This years biking trip for Mark and Steve would take us to sunny Spain to see the MotoGP at Aragon before carrying on to Valencia and then heading home.
We had the same reliable bikes as the last few years, Steve on his trusty bevarian beast, the BMW S1000RR, and Mark on his angry KTM RC8.
We left Worcester with plenty of time, dressed like power rangers, at about 10:30 to catch the 3:45 ferry to Santander from Plymouth. The journey is about 2.5 hours to the boat, but Steve being a project manager had build in lots of contingency time. We made (very) good time down a very quiet M5, getting to Bristol in under 45 mins before pushing on to our first fuel stop at Bridgwater.
For those that haven't been to Bridgwater services, they are the worst on the planet, a tiny pokey place with plentiful queues and a crappy one way system.
This is where things went wrong, on getting off the bike, Steves beemer started to smoke and on inspection we saw oil all down the side, lots of oil. We checked and couldn't see anything obvious, so as we were ahead of time, called in the breakdown cover.
After 20 mins, the SOS van arrived and he quickly came to the conclusion that it was game over. What appears to have happened, is that when Steve had had it serviced just before the trip at BMW Rednal, Birmingham, they hadn't put the rocker cover back on properly. We were lucky really, the engine could have seized, the oil could have hit his back wheel or Marks front wheel and we could have been lay on the M5 somewhere.
We considered all options, called BMW, the ferry company (time was getting tight to make it there), the breakdown people etc. And we opted for getting the recovery truck to take us to Plymouth with Mark following and Steve could make more calls on the way.
We had to swap recovery trucks at one point as we headed south and at that point we decided to ditch both bikes in Plymouth at a BMW dealer and get on the ferry on foot. We could hire a car in Spain and at least save the holiday, so long as we didn't get a Fiat 500 or a mini or something!
Time was very tight now, and fair play to the recovery driver who bloody nailed it to Plymouth, we got to BMW and threw both sets of keys at them and the recovery driver then took us to the port. BMW had an event on so were busy, whatever you do, don't break down on a sales day. I can't give the recovery driver enough thanks, though, top bloke!
At the ferry we dashed to the office to check in and they were very confused as to where our bikes were. We explained and they told us that we needed to be converted to foot passengers but the ferry was full. Now bear in mind that we had a cabin already reserved, the ferry was due to leave in 5 mins and still somehow we both managed to stay calm and not scream "you stupid cow, we're actually taking less, we already have tickets , I don't give a flying rats arse what your computer tells you, let us on the bleedin boat".
A few minutes later she had sorted by not changing her tickets and just letting us on. This led us to security. Now remember that we're wearin full leathers, carrying helmets and bags. They take one look at us and with a straight face ask "where are your motorbikes lads?", we explained and they turned and looked at their metal detector and say that they have no idea how this is going to work. We were amazed to walk through without the alarm going off as the leathers are covered in Kevlar armour, titanium strips, etc. We give a puzzled look to the guy operating it and he said that he'd turned it off :)
We dashed to the ferry and just it in time. We were on our way to Spain! After nine months maticulous planning, ages working on the bikes, we were going on our biking holiday on foot!
After a quick rubbery plastic meal which cost the same as a private jet we headed to he surprisingly cheap bar for a much needed stress relieving beer. We appear to be the youngest people on the boat, we think it may be the Cocoon ferry or something!
Not long after, the "entertainment" started. Firstly was the worlds easiest quiz, shortly followed by a guy who wanted people to come on stage for circus training. No one volunteered and after standing around for 15 mins, he gave up and left. Then there was a guy who pretended to play the guitar who could actually sing before everything reverted to the usual shit standard of entertainment with the magician.
I'll cut a long story short, but his main act involved his balancing a golf club on his nose which was fascinating as you can imagine. To finish up, some girls came on who sang some Motown, they were dubbed as sisters which was a bit of a stretch as they were about as similar looking as Elvis and Bruce Lee.
It was all too much, so we called it a night.
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