Fatherland - Day Sechs

It's the final day today, although it's a full day as my flight isn't until 10:30 this evening, after that I have the lovely drive home from Stansted and work in the morning, yay.

So after running out of things to do in Frankfurt yesterday I opted to ditch the place and head south to Stuttgart, the home of Porsche. Breakfast was as normal, more frankfurters and then I jumped in the car for a two hour drive. 

It was dry and sunny this time on the autobahn so I did a max speed run in my trusty Fiesta. I got to a healthy 183kph, which I'm guessing is around 115mph, all done legally :)

Typically, the only police car I saw and passed at around 160 was just as the speed limit kicked in so its a good job my satnav started shouting at me!

Once in Stuttgart I easily found Porsche and went to the museum, there was little point though as there were amazing cars in the car park. Saying that, the museum was very good, very large and it had about 80 cars and it was good to go through the history.

There was a tour guide showing another group around so I leached onto them to see what extra info she was giving out. Well, I wouldn't say she was rubbish, but I think I knew better anecdotes than she did, I think I should apply for a job.

After the tour I grabbed some lunch, I was expecting a crappy sandwich, but I got an amazing burger, my first and last of the holiday.

Finally car'd out I went into Stuttgart centre to kill some time at a mall. It was pretty much in the centre and I had a good look around and finally got some sunglasses. Now I'm ready for all that sun we gave back home.

After a large ice cream and a coke (which a wasp landed in) I jumped in the car to head to the airport.mi had about 4 hours to make the 2.5 hour journey, but once on the road I'd hit rush hour and it look an hour just to get out of the city. Traffic was slow most of the rest of the way until the final 45 mins or so, no chance of taking the scenic route.

I'm now sat in the airport eating overpriced giant sized toblerone watching the idiots trying to push to the front of the queue to get on the plane. It's hardly full, it's allocated seating, why would you want to get in the sardine tin early?

Anyway, that's me done, as always, thanks for reading.

Fatherland - Day Funf

Morning in Frankfurt, it's already hot, in fact I'm not sure it was ever cool.

Another odd buffet breakfast, this time they had frankfurters which was fitting considering where I was, but they also had a tray of uncooked eggs. I'm not sure what you were meant to do with these as there was nothing to cook them with, unless you put them in the toaster that is and that didn't sound like a good idea. I didn't want eggs anyway.

I had the TV remote on my table and being as I didn't understand the German news channel i changed it to an Arabic channel. I didn't understand that either but at least everyone else was in the same boat as me now.

I'd decided to do a city tour to get my bearings or get completely lost, either could happen. It was one of those open top bus tours and I was given headphones so that I could dial into the English commentary. That would have worked but they played the German so loud you could barely make out the English.

It wasn't so much a city tour, more a tour of the major banks as they seem to have had a competition to see who could make the tallest building.

The tour was due to last an hour, but they didn't mention that half way round you'd park for 15 mins to get more passengers.

After I'd seen all the banks I left and got a drink as it was around 30c.

Reenergised I headed for the shops.,they actually have some here, rather a lot in fact. However,  none of them sell mens sunglasses so after 2 hours I grabbed some lunch and a giant ice cream. Did I mention it was hot?

It was about 2 pm now so I headed back to the hotel room to recharge my phone and come up with a plan of what to do next.

All of the 'things to do in frankfurt' websites only listed the normal crap they say for every city. Go to a church, go to a museum or go to a garden. Boring.

After searching for a while I just went for a walk down by the river and then back through the city, it's nice enough and very pretty but there's not a lot to do.

I decided to make a list of things I could and couldn't do on holiday here:
Can't do:
Cinema (language), watch TV, watch sky go or Iplayer (UK only), watch YouTube (shit internet), play on the computer, build my car, go for a ride, go out for a beer with mates, read a magazine, go to work, visit people, talk to other humans, go to actual shops that sell things.
Can do:
Sit in hotel room, make lists about what you can't do.

That wasted a few hours, so time to head out for the evening, I had my eye on a pizza place opposite the hotel that was always busy, they had an English menu too. It was pretty filling despite getting the same amount of toppings I'd expect to get in Ethiopia so I moved on to town to find beer.

Oh I nearly forgot, I found a bar called Birmingham Pub, it looked like one of those flat rooved council estate pubs that would be full of stragglers, so I checked reviews on Google and it turns out that it's a gay bar. I'll give that a miss then.

Fatherland - Day Vier

I'm having to type today's blog on my phone as the hotel is only allowing one device on the network. After having to pay by the hour for wifi at the last place (not that sort of wifi!), it's not a good record for Germany so far on the Internet fronts.

Today was race day which started at 1pm and lasted 6 hours. There wasn't a lot going on before that at the circuit so I was just going to rock up an hour before. However, I got bored at the hotel so I ended up getting there at about 11.

Its a good job I did, if I thought it was busy yesterday, today was a whole other level.

I headed straight for my preferred spot and got one of the last seats, by 11:30 they'd all gone. This didn't stop people turning up 5 mins before the race, like they do at the cinema, all disappointed because there wasn't a block of 8 for their party. Idiots.

I won't bore you with a rundown of the race, but it was good and Porsche came 1st and 2nd so I was happy. With 30mins to go 2nd through to 4th were separated by half a second, so it was pretty close stuff.

As soon as the race finished I headed for the car, it's been a hot day, around 31c so the car was practically on fire.

The traffic wasn't bad considering the size of the venue, if this had been Silverstone I'd still be in the car park now. German efficiency you see.

The sat nav said it was a three hour drive which was longer than I remembered, and then I realised that I still had it avoiding motorways, so I changed that and took an hour of the journey.

This also meant that it was autobahn time, although the one I was on to start with was restricted to 130kph. Still it was full of more BMWs and Mercedes than you'd find at your typical Sikh wedding.

