One of the problems with traveling by bike is the amount of time it always takes to get going in the morning - or after any stop come to that but it seems to niggle me more in the morning. I got up at 6.30am but despite my best efforts I didn't manage to get on the bike until just before 9.30am. Three hours! How can it take so long! I'm in a hotel so all I have to do is throw some clothes on, eat their already prepared breakfast and leave. In a car I'd stuff everything into a holdall which I'd toss into the boot with one hand while eating a croissant or something with the other. Even allowing a few minutes for brushing my teeth, about half an hour should do it. Not so on a bike. Everything has be packed exactly, every strap checked, everything placed where it should be or it'll vanish at some point during the day. It's a tough environment on two wheels and unless you want to leave a breadcrumb trail of belongings behind you as you ride it's a good idea to take the time and pack properly.
That sounded all well and good until I set off. Within ten seconds I realised I'd left my earplugs out. Another delay! It took a good ten minutes to put them in - glasses off, helmet off, unzip jacket to remove balaclava, find earplugs - which pocