Just Popping Out On My Bike 2022

Peace on Earth.

In the duty free I saw some Bluetooth earbuds. Man logic immediately cut in. The Mrs aka Dulcinea had been most concerned about me looking down at the Shat Nav, having no sound and not keeping my eyes on the road.

“You will be careful won’t you”.

“Course I will luuuv”.

They were wired between the two ear pieces, which, hmm, is illegal when riding in France or is it Spain?

Ooh look, there’s a pair with no wires at all, just the buds. Sony, must be good.
A little more expensive, well twice the price but hey, they are duty free and we all love a bargain, don’t we?

Buy them, don’t muck about, buy them now.

It was a no brainier which is more then I can say for pairing them to Messrs Thomas & Thomas.

I found myself competing with the aforementioned Spanish version of Miss Foulmouth when trying to get the earbuds to do their job with the Tomfuckcking bloody bastard TomMMM!!!

One day I can see me totally losing my cool with it and just lobbing it into the deepest ravine I can find so as to ensure it is divided into a million pieces.

“Put down the Shat Nav Sir.
Walk away from the Shat Nav sir.
Ignore your darkest thoughts about airborne satellite navigation devices, sir”.

Ok, ok, I’ll come back to it.

Another fuckfuck fucking DAY!!!

Calm… Easy Tiger. I’m calm!…..


So today, mostly, I was riding with no audio. Well in fact entirely.

 

You take the low road, and I'll take the high road,

And I'll be in Segovia well after ye,
but who cares?

The cup of normal coffee on board as opposed to decaf turned out to be a mistake and following a day of no exertion meant that I slept really badly but did have time to write. I hoped it wouldn’t catch up with me during the day. It did in the afternoon. More coffee but this time back to the decaf.

Ignoring the audio debacle I’ve had a fight with the Shat Nav all day today. The confession is I dropped a waypoint further West than I realised and although I wanted to risk going over the Picos my plan was to go over slightly more easterly.

I say risk because they were covered in snow but what’s the point of hammering along a motorway when you can head up the most beautiful gorge next to a river with the odd white water raft, with sunshine and dappled light through the trees?

Talking of the Shat Nav, it also point blank did not want to recognise the hotel or the road in Segovia. Once again it was very tempting to launch it. I had to do it manually by dropping a waypoint after looking up on the location on the iPhone. This time I dropped it in the right place.

Then it decided it was not charging and therefore running out of battery and was going to turn itself off in 15 seconds.

I don’t know why it’s not changing on the bike, obviously a gammy connection. I stopped and turned it off, whereupon it did get a bit of charge. Besides Sam Nav and old fashioned sign posts we’re working perfectly anyway.

Back in the gorge there were nets overhanging the road, which clearly had boulders in them that could easily pulverise a puny Sambo and his shitty shat nav. Every time I go under an area with the risk of rockfall my one fear about the Termignoni’s surfaces.

Will the boom cause a rockfall? So far so good.

I figure I’ll be gone by the time the rocks come down though.

Not so sure about Bazzer though!
Doh!





Bazzer in the Gorge, or is that Gorgeous Bazzer. You decide.

 

Yes the ferries have gone up ludicrously in price. I’ve sent you a pm about it which should help.

 

Noises Off.

On Sunday at the top of the Picos it was deep snow. The roads were clear, going up was good but going down wasn’t so good. Lots of melt water cascading off the rocks and wet roads. At one point we had to ride through a waterfall which couldn’t be avoided because off a cyclist coming up the other way. The bikes got pretty filthy. The temperature had dropped pretty low, I’m not sure exactly probably only a couple of degrees but later as we descended I clicked over on the screen and we were up to 9 degrees. As we headed across the boring but unavoidable plane it clicked up to ten then eleven degrees. We both put rain jackets on to keep warm which took me up to five layers plus the jacket liner. Quite where I’m going to put it all when I strip down to just the jacket and a T shirt I just don’t know. At least they’re thin crushable layers.

Heading towards Palencia on impulse I decided to take a left and go into a village for refreshments. A sleepy little place with a scruffy little bar on the square. Four fella’s were sat outside drinking and shouting at one another. We went inside and it was mayhem. There on the wall was a mahousive TV screen showing the last two laps of the Portuguese MotoGp, live.

There were only half a dozen people in there but they were shouting and hollering for Marquez, didn’t matter about Quateraro winning, all that mattered was Marquez coming in 7th. We stopped dead in our tracks and watched the last couple of laps. No point trying to order.

Race over, we discovered there was no food of any kind, just drinks. Oh!

So we had a decaf and a Sin Alcohol cerveza, outside.

The whole time we were out there we could hear the mayhem inside.

As I left after going back inside to pay the young girl making most of the noise shouted,

“Adiós señor Ducati”.

“Ha, adiós”.

