I spent the first few hours wondering if I'd done the right thing
in letting Paul go like that, but at the time it was clear that I
couldn't have stopped him. I felt bad that I'd let him set off to cover what must have been a thousand miles to get home on a bike that had broken down twice already and he had no phone to call for help. But he is also a big boy and if he wants to inflict such a silly scenario on himself then he can. This feeling quickly passed - I was still in the Pyrenees on my trusty old CB250, the motor was starting to move about in the frame again as the makeshift bolt was wearing but I felt confident we'd make it home. I felt okay about things at this point. The Pyrenees were much the same as before, too twisty with wet patches everywhere, gravel all over and an awful lot of road works. On the D118 I even passed another bike with UK plates, even if you feel far from home there's always someone else out there with you..
I made my way out of the Pyrenees and passed Carcassonne at about 2PM. I'd had to rely heavily on the Nav to find my way out, I wondered how on earth Paul would manage with no sat nav and no phone.
I stopped after a while to have a break from the oppressive heat and humidity, and the boring flat landscape, and had another read of the text that had been sent from the group we were originally supposed to be meeting in Austria. It turned out they hadn't gone with the original backup plan of the Languedoc at all and were going to be at Camping Moto near Crest. Thankfully I was heading in roughly the right direction, but could plan in a couple of stop offs recommended by Mr Pape - the Millau bridge and the Tarn Gorge. I stopped for some utterly delicious pork and mustard on tagliatelle and some awful Pelforth branded lager before heading up the motorway (yawn) to Millau. The CB250 probably didn't enjoy this at all, I certainly didn't enjoy crawling along at 45MPH uphill, but we made it.
The bridge is big. Quite good if you like big bridges. Shame the toll is €4.90
though! No doubt the super swanky camera system needs a lot of upkeep..
I was soon in Millau. It's actually a bit of a dump, this was next to a horrible retail park.
There were lots of camp sites to choose from though, and once I'd finally decided which one to use (the price and number of stars is highly variable) I found there was Leffe and burgers on tap just down the road. Lovely! The French make some strange burgers though, they still insist on using a baguette.. The night was admittedly subdued as I was on my own, compared to what was often alcohol fuelled mayhem with Paul it didn't seem quite right. I wondered if I am cut out for lone camping trips, despite having done a few in the UK.
I packed up camp the next morning feeling quite refreshed and strangely un-hungover. It turned out the people in the caravan next to my plot like to feed the ducks at a certain time, and this was that time.
I set off from Millau and headed for the Tarn Gorge, which was pretty damn impressive and actually a great riding road. This was also recommended by my new friend Mr Pape, who clearly should be listened to (forget Rocamadour)!
A video of the loveliness that is Tarn Gorge:
On the way out of Tarn Gorge on the eastern side a guy on a
Transalp starting following me rather closely, so I decided to show him
what Us Brits are made of. I essentially raced him through a few miles
of the gorge, often outrunning him if any corners were involved. We
finally came out of the gorge and into a little village, he pulls up
alongside me and I expect he's about to congratulate me on my riding,
getting so much out of so little. "parler francais? PARLER FRANCAIS??". I
wiggle my hand as the international sign of not really, so he tries in
English. "YOUR, err, TRANSMISSION! IT'S MOVING". Ahhh, a wave of disappointment washed over me. The rear sprocket
is wiggling about, and he is so concerned by it he has felt the need to
stick with me to tell me. What a come down. I pull into the next
carpark and explain that I know, and that I've ground down the studs so
it can wiggle about a lot. He clearly thinks I'm a complete crackpot. He
also doesn't seem very impressed. I guess I wouldn't be either.
According to him the sprocket is wobbling around by at least a
centimetre. By the time I got home this particular situation would be very desperate indeed.
Thanks Mr Frenchman, no one else ever mentioned it though I knew it moved a lot.
And then set off to Camp Moto somewhere south of Grenoble, kind of near Crest. This is
where the other guys were apparently staying, the ones we were supposed to meet on
Sunday.. Except I only made it by Wednesday evening and Paul never made it at all. Nice scenery
though, and the roads here from Tarn Gorge were occasionally brilliant, which I had learnt is a rare treat for most of France. I
also had the most excellent steak and chips on the way, served by a
young French fellow who had spent time as a student in Birmingham! The steak was cut into bitesize cubes so I could just stick them in my gob, and the Dijon mustard tasted all the better for being near Dijon..
