New Boots and pants to Los Pistoneros, pour favour.

A ride abroad has it's own special needs - new boots and pants.

Technically the boots aren't new. Just my old faithful fully waterproof timberlands with a new set of soles, thicker and more grippy than the previous soles.
But the pants are new, in a selection of monochrome colours (is monochrome a colour ?) , from black to grey and a greyer grey.
And hopefully they won't show the thick rich skidmarks that are possible from eating greasy foreign food and sitting on my sweaty arse all day riding and having to use garage kharzis.

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Clothing packed, now onto the essentials.
Seeing as i'll be riding a 33 year old guzzi, that hasn't been used for some considerable time i took a spare clutch and throttle cable, an inner tube, real tyre levers, compulsary hi-vis vest and bulbs, and a tin of finilec and cable ties. These were stored in the left hand (laughly called) pannier.



The righthand laughing box had all my personal favourite items.
A selection of vegetables, both soft skinned and root . A bottle of non bio washing liquid, a tub of butter substitute and a 25 foot electrical extension lead.



The laughing boxes weren't lockable, maybe this wasn't needed in such innocent times 33 years ago. But i took precuations and locked the left box with a hefty cable tie (hoping it wouldn't need to be opened except in dire emergencies).



The right hand box had a quality bungee (courtesy of john plane, who accidently left it on my loan bike) to secure it as i'd be frequently rummaging amongst it's contents on my journey.

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The idea was to travel by chunnel to northern france and then head down the west coast of france to spain and santander for the weekend of the 8th/9th of october for the Moto piston rally.
Left home at 5.30am on weds 5th. In the dark and in light drizzle.

Crossed without drama. Started off to Rouen, in strong side winds and sheet rain.
Travelled 150 miles and thought sod this, due to a combination of very high petrol and toll costs on the autoroutes. It'll be cheaper heading towards St naziare and getting the overnight ferry to Gijon. See, you can do this when you don't make plans.

Stopped for elevensies on the way. A pain aux raisin and coffee.



I love a moist pain.

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i have managed motorcycle holidays for years without recourse to a 25ft extension lead.

WTF is it for?

cookie said:

i have managed motorcycle holidays for years without recourse to a 25ft extension lead.

WTF is it for?

Click to expand...

A George Foreman grill of course How else do you think it will work?

maybe it's for the washing machine?

used with the non bio for getting butter substitute out of your pants.

cookie said:

i have managed motorcycle holidays for years without recourse to a 25ft extension lead.

WTF is it for?

Click to expand...

Just you wait for that day when only a 25ft extension lead will do and you'll do anything to get one.

Wish I'd taken one.
Would have saved me spending 30e on an overpriced tow rope to drag Shaun off the motorway with.

Neuvas Botas y Bombachas...

...And will there be any further photo instalments Mr H...
It's been a very promising start....

?????????

cookie said:

i have managed motorcycle holidays for years without recourse to a 25ft extension lead.

WTF is it for?

Click to expand...

I couldn't fit my lucky brass frog in the laugh box, so took a chance and went without it. .

A ride abroad has it's own special needs - new pants, and boots.

Both look very nice and I think they be just what Iam looking for, would you mind taking posting a pickie of just those items please

No lucky brass frog?
This could be the very definition of adventure motorcycling being written right here!

to get any benefit from lucky frogs, brass or otherwise, it's pretty much essential to bungey them onto the top of the headlight shell.


basic stuff

System V; you finally retired that System IV then Neil?

cookie said:

to get any benefit from lucky frogs, brass or otherwise, it's pretty much essential to bungey them onto the top of the headlight shell.


basic stuff

Click to expand...

Not strictly true. I have an anti-seize fish which I keep in my bathroom window. Thus it's magical powers are not restricted to any one vehicle.

different species, different rules

more please sir.

Onwards onwards across featureless northern france.
I could think of some grand references for the weather, like swirling winds, thundering rain, booming, pelting, pounding, pouring, chilling, squally angry clouds. The fog rolled in like dice only slower, quieter, and without numbers on it. It was dark outside like pants. Black pants.
But lets just say it was shite and leave it at that. .


The rain did gradually dissipated although it stayed grey and very english like.

Stopped for lunch at a garage, a traditional french baton of tuna, egg and garlic.

This picture took several attempts and much mirth for the garage staff with plenty of exercise running back and forth on the self timer before getting the bollard in the exact position. It's the hidden price you pay for art.

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While stopped i bought a container of my own travel guardians, Tick Tacks.
Some people have gilded shiney tissues boxes on the rear shelf of their cars, others have jangly CDs hanging from the rear veiw mirrors. I always have a box of tick tacks.
Tell me, when did you ever see a tick tack lorry broken down or crashed on your travels -never.
As the french say " Regarde tick-tacks et va-t-en rassuré" and "Si en tick tacks confías, de accidente no morirás". There you go, that's good enough for me.



