In the Beginning

My brother dug out a photo of me when he saw this blog. It was taken in the summer of 1968. I'm on a Vespa scooter, complete with L plate.

Suede shoes and no crash helmet - quite the little mod!

Just to pad out this post here's a picture of the Kawasaki GTR I had:

and a Moto Guzzi Nevada:

and some of the current Moto Guzzi California, which I think is my best bike ever:

I don't seem to have any of other previous bikes. If I find any I will post them.

Some Reflections

Did I enjoy it?

Yes, I did. But I think I tried to combine two very different things. A long distance bike trip is a very different proposition from a jaunt round country roads. I tried to do both. A motorway is boring whether you are in a car or on a bike. On a bike it is also hard work. I don't see the point of making things hard work at my age, so I won't be repeating the long distance bit. My half-baked thoughts about the Trans Canadian Highway to Alaska from Seattle will remain half-baked. Yes, I could do it, but I don't want to. The payoff is not worth the pain.

I loved the wandering round country roads in both France and Spain. I think they would have been even better if there hadn't been the push to get on to a final destination, which was always at the back of my mind. A lazy couple of hundred miles a day would be the best scenario, without a long motorway bit at the beginning or the end. I guess I'll need to take the boat to Santander to do Spain properly on the bike.

The right bike?

For what I ended up doing the BMW was sensible. I couldn't have done it as easily on the Guzzi. However, pottering about on country roads is more fun on the Guzzi, even though the BMW coped well with it. The BMW is just not so much fun. It is made for high speed cruising on A roads or above, which it does excellently. I think it is just too ungainly at very low speeds for me to be comfortable on it. I had thought I might keep it for other tours, but it is on eBay now.

I used nearly 2 litres of oil in the first 2,400 miles when I was on ordinary roads. I used none in the last 1,200 miles when I was on motorway, despite the consistently far higher speeds. I can only assume that this is to do with the cooling of the bike. It is a lot better than I feared, and had been led to expect. I also got over 48 mpg fuel consumption over the whole trip.

On your own Vs company?

I enjoyed it fine, but I can't deny that it would have been more fun with someone to share it; not as a pillion passenger though - on another bike. Rest stops are more of a rest when you share an anecdote, when you can commiserate about the idiot behaviour of others, when you can go "Wow!" together about something. You need to have the right person though, because I also valued the peaceful time to read in the evening. I will interview any volunteers for the position.

What next?

I had thought that I might experiment with different bikes, but I'm not so sure now. The ones I'd thought of were tourers like the BMW, and my experience with it has been similar to the last tourer I had. It's absolutely fabulous, but it doesn't quite gel with me. There's been nothing wrong with either bike, they just haven't clicked in the way the Guzzi has. So, I will stick with the Guzzi for a couple of trips to Dorset anyway and see what else I think of, maybe the Bonneville.

Before that though I've got some stuff I've promised to do around the house. I don't know if a blog on decorating a hall, stairs and landing would generate any interest.

Days 9, 10 and 11

It's a pleasure having a day of rest. Brian is one of my oldest friends and it is good to spend time just mooching about with him. He retired a couple of years ago, so is instructing me in the ways of retirement. I can cope with this.

However, I think that the sunshine of the Med coast casts a different light on life. I can't imagine a November morning in Sussex feeling quite so relaxed and liesurely. For completeness I attach some photographs of the pool we lazed around and the views we had. It got ridiculously hot, touching 37 degrees in the sun.

Well, I've done my long distance run - 2,400 miles so far - and need to decide what I am going to do next, as I am at what was always going to be the turning point.

I had thought of continuing to work my way slowly back home by going through the Dolomites and the Alps. However, that feels like it would be more of the same, despite the majesty of the scenery. Also, to be honest you get a bit bored riding by yourself all day and then reading quietly over a meal on your own, so I'm not desperate to continue doing that.

Whatever I do, I have at least three hours of the horrors of coastal Spain motorway to endure before I get to somewhere rural enough to enjoy the ride. So I decide that I may as well stay on the motorway and make my way home. I consult TomTom and it suggests a route which goes through Millau again. At first I think that is silly, but then realise that on the way down I went through it East to West. This is South to North. Also, it is about half way and at least I know where there is a hotel in Millau!

