Arrived at McDonalds at 02:30 to find my son Adam waiting to see us off. Recieved a text from my brother to say that he would not be joining us due to food poisoning. Marcus and Gary arrived first followed by Dean and Rick. We then got a phone call from John to say he had overslept. All part of the adventure. We left at 03:45, when I found a laminated photo with good wishes messages on my bike, nice touch.
We made good progress (as the police call it) to the Eurotunnel terminal, just in time to get our booked train. We had a great ride on the uncongested roads of France. The weather was dry but initially some mist which burnt off by the time we got to Reims. The temperature increased from 6 degrees to a peak of 30 degress throughout the day. We rode for 435 miles to a campsite (selected by TomTom) near Strasbourg. Six Euros for our pitches and dutch beer on tap. Bit of a technical problem with the inflation of my tent. The airbed inflater was not up to the jon and blew the fuse on my aux power socket outlet. We adapted my tyre compressor with a pipe from Ricks' tyre inflator kit to get tent erected. Supper was six times cheese burger and chips (with mayonaise). Beer and bed.
So far so good then, apart from blowing a fuse!!
ReplyDeleteNice one bro, you can't imagin how gutted i am i'm not with you guys on yr first leg. Burger, chips and beer! Haven. You wouldn't believe how ill i was, still not right now :-( Looking forward to updates, David X
ReplyDeleteGood to see you're riding safe. Loads of miles in the first day! Look forward to hearing more from your trip
ReplyDeleteHi Jon (and John, Gary & Marcus), great to have joined you on the first day or so. Can't believe we travelled 450 miles only to eat in a café that Rick and I had lunch in when we stopped through the town on our bikes a year earlier. What are the chances?
ReplyDeleteHope you got to where you needed to without any problems.
We ran back up through Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and back into France before boarding the Channel Tunnel at 5pm Local - so covered 450 miles in six hours.
Rick and I got into our wet gear when we saw deep heavy clouds and soon enough we hit torrential rain and hail stones. The road looked like a river - it was actually quite fun to ride through. It didn't last too long however the wind picked up and remained fairly strong until we got home. The wind too a bit of fun out of it.
Anyway, I'm knackered and bed is calling!
Safe riding and good luck.