Here’s the plan for 2022. Ride bikes as much as possible. Sail yachts as much as possible. Have as much sex as possible. What the hell, I can dream can’t I? I only hope the Mrs agrees to some of it or all of it. The above aims started off a few years ago as an after dinner joke. I don’t even remember what the question was but instantly off the top of my head that was the reply. I surprised myself but I so enjoyed the shock and horror on the face of the woman who’d asked the forgettable question, I thought it was probably a really good aim. I knew I shouldn’t have said it but I love saying what I shouldn’t. Otherwise life can be so dullllllllll. Suffice to say, to date, I’ve failed miserably. But hey, Covid, Cancer, Covid again and house refurbs have mullered my plan but this year, this year, I’m done. I’m outahere. In fact once again the finishing line is tantalisingly close but every time before it’s moved away from me. Very shortly I’ll be finishing the seemingly never ending build on my house and promptly selling it aaaaand retiring. Fanbloodytastic! Therefore the above aims come into play…………or not, in whatever quantities. ‘When I were a lad’ my dad always told me I was burning the candle at both ends, I loved it. What a great thing to do! Every time he laid that on me it only spurred me on more. He never knew. In fact I’d love that on my grave stone. ‘I burnt the candle at both ends and I only regret what I didn’t do’. And so it brings me round to the day and the year ahead. The Great Escape. What a great day and it came out of nowhere. Yesterday I got off the plane and the rain in Spain pissed mainly my plans. In fact it pissed on everything but today we seized the day. A 36 hour trip to the mountains just outside Malaga in order to sort things out for an Easter holiday break. Crazy but true. It turns out as some of you might have read in a previous post of mine that hiring a car in Spain for 4 weeks is 1/4 to 1/3rd of the price than hiring for two weeks. Nuts! Just bloody nuts. So here I am, or there I was because I’m on the flight back. I hired the car, I’ve parked it for two weeks and then we’ll have the break. That is, if it goes to plan which it usually doesn’t! I’d stayed with ‘Jorg the Laughing German’. Over breakfast we decided that the 40% chance of rain was worth risking, I don’t mind admitting it, we’re both fair weather biking pussies. What’s the point of going out in the rain when you don’t need to? Laughing boy said to me ‘We-e-ll, if we don’t go today, I just don’t know when we’ll get the chance for another ride’. It was a no brainer, my flight didn’t go ‘till 9.30 pm. Out of nowhere I had the opportunity of an all day bike ride right next to the Mediterranean. Out came the Monster, tyres pumped, chain lubed and off we went. Laughing boy opted to run his Honda, in case it rained on his K1200 Beemer. Fair enough, all bikes need riding. It was probably November the last time I used this bike and that was not a good run. This time within 500m I knew the air in the tyres was as good as perfect and that last time out I must have been well under inflated. It was awful, I just had no confidence in the bike. This time it was instantly ‘like a duck to water’. The bike felt planted. I was so happy to be on a bike I punched the air madly as we went down the mountain. Jorg could see me, I knew he’d be laughing. When we got to the bottom we pulled in for gas and both started laughing out loud, we were so happy to be out on bikes again. 95 Octane was €1.85 and I brimm€d at 17. We cruised down the motorway towards La Heradura, I saw a chopper flying over with a big globe type camera hanging off the side. They were clearly out to to get some revenue and spoil our fun. I’ve seen it before, suddenly a chopper pops up from sea level and chases down a speeder. I kept to the limits which is more than I can say for a few of the car drivers. Then I saw a chopper flying low along the coast, which was exactly where we were headed. Nonetheless we still had a good run in the stretches the chopper couldn’t easily see, except for the last bit heading down to Almunecar where some slow poke British reg psudo 4WD pulled out in front of us and proceeded to crawl. Given that it was white lined and there was a chopper about and the possibility of ground crew too we had to crawl behind the numbingly slow retards. Excruciating given the bends and the racetrack smooth surface. When we pulled up at the lights I had to lean across to the Laughing German and say; ‘ Bloody English, can’t they learn to drive’! Could have been Scots, could have been Welsh or Irish but I’d made the