Well, what a summer trip that was. Along with four other friends on their aprilla, Kawasaki, triumph speed triple and BMW bikes, we took our 1098 and 1098S on a nine-country tour of Europe in 10 days covering 3,500 miles. We saw some stunning scenery as you can imagine. The bikes were obviously not the bikes to tour on and we had a small tail pack each plus one ruck-sack. This sufficed until mid-trip when we had a two-night stop-over in Nice, giving us time to wash clothes, draw breath, etc. With an average daily mileage of 350 miles + we had to keep moving at speed to get to our pre-booked hotels. We travelled on all types of road and weather and the bikes on the whole, were very reliable. I think we suffered more on some of the smaller hair-pin roads which the bikes were obviously not meant for but when we hit the sweeping dual carriageways, the bikes came into their own. They were just fantastic. On the reliability front, we only had one fault on each bike. The 1098 has a quickshift and the gear push-rod snapped which meant we had to take the brake push-rod and swap for the gear lever - all done on the side of a Spanish mountain road in 35oC. Made for an interesting ride across the Pyrenees with no back brake. The 1098S chose to dump her entire coolant on the Nice sea-front about 40 yards from the hotel due to a failed relay on the fans. Both bikes were fixed on our day off in Nice and polished ready for the second part of the trip. On a funny note which I'm sure you will all enjoy, when we all parked up on the hotel front, the Duty Manager came rushing out stating we could not park there and the bikes would have to be moved 50 yards down the road...."except the ducatis, they can stay".
Sounds like a great trip and love the Ducati quip at the end. Re the hotels though, that's why I NEVER pre-book. That way, no pressure to do loads of miles or leave somewhere you'd like to stay another day! I suppose if there's 5 of you and you all want separate rooms, hotels on the fly could be more difficult though....
Sounds like a great trip apart from the heat! I did a similar (not quite as far) trip taking in Borgo Panigale (factory). But did pre-book hotels as you can get better deals through Booking.com than just turning up.
Yeah, I'd use Expedia, hotels.com or booking.com too but only an hour or two before I'd arrive at a particular town. Worked well for me but each to his own and all that