And they all piled outside to watch us go making a twistgrip sign with their hands demanding we rev the bikes, hilarious. I obliged by giving it a good blip to keep them happy but of course, what they wanted was for me to bump it off the Rev Limiter, which was just not going to happen.

A minute later we cleared the village and I wound it up through the Quickshifter to give them something to listen to. As Baz said, by then they were probably back inside making far more noise.

 

I do like Mondays.

When they’re like this. We left Segovia and went over the mountain on the cl-601, fantastic ride up there, a bit concerning on the way down because the fuel light came on at the top. I blame Baz, he said let’s fuel up at the next one. Could have been worse, could have been half way up and at least I enjoyed coasting down at 50mph +. I thought I’d rather do that than run out.
Gassed up off we went only for Baz to get pulled by the Guardia Civil. He stepped into the road, looked at me, realised I was a fine upstanding law abiding citizen, changed his mind and waved me on. Behind me Baz had drifted past a van which was turning right, in doing so he’d gone slightly into a lane for turning left. Naughty boy.

Apparently the Guardia was very civil and Baz got away without a fine. Which was fine.

I’d plotted a road which was new to me and the cl-505 to Avila was great. I’ll be doing that one again sometime.

This led us onto our favourite N-502 and a night at the Parador in Oropesa where the temperature had climbed to 22 degrees and clear skies.
I ask you, what is not to like?






At the top on the Cl-601. Who’d have thought there’s a ski area 1 hour north of Madrid.


Segovia


A view over San Lorenzo el Escorial and a bloke that got in the way.




Lunch on the N-502. Altitude around 1400-1500m

 

The Two Ronnies.

I haven’t been able to post because over the last couple of days any spare time had to be dedicated to totally rewriting the description of my house for the estate agents.

You’d think they would have had plenty of practice. Correct English would be good. Sentences that were actually sentences? Call me old fashioned but if you want to attract people’s attention and get them to part with some money at least communicate with them in a language that can be understood.

‘Talk to people the way they talk’. Not this ridiculous ’Estate Agentese’.

A lifetimes experience in advertising was brought to bear and happiness is not a cigar called Hamlet. It’s the presentation of a house that’s going to pop people’s eyes out…and it’s correct.

It’s all nonsense anyway because nobody ever reads it, they buy with their eyes. Same as in advertising. Nobody ever read the crap the clients wanted to say. If you did a good job they looked at the pictures or actually watched it on the Tv instead of making a cup of tea.

So we had a wrangle about the pictures too and given that I’ve had my work shown in the Tate Modern and The Victoria and Albert Museum, I won.

Oh and I do happen to be the client in this instance.

“God is in the details,” said Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and he just happened to be one of the most significant architects of the twentieth century.

The details are a *>•*! nightmare but if we’re going to do a job we’re going to do it right or we don’t do it at all, was my stance. Mainly because it always has been.

Don’t go the extra mile. Go the extra 10 miles and if there’s anyone else still competing go further and you’ll beat the rest. Just do it.

This was my kitchen for a whole year, which I didn’t mind when it was for the greater good. In fact it was another adventure but I’m not going through all that and having someone else drop the batten at the finish line.



Sorry about the rant but I always loved the little segment that Ronnie Corbett did where he sat on the front edge of a big chair, looking small, as he always did and told a rambling circular story punctuated with the words,

“I digress, I digress.”

There will be updates regarding the ride over the last couple of days but I too have digressed. I’ve got it off my chest and we are now residing in a beachside hotel near Jerez for the weekend.

And we all know what that means.

 

8 out of 10? Does that translate as ‘see me after school’.

I had a lot of that.

 

I remember getting hauled up on the stage in assembly and getting caned in front of the whole school, for climbing on the school roof and putting pea shingle down the chimney. What I didn’t realise was it was the vent for the kitchens and the pea shingle went everywhere including into all the pre-prepared dishes for the next day.

Someone saw my mate and I climbing down. Doh!

Can you imagine kids nowadays getting caned in front of the whole school!

The truth is it was a real result. By morning break time we were superheroes with the rest of the kids.

‘Did it hurt, did it hurt?’

‘Nah!’

I’m sure many of you know the truth.

 

A Day at the Races.

Looking forward to today. Got my fingers crossed for a result.

It turns out that we’re in the same hotel as the BT Sport commentary team. We saw them all having breakfast. Is it, isn’t it, well blow me it is.

In the evening Hodgy was at the bar so I struck up a conversation with him. He was very polite and after a brief chat about the prospects for the race I said I was pleased to see them all eating together as a team.

He said they all get on well together and there were no big egos to spoil things, not even in the management. I said it came across that they got on and I enjoyed the show. He was polite enough to thank me for the compliment.

We then speculated at the amount of egos at the top of the Team Ducati management. Hmmm.

Let’s hope we get a result today and Moto2 isn’t looking bad either.




Baz went to buy a T-shirt and this young lady turned up.


This nutcase just goes round making revving engine noises all day. As if there wasn’t enough noise.


Hotel, it’s tough.