point and we left Mogadon man for dead when the lights turned green, not that we were going fast but it was a light year before he was good to go. We burbled down to the beach for a Tortilla, Sin Alcohol beer and hatched a plan to head up the mountain to the disused Petrol station. I’ll check out the altitude but what the hell a petrol station was doing there in the first place I’ll never know. It’s a really twisty road with all sorts of surfaces but a good ride. On the way I thought it was going to start raining but when I flipped up my tinted visor it didn’t look as bad as I thought. However the summer gloves were becoming inadequate. It wasn’t a choice thing, summer gloves were all I had there. Mirador de la Cabra is the disused gas Station. Check out the bendy route up there. When we pulled up we were at the cloud base. The pictures make it look pretty glum but it had mostly been sunny on the climb. It was so good riding up there it felt positively elec-tric! Freedom, revs, noise, grip, lean angles, sh- sh- shheer drops, 1200cc’s of bike that only weighs 182kg dry. Add fuel, zest, insanity and it all adds up to adrenaline induced fun. There was laughter, more grins and it was another pleasure to piss over the edge of the sheer drop. Even more laughter. Why did we go there? Because we could and within 5 minutes we were heading back down again, that’s what it was all about. Big local 4WD’s pulled out in front of us on the descent spewing black Diseasel fumes all over the place. That and the farm fires spewing smoke over the hillside made of mockery of the electric vehicle brigade. We slipped past them at the first broken white line and went under what must be one of the tallest road bridges I’ve ever seen, which connects two sides of a valley with the Autopista Mediterranea. Heading up the valley was a local on a 50cc two stroke. The short,boxy, swarthy, later in life ‘pilot’ was sporting all the standard safety gear. Red check shirt, baggy grey trousers, open face helmet perched atop of his head, strap undone, fag on. Complete with the obligatory plastic bag of shopping hanging off the left handlebar and of course…no gloves. You can find them coming out of each and every village in Spain on a fifty year old machine that has probably never been maintained because it’s never needed it. Funny how their Mrs always looks the bleeding same.
Trevelez is a great run and also takes in the A348 which is sublime. It also happens to be the highest village in mainland Spain. It was a bit too far for us given I had to be back for a flight in the evening. I will be doing it sometime during the year though and hopefully more than once. The short answer is they’re both great runs.
For newcomers and those of you who’ve missed my previous ramblings here’s a couple of links to various previous trips and tours, should you wish to read more. https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threa...n-my-bike-something-wed-all-love-to-do.33222/ https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/just-popping-out-on-my-bike-again.81987/
Sam Great to see you out again as we all love your write ups and congratulations on your retirement you lucky fella I’m still a few years from my retirement but like you I hope to do more riding this year something that probably won’t happen as I have just downsized into a house that has no garage so I’m now just waiting for the council to get the arse into gear and make a decision on my application for a 2 bay oak garage then I probably will be spending most of the summer building it !!! But due to the move I’m now commuting to work by bike but can’t wait for the slightly better weather so I can commute on my PP multi Have a good safe summer
Great stuff, sitting here with Covid and you've cheered me up no end. Well done for grasping the nettle and getting on with it. The prospect of me getting away on the bike this year is pretty well set in stone with a short trip to Normandy and Brittany in a couple of months, all booked. Plus the long awaited, twice postponed, significantly paid for trip to Corsica in September. Can't wait.
Glad to have cheered you up. Hope it’s not too bad. I had my second bout of it a few weeks back, no more than a very mild cold, thanks to vaccinations. Mind you, the first bout nearly killed me. Took me months to recover but of course I wasn’t vaccinated when the lurgy first arrived. Hope you’re on the road to recovery soon and back on the road too.
Get well soon Sam! Got to get the most out of life while we can, because we never know what’s waiting for us. great write up. Hope to be retiring and sailing soon too!