The next day I start reasonably early as it looks like it is going to be hot again. The trip out of Spain is uneventful, apart from making an unintended detour through the centre of Barcelona. I just stay on the bike and ride. But you can't really do that for too long. You get stiff and the helmet presses on your head, so it makes sense to stop after about 100 miles at most. Just enough to inject some caffeine and stretch. Makes you good to go for another 100 miles, but means that you don't really make as rapid progress on a bike as you do in a car, no matter how fast you go when you are moving. Every stop takes at least quarter an hour. Still it's fine, though very hot. That changes gradually as I get into France.

I join the A75 to go north to Millau. This is an unbelievable road. A new four, in places six, lane motorway through the most magnificent scenery - and it is empty. I can only imagine that it was built for political rather than commercial reasons. Probably the Millau bridge was too, come to that, as it is not busy either. Anyway, it is a joy to travel on and I make good time.

I've done nearly 600 miles by the time I get into Millau. I notice a couple of traditional hotels on the outskirts of town, but press on to the Ibis I know. The shower is particularly refreshing after the heat of the day, and then I wander round town to find my steak.

Breakfast starts at 6 and this is the first day I set the morning call to make sure I get an early start. My plan is just to ride, stopping every 100 miles or so to keep fresh. It's a straightforward run, even round Paris and I make good time. The winds in northern France are strong though, so need to be alert.

It's no trouble getting on the Chunnel, but they charge a premium to last minute passengers I think. £70 for the one way crossing. On the train a lady in the car in front says they followed me to the terminal and couldn't believe how much the wind moved the bike around. So I wasn't just imagining it. Straightforward crossing, and straightforward, if busy, trip on M20, M26, M25 and M23. A surprise arrival in my own house, a day or two earlier than expected.

Day 8

I am up early and decide not to wait for breakfast at 8. It looks like it will get hot and I would rather get miles done in the cool and stop early. Anyway, it is nice to be on the road before everyone else and enjoy them in the early morning atmosphere. Early morning and late evening really are the best times on a bike. It also means that even though I have to go through Zaragoza the city is not yet busy enough to be a problem. I'm at Belchite before 9.

Unlike Oradour, this is not a monument - just a ruin. There is a half-hearted attempt to note its significance with a couple of markers, but that's it. It may be more a testament to the stupidity rather than the cruelty of war, but to me it is still powerful and it would be sensible to preserve and present it better, but there you are. There is graffiti on some of the buildings, and those nearest the new town are used for storage etc. Here are some photos I took.

I make my way up into the mountains on the way to the Med and just have the rest of the morning cruising and enjoying the peace and quiet. I don't often try to take landscape photos as they always disappoint, never quite capturing the grandeur that inspired you to want to take the photo in the first place, but here is a picture of a lovely lake I passed.

It just seemed to capture the rugged tranquility of Spain.

I stopped at a little bar in Forcall as my lack of breakfast was beginning to tell on me and I was starving. They didn't seem to do food, but the owner quickly produced some bread sprinkled with olive oil and tomato and some cured ham along with a plate of olives. It was delicious. Fortified by this I was back on the mountain roads.

Since it was still early I thought I would make for the coast which was not far away and have an early stop in a seaside place.

How coastal Spain differs from inland Spain. It was a traffic nightmare, mainly big trucks, and it seems to be one big construction site. I couldn't seem to find a road to get into the coast. When I did I found industrial rather than tourist places. I tried going inland again to find a small town with a hotel, but no luck. For a couple of hours I wandered this way and finally found myself on the fringes of Valencia. My friends are just down the coast in Moraira, about 50 or 60 miles I figured, so I called and arranged to go there early instead, by now pretty desperate to be honest. A long day in the heat soon tires you out. Add a bit of frustration and it's not a good mixture.

I now had to get through Valencia in the rush hour and find the Alicante road. I had a choice and took the inland route as it was signed A7, the main autoroute. After some miles I felt uneasy that it didn't seem very autoroutish to me. When the road split with a more minor one going to Alicante I knew it had gone wrong. I wasn't the only one to get it wrong. While consulting the map at the roadside an American asked what had happened to the A7 which just disappeaed. We established that there are two A7s and we had taken the wrong one. The AP7 goes straight to Alicante. The one we were on went inland and then back to the coast. I had the choice of continuing on the sweep down to Alicante and then going north again to Moraira, or trying to cut across directly to the coast. I had been on cross-country roads all day, so knew what that meant - small and twisty. So I opted for the longer, but I hoped, faster, route via Alicante. I finally got to my friends' house, but at nearly 10. I'd added nearly 100 miles to my journey. My short easy day had ended up the longest and hardest, with the most miles travelled - 519. I was absolutely knackered. I love seeing Brian and Louise anyway, but that night I was especially pleased.

