Just completed a pre MoT check on the Panigale V4 and 748R to make sure nothing silly is going to catch me out. The next job is to get both bikes loaded on to the trailer, which I’m not looking forward to ….. it’s already 25° out there. Andy
Ordered some euros for my impending bike trip at the beginning of July to Holland, Belgium and Germany
I’m getting too old for this. Two bikes loaded onto the trailer, unloaded them in a car park and pushed each of them 100 yards to the MoT station, waited for the MoT, pushed each of them the 100 yards back to the car park and loaded them on to the trailer and unloaded them at home, all in the space of two and a half hours and 27°C heat. Still, got two shiny new certificates although can’t understand why both the V4 and 748R have an advisory for a loud exhaust I’m done for the day, valeting and photographs can wait until tomorrow Andy
Oh yes, turns out the Panigale V4 is 10kg lighter than the 748R and very unlike a Ducati, the 748R rear brake got a special mention for being very good (for a back brake). Andy
Overtook an unmarked french police car at jail speeds, only to get a thumbs up around 20km later once he realised I actually obey speed limits in villages and am not a complete arse. Well, I am, but he didn’t see that.
Accosted some poor guy with a V4 PP at Ashford this morning. He looked a bit puzzled when I asked are you Multirider75... It wasn't you. Hope you avoided the almost 2 hour wait to get onto a train. Now in the Ardennes, tomorrow Cologne.
I arrived about an hour before my scheduled departure, in the hope of getting on an earlier train. We ended up leaving about 20 minutes late, so it wasn’t too bad.
The harassed looking guy managing the queues at the chunnel terminal, who was getting frequent verbal from some irrate passengers, told us that there'd been an incident earlier that morning plus it was very busy. Poor lad had only been on the job for a couple of weeks. Didn't help matters that one of our party was an hour late leaving home either. We were playing catchup for the rest of the day and got to our accommodation in the Ardennes at 8pm, a good three hours later than intended. And then when we arrived on the French side there was an emergency declared in a carriage a couple ahead of us. The passengers on that, and the one Immediately in front, we're evacuated into ours and an additional delay saga ensued... The great weather is a decent consolation though and some excellent roads in the latter stages yesterday. I guess that it'll be busy on Saturday. Reccomend that you get there an hour ahead of your booking as they request when you book. The 'turn up within the four hour window' method that's worked for me in the past, where they put you on the next train, certainly didn't work for us yesterday. Despite ignoring the allocated crossing time on the printed out boarding card and heading straight for passport control, customs and the queuing lanes we wound up in a sin-bin lane that got held back.
Yeah I arrived an hour before the scheduled departure, in the hope of sneaking onto an earlier train. Didn’t happen. Left about 20 minutes later than scheduled, so wasn’t too bad. I stayed in Chamouille last night, heading past Dijon today.
Refitted an o ring onto the tuono throttle assembly to stop the revs jumping everytime it hits a bump. That's about as good as the throttle response can get without remapping, aprilia didn't do a good job with the throttle
Thanks to Garmin actually being useful for a change, adventurous routing was exactly that. Did around 500km today, mainly on back roads, taking in some of the best scenery there is. Today has been the best days riding I’ve ever had. People don’t realise the mental and physical fitness needed to hustle a big bike around for hours on end without stopping (other than to take the occasional picture). I’m shattered. To the bar!!!!
A new pair for the yellow Superlight, i just need a friendly person to swap them over in the coming weeks.