Eventually I got to the unrestricted section but it was now night time, and as the road was unlit it was hard to judge closing speeds and which lane people were in. Still I tried my hardest in the little fiesta but I got mullered by the flock of BMWs that were in such a rush you'd think they were off to Poland again.

Finally in frankfurt I found the hotel easily, go to love Here sat nav, free, offline and actually works. However my hotel is in the middle of the bar district which is good unless you want to park. I drove around for 15mins and didn't so much as park, more abandoned.

The receptionist kindly showed me where the hotel parking was by opening the back door. Thanks, real helpful.

Frankfurt is also very warm, far hotter than at the track and there is no aircon. It is literally dripping off me in the hotel room. It's a good job I have one bottle of heated fizzy water left to see me through!

I can hear fireworks outside, or AAA fire, not sure which, I'm going to bed and hope the allies win.

Fatherland - Day Drei

Not such a good sleep tonight as I hadn't employed my technique of folding the worlds most absorbent pillow in a way that actually supports your head, so I woke up with a sore neck and a headache.

Once I was up for breakfast all was good and as I hadn't found anywhere better I went for the complimentary offering again. This time it was much improved by the fact that they had bacon, so I took my fair share and then someone's else's too. I figure it's like a trade, I have their bacon, they have my cheese. It's still a trade if they don't know about it or have a choice in it, right?

Once I was full up on pig I jumped in the car to get to the track, I was getting used to my underpowered 1 litre Fiesta now despite having to change gear with my wrong hand. On the way to the circuit a sporty Citroen DS3 wanted to play, I had him in the twisty bits but couldn't stay with him up the hills.

The first race was at 11:30 so I rocked up at just before 11 now having sussed out where to park and which stand to sit it. It's a good job I had done my homework too as it was much busier today and I had one of the last spots in my car park which was empty yesterday. The stands were much busier to, but it's easy to find a seat for one so I got a similar seat on the upper stand to where I was yesterday.

The race was the Nurburgring Legends, basically older racers ranging from prototypes to GT40s to classic Mini Coopers. It was a two horse race but a close race and it was great to see the minis clawing back in the bends after being thrashed on the straight by the Mustangs. It felt like my Fiesta vs DS3 battle earlier!

After the race there was a two hour gap so I went looking around the shops and won me a cap on one of the simulators. I needed a pair of sunglasses so I found a nice pair of Oakleys reduced from €130 to €65. I went to buy them and apparently when the printed price is crossed out with pen and a new price written next to it, this doesn't mean it's reduced, it means it's still €130. So I told the robbing bastards to stick it and walked off.

After lunch it was qualifying time, the big boys were out and Porsche got a 1-2 on the grid, a great result being a Porsche fan. Not so good if you're an Audi fan (are you reading this Pandaman?).

To round the day off were a few more races, first the Porsche Super Cup, who were absolute nutters. The guy who I was sat next to missed everything, every time he went to get something out of his bag or looked the other way a car would spin or overtake or something. I felt sorry for him so I ended up pointing for him when something looked likely to happen.

The final race of the day was the Legends again and I couldn't be bothered waiting so I thought I'd head to the paddock to look around again. They'd closed off my secret entrance to the pits now, probably for the best, but I did manage to get into scrutineering. Here is where half a dozen of the multi-million pound cars were taken to be checked out to make they they were legal. Amongst them was the pole sitter and 3rd place as well as a couple of ferraris and an Aston Martin. I could easily have touched/kicked/modified the cars if I felt like it, it's hard to believe how much trust there is here.

Back in the paddock teams would leave their unused race tyres out too, it would be very easy for someone to put a cut in one to sabotage a team. Not that I did that of course, nor do I condone it, but there are crazy people out there.

With the racing done I headed home but on the way I stopped by a curious road. It was not far from my hotel and basically a dirt track but car were always going down so it peeked my interest, it must lead to a good view. I went down there and ditched the car after a while as the road was too rough. After about a 15 min walk I came across a gathering of people at the cliff edge. The nutters were paragliding off the top! It was one hellova view though. What I don't understand about paragliding or wing suits is, how did they invent it? I mean for it to work you have to jump off something high, and what, just hope it worked? Anyway these nutters were Dutch and travelled the world doing it and this spot was really good apparently. I think they should be in the new Point Break film.

its back to base for my customary evening meal, I was determined to get a dessert tonight as I'd been too full on other nights, so I opted for whT I would be a smaller meal (a schnitzel), but it was huge again. So I had a pudding anyway. Stuffed.

Fatherland - Day Zwei

Guten morgen.

After a good sleep I went for breakfast which was included with my room. It wasn't the buffet I wanted and comprised of several types of cheese and some miniature sized bread. Oh well, its free for a reason I guess.

My plan today was to head to the Nurburgring Nordschlife circuit, the 20k track that you can take your road car on. I'd already checked the T&Cs of my rental agreement and I wasn't allowed to take my hire car on but I was planing to watch and maybe bribe someone to jump in the back of their car.

I took the scenic route there which comprised of some gorgeous roads although I was wary of the Spezialkrafte nearer to the circuit. Upon arriving I parked up where I could get a quick getaway like Clark Griswald taught me. I walked over to the entrance and security stopped me. Luckily he spoke better English than people from Dudley so he was able to explain that a club had rented the circuit today and they didn't want spectators. Hmm plan thwarted.

I had a plan B though. Luckily I'd done my homework and as the circuit is so long there are loads of places you get view from near to some towns. I had a list of these with directions so off I went.

I only got a little bit lost before finding a good spot. I climbed up a bank that looked over the circuit just as a marshal put out a red flag which basically meant someone had stuffed it and the racing was over until it was sorted. No wonder they didn't want spectators.

I took the opportunity to find a better spot and after about 30mins the action was back on so I spent an hour or so watching people try to drive their Porsches fast on the damp narrow track.