Dumb and Dumber. Over the Easter weekend between other tasks I retrieved the Panigale from its storage and rode it down to London. It was great to be on a light sports bike again. Although heading down the A1 and around the North Circular isn’t the most appealing ride I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Now my building work on the house is finished once again there’s room for a bike in the garage. However there’s still copious amounts of dust covering everything I pick up. Slowly but surely I’m vacuuming it out but it seems a never ending task. I took my time and changed the brake and clutch fluids which we’re definitely off colour. I can’t remember if it’s been in there one or two years, the bike’s hardly been ridden. I stripped down the Oberon mirrors and indicators which I’m very pleased with, in order to tighten them up. The indicators are clearly visible and I can actually see something in the mirrors, which is a bonus on a Ducati. The only slight problem with the design is you have to remove the indicator wiring to tighten the main attachment to the bar ends. Which in turn means I have to cut the wires again and re-solder because the hole for the wire is too small for any connector. The next task was to fit the bracket for the S W Motech panniers and sort out the mini tank bag. The problem was that we haven’t been to Jerez or done any other tour on the Panigale for FOUR whole years! In that time everything has been shifted during the total rebuild of my house and finding things is a real puzzle. Various bits of my touring gear have made their way north to the now deceased in-laws house and some seem to have been beamed up by Scotty. Suddenly I was in need of a mini tank bag, which was a problem I hadn’t foreseen. On the Pani I use the Bagster system as the gas cap is standard and doesn’t have any readily accessible screws. Also the Bagster tank cover protects the tank when on tour. Standard bags are too big, they get in the way and I don’t like a tank bag with clear plastic on top because you get dazzled by the suns reflection. Not usually a problem in the UK of course but I’m anticipating it being a problem in Spain. Having said that the weather forecast is not quite what we’d have liked and although Bazzer has had his rain gear since 2002 and never had to use it, he might be testing it fairly soon. Even he admits he’s surprised it still fits. Yes, 2002! Apparently he’s been rained on many times over the previous 20 years but he’s never had it with him. Useful! The only suitable mini bag I could find was an AutoKicker tail pack. One of which I had but that too was 100 miles north and not worth a special trip. I ordered another for the grand total of 21 Quid. The the lady ‘Dulcinea’ was enrolled to sew on all the specifically red attachment straps which I’d ordered and cut to fit. It works a treat and will doubtless be used until either something better comes along or it too gets beamed up by Scotty. Tyres pumped, oil checked, bags packed aaaand my Bluetooth earbuds were…..in Peterborough. When it rains it pours! Visual only on the Shat Nav then. Departure was Friday evening from Portsmouth so we are now on the ferry killing time. It’s two nights on board but the advantage is that we get there on the Sunday morning. So we’re off the ferry, straight out riding and we don’t have to pay extra for a night in a hotel near Santander. Our actual first night will be in Segovia where the temperature is, shite! Not only that we’ve both been questioned by our superiors about riding Sports bikes to Spain. Apparently at our age we should know better.
The Waiting Game. We’d departed in good time and self preservation led us to avoid the M25 on a Friday evening. The cruise down to Portsmouth was thankfully uneventful and we lined up behind the row of overloaded GS’s and various off roaders mixed with a Harley equipped with a straight through Vance & Hines pipe. He won’t get far in France with that set up on his way to Italy. In the queue next to us was a Spanish girl on a bicycle who I’d managed to avoid as she wobbled in front of me when we approached the ticket office. Although she was in the next lane as we awaited embarkation she complained about being close to the motorbikes. Even though I’m a biker and have heard plenty in my time I was shocked at how she managed to pepper a sentence with so much foul language. So I repeated it back to her, slowly, with a questioning intonation, where upon she continued. ‘Fuck that’ I relatively cleanly thought but didn’t say and went to talk to some civilised bikers. There in the queue was a Multistrada V4s complete with rider, passenger, two panniers, a top box and a mahousive bag attached on top of each pannier. Topped off with an even bigger bag on top of the top box! Six bags! Not forgetting the Givi tank bag, sevennnn. I’m going to have to chat to the couple with the mahousive Multi when we disembark. To find out if they are moving house, going for a long weekend or something in between. It was interesting to speculate with Bazza about the total weight. Please post your calculations. Not only that but I think I saw the rider mount the bike by standing on the foot peg while on its side stand, with the passenger sat on board, feet up. I wondered when the side stand with a foot of approximately 1 square inch would do its own Psi calculation and decide it was too delicate a piece of Italian engineering. Bazzer and I have 20ltrs of panniers each, I have a previously mentioned natty little tank bag. He has a ruck sack that he mustn’t leave behind this time. Personally I think he’s overloaded but I’ve always believed in the Bauhaus German design school maxim from the 1930’s; ‘Less is more’. Hmmm, having written that, I’d better sign off.
The Magnificent Seven. I talked to Billy Seven bags just before disembarkation and what a nice guy he was. When questioned he shrugged and said I know, I know. I asked if the tank bag was his luggage and did the rest belong to his wife which raised a laugh. They were on their way to Tenerife. He also had an SP and a Streetfighter V4. The answer to the big question was, by his calculation, 450Kg all up! Once rolling it was fine of course but heavy to manhandle of course. 450kg! I wish I’d got a pic of them both on it as well. If you’re on this forum Billy seven bags, post one up. Each to their own, they both seemed happy and were putting in a good trip. As we pootled along the motorway conserving gas because we needed a fill up the bugger went past us. The shame of it!