Day 7

I hadn't realised when I planned the route that I go through Lourdes to get to the Pyrenees. I don't feel the need to stop though. At least it is not as tacky as it would be if it were in the US. There is still the odd "Miracle Motel", but it could be a lot worse.

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading "The Pursuit of the Millennium." It's a pleasure to read well-crafted English, but it's also a fascinating account of Medieval events. It also emphasises that for all our technological progress our spirituality doesn't seem to have advanced at all. Cohn's thesis is that certain socio-economic conditions inevitably give rise to apocalyptic or eschatological movements. The adherents to these movements see themselves as the only true believers, who will be saved while all others, non-believers, will be smitten and punished. (Seems a fair description of all our religions to me.) Even today we have examples of this, like Jonestown, but often the creed is more secular than religious. He was writing in the 60s, however, before the upsurge of Islam and born-again Christianity.

I think there is a huge arrogance about humanity's belief that we are so special that we must be divinely inspired. Made in the image of God indeed. Can't be much of a God if we are the best he can do. You can imagine the dinosaurs having a similar viewpoint - "I believe that we have reached the pinnacle of creation" - just before they were wiped out. I'm sure that whatever comes after mankind will have great fun trying to understand our primitive beliefs.

Pity I didn't bring some lighter reading with me. I could probably do with an antidote to seriousness.

Anyway, I am past Lourdes and intending to take a high pass over the Pyrenees - 1700 metres. I am disconcerted to see a group of cyclists also making their way up. Puts my efforts into context. The road is closed at the top, because of snow, so I have to come down and round to go over a slightly less high pass. All of the countryside is superb here - deep green valleys, high meadows, rocky slopes. The road is fine, though as you would imagine, very twisty. The bike is agile enough to cope, but I don't need to go beyond 3rd very often. In fact, better if I don't, as I keep more control that way. I took these photos at the border of France and Spain.

I felt a certain lightness as I entered Spain as if I'd completed a part of the journey and was more or less "there". Silly how we seem to set internal milestones without even realising it.

There wasn't any noticeable difference between France and Spain for the first few miles till I reached the first village. Then as I stopped for coffee I remembered that although my French might be execrable, my Spanish is non-existent. I got by and discovered another difference. Coffee in France is about 3 euros. In Spain it is 1 euro.

Crossing the Pyrenees had been like flicking a switch. France had been dull, cloudy and damp. Within a very few miles the sky was clear, the sun was shining and it was warm. This is a picture looking back the way I have just come.

Another difference between France and Spain is that there are more petrol stations in Spain, more like the UK. I wonder if France regulates the number? Petrol is also a lot cheaper in Spain. When I tried to use my credit card at the petrol station I was asked for some form of ID. The habits of Franco obviously die hard. I don't know what a UK passport told him that Matercard didn't.

The roads were as magnificent as I remembered. Long and straight on the plains and superbly cornered in the mountains. Very fast progress was made. There are faster bikes, but I saw 120 on the clock and that is fast enough for me, so I don't need a faster one.

I decided to stick to the gameplan of finding small hotels in small towns. No, I don't learn from experience. I headed for Sarinena, a small town in the middle of arable farmland at the crossroads of what I hoped were some reasonably major roads. Spain seems even less densely populated than France, so I wasn't sure what my plan B would be.

Almost as soon as I entered town I saw a small bar/restaurant/hotel, but it looked a bit scruffy so I decided to look in the centre of town. I was soon back at the scruffy one which I discovered was in fact the centre of town. They had a room so I took it. I was pointed down a corridor, but couldn't find the staircase. I was then shown the sliding door which revealed a palace upstairs. Immaculately clean, beautifully presented. Marble and tile everywhere. A nice bedroom with new bathroom. Just great.