The heat was finally fading away into the evening, I was closing in on some familiar faces, the scenery was becoming better and the CB was still purring/whirring away like it always did. Things felt pretty good.
The CB garnered much interest upon its arrival at Camp Moto, far more than all
the new BMWs managed. This was nice. You also get a beer shoved on you
as soon as you get there, which is also nice. I sat at a table after explaining that a tall, loud man is expecting me - the landlady of the site knew exactly who I meant. Soon enough Tony turned up, beaming and shouting. After giggling at my lack of BMW he realises that there's something missing..
"WHERE'S HIMSELF?"
And so I have to explain that Paul is a teenage girl with the mental constitution of a Cadbury's Flake. Then the rest turn up and I have to explain it again.. Thankfully there were beers on offer. Supposedly they were already known as the hardest drinking group on site, of course I couldn't let the side down..
Camp Moto, with the UK BMW And Rukka Owners Club. How sad for them.
Heehee, look at them. They're so far in they have no idea how ridiculous they are. They do fry up bacon in the morning though, so there are up sides to being associated with them.
When I first turned up, Tony confided in me that he had worn out the rest of the group. They all looked knackered, but I thought it might be down to the oppressive humidity. While mooching around the camp later, with some beer in all of us, I started to find out what the deal was - it quickly became apparent that Tony was trying to cram in high mileage days on very twisty, very gravelly and very hot roads with no let up. Everyone except Tony was also hanging on my every word about Spain, the easy roads, the dry heat, the lack of traffic.. It must have sounded like heaven compared to what they were being put through. More 9% lager from the pannier please..
The next day dawned. I was originally set on going to the top of the Cime De La Bonette as it was only a few hundred miles and the highest open, public road in Europe. However I was also well aware that the CB was not at its fittest, the handling starting to feel rather strange, and that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to go break my ride home and be stranded in what appears to be a moonscape. The UKBMWAROC talked me into seeing some Alps with them instead. I figured the Cime isn't going anywhere and it might be nice to ride in a familiar group for a bit even if I hold them up so off we went to Les Deux Alpes. The Alps are in the background, behind that enormous boxer monstrosity if you can see them.
Some bits of France are alright too. It soon became apparent that I wasn't holding them up at all because the roads really were twisty and not so much gravelly as had surface dressing applied without the tar! No wonder they were all frazzled, this was very hard work.
Whenever we stopped, people ignored the BMWs and stared at the CB250 instead. I was beyond proud. It was definitely deteriorating though.. Almost like the steering head bearings have a big notch in them but they're taper bearings, that is surely unlikely. I figured I'd find out when I got home.
Some mountains are pointy. Apparently people strap planks to their
feet and slide down them in the winter, and here in summer they pedal
bicycles up them instead. Weird. Here in super posh ski country the CB250 was not viewed so favourably, it was just like being at home for a bit!
Me and Tony somehow got split from the rest of the group, and then Geoff appeared. We decided to leave the other two to it as everyone has sat navs and went off to get something to eat. We ended up in a very strange cafe where about the only food on offer was croque monsieur and tiramisu, both of which are of course very acceptable but I would've loved some chips or even some more bread. While in this cafe a very friendly (!) old lady started babbling French to Geoff, who of course did his best to respond because he is a gentleman, and some older French bloke started talking about how much he likes Motörhead and how sad he was that Lemmy had passed. Of course I was with him 100%, having been a heavy Motörhead fan for years but unfortunately that particular t-shirt was back at the camp site. An opportunity for free drink was surely missed..
The area of Camp Moto, just a bit south west of Grenoble, is for
some reason moth heaven. We came back from the cafe in the dark
through a kind of moth storm, like riding through snow. Horrendous! The UKBMWAROC had decided they were going to use toll motorways
to get back home in 2 days from Grenoble, which I really properly didn't fancy. I made
my excuses that the CB would disintegrate under such abuse (possibly true!) and left a
day earlier, so I was on my own once again.
I made my way north past Lyon and then, annoyingly, through Dijon. Things were not going swimmingly because I hadn't loaded maps on to the Nav for this part of France, it was never part of the plan - this meant the Nav had base maps only. This would have been okay were it not for the fact that the base maps didn't know which roads were toll roads, and after ending up at a toll (that promptly went blank when it saw my numberplate!) I gave up with it for a bit and just headed northwards by myself. It's easy really, just keep the North Star back'ards like Paul must have done.