In the afternoon I decided to head to the proper Grand Prix circuit to see the event I'd actually come to Germany for. I had no idea which of the 40 (I kid you not) car park to use, so I opted randomly for B1. All of the signs were in German so I found an entrance that wasn't busy and scanned my ticket and went in.

I was in the paddock (the bit behind the pits where all the teams and their trucks / hospitality are). Result. Practice for the WEC cars had just started and I walked around the backs of the garages and was able to see the telemetry on their screens and all the goings on.

I was desperate for the loo at this stage so I found some toilets which were also used by the crew which meant that after I'd sorted myself out, instead of turning right to go back to the paddock, I could turn left and go to the pit lane. During a live session.

I didn't want to push my luck at this point as I'm pretty confident that I shouldn't be here, however, how often do you get the opportunity, right? One of the LMP2 cars came in for a stop about 3 meters from me and the team jumped into action so I managed to get some good video footage that I'll share afterwards.

I went back into the paddock and practice finished so I hung around seeing if I could catch anyone famous. Cue Lotterer, Alan McNish and Patrick Dempsey (McDreamy from Greys Anatomy). Being a Hollywood star he was swamped and ended up getting pushed out of the way, how rude.

I then saw Anthony Davidson so as he was stopping for selfies I exchanged a few words with him, he's a good chap and was happy to spend time with the fans which was nice.

All star'd out I headed for the rand stands to watch the other cars and spent the rest of the afternoon there. Just before leaving I though it wouldn't be right to not race anything myself so I went on a Le Mans simulator and then tried my hand around the karting track.

The karts were electric and restricted, so not the best and the indoor circuit was unusually high grip so nearly all of the lap was flat out which is a bit boring. Still, karting is always fun, and I got to take out the Germans (pretty sure it was Vettel in car 4) ;)

Back to base afterwards for a huge steak and some beer. It'll be a similar day again tomorrow, so an early night is due.

Fatherland - Day Ein

It's vacation time again as I need to burn some annual leave. After looking around for somewhere to go I settled on Germany to go and see the World Endurance Car championship at the Nurburgring.

I had to fly from Stansted though which was a bit of a pain, and my flight was at 7:30am. So I took the opportunity to visit Martin's new restaurant in Chelmsford. It's very nice, and they do awesome steaks so book in at Bake n'Grape right now.

The journey down was pretty uneventful, it was the M1 and M25 after all. However, after 2mins into my journey after dropping my cat off with Graham I had to turn around as I'd forgotten stuff already. Amazing the fastest part of the journey was the M25, I don't know what all the fuss is about, I happily did 90 most of the way around at about 6:30 pm (I also beat the satnav by 10 mins, get in!)

After leaving Martin's place I headed to a B+B next to the airport. The satnav thought it would be fun to send me down country lanes barely wide enough for my car to fit down which made for a fun drive.

I arrived at the B+B just before midnight.  It was OK, although the bed was made for someone of hobbit height and the mattress was about as thick as a napkin that had been run over by a steam roller. My neighbour who I have to share the bathroom with has some aversion to flushing the toilet it seems, so I made sure I flushed it several times, I hope I didn't wake him. 

I flushed it again.

Five hours later it was time for my early morning flight so after flushing the loo a few times I headed out only for my friendly sat nav to freeze. This made my already pushing the boundaries of being late a little further and resulted in some slightly more extreme driving in order to get back on track. Obviously to make the timing more interesting when I parked my car at the airport the bus pulled away so I had to wait 15 mins for the next one.

Finally in the airport I was starting to rush, my stress levels weren't helped by the fact that my flight wasn't listed on the big screen. This made me paranoid enough to check my tickets and today's date. I headed to the gates anyway and my flight was on the next screen, it looks like it was missing on the previous screen so that they could display an advert. Brilliant.

I made the flight, it went well, nothing to report. Upon landing I picked up my hire car, a high octane Fiesta 1.0. I asked for a free upgrade to a Porsche, being in Germany and all, and the lady told me that the fiesta was the same as a Porsche as it had four wheels. Can't argue with that logic.

It turns out that Frankfurt Hahn airport is nowhere near Frankfurt which was good as it meant I didn't have a city to deal with and I was immediately in the middle of nowhere which made getting used to the car and driving on the wrong side of the road easier. Bring on special stage 3.

I wanted to stop at a shop to get some water and bits and pieces, but it appears that there are no shops, only car dealerships. So I failed to get any water but did get a VW, two Audis and a BMW.

It was only about 30mins before I rocked up in Bremm, my base for the next three days. Bremm is a gorgeous town on a large river cut in a valley. It really is stunning and my phone camera can't do it justice. I decided a walk was in order, I still needed that water so I walked around Bremm and failed to find any shops. So I went to the next town and the next and so on. I kid you not, during my 2 hour walk the only shop of any description that I found sold dead butterflys.

I gave up on this walking lark and drove to the biggest place I could see within range, when I arrived there were actual people there and everything so I parked up and went to the only restaurant that had people in. I didn't understand one word on the menu and had no wifi to look things up with, it turns out that in the land of the sausage, I'd picked the only salad restaurant in Germany. There's about as much chance of that as finding a gay only vegan bar in Dallas.

The waitress helped me out who spoke embarrassingly good English and I settled on a chicken salad baguette without the salad. While I was there, I did spot the most German looking man ever:

After lunch I went for a drive and found a Lidl so finally got my water. Of course when I got around to open it, I'd only brought bloody sparkling crap hadn't I. So back in the hotel I opened it all and left it to go flat. I might drink the toilet water instead.

After a rest I went to the restaurant bar for a beer pre-dinner. I had a nice outside seat when it started raining so I edged under a brolly and the heavens really opened. There's nothing quite like a thunderstorm in a valley. I know the thunder isn't in there but it really echoes and the clouds dropped right over the river, pretty cool.

