Just Popping Out On My Bike 2022

On a Road to Nowhere.


We haven’t had enough exercise.
We’re not eating much but still finding it difficult to digest. Basically because we’ve been sitting on our bums all day which is something neither of us normally do.

We’ve survived mostly on Tapas and prefer to sit and watch the world go by surrounded by locals as opposed to going into relatively expensive restaurants.

In order to counter the lack of exercise we looked up recommended Tapas bars on trip advisor. A couple of them turned out to be a hell of a walk and either on a trading estate or an insalubrious area of town. Who was to know? If you don’t try getting off the beaten track you’ll never find out but at least it got some kind of exercise, which we both felt we badly needed.

On the way down somewhere approaching Cordoba one of the reflectors in my Oberon bar end mirrors decided to eject. One moment it was there the next moment I looked it was just the bezel. I didn’t even see it go, I wondered if I’d turned into a vampire but given the mid day sun I decided it was a manufacturing fault. This quickly proved to be more of a problem than I thought with traffic trying to come up the inside of me once we got to Cordoba. First thing the next day I put in a call to Oberon and explained the situation. They were excellent and put a replacement in the post straight away. No money changed hands and they said give us a call when you get back and we’ll sort it out however you want.

Top marks and thanks go to Oberon.

As it happened, Pedro the Cruel, aka bro 2, who lives in Spain happened to be back in England for the weekend. I hatched a plan, got it sent to his daughters address where he was visiting. He could then bring it to Spain by the Tuesday. It all went perfectly to plan…except I didn’t expect torrential rain which meant I didn’t have time to go and pick it up.

So my lovely new reflecting mirror is now residing in southern Spain and I’m on the ferry headed once more toward an overcrowded island with small overcrowded roads.

If I was to give my kids one word of advice in life that word would be ‘adapt’.

Plan B had already swung into action and I’d bought a compact mirror from a filling station, snapped off and binned the magnifying half and taped the flat square makeup mirror to the bezel. It wasn’t the look I wanted when surrounded by a hundred thousand bikers but hey, it worked.

At the end of one day at the track some wag had obviously used it to check makeup, as I found it turned upwards in the perfect position for checking lipstick.

It made it all the way up through Spain and so have I, result.

Plan C. Return the bezel to Oberon and get a replacement reflector and treat the Spanish one as a spare.

At the same time I’ll be ordering an Oberon clutch slave cylinder, as the one on Uncle Basil’s bike makes clutch work so much lighter.

I don’t know what I did to my left elbow before leaving but somehow I’d injured it. It was definitely nothing to do with biking but the heavy clutch didn’t do it any good either. Stinky ibroprufen gel has been regularly administered but a rest will probably do it good. Which of course it won’t get because I’m looking forward to more time off and any excuse to either get out on my bike or get back to Spain.


My bike ran really badly when we first arrived at Jerez. We put it down to the weird brand of fuel I’d necessarily distress purchased. The stuttering, lumpy running which made it very difficult to negotiate roundabouts was totally cured with a decent drink of 98 Ron.

From then on we decided to stick to reputable brands and 98 whenever available. Often the latter wasn’t available. In fact we pulled up at a gas station on the descent from the Picos to find it only sold Diseisel! Imagine what the self righteous would make of that!


By the way, Bazzer is not an Uncle of mine at all. I met him on one of the ferries to Spain a few years back. We struck up a conversation purely because I was wearing a Ducati top and we’ve remained firm friends ever since. Despite the fact that I’d just let out a terrible fart as he tapped me on the shoulder. I was sitting on my own having just had breakfast and nobody was anywhere near me.

I thought I’d got away with it. Like you do.

If I hadn’t worn that top none of this would have happened and said fart would have evaporated in the mists of time. Apparently he didn’t notice. I did! I’m sure I was cross eyed at the time.

What can you say?

Moving swiftly but silently on, it was bro 6 that came up with the monicker ’Uncle Baz’ but it just seems to fit and there’s been no physical retribution when he’s addressed as such. So it works along with ‘The Shadow’. Which more obviously is because of his ability to stick to me like glue, albeit at a decent distance, the whole way down, around and back up through beautiful sunny Spain.

He rides extremely well especially considering he has sight in only one eye. Imagine what the locals would make of it, if they knew that as well.

‘And you’re how old’!

Only once was I able to shake him off. One day after we’d left the track, I went for a premature right hand turn, realised it was the wrong one and flipped back to straight on. It was a small body swerve but one to be proud of. He was following to the right of me as a wingman should and was therefore committed to filtering right into a 270 degree turn onto motorway to nowhere. It was one of those instantaneous things and the moment I’d done it I chuckled as I knew my name would understandably be mud.

Sure enough, I saw him vere off in a westerly direction. The sound of distant cursing eventually diminished as I joined the queue in the reputable Repsol station. Unamused he found his way back to the hotel via the far side of Jerez and after I bought him a drink he was back to his old self.