I wandered round what there was of the town and bought some fruit and water (and some cake) for emergencies the next day. I managed to spend almost £2. Spain is cheap.

I thought I was going to have difficulty with dinner as the restaurant had not opened by the promised 8pm. The owner was clearly negotiating with one of his staff to open it. In the end they did, and I had a worryingly quickly prepared steak, which turned out to be superb.

The room cost 25 euros and the steak 6. And so to bed.

Day 6

Start the day by going out to view the bridge from below. It is stunning, and I don't think my photos do it justice.

I then go south for about 20kms to join the A75 at the first available junction and travel north on it to come over the bridge. No winds. You don't really get the sensation of the height. I guess it is so high that you are quite removed from the country round about. After the toll there is a viewing area where I get a better picture.

I decide to head for my crossing point into Spain, so aim roughly at Toulouse. When I get to it I am desperate for a coffee. I had promised myself at the start of the trip that I would only eat and drink in proper French establishments, but I am desperate for a break and the interminable shopping centres and ring roads of Toulouse offer me nothing. Against my better judgement I weaken and stop at a McDonalds. As soon as I open the door I turn round and walk out again. It is packed! No wonder the French get upset about globalisation, when it often means Americanisation. We don't notice as much as we use roughly the same language, but the French must get very fed up with the spread of English everywhere. Pret a Manger is about the only foreign language sign you see in a British High Street. In French shops the English language is everywhere.

I have great trouble finding the route through Toulouse. I have no option but to take the motorway just to get out. I get off it as soon as I can and head for Tarbes. I intend to stop between there and Pau. Much to my surprise in the village of Soumoulou I find a traditional French small hotel, so I stop and book in. Just as I remembered them, but updated with en suites and fire doors, probably the reason there are so few around. The investment needed for these will be difficult to justify when you have new Ibis operations nearby. I suspect that many of the hotels are now restaurants only. It's a disappointment anyway. The restaurant is shut for the evening, and my shower goes cold before I've finished.

The only other place to eat is a take away Pizza place. Nice enough for what it is, but not what I had in mind for my Sunday evening meal. Drift off to bed in some disappointment.

Day 5

A damp start to the day, but not actually raining. I take a winding circuitous route through the hills of the Massif Central. It's great fun. Motorcycling as it can be with empty roads, varied scenery and no pressure. I'm making my way towards Millau to see the new bridge. Although the land becomes flatter as I near Millau it is still very high, over 900 metres.. The wind is quite strong. I am travelling east to west and when I reach the road that leads to the bridge I decide to go straight to Millau and go over the bridge tomorrow when I hope the wind will have died down.

Millau is a really nice little town, not in any way shabby like Le Puy. I cruise around but don't see any hotels! Fortunately after a little while my friend Ibis shows up, so I just book in there. My appetite for searching out small individual hotels has diminished dramatically.

I get directions to two internet cafes and go to the recommended one. It must be run by her boyfriend as I can see no other reason for her recommending it. Its connections are so slow it takes me about 20 minutes to send an email. I give up on the blog and go to search for the other one.

It is much better and the connection is fast. Unfortunately it closes in 20 minutes, so I can only do a quick post on day 1 to try to let people know that I have not abandoned the blog. Did you know that French keyboards are different? They've got additional characters and some of the letters are transposed. That slows things considerably.

Have a great steak and chips and head to bed.

Day 4

Saint Junien is just a few miles from Oradour. On June 10th, 1944 642 of the town's inhabitants, men, women and children, were massacred by the Waffen SS. They then looted and burned the town. No one knows for sure why this was done at all, let alone why it was done with the brutality which was used e.g. burning people to death after wounding them, rather than shooting to death. The town is so far from the main battle areas of the second world war that it is a totally unexpected setting for such an event.

The village has been preserved as a memorial to those killed and a warning to the world at large.

The first thing which surprised me was that a new Oradour has been built literally next to the remains of the old one. I can understand that the reasons for a town existing in the first place will continue after it is destroyed. But I would have thought that they would have been outweighed by the horror of what had happened and led to people not wanting to rebuild. Living beside the cemetries of the Somme must be chastening enough. I can't conceive the daily emotions conjured up by living in Oradour. The following are the pictures I took on the day.