An English menu was provided which was very much appreciated and I had a really tasty pork medallion meal. Om nom nom.

Day 10 - The Final Day

It's our last full day today, and to celebrate the French woke us up a 3am by driving laundry trucks outside our window which at the time sounded like Animal from the Muppets on speed with a steel band.

When it was the actual morning we went to town to get brekkie, we didn't have long as we needed to hit the road. We went down stinky street no found a cafe in the town. Steve ordered a coffee, they asked if he wanted a large or small. He had large if course but when it came he made them double it up, then added milk and it was still only half full.

On the road we found some great roads heading to St. Malo except for a junction which had half a ton of gravel on it which caused some squeaky bum moments. Not far up the road a deer jumped out in front of Tommo too, but it wasn't so close as to force evasive manoeuvres.

We arrived in St. Malo and found the hotel really easily, although the parking was a little ,more difficult to locate. It's a nice hotel although the hotel door seems to open the wrong way so you can only go into the room one at a time.

The hotel was right on the front so we walked along the beach into the old town which was encompassed by a massive wall. Inside were dozens of restaurants and we all decided that we'd have a steak for our last meal. We checked out some menus and of course everywhere sold chicken, Mark having had to eat burgers and steak forever due to the lack of choice suddenly had choice, but we we'd settled on steak. Mark was ravenous as he'd not eaten since breakfast so the plan was to eat early, just before 5 and then maybe get a kebab later.

We got distracted from food though and walked around a bit, then found a bar. We got back on track to get food only to find that everywhere was closed until 7, so we wasted some time and then went to a few more bars before settling on a restaurant at 8:30.

The service wasn't great though, Tommo ordered a bottle of wine and just got a glass, this may have been because he dipped his nose into it though when tasting it. The waiter then shoved Tim out of the way to get a chair and when the food turned up Mark only seemed to have half a scraggy squirrel.

Tim went to pay and the waitress was blatantly taking the mickey out of him so we're drafting a scathing review on trip advisor to get our own back.

To finish the night off we went to one last bar and ended up sat next to France's answer to Clay from Sons of Anarchy, so we talked bikes with him for a bit in broken English and French.

So the stats at the end of the France leg are; 852 miles completed, 19hours 35mins in the seat with an average speed of 44mph.

The following day we packed up and took the 2 minute ride to the ferry. It was all very stressful as it was a fairly early start, we had to go shopping, get ready, pack, load the bikes, etc. We also didn't have a cabin on the ferry, and as we're on it for about 7 hours we didn't want to sit in our biking leathers the whole time, so it was a complicated ordeal to ensure we could get changed and secure all of our stuff. 

Once on the ferry, we did have a room, so all of that was for nothing, so it was time to just chill out and wave goodbye to France.

And that's about it folks, we're currently sat on the ferry watching the Wimbledon final on our way home, thanks for reading!

Steve hits a bird in the face

Ninja edit:

On the way home on the motorway, which is always the worst part of the journey, two pigeons descended in front of us. Tommo couldn't avoid them, and his bike is now a lot more feathery than before.

The final stats for the entire trip are 1004 miles covered, 21 hours 43mins in the saddle and an average speed of 48mph.

Day 9 - The Road to Nantes

We awoke early again due to there not being any curtains only to realise several hours later that there were shutters on the outside of the windows that we should probably have been using.

We decided to stop being self righteous idiots, or cyclists as they're more commonly known and took our bikes back to the rental place.

We were due to leave the island today and had to wait around for 'tubs' who was meant to pick up the keys at 10. At 11:10 we still hadn't heard from him despite sending texts, calling him and leaving voicemails. So we left the keys under a rock, sent him a txt, and left another voicemail. Several hours later he txt asking where the keys were. Idiot.

The roads were pretty boring, mostly straight with annoying levels of traffic and we soon needed a break so we stopped at KFC where Steve had a sensible wrap while mark and Tim brought a big bucket of chicken wings win. Tim has a wing eating technique that allows him to eat them in about 4 seconds flat, it also has the side effect of looking like he's not eaten in a week as he's shovelling food in his mouth left right and centre. At one point a boy from a French family on an adjacent came over and offered us their spare chicken as they must have thought we were starving. We declined but he didn't offer them to anyone else in the restaurant!

Onward to Nantes, where the traffic was hell and it was getting hot, 30c hot and we were stationary, boiling in our leathers with the bikes also belting out heat between our legs. We decided to filter and hoped people would move out of the way and to be fair most did which was nice, thanks frenchies.

We had a decent sized apartment rented which meant for the first time that we had a room each. Not

wanting to sit around we ventured into the city which was only 10mins walk away. Unfortunately this walk was along stink street which smelled so bad it was like going into times room. There were tramps everywhere too, so maybe we weren't staying in the expensive part of town.

While lying around we stumbled over an awesome chateaux right in the centre which was free to go around so we spent an hour or so exploring. While on the battlements we saw the mass slaughter of people dressed in Lycra:

We decided that it was time to eat and it was getting busy despite it being a Thursday night and there being a million restaurants so we booked a table at a curry house for later and went to get some beers. Tim was ranting about the robbing lazy bastard Greeks and how be should boycott their products when he noticed the Greek restaurant over the road and all was forgiven. We opted to stick with our curry reservation though.

Steve was enjoying his local beer that came in a nice bottle until he noticed that it was only 0.6% alcohol and then he decided that it tasted of piss and ordered a proper drink.

It was finally curry time and after ordering food Steve ordered some beers with his class line "trez beers pour favor". The waiter just laughed and walked off.

We finished the night up in a triangular shaped square which was full of bars and very busy. We chose a rum bar and Tommo ordered a nice run and coke but it came without the coke as the waiter said that the rum was too nice to ruin with coke. Thanks waiter.

