Day 1: Times lost - 3 Accidents - 1, Randoms met - 2, KM covered - not a clue!!!Ok you smug swines- got lost finding the Blackwall tunnel so ended up persuading some random nice guy on a bike to escort me to the tunnel and then found Dover from there! Met Random number 2 on the boat who kindly tolerated my ramblings on the boat and unstrapped my bike when we arrived in France. Not sure what happened after that but some lovely roads and a few KM later, found myslef in the one way system of Reims:w00t: which took about 2 hours to circum navigate. FAfter another ‘diversion’ finally made my way down to the delights of Laon (well worth a visit) having spectaculalry dropped my bike while pulling out of a petrol station en route (thanks again Eric for teh crash bungs!!!) Rescued by 3 french road repair men and a young lad who look a little bemused!!
Day 2 Times lost - 1 hurrah, improving and understand directions in french! Accidents - 1 (kind of) Randoms met - 2, KM covered - still no idea
Woke up checked out of hotel and last minute remebered to check tyre pressure. Thought gadget was broken till spotted nail in brand new back tyre :(. Waited 4 hours for a 3 minute repair and then ploughed down to some random town south??? Gave up, parked next to some GB bikes, found the owners in a bar and ended up going no further for the day
Day 3 Times lost - 0 (oh yes it’s true!!!) Accidents - 0 (it keeps gettig better) Randoms met - 0 (staying with friends) KM covered - give up
Awesome roads and sooooo much time as due to nail had whole day to cover half a days riding. Didnt get lost and pottered about in rural french towns drinking coffee and ‘talking bikes’ in extrordinarily bad french with french bikers :hehe:
Conclusion so far
The french are cool and pull over when possible, the roads are straight and clear (10km and no traffic and no bends and no roads joining - i measured it i was that bored!) and am finally getting to practice my left hand corners on the roundabouts! :w00t: :w00t:
Still no blue sky but still heading south (I hope :P) - wish u were here
I’d like to put your progress down to our ride around Beds/Bucks a few weeks ago,but feel its all down to you just having the balls(or just madness) to get out there and attck it yourself.Sounds like you’re having a great time.I’'m not jealous at all:Whistling:
Glad to see you have lived up to expectation on the navigation… Thats a fiver you owe me Ginger;)
As you have found, the one thing you can count on is the bond between bikers goes beyond languages and nationalities, it’s amazing how total strangers will come to your aid, driven by a common love for bikes.
Hey Alice I didn’t appreciate that you were on your own doing this! I did a similar thing a few years back and found it initially odd but then you settle into the groove of just you and your bike.
And who needs much else?
I used to think “you can’t get lost on holiday, you just end up somewhere else” - and it’s all good over there.
Thanx guys for all the encouragement - The sun is shining, i’m in a small vilage called Fontaines, near Chalon Sur Soane and i am taking the day off - hurrah!! Ya all have a good day at work (tee hee!)
(tee hee!)