F**k You, Covid19!

The ferry docked on time. The car deck was a scrum of cars and bikes to get off. I started my bike, put it in gear, slowly eased the clutch out... and the engine stopped. Side stand down. Schoolboy error! Would it start again? Would it f*#k! In the minute or two it took me to start it, about 40 cars got off in front of me. That’s 40 cars that had to clear customs before I got to the front of the queue. So about 45 minutes lost there. I rode over to Honfleur, packed the bike into my friend’s van and then sat outside drinking coffee and eating brioche in the morning sunshine until about ten o’clock. We then set off with me doing the driving (don’t ask, it’s a long story of woe at a Bikers Days track day at Le Mans the previous week!). Uneventful until about Mons where the torrential showers started. Glad to be in a van at this point. At Liege it was decision time. Follow instinct and go down the E42 to Prum and over to the ring from there, or let Sally Satnav tell us the way, after all she’s bound to know where all the road closures are, isn’t she? Bad mistake! She took us into Germany and then tried to take us down the motorway that is closed due to flood damage. Just as we got there she updated and finally showed us that it could not be done. So we diverted via Bonn and eventually came at it from the east.
One of the motorways took us right over one of the affected towns, the motorway being on a high flyover. We could look down and see the damage. Away from the damaged areas the countryside looks the same as it always does. There are still convoys of relief trucks moving around the surrounding area. At Nurburg itself three of the car parks have been converted into villages for the relief workers. There are special vehicles (all painted blue) everywhere. It looks like it is a civilian defence force but I am not sure. The old paddock at the track is full of relief supplies too.
Unloading the bikes in the underground car park at the Dorint hotel. In the past I have heard about people breaking the mirrors on V4s just by brushing past them. I brushed my left mirror against one of the doorposts and ‘crack’! Followed by a dangling mirror. Gaffer-tape to the rescue. I appear to have been allocated to a very fast group. They may be too fast for me. We shall see tomorrow. And the weather forecast for the next two days is.....SHITE!

 

Coffee, bike in van, broken mirror, the competition (R1M), relief-worker camp.

 

French customs: Passport check, vaccination check (via my iPhone), passport stamped, done.

 

No carnet nonsense. Yes, I was a proper biker as I came through customs. But the friend who I was meeting crossed a few weeks earlier in his van with two of his own road-legal motorcycles in the back (with accompanying V5s and insurance proof) and was fine.

 

Never trust a weather app!

An early breakfast was in order as the course started a 0730 at the track and I needed to fuel the bike first. i joined my group. I was the only Englisher in the group for some reason, most of the others (four or five) were in another group with a English instructor. Fortunately I already knew my instructor from previous visits to the ring and he speaks pretty good English and draws wicked cartoons. The instructor Holli (Holger) said up front that he wasn’t really going to instruct, he was merely there to meet the requirement for every group to have a responsible adult and that we would just be riding around fast. Perfect! Holli was on his Ducati 996 (photos to follow). He’s WAY faster than me on my V4S. The other members of the group were on an assortment of KTMs, BMWs and Ducatis. Pascal on his S1000RR looked like he was just out of school (as do most of the policemen these days) and wheelied at every opportunity (and there are several opportunities per lap!) There was also a rich german guy on a Ducati 1299 Superleggera in the group too.

Every time I come back to this place the first lap or two scares me a lot. This time it was worse since there wasn’t really much of a warmup lap. Instead it was quite quick from the get-go. After a lap or two you get back into the feel of things and I really started to enjoy myself. Over winter I put a softer rear spring on the bike (I am a 60kg light-weight). Previously the back end was way to hard and it was like riding a bucking bronco on some of the faster sections. Now it is a much more civilised and relaxing bike to ride. Much less stressful.

I don’t know what it is about this place, but I absolutely love riding a bike fast around here. There are sections of track here the likes of which simply don’t exist on any other circuit. One or two sections are tight but mostly its like riding on a twisty but fast A road in the foothills of a mountain range. The changes in elevation are fantastic, the places where you cannot see where the track goes as you approach are exciting too. The surface these days is pretty good (money has been spent here since some Russian oligarch bought it) although it is quite polished in places where the cars slide. These are the areas that are slippiest when it is wet.

Talking of wet, the forecast said rain all day, but it was actually dry until about one o’clock, by which time we had done five thirty-minute sessions. Then it was heavy showers until the evening, when it cleared up in time for the public traffickers. (When a course is taking place it has to be off the track by four thirty, when it then opens to the general public for a couple of hours or so of mixed mayhem.)

Tomorrow - rinse and repeat (if the weather plays ball)

 

Some bike porn…