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
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