Here's the stats so far: 730 miles completed, 16 hours 44 mins in the saddle with an average speed of 43mph.

Day 8 - Human powered transport

One of the downsides of the house we're staying in is that there are no curtains which means the sunbeams blind you from about 4am onwards. Tim countered this by wearing his neck scarf over his eyes to some degree of success.

We headed into town and picked up a bicycle each to tour the island on which was our plan for the day. After about 10 mins we were knackered and stopped for some breakfast and to get our breath back. Once back in the saddle we rode back through town where there was a market and headed towards the north of the island.

Steve set the new Guinness Book of Records record for constant moaning as he wasn't enjoying the saddle, the steering, the brakes, the lights and the hard work. Basically it wasn't an S1000RR so it wasn't good enough.

Tim led the way at a sprightly 4mph even getting up to 3rd gear at one point on our 7 gear monsters. After been overtaken by half a dozen 9 year olds we picked the pace up to 6mph.

In the next town they surprisingly had a market on which seemed to consist of the locals selling necklaces made out of chicken bones and magic tricks. We left quickly.

The next town also had a market on and to give our bums a rest from the saddle we had a quick drink and wandered around. There was an indoor market which we went into which was the best market Tim had ever been to as they sold ridiculous amounts of meat. We had to leave before he brought the lot or someone slipped over on his drool.

We then got a little bit lost but kind of went in the right direction and made it to the very North of the island. There was a lighthouse there with only 8 million steps to the top so we avoided that and just had a look around the town instead. Afterwards we had some food, no prizes for guessing that Mark had a burger and Steve had mussels.

On the way back Tim and Steve found 4th gear while Mark went everywhere in 7th, his oversized calf muscles finally good for something.

Part way home Tim slammed on his brakes which caused Steve to do a stoppie, across the cycle path was a giant sized caterpillar that was in danger of getting run over so Tim helped it along. With his foot.

We made it back to the house, but the bikes had taken their toll as we were all a little saddle sore so we chilled out for a while.

Once we could feel our arses again we got back on the bikes and went to St. Martins again for the evening. It was a little quicker getting there this time despite not cutting across the fields.

Tim and Steve had a lovely seafood meal with oysters, raw tuna and paella while mark tucked into his second burger of the day. It got cold again on the evening so Tim and Steve sat like old men under blankets as it must have been close to 19C.

We rode home afterwards and decided to have a nightcap. The bars in our village turned us away as they were closing but we found a secret beach bar that was rammed and had a live band. We tried to help a soon-to-be-battered man who had lost his wedding ring in the sand but it was a lost cause. 

We sat outside but Somehow Tim and Steve didn't need a blanket here. After a couple of drinks we headed back to our house and had an obligatory race on the bikes.

Cycling stats: around 50kms ridden in what seems like 18 hours in the saddle with an average speed of somewhere near 0.2mph

Day 7 - Island hopping

We left Bordeaux after breakfast which involved throwing bread to some pigeons which created a storm of them.

A quick spurt on the motorway got us clear of the city and we were soon on more interesting roads. Unfortunately they were also the bumpiest and Tims bag kept falling off resulting in several tantrums.

We stopped for a bite to eat and said in broken English to the waitress 'we are English' and she replied 'so am I', so that made ordering easy for once. Mark had a bacon sandwich which a dog tried to eat while Tim and Steve had salads although with all the Mayo, cheese and dressing thrown on, the bacon sandwich was probably the healthiest. 

After a few more hours on the road we arrived at Ile de Re, a small island just off the west coast with a bridge connecting it to the mainland. It's a little bit like going back in time, or going to Devon really with old cars, lack of corporations and chilled out people. The address we were given was akin to saying 'it's the house in Birmingham', why they couldn't give us a road name or postcode we don't know, maybe they haven't been invented over here yet. 

One old guy flagged us down as we were lost, he introduced himself as Roger and shook our hands, we assumed he was our contact and started unpacking the bikes only to find that he was the village looney and just wanted to say hello.

After lots of one way streets and phone calls, we found our AirBNB house for the next two nights. It has 3 bedrooms, none if which have beds or curtains, and the man showing us around only seemed interested in showing Tim how all of the windows opened and closed. Of course after 2 mins all if our stuff was everywhere and it looked like a bombsite.

We thought we'd orient ourselves and walk into town, we followed the road signs only to realised we'd walked around the one way system and could have cut out about a mile if we'd just carried on straight.

We found an amazing shop that just sold cooked whole chickens and cans of beer so we grabbed a beer and walked back to get our hoodies before going out for the evening.

Back at the house we decided that it was too warm for hoodies so we'd just walked home for nothing. We pushed on to St. Martin de Re, a larger seaside town. It was a 40min walk which turned into a donkey track, it turns out that a 'b road' is really a path that half a dozen people have walked down once.

The town was very pretty and full of seafood restaurants and we settled on one that sold pizza so that Mark could eat something different once but they only sold seafood pizza so it was another burger. Tim and Steve had mussels and debated whether eating the closed ones would kill them or not. They ate them anyway to see what would happen. 

It started to get quite cold, it's a shame none of us had thought to have brought out a hoodie. Also at the restaurant was a bridal party which consisted of the bride wearing a leather jacket over her dress, the groom, one mate and a photographer.

After dinner we went to another bar and ordered wine and beer, this all came in the worlds smallest glasses. We decided to call it a night after that as we had to walk back in the dark down the donkey track in sub zero conditions. With beer legs this only seemed to take about 3 mins and we miraculously found our house first time.

Good news, Tim and Steve are still alive so far.