You can't leave a place like this without feeling overwhelmed. Not just by the horror of it. But by the fear as well - what would I do? There are enough experiments in psychology to show that the way people act can be largely conditioned by the situation they find themselves in. Not every soldier who participated in this atrocity was necessarily evil. For whatever reason they were content to act the way they did on that day. We can hope that memorials like this will stop the acts being repeated, but William Calley and his men did it again in 1968, and there have been countless other examples since. I am thankful that I have never been tested. I'd like to think I'd do the right thing, but I really believe that no one knows how they would act until they have been in the specific situation. That's one of the things that irritates me about commisions of enquiry where the "great and the good" pontificate about the shortcomings of those dealing with the issues in the heat of the moment.

I don't stay for more than an hour. There is a limit to how much you can depress yourself. I spend the day cruising quiet roads in the Auvergne, not just agricultural, but obviously holiday destinations - camping, climbing and walking.

As I get higher, it gets greyer. There is forked lightning on the horizon. I don't have that far to go to Le Puy en Velay, which looks big enough to have hotels, provided I can find them, so I think I'll press on rather than stop to put rain gear on. Mistake! The occasional spit of rain there had been for the past few miles was bearable. The downpour which came was not. Leather is actually quite water resistant. It'll take an hour or so for it to soak through. Stitched seams let in immediately though.

About 90% of the rain that falls on a motorcycle goes straight to the rider's crotch. It falls off the helmet onto the tank or your lap. It falls off your arms onto the tank or your lap. It drains back from the tank into your crotch. It drops from your lap onto your crotch. Do you know how many seams there are in the crotch of a pair of trousers? That is why motorcyclists caught in the rain have such pained expressions on their faces. All you really need to survive rain on a bike are waterproof shorts and sleeves over your leathers. I guess it would look stupid though.

I struggle into Le Puy. Rain can also make surfaces slippy. Cobbles, road markings, manhole covers all become potential killers when wet, so that makes me cautious. Looking for a hotel while being cautious is quite difficult. At last my saviour Ibis appears again and I stop looking for the quaint old-fashioned and settle for what I see.

Suitably showered and refreshed I wander what turns out to be a fairly shabby town, though I do find a very nice Chocolatier. I have pig's knuckle with dry cured ham and goat's cheese.

Day 3

What a blast this is. I am just charging through rural France in a way that is not possible in the UK, at least not in the South East. The bike is behaving splendidly. First little bit of oil added, so not an issue. It just eats the miles, but still handles the twisty bits well. For all that, it's not as much fun as the Guzzi. The Guzzi just puts a big grin on my face. With the BMW it's more of a self-satisfied smirk. It does everything very competently, but without the pizzaz of the Guzzi. Just German versus Italian I guess.

It's great being so much closer to the place you are travelling through than you ever get in a car. You are so much more aware of your surroundings. Following a lorry loaded with timber I could smell the newly cut wood. Sometimes the smells aren't as pleasant, but you do know that they are there.

Got myself sorted out with a low cal lunch of croissants and Brie, so picniced at one of the many roadside spots that are set out with tables. All very relaxed and civilised.

The hotel saga continues. I guess as more traffic goes by motorway the demand for small roadside hotels has disappeared, and so have they. My memories of travel in France is of rolling into any small town and finding an Auberge easily. Not now. So I give up on the small towns and decide to try Limoges.

One thing about a bike is that you can't stop for "just a minute". You have to manhandle 270+ kilos of deadweight into a space that you can easily get out of. You get off the bike; you get your gloves off; you take your glasses off; you take your helmet off; you put your glasses back on; now you're hot so you unzip your jacket; you rummage in the luggage for the map; you then have to unfold it and find where you are; and so it goes. The result is that you are reluctant to stop except when you know it will be for a little while. This is not the way to hunt for hotels. Cities aren't bike friendly anyway. You can double park in a car and feel relatively safe. Try that on a bike and you just feel vulnerable.

Anyway, left Limoges as a bad job and found an Ibis hotel in the (almost) next town of Saint Junien. This bit is becoming routine too. First thing once I am in the room is jacket, boots and trousers off, then into the shower for a glorious soak, I usually don't realise how much I need it until after, when I feel relatively restored.

Hunt for an Internet Cafe with no luck, so content myself with some rognons de Veau and go to bed.