And the guzzi bars and speedo set up are perfect for holding the coffee, the italians think of everything.

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After 491 miles i arrived at St nazaire ferry terminal, at about 5ish in the afternoon, the sailing leaves at 9pm.

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Booked my cabin with the nice lady in reception, they had no 2 berth cabins, but the 4 berth was only £4 more so not a ball breaker. And while passing the time of day talking to her got offered the return trip for £80 - thank you please.

While waiting i did another self timer shot, but could only get a few plants in the foreground and lots of flare in this one.

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Nice cabin, but must be claustrophobic with four people in it. Restaurant was good ( for a ferry) but a little pricey. Next stop Espania. ETA Gijon 12 midday (perhaps ETA isn't the best phrase to use for northern spain). Had a nice cabin and as i laid on the bunk with the lights out and a view of the nearly full moon through the cabin window and the ipod playing i felt like sam manicom on acid.

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So, arrived without incident. Bikes are last on the ferry, but first off.

Espania, lets " i r a hacer una".

Gijon is only around 100 miles from sanatander so after unboarding and filling with fuel and a leasurely ride along the coast i arrived at my hotel about 3clock. The hotel was 2 minutes walk from james burtons/bsogris groups hotel.

I thought i had a room, but it was a suite, with HD flat screens in both rooms, a dining table and sofa in the living room and two bathrooms, all for 47euros a night, saturday was 54 euros. And free parking for the bike. Result. I'm here from thursday until monday.





And two minutes from the beach.


met up with the boy burton and his group on thurday evening and went into town.
Brian (bsogri) took us to a bar, beer was 2 euros, but if you ordered a small tapas like roll with a filling ( accompanied with crisps and olives) for one euro you get a beer for one euro - So whoevers round it was got the menu and ticked off a random selection on the menu and we waited to see what arrived. A good way to get pissed.
After we'd eaten enough we then hit a few more bars. There are no pictures as no one had a camera ( fred may have but who can remember).
All i do know is that drinking half pints of tequila and naranja enables you to time travel, as i lost 15 hours and woke up early on friday afternoon.

Friday afternoon was spent chugging around santander on the guzzi amongst hundreds of other bikes all arriving for the moto piston rally, and having tapas and coffee at one of the many cafes while watching the bikes go past.

While sitting in self inflicted discomfort i thought i'd take another picture of coffee.


And yet another successful self timer shot that proves you don't have to be control of your faculties to produce art



I'd been on away from home for a few days now, and had needs, i was missing something.
So i set off downtown, and asked a few guys where i could get myself "sorted out" in my best spanish. I was directed to a small door, and went inside to be met by a young spanish girl, late teens early twenties. I explained in bad spanish what i needed, and did some hand gestures so she fully understood.

She smiled sweetly, turned around and bent over, and then with both hands opened her box and showed me her labia.

Just what i needed. As i'd forgotten my lip balm.



How i kept a straight face as she asked if i wanted her labia i'll never know. But it did cure my hangover, and soften my lips.

Great stuff to read-especially on a bad news day, keep it coming

Keep going micey old gadgie

I couldn't face another night on the town so friday was a 5 course meal for 22 euros, main was sea bream. Very nice. Then had an early night.


Saturday was an early start, the rally had arranged a race course around the Racing santander football stadium, very conveniant for me, as it was around the corner from my hotel.
So i spent the morning watching the old bikes and the racing.

The old bike picture first.



An assortment in the paddock.



















Bumped into buzz lightyear (burton) and paul (clydcymru or whatever welsh name is is on here), and had an icea creameo.





And a spanish snack.



Went into the autojumble and surprise surprise, much the same as any other autojumble the world over, except instead of old british tat it was full of old spanish tat.

A four caliper laverda


Then back outside to watch the racing which was getting into full swing.







A brief shower made it interesting



And the dogs couldn't take their eyes off it.



The riders were also vintage -this old boy had raced a few times in his youth at the TT races.The lying old fart, he didn't even have a bike, he came on the bus.



The last race had two moto morinis that were really going for it and kept the crowd entertained for 20 minutes as they diced with death, the kerbs and lamposts. A quality afternoon .

Then back to looking at a few more bikes.





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Then it was a quick tapas and refreshment before the evening



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I popped along to the rally hotel, just along the sea front and bumped into Devon and number 6, and had a wander around the underground garage with where all the bikes in the rally were parked. Amazing.
And they had Elvis as entertainment in the rally hotel that night.

That night started off in the irish bar having a beer with paul, james and fred



Then swiftly moved onto large luminescent orbs of gin and tonic.



We went into town, had more tapas and drink and watched paul contort himself into shapes on the slippery steps, no he wasn't drunk officer, he does yoga.

We went home, tired and emotional. Or rather Paul did. We all went back to the irish bar and met some of the others.

I didn't want to go time travelling so stayed off the naranja and tequila.







An excellent day and i only rode the bike for 5 minutes.

Excellent.