Stats so far: 619 miles covered, 13 hours 53mins in the seat, 44mph average speed 

Day 6 - Bordeaux part deus

Mark woke at 5am to the sound of a T-Rex in the room in the guise of Tims snoring. It was another 5 hours until the others were up and awake so he'd finished all games on his iPad by then, written a novel and recalculated the event horizon.

It was another hot one today, 36c and we had the day to ourselves in Bordeaux. Obviously with such temperatures we forgot to put any sun cream on and spent the day running from shadow to shadow like some crazed vampire.

We had cake for breakfast and then tried to book a Segway tour as reviews were good although they were hard to find. No shit, they moved offices, changed their phone number and didn't update it on their website, published another number that didn't work and when we did find their shop it was closed. They had another phone number on the shop so Tommo called, left a message and we never heard back.

We decided to do some shopping, Tim wanted some sunglasses so we went into a sunglasses shop, didn't buy anything and then walked out. On the way out Tim closed the door on Mark which hit him in the face breaking his sunglasses. We came out of the shop with less pairs than we went in with.

More walking, and we found ourselves in the Nigerian district. There weren't as many knife shops there, but lots of halal fried chicken stores. Not far there was a massive meat market so we went there for a look. Unfortunately it's closed on a Monday but we got to see the outside and that's just as good.

Back into the centre of town Tim eventually did buy some more sunglasses although the main reason for going into the shop was to get some aircon. We figured it was like saying we paid to cool down and also got a free pair of sunglasses.

It was about 3pm now and Mark and Tim were getting hungry and fancied a burger. We scoured the town but most places were just closing and for some reason nowhere sold burgers. After dragging ourselves from one side of town to another we settled on an Italian place and ordered some food. Tommo thought it best to get a small something too. When the food eventually turned up it was huge and well worth the wait. Even Scooby Doo would have struggled with the burger.

To complete our lazy day we went back to the hotel for an afternoon snore which we were all glad of.

Feeling refreshed we preped the bikes so that they'd be ready for tomorrow and took a stroll into town towards beer. We had a quick couple at random bars before going to the Grand Hotel's rooftop bar. It was £12 a drink but it was worth it with great views of the sunset and a good vibe.

We just had the one there and then headed to a place that we'd dubbed 'old mans bar' as it looked like a dingy place full of locals. It was pretty cool in there and Steve even found a statue of cheesy.

It was kebab time so we sat outside some pop up kebab house and stuffed our faces with meat before returning to old mans bar. It had transformed. It was now pumping out tunes and was full of chicks so we hung out there for the rest of the night and the barman even gave us free shots.

Back at the hotel the traditional drunken pile on happened and Tim squirrel jumped Tommo which nearly destroyed his hospital bed.

Day 5 - Bordeaux

It was time to leave Saint Jean de Luz, so we packed up, grabbed a quick breakfast from Monop again as the local patisserie that Mark chose didn't immediately greet Tim when we walked in or offer him a discount.

Once on the road it was a tough slog, lots of traffic, island after island, traffic lights galore, it was like a three hour trip down the Wolverhampton Road.

Along the way we passed a group of gypos going the other way, there must have been about 100 caravans on their way to ruin someone day.

Tims petrol light came on, so we pushed on to find some fuel and the satnav kept lying to us about where the next petrol station was so it was pretty close by the time we did find one. Once there someone approached Steve to ask if they could just borrow his credit card for 5 minutes as they wanted to try something. For some reason selfish Steve didn't want to do this so we just did one instead.

It was getting hot again now, and although the roads had got better they were just dead straight which made for good time but it was far from a good ride.

Once in Bordeaux we found the hotel quite easily, Tim went in to check us in and despite being in his leathers, the receptionist thought he was in a car.

The room was quite small so it was important that we made best use of the space and shared it evenly. Tim just had the double bed, the suitcase rack, the table, and the wardrobe while Mark and Steve spread their stuff out on the square meter at the bottom of their beds.

After a quick shower we walked around town and went straight to the cathedral to get it out of the way. There was the usual statues and stained glass windows, but still no sign of God or any miracles.

Bordeaux is on a river so we popped over to look at that, it was so muddy and brown covered that it made the chocolate river in willie wonkas factory look clean!

We stopped at a bar to quench our thirst and to Mark's dismay Steve and Tim ordered pink cider. So much for the tough biker image. After finishing that we walked around town for a bit taking in all if the various squares, fountains and what not. At one point we bumped into an orchestra knocking out some tunes. Culture overload.

Next bar, and after giving us our drinks they asked to pay as they were closing and then preceded to stack all the chairs and tables leaving us sat outside on our own. We moved onto the next bar where we were told off for standing up with a beer. They also had a signed Liverpool shirt on the wall, but none of us had ever heard of any of the 12 players names that were on it, it must have been the 2014-15 team then. The F1 result came on TV so Mark had to look at the floor for 15mins to avoid seeing the result.

Next bar, surprisingly in a square, where Tim and Steve had more cider that came in a giant goblet while marks beer was served in a thimble and it was only half full too. To add insult to injury they then brought out the complimentary olives which Mark doesn't eat and then kept topping them up.

For food we were going for a meat feast as Tim had seen a place called Butchers Bar. However instead we went to find a curry house. There were two, one right next to us and another which was the other side of town. Obviously we opted for the one miles away and headed there via some bars. At one of these Steve did the unthinkable and talked Tim out of buying a round of jaegerbombs. I don't think this will ever happen again. To our dismay we'd missed happy hour by five minutes so we convinced the bar maid that it was still on by turning our watches back by 15 minutes which amazingly worked :)

We eventually made it to the curry house and it was closed so we strolled back to the original one and Tim looked up the words 'extra chillis' to make his more interesting, however the pronunciation of Tres epice sounded like 'tray of piss'. 

More bars followed and then we went to a cafe where Steve ordered a large coffee but only got a thimble full in a glass. After some arguing a little more was put in and then Steve filled it up with milk. Steve later admitted when the waiter wasn't around that it was really nice. 