Here I am in a very friendly campsite in Saulieu on my own. Camping on your own is
boring but also peaceful, I was shattered by this point and was in bed
by about 9:30! The bloke on the gate let me in for the cost of a bicyclist, and I was most content as I pitched up and finished off my anchovy pizza and cream cake that I'd bought earlier from a boulangerie. It is quite the life.
After packing my tent away wet for the first time in the whole trip (and it only got worse the further north I went..) I carried on. I still didn't have the right maps on the Nav as I
expected to come from Germany/Belgium as was the original plan. After it kept insisting I use toll roads I gave up on its routing capabilities and set it to compass
mode, just generally making my way north. This actually worked really
well and it was a lot of fun to wind my way through empty French
countryside, I'd recommend it. Despite my best efforts I still ended up skirting around Paris but it wasn't too bad at all, and afterwards I found myself bimbling through vineyard territory during harvest. It was near magical, and I couldn't help but chuckle to myself while I thought about the poor UKBMWAROC guys hammering down the motorway, missing all of this lovely(ish) France.
This picture is bitter sweet for me because on the one hand things
were going well as I finally wasn't just going east to west, but on the
other I'd just received a text saying the K100 had been stolen off the
driveway that night and the police were still looking for it. This
didn't put me in the best frame of mind for country lanes.
As you travel north through France it could be argued that the scenery gets less interesting..
As do the roads.
But at least the boulangeries stay excellent, even the weird frankfurter pastry thing was alright. For only the second time on the trip I had to ride through rain, a storm actually, and the sadness of heading northwards got ever stronger. Knowing I still lived way further north than even the top of France was a terrible thought.
The final camp site way up near Arras, only ~80 miles from Calais.
This was also the first municipal site I'd managed to find, these are
much vaunted for having good facilities and being cheap but this was €10
a night (more than Saulieu!) with very basic facilities. The urinals
were on the outside of the shower block in the centre of the site for
all to see! I turned up at 7PM after the Nav showed me where it was (having finally travelled to an area where I had proper maps again!) and was met by people who did not speak a word of English. After learning that "parcel" means tent (makes sense, I guess) I was told to set up my (horribly wet) tent and wait for the man to arrive. Around half an hour later the local gendarme appeared on a bicycle and took my money.. How very French indeed.
I set off into town in search of food, knowing the site was locked up at 10PM for some reason. When I got into town about a mile away there was a fair on in the street, which of course meant everywhere was busy. I eventually found an American style diner and had probably the biggest burger I've seen in my life, with Camembert in it, and chips on the side.. I couldn't finish it at all. Eventually I had to leave and made it back for 9:50, phew. I could hear the gates being locked, they don't mess about!
And so, 10/9/17, the final day had arrived. With so little distance to cover to reach Calais there was no rush, so I packed away my now merely damp tent and bimbled generally northwards while faffing about with filling up and buying yet more food from a boulangerie. The CB was still getting admiring looks, helped by the fact that it was Sunday which apparently means bike day. After wending my way up I found myself in Calais proper, which is actually a nice enough little place, but there was no putting it off - I may as well head for the Tunnel, maybe they'll let me catch whichever train is next - this was the first time I had been early but they're accommodating enough if you're late, what could be the problem.
And so I arrive a mere 4 hours early. I put my debit card into the machine and it informs me that I can either stick with my original crossing time or change to the next train for a bargain price of £41! The bloody ticket cost £42 in the first place! So I had a long wait. Happily, after not that long, the UKBMWAROC all turned up so the hours were whiled away quite amenably. I couldn't believe how cold and miserable the weather was, or how fat many people seemed to be this far north. Get me back to Spain please.
The CB250 at the Eurotunnel, ready to come home - which it just about managed.
Sitrep: Engine mount holes in motor ovalled. Front lower
engine mount destroyed. Upper mounts destroyed. Clutch destroyed. Cush rubbers
destroyed, rear wheel destroyed. Exhaust farts away like a good
'un. Oh and the tacho cable broke somewhere in Spain. It's all round
fucked. It'll be back though. Friendship with Paul was also destroyed, we didn't speak for months after and don't chat like we used to 6 months on..
Ending mileage: 93014
Total trip distance: 3884 miles
80.7 MPG attained, ~£265 spent on fuel
~€750 spent in total
Actually no, it won't be back.
The frame is cracked, this was the cause of the strange handling like the steering head bearings have a big notch in them - it was the frame flexing. This bike is done in.
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