 man tent. Really?? I’ve seen bigger packed lunches. Well we all started to set up camp in a secluded part of the very quiet and picturesque campsite. Yon French campsite, JJ is lecturing Chris on where to pitch his tent, as the first place he pitched it, on top of his bike, JJ deemed unsuitable We were all beavering away getting sorted…………..Oh my God the size of Chris’s tent!! Action man would have had trouble getting inside. We remarked that if Chris got a stiffie on whilst inside, first off all the campsite would be able to see and secondly he would not be able to roll over. This is Chris's tent correctly erected For some reason everyone seemed to dump their crap outside my pitch? There was much mutterings about me lighting my superior camp stove. Sue was actually really impressed and with the camp stove. She said it was like a real one only smaller. Hmm sounds familiar. Some of us made our way to the local supermarket to buy some grub. Me and JJ had proper meat burgers, ‘Hasche’ I think it’s called in France. Really tasty. We flame grilled them on a disposable BBQ. I don’t think we went to bed too late as Nige had promised us he would get us up nice and early. Ooh goody can’t wait. We were indeed woken early by the camp commandant, err I mean Nige. I have no idea what time 6.30am possibly. We all staggered about getting breakfast or drinks etc and started to pack away. I was mostly packed when I noticed that my brand new self inflating mattress had disappeared. No one was owning up? I finally realised that Newt had thrown it in the bin with the rest of the rubbish, he strenuously denied this until at knife point, only joking, he wandered over to the skip and found it. Ahem. He looked sheepish enough. First proper day in France here we come. Only 460 km to the next campsite. It all started fairly well apart from me forgetting my sunglasses and having to go back the campsite to find them. We hadn’t gone far then we started to climb. Good grief there was a lot of weight on our bikes. Where the Innova would normally make short work of the terrain it was a struggle. To add to this the wind was at gale force, so when we were on the flat it was murder trying to make any real progress. We had had in our minds before the trip that we would be bowling along for the most part at 55mph. 1hr into the journey this assumption was out of the window. We were struggling for the most part at 40-45mhh on full throttle ALL the time. This was the case for the entire day. It really did wear you out. Also if you got split up there was no way you could catch the people in front as everyone had the throttle pinned. At one point we were in three distinct groups. Nige JJ and Diesel Dave at the front, Jason and Newt in the middle and me, Clitty and Chris at the back. There was about ½ ml between each group. No matter how hard the middle and back group tried we could make no headway against the leading group. None at all. This went on for at least 30 or more miles a stint. Another thing I noticed over the whole trip was that if you were at the back you thrashed your bike far more than if you were at the front. Strange but true. Not only was it blowing a gale, head on, of course, but around luch time it started to rain. Oh Joy. At one point we got split up and arrived at the campsite in two separate groups. I think it was me Dave, JJ, Clitty and Newt turned up at the site first, with about a minute to go before they closed the reception. We told them we had a reservation, even though we didn’t, and all of us were booked in. Luckily the rain held off whilst we pitched and got some well earned grub on the cookers. I think I can say to a man we were knackered, frustrated with the progress and knackered again. It had been a tough, tough day. At least the bar was open, where we sought refuge and I was treated to childs portions of beer so I didn’t fall asleep next to the swimming pool.. Wakey wakey campers. The harbinger of doom was waking us up again after what seemed about 2hrs sleep. What time is it Nige. It’s late it’s 6.45am. Late my arse. It had been raining during the night but was holding off for the moment. A quick brekkie, ablutions, pack up and were ready for the off. I’ve even got all my camping gear today, none’s in the bin. More to follow Bogger

A short days riding today only 450kms. At this point can I say everyone, barr Clitty (iron arse Clitty) was complaining about their backsides being tender. Oh one more thing Chris admitted to his tent, more like an enlarged sock really, being f****** s***e and a waste of money and ‘I never get this f****** camping thing right’. Me and JJ did remind him of the night in the Lake District he nearly died of hypothermia/exposure. Maybe next time it’ll be sorted Chris. Maybe?
I was actually praying for no headwind this day. If it had been the same as the day before I think my head would have exploded.
Second day ready for the off.

Thankfully, from recollection there was very little headwind, but it did piss down all day.
Some French rain at yet another stop