Stats so far: 483 miles completed,10hours 44mins in the seat, average speed 45mph

Day 4 - The Beach

For the first time we all got some sleep so we had a lie in until about 9.

We went to the local supermarket called Monop which was a combination of mark's two names. Steve had his trademark pan au chocolate, Tim had croissants and Mark had bread the size of his head.

We sat at the harbour and fed the fish with our leftovers. Tim threw a big lump of mark's bread in which caused a big fish fight.

We went and got changed and then went to the beach. It was a sunny 26c, and we got a nice spot and then made some more space by throwing a ball around so that no one dared come near us.

We then went into the sea where there was a diving platform. Steve had his go pro, and funnily enough when we turned up all the girls left, they must have seen some of Steve's dodgy videos before.

It was good fun throwing ourselves in, obviously Tim pushed tommo in at one point, Mark wasn't surprised.

After we'd dried off, we went for a walk around the bay and found a nice park overlooking the sea. On the way there Tim and Steve had a Kebab which was awesome, that's one of tims holiday goals ticked off.

We followed that up with an ice cream and meandered back to the hotel. Steve had taken so many panorama photos that his new name is Panno.

After a quick change we caught a ferry to the other side of the bay. Mark was on standby in case we had to call the nurse for Steve.

The ferry landed at Socoa, a great little spot with jetskis, cliff diving, a fort and a fun little beach. We attempted to get some food but at 7pm none of the restaurants were open so we had some beers until they did.

It was mainly a seafood place and it's just the start of the tuna season so Tim and steve were in their element. They ordered a tuna each and they got fish but Tim wasn't entirely convinced that it was tuna. Half way into the meal it started raining so the waiter ran out and put brollies up to cover everyone but us and then told us we could move. How about telling us we can move before sorting all the brollies out?

After food we walked back to the other side of the bay, a 50 min walk that we did in 30. We found a warehouse type place that had been converted into a bar with lots of little food places inside, a bit like digbeth dining club, so we stopped by there for a couple. No matter where we stood however, this guy with a salmon coloured top would keep bumping into Steve.

As the night went on we went to a few more bars and then there was a big thunder storm which was pretty cool. The bars closed early again so we asked where would be open and was told about this one street that contained all of the late night bars. It turns out that there was just one bar on that street, so we went there as it would have been rude not to.

At the end of the night Tim lead us on our obligatory march around the town looking for a kebab shop. We'd seen two earlier but both were closed now, but that didn't put him off and we zig zagged around until the sun came up trying to find one.

Day 3 - La scorchio in Francais

Everyone had a lovely sleep last night, well everyone except Mark and Steve who instead spent the night listening to Tim do an impression of a monster truck revving its engine for eight hours.

Our stop in Vitoria was only a one nighter so the plan was to get some brekkie and then head out. Upon getting dressed, Tims plan of drying his top over the halogen lamp backfired as it had burned a hole straight through. Could be worse though, he could have burned the place down. 

We headed out for food where Mark had a disabled croissant and then went to InterSport so that Tim could get another top. Steve also shopped for shorts while we were there as he'd only brought one pair with him for some unknown reason. He tried a few pairs on but they didn't have anything bigger than extra gigantium so nothing would fit.

Back at the hotel we packed our gear and left the town, we never did see the lovely murals as we got distracted by beer once we were out last night.

A little bit of motorways with crazy side winds made it feel like we were on a speedway track which wasn't pleasant but we made it through alive and we were soon on the mountain roads again.

We went through a national park which was stunning roads, very twisty, challenging and good views. After a while it all seemed familiar and we realised that we'd done this route last year. We even visited the same cafe and was served by the same Greek, Irish, Spanish lady as last year. 

We carried on and it got hotter, hitting the mid 30s and it wasn't long before we needed another break so we stopped again at somewhere from last year. Tim thinks that tommo just cut and paste the route from last year. The food was a lucky dip, you just order 'food' and whatever they're cooking came out. Mark remembered that cheesy moaned last year about how expensive it was here so we feared the bill. For 6 cokes, 3 steaks, chips, and a giant salad, it came to a whopping 8 euros each. 

We pushed on in the heat, opening our visors to let some cool air in then realising that the outside air was hotter and then closing them again, it's like riding into a hair dryer. After another hour we arrived at our destination, Saint John de Luz, a nice town in the Basque region on the coast.

We followed the satnav which failed to find the hotel and we were dying in the now 39c sun. It turns out that there are 5 roads leading to the hotel, all of them 1 way, and all of them leading away from it. How you're meant to get there we don't know. We walked it (in leathers) but that didn't help so we took a trip across some car parks and made it work.

We have a family room in the hotel, so Tim took the double bed room so that his snoring might allow the others to sleep. The place has aircon too which apparently is the best invention ever.

We got changed and went exploring and it wasn't long before we all had nice sweat patches. Tommo went shopping again and brought a nice pair of shorts at last. We celebrated with an ice cream which Tommo then dropped all over his new shorts. Brilliant.

Down on the beach it was gorgeous so Tim and Tommo went for a dip and then it was time for a beer. When it was time to eat we sat on the front in a nice restaurant that was recommended to us. Just before we ordered the waiter told us that if it got too windy to go inside. We gave him a strange look as there wasn't even a slight breeze and it was still scorchio. Literally 2mins later there was a howling gale that knocked some peoples drinks over and people were running for cover. It turns out that it's some strange local phenomenon that happens on hot days creating a wave of wind from the mountains. Although we really think that the waiter was Gandalf and just messing with us.

Tim and Tommo had the most amazing seafood and Mark just avoided a bread only meal by having some pork. 

