My eventful French "Trip"
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:46 am
Last Friday I informed Mrs Knapdog that I'd spent the last five minutes on my phone booking an eight day trip to the twisties of The Vosges in France and I was going the next day.
Things weren't going to be that simple....
Set off at 17.30 last Saturday for the evening sail from Portsmouth to Caen.
On the motorway the satnav wasn't recharging. Stopped in services to find one of the connections to battery had come off. (The battery also had an Optimate battery lead with usb attached and the heated grips leads)
Got on the ferry with bike looking tidy:
Next morning I'm third vehicle off the ferry but when I got to Passport Control I'd left my passport in the cabin. So after a long wait I'm last to leave the port.
Alphonse retrieves the passport with the policeman from "Allo Allo" stinding behoond him:
After a few merci's I head on my way to find I couldn't get out of the port. As Bonny Tyler sang, "I was locked in France" !!!!!
Soon discovered, once back on the rue, that I'd no France download on the Garmin. FFS, I'm heading towards the Swiss border with only a large paper map of the whole of France and I've got to get the other side of Paris by the end of the day.
30 km outside Paris, after stopping for petrol, the battery was as flat as a crepe.
No luck with a jump start so phoned my Breakdown service who couldn't attend because I was on a motorway!
Phoned 112 and got through to the bloody fire brigade. Anyway, eventually help arrived in the firm of a French/Portuguese mechanic with Tourette's.
He charged the bike for 15 mins and fleeced me for €185. (I can reclaim it).
I faffed around a bit after he'd gone, tried to restart and it's flat again though this time I was lucky to have a successful push start from a fellow biker.
After missing numerous exits I ended up by the banks of The Seine next to the Eiffel Tower. 40 mins later, I'm back on the autoroute but going completely in the wrong direction and heading SW to Chartres instead of SE to Troyes.
Found a hotel but couldn't get my luggage off as I'd left the bloody key to the cable lick vack in my garage in Barrybados! The porter eventually appeared with a hacksaw and cut it off.
Next day, after filling up with petrol on my way to Auxerre I slipped on a diesel spill with myself and Honda kissing the tarmac.
Result? Hardly anything apart from a scrape
on the topbox AND a snapped clutch lever!
Stopped at a garage 10km later and a friendly mechanic fixed it:
Arriving in Auxerre I booked four days in the Vosges in a hotel for £293 only to find that 30 mins later I turned on the tv to find there were going to be torrential thunderstorms there for four days!
That was it. I threaded my way home!!!!
But I still had sone superb riding!
Some brilliant Rolls Royces in the ferry port who had been on a rally.
This 1963 Silver Cloud looks as if it's doing 90mph even when it's standing still!
Things weren't going to be that simple....
Set off at 17.30 last Saturday for the evening sail from Portsmouth to Caen.
On the motorway the satnav wasn't recharging. Stopped in services to find one of the connections to battery had come off. (The battery also had an Optimate battery lead with usb attached and the heated grips leads)
Got on the ferry with bike looking tidy:
Next morning I'm third vehicle off the ferry but when I got to Passport Control I'd left my passport in the cabin. So after a long wait I'm last to leave the port.
Alphonse retrieves the passport with the policeman from "Allo Allo" stinding behoond him:
After a few merci's I head on my way to find I couldn't get out of the port. As Bonny Tyler sang, "I was locked in France" !!!!!
Soon discovered, once back on the rue, that I'd no France download on the Garmin. FFS, I'm heading towards the Swiss border with only a large paper map of the whole of France and I've got to get the other side of Paris by the end of the day.
30 km outside Paris, after stopping for petrol, the battery was as flat as a crepe.
No luck with a jump start so phoned my Breakdown service who couldn't attend because I was on a motorway!
Phoned 112 and got through to the bloody fire brigade. Anyway, eventually help arrived in the firm of a French/Portuguese mechanic with Tourette's.
He charged the bike for 15 mins and fleeced me for €185. (I can reclaim it).
I faffed around a bit after he'd gone, tried to restart and it's flat again though this time I was lucky to have a successful push start from a fellow biker.
After missing numerous exits I ended up by the banks of The Seine next to the Eiffel Tower. 40 mins later, I'm back on the autoroute but going completely in the wrong direction and heading SW to Chartres instead of SE to Troyes.
Found a hotel but couldn't get my luggage off as I'd left the bloody key to the cable lick vack in my garage in Barrybados! The porter eventually appeared with a hacksaw and cut it off.
Next day, after filling up with petrol on my way to Auxerre I slipped on a diesel spill with myself and Honda kissing the tarmac.
Result? Hardly anything apart from a scrape
on the topbox AND a snapped clutch lever!
Stopped at a garage 10km later and a friendly mechanic fixed it:
Arriving in Auxerre I booked four days in the Vosges in a hotel for £293 only to find that 30 mins later I turned on the tv to find there were going to be torrential thunderstorms there for four days!
That was it. I threaded my way home!!!!
But I still had sone superb riding!
Some brilliant Rolls Royces in the ferry port who had been on a rally.
This 1963 Silver Cloud looks as if it's doing 90mph even when it's standing still!