Day 2

Leaving Reims in the morning confronts me with the first navigation issue. I have a very clever map holder which drapes over the tank and is held in place by magnets, so you can leave the map open at the right place and view it through the perspex cover. It works fine on the Guzzi. The only problem is that the BMW has so much plastic fairing everywhere that there is not enough metal on which to locate the magnets. The map is therefore safely in my luggage. Have to rely on sense of direction then!

Avoiding main roads as I am only adds to the difficulty, since town planners want you out of the city as quickly as possible and only sign the major routes effectively. I begin to develop an approach to navigation a bit like my golf - first stab at general direction, hope I recognise a name or other clue, try to home in more precisely, and with a bit of luck then see the target and go for it.

Since I have no particular timetable this is not a problem and I enjoy riding through some very peaceful and quiet countryside. Reminders of history are everywhere though. I came across this massive memorial by the side of a small road just outside Reims. Perhaps once the road running past was a major thoroughfare, but it is now just a byway. So who is there now to honour the memory invoked here?

I make my way towards Verdun, scene of probably the worst fighting the French experienced in WW1. The memorials are typically monumental. They thought they were commemorating the war to end all wars. How could they know that it would all be repeated again and again.

You can see by the view of the town looking down from the monument that it is just a sleepy rural town which had the bad fortune to host a massive battle, not for any reason except where it happened to be.

I continue on through rural France. For such a large country with a not very large population there are lots of villages. The French approach to the Common Agricultural Policy has obviously succeeded in keeping the countryside populated in a way that the British one is not. The villages I go through are clearly agriculturally based in a way that few in Britain are.

The roads are empty, long and straight and I blast along towards Auxerre. I must begin to be more choosy about my hotels. This is more like a hostel for illegal immigrants. I wait in the bar for the restaurant to open, but then decide I might be better to eat elsewhere. Another nice steak though, so I go back to the hotel content enough.

Day 1

So, going the other way round the M25 this morning. I've heard the road reports of the congestion where the M26 meets the M25 and now I've seen it. Aaaaagh! Thank God commuting is a thing of the past for me.

This bike is a danger to one's licence. It goes like the proverbial off the shovel without even meaning to. Good fast run to the Chunnel. It doesn't matter how early you arrive, they only put you on the train immediately before the one you booked. That means you have time to spend in the shop. I just went straight through and got on a nearly empty train.

France is shut! They obviously recognise the Mayday holiday, but the roads are quiet, even for France, so I don't know how they celebrate it. There are hundreds of people, as individuals, selling plants and flowers by the roadside. Must be a Mayday tradition.

Don't want to use the motorways, but do to get started. The Peàge is a pain on the bike! Soon come off when I see a sign for Bethune, north of Arras. From there to south of Arras was the setting for the Battle of the Somme. I stop at a little cemetry, just a mile up a dirt track from the main road. You can see from the pictures that it is set in the midst of what is now just peaceful farmland.

I photograph another soon after. This one is much larger and on the edge of a town.

Then I realise that I can't go on doing this. There are literally cemetries or signs to them every few miles. The countryside is so tranquil it is hard to imagine it as host to such carnage. What can it do to people living with these reminders constantly?

At the Canadian Memorial there are preserved/restored trenches.

A hundred yards separated the two front lines. The ground has recovered with grass and trees growing normally, but the ground is unnaturally contoured, so you can see how it was devastated by shells etc. The Vimy memorial is huge.

Eventually stop for a late lunch - a brilliant steak in a typical little French restaurant.

Although a lot of northern France is a bit like Essex - all out of town shopping centres - you don't see many petrol stations and I panic a little when the reserve light comes on. I know I've still got 40 miles or so of fuel left, but panic comes easily. However, a closed supermarket has a proper self-service station - no attendants; just a card machine. I fill up and check the oil. Hardly any used. So it is not going to be a major issue. It's the only engine I know which uses less oil when being thrashed than it does tootling about round home.

Stay the night at Reims. Not the best hotel, but central. Since the panniers are easily detachable from the bike I expect to use them like suitcases. Wrong! They weigh a ton. My arms are about pulled out their sockets by the time I get to my room. This will require some working out as I won't be able to do this every day. Still, working out a coping mechanism will keep my thoughts occupied when I'm on the road tomorrow.