Fantastic. The riding was a lot easier today but our average speed was paltry about 28mph or something stupid, due to all the stops. We had a nice stop in a small village where there was a small farmers market on and we all visited the local shops etc to buy some food and provisions. We practiced our French linguistic skills , which were coming on in leaps and bounds. We had stopped shouting and were now at the advanced level of pointing and holding up our fingers for how many items we would like. It was obviously fluent French as we mostly got what we wanted. It was definitely your archetypal French village really nice. One old guy, claiming to be 101yrs old came over and started talking to us. It was great, if only we could have understood a word he said. Bonjour, merci etc. I hope Nige or indeed anyone else can help with our destination for that evening as I have no idea whatsoever. I think it was in the Dordoinne region near a truly fantastic village called Domme. The views from the Village perched up high were awesome. On a sobering note it was on this day that Chris nearly met his maker. It was really scary. I remember us stopping just after a steep, sharp right hand descent. Some of us stopped one side of the road some the other and spaced out a bit. We got our bearings and pointed in the correct direction. Chris set off first towards a blind right hand bend, on the wrong side of the road. It was like slow motion. I blasted my horn but he was too far away to hear. All I can say is how the truck missed him, God only knows. It was a mixture of Chris and the truck driver swerving at the same time. They were literally inches apart. One of the other lads remarked that the driver had a look of sheer panic on his face as he wrestled the truck back onto the road from the grass verge he had mounted. I thought I’d never ever say this, but French truck drivers, ‘We Salute You’. It shook us all up for a while none more than Chris. Luckily this was the only really dicey incident on the whole trip. It was still raining by the way. Of course.
So far I’ve not painted a very rosy picture but to be honest we were all really enjoying ourselves, we had gotten into a rhythm of riding and the order in which we riding in now suited us. Happy days. Because of the lack of headwind we all felt far more relaxed and were making decent progress when actually riding and not stopping. We were mainly following Daves sat nav which was set to the fastest route but avoiding main roads. The scenery was beautiful and I was getting a real ‘feel’ for rural France. The roads were almost bereft of any vehicles, you could travel twenty miles and see no other traffic on the road, not a single car. We were hustling along one particular country lane along side a herd of about 25 cows. As the first couple of bikes went past they started a slow trot, as the next two went past they speeded up to a run, as the last three of us approached with Chris ring ding dinging along on the CZ it was a full blown stampede, I kid you not. I looked at where they were likely to end up. Hmm that’ll be the end of the field where there’s no gate then. All there was, was a single thin bit of rope slung across the entrance. The first three cows spotted this and anchored up big style the ones behind didn’t, ploughed into those in front and all of them ended up in the lane right in front of us covered in shit, snot and mud. It was like something out of a cartoon. We weaved and dodged past chuckling to ourselves. Round the next bend were a couple of French Farmers. Err umm err umm ‘Cows, err moo moo sur la rue’ or something like that. It must have been proper French as they understood and set off down the lane. The campsite for that night was a ‘Yelloh’ campsite again perched high in the hills. We got there tired and wet. The rain had actually just stopped. As we were booking in Dave had a magnificent brainwave. Ask them if they have any cabins instead of camping. Well done Dave, top marks. We actually had 2 cabins between the eight of us.
French 'Cabins' Mobile homes really.

Oh look they're drinking, that's unusual???

They all had heaters. Bliss. By the morning we had all dried out, much better. That night from the campsite Nige took three of us, the others were on a resting/drinking/drying out session, on a short scenic tour of the area. Initially I didn’t feel like going. I’m glad I did. The scenery was jaw dropping and very interesting.
The entrance to the village of Domme.

And the view.

See what I mean it was really nice.

The next day our destination was the start of the Pyranesse. Do you know what I actually think the wind was behind us this day?? What’s that all about?? Again we were following the sat nav with Dave mostly leading. The reason for the sat nav was to avoid unnecessary stops to consult the map. Yea like that was working.. Oh another point. Each day bought about a change of scenery, as the miles rolled by you could see the landscape start to change from vast open plains to rolling hills to, on the third day countryside much like our own in England with smaller fields and walls and hedgerows. I’ll say it again, I really like France. The CZ had by now developed a gearbox oil leak which Chris was convinced was terminal.
Any gear oil in there Chris?

I think he bought about half a gallon of gear oil, mainly because it was cheap and topped it up. I think it took about a thimble full. Laugh I nearly wet myself. I think he lugged this oil all the way to Spain and back home again. Better safe than sorry eh Chris.
When ever we stopped we tried, but mostly failed, to make it coincide with fuel top ups or a supermarket stop to try and save a bit of time. Riding in a big group seems to make the time just ebb away. The only major city the entire trip was Toulouse. It was just like being back in Britain. Traffic everywhere. It took us an eternity to get through and it was boiling hot. Can I just mention, that at this point in the trip JJ was a bit down, he had seen NO French women with hairy armpits. He did keep waving to the ladies as we rode along in the vain hope that one would wave back showing her resplendent hairy armpits. Most just gave a Gallic shrug, a stare and went about there business. I do remember one particular err well endowed lady that JJ waved at as she was pegging out the washing. JJ whizzed by peeping his horn and waving just as she was just raising her arms to peg some fresh clothes on the line, I swear it was like a scene out of the Exorcist as JJ’s head rotated through 180 degrees to get a better look. Alas it was all in vain…clean shaven again.
The scenery was changing again, we were starting to climb and the Pyrannese loomed large in the distance. The campsite for that night was some 3,500 feet high. The road up to the site was fantastic full of switchback hairpins, ace. About five miles before the site we stopped off at small village. Me and JJ snuck off to find a typical French bar/café and have a drink, as we had been gagging to do this all trip. Deux verre du bierre sil vous plait monsieur. ‘Two glasses of beer’ he replied in perfect English’, bollocks, sort of spoilt it a bit. Jason soon caught us up as we supped away. Oh another observation. Jason, Niges younger brother, never, ever stops eating. I thought I was bad, good grief he never stopped, honest. When we got to the campsite JJ had a talking to from Clitty for undertaking on a hairpin bend, I think Clitty nearly s*** himself. I did try to explain to Clitty that this is what we do on the Northern run outs. I soon shut up as he was not impressed. Oops.
The campsite for that night could/should have been really good, it was, but some how it wasn’t.

I remember coming back from trying to clean my breakfast dishes fuming because there was no hot water. Only a small thing but really infuriating. All the other sites had been good. By this time Chris had given up on his tent and had ordered a shed to sleep in. The campsite owner called it a log cabin. But it was more like a glorified shed and it actually had a canvas roof?? Chris complained that the electric wasn’t working. Chris it helps if you actually switch it on mate, tee hee. After Newts bike had been stripped almost to it’s componenet parts (bad missfire) and rebuilt again, badly, we all piled into Chris’s pad that night for a p***s up and we had a right good laugh. Typical blokes night talking crap and laughing till our sides hurt. I honestly don’t remember going to bed
Guess what the next morning was another early start. Is this starting to sound familiar. It’s funny though how you get yourself into a routine packing and unpacking. I, once again had taken far too much stuff, half of which was never used, will I ever learn, I doubt it. The mighty CZ ploughed on relentless. We all stunk of two stroke by the way, I could even taste it.


To be continued..again