After food we hit a few bars that closed bang on midnight, although it was busy out, no one wanted to serve anyone. That was until we found one bar that was heaving so we went there to find that it was rammed with 16 year olds getting smashed. Feeling old we just had the one then went home to put on our slippers and sit under a blanket.

Stats so far:

341 miles ridden, 7 hours 24 on the bike, average speed of 46mph, 1 pair of shorts ruined.

Day 1 - Mark Crashes

Clark Griswold from National Lampoons Vacation once said that getting there is half the fun. Mark disagrees with this after binning his bike 5 mins into the journey but more on that later...

This years bike trip involves a ferry to Spain and then working our way back through the west coast of France over about 10 days and then hopping back over the channel and back to Blighty so long as the garlic eating, fromage throwing, surrender monkeys don't barricade the port or set fire to everything or something.

Tim Timmah Connop has a new bike this year a nice brand spanking new Triumph 675 R, so new infact that he only finished running it in last weekend. It's all a bit of an unknown quantity, will it survive? Will it need fuel every 20 miles? Will Tommo be able to keep up with it?

Mark Teapot Connop also has a different bike having had to sell his KTM due to soaring insurance costs and now has a Triumph Street Triple R which isn't exactly a sports bike but should be fun on the twisties.

Steve Tommo Thompson still has his BMW S1000RR which has been dubbed 'Triggers Broom' as it's the same bike as last year, he's just changed the engine, frame, all the bodywork, exhaust, wiring loom, keys, wheels and number plate.

Missing this year is Cheesy who couldn't make it as it might get his bike dirty. We did look everywhere for him in all the usual places: in ditches, at the front of any photo shoot, at the jet wash...

We opted to meet at Tims house at 7:30am to give us plenty of time to get to the ferry in Portsmouth at 11. Steve rocked up early having slept in his leathers all night in the excitement of the trip. Mark arrived bang on time, went down the road to turn around and at 2mph on full lock dropped his bike. The thought process went like:

"Shit I've dropped my bike, hope it's not damaged"

"Shit I've dropped my bike, will I still be able to go on holiday?"

"Shit, I've dropped my bike, can I pick it up before the others notice and take the piss out of me for the rest of the holiday"

Tim soon spotted the bike on the floor and came to help, and it turns out that there wasn't much damage, mainly the one indicator and a few scratches. Luckily it was on camera so the video will be uploaded once we figure out how to do that on an iPad.

The second disaster was that Tim hadn't actually tried his luggage on his bike until midnight last night and couldn't get it fit, so the three of us out our minds to fixing this akin to the scene from Apollo 13 where they have to fix the spaceship with some duct tape, a water bottle and a rubber duck. We made it work and we were soon on our way. However he has to sit so far forward he has a squeaky voice as his privates are squashed against his tank constantly.

Steve opted to avoid the motorway to start with as they're boring and there was a great run down to Warwick to pick up the M40 but I don't think he'd remembered that it was rush hour so we had to pick our way through traffic, safely avoiding any head on incidents with trucks.

We soon got to Portsmouth, and while checking the sat nav, Steve narrowly avoided parking his bike into the back of a car and everyone else took evasive manoeuvres. 

As we went through passport control Mark got called into customs to check if he was smuggling immigrants on his bike and made him unpack everything as his flip flops showed up on the X-ray machine as a hazard. I've heard of the shoe bomber but this is ridiculous. After a quick search Mark was let free, albeit now with a funny walk.

We boarded the ferry and as we were locking the bikes up, Mark noticed that customs had robbed his helmet lock and spent the next 15 mins moaning about. Once up in our shoebox room, which was as small as we remembered it, we were getting changed when over the tannoy we heard "will Mr and Mrs Connop please report to the information desk"...

Fearing the worst such as our bikes having fallen over or they'd heard about Tommos indecent exposure charge or something, we hot footed it to the info desk. It turns out that customs had coughed up to stealing marks helmet lock and returned it. Upon handing it over Steve asked where we'd got that from as he had been completely oblivious to marks ranting and raving since we'd boarded the boat.

It was time to hit the bar, we followed Steve who got lost immediately so Tim took charge using his super beer sensing nose and got us there safely. For some reason considering we hadn't left port yet one of the beers had already run out, stupid French boat! Two minutes after that they'd also run out of Stella, it's time to stockpile beer.

We left port and checked out the plethora of military boats in the harbour and just as we were leaving land behind Steve finally said "hey guys, we're moving", obviously he's not quite up to pace yet.

We sat down enjoying our first beer, oh and btw, I hope you're enjoying that 30c heat at work today... Anyway, some charity fish people gave a talk about whales, dolphins and the like, it was so good that half the boat fell asleep:

Surprisingly, Tim was now starving so we had a bargain cardboard sandwich for just a fiver and sat on deck for a bit before getting into the Spanish tradition of an afternoon siesta.

After a kip we headed to the Michelin star restaurant although the only Michelin thing about is that the food tastes of rubber. Saying that, Steve didn't get to try his, as he fell foul of sea sickness and had to repeatedly visit the toilets. As France are no longer allowed to sell sea sickness tablets, we had to call the nurse who gave him some warm milk and tucked him into bed. Mark and Tim waited around for him for a bit but we're sure he said "you guys carry on to the bar and spend the kitty". We didn't want to, but these are his dying wishes so fell that we had to oblige.

The quality entertainment was in full swing in the bar, but our team only scored 14/20 in the quiz due to the internet being properly rubbish. We did spot Kevin Bacon at the bar though:

 As well as Kevin Bacon, the actual Elvis Presley was on the boat, the likeness was uncanny, and he shared a few tunes with us. We will never forget this moment, sadly.

Karaoke so far has included Flashdance, Dean Martin and more Elvis (because actual Elvis was shit).

The stats so far are:

146 miles covered, 2hrs 39mins in the saddle,  54.7mph average speed.

Ninja edit: the wifi on the ferry is pathetic