It’s been a good trip. There’s been no grief and we’ve kept each other amused with tales of misspent youth and motorbikes. Why would you want to talk about anything else? Not only that but he has the ability to sleep while I fill the forum pages with this nonsense, which seems to get more and more elaborate. What happened to ‘Less is more’ hey? I don’t know how either of us do it.

Our thoughts have already turned to next year and the possibility of going to Portimão and then onto Jerez the following weekend. Provided it doesn’t cost us too much in new carpets or diamonds.

 

Glad you liked it Mervyn and thank you very much.Very nice of you to say. I’d never done this kind of thing before randomly starting off a few years back. It’s the strangest thing but people seem to like it. I guess it’s like a free tour and what’s wrong with that?

One of these days I’ll get round to printing off a trip as a bound coffee table book. Even if mine is the only table it sits on. Been promising myself I’d do that for a while.

In the meantime the more people that post up about their tours the better. Even just pics. It’s interesting when you’re stuck at home or work. Well…. I think it is.

 

Oh good, I’ll have to do it.

 

Conclusions.

This will be obvious to most of you and apologies for teaching you to suck eggs but works as an aid memoir for me.

Miles 144.
+ total Km 3234.9

Total miles 2154.

I felt a bit out of practice with touring and I was concerned about going on the Panigale. I’d hardly done any mileage on it over the last 2-3 years and was beginning to think about moving it on. I thought I’d be regretting it all the way round.

No chance, it was fabulous. I love sticking my shoulder into a bend. Which doesn’t happen on an upright bike.

The heated grips didn’t work. The fuel gauge didn’t work. The cruise control didn’t work. Mainly because it didn’t have them. I didn’t miss them one bit, spare winter gloves made up for the grips. The only time I missed the cruise control was the very boring day heading across the plain. Avoid!
The downshift auto blipper didn’t work either but I would have liked one.

My back didn’t ache one bit, which surprised me. On the Multistrada I get an ache between the shoulder blades, from being sat more upright. I’ll be interested to get back on it and see.

The tiny, thinly padded seat didn’t give me bum ache either, again surprisingly. The forward leaning position spread the weight more and I got far less wind noise than on the Mutley.

In Spain you can keep up far higher speeds over long distances. As soon as I was heading back into London in an average speed camera area, 40mph proved less comfortable of course. Bro 6 and I are always agreeing that these bikes need to be ridden in a country like Spain. Not so much this country.

I’ll fit the Gilles Vario bars but not as high as Uncle Baz’s. Also, I’ll try some rearsets but again, not as high as Baz’s.

I got back and my Mrs, aka Dulcinea had vacuumed and organised everything in the garage. Something that I’m spectacularly bad at. Immediately I found a TomTom box I didn’t know I had with guess what… a 12v lead in it. Perfect, I thought I was going to have to order one. So that’s going on when I can find a point to connect it which is switched by the key. Thus eliminating the charging problem and most but certainly not all the problems with the Tomf*><*ingTom.

Any suggestions regarding a 12v connection point gratefully received.

Take less luggage. I was out of practice, I took too much. I didn’t use a few things I took. I didn’t read my Bike mag. I didn’t use my back brace. As for Billy seven bags. Please! It’s a lack of discipline. If I’d had more time to pack before going I’d have packed more times. Reducing every time.

Make sure all the gear doesn’t crease and therefore need ironing all the time. I need to work on this and get a good warm compact fleece/top of any kind. Suggestions please.

Zeroing trip meter 1 at every fuel stop once again proved to be a perfectly good fuel gauge. 160km and you’ve got to gas up. If you’re going over a mountain, gas up first. Be cautious rather than than risk it on range. We don’t mind the range at all. A short break after 160 and even up to 180Km is welcome. I was talking to a very nice guy in the interminable queue for passport control who had a GS1250 with a whopping tank. Apparently his range was 250 miles.

‘ No, 350’. he repeated.

‘350’? I was amazed. ‘What do you want that for’?

‘I don’t, I stop before then’.

I adamantly don’t want to carry that amount of fuel around. If you want that kind of range, go in a car. If I want to get accross Europe fast I go in a car or fly. It’s not what a bike is for in my opinion. I understand I am by the looks of it in the minority here but try it because when you get to the twisties it’s bloody bliss.

My main conclusions;

Panigale, great in Spain, solo.
Multistrada or alternative, UK or two up touring.

I still want a Sports tourer. If Ducati don’t start making one I’ve half a mind to build one.

 

RSV4… it’s made for riding in Spain. Enjoy it.

Just had bro 6 on the phone, he’s not long been back from Spain and we were agreeing; Tuono, RSV4, Panigale, Streetfighter…. They need to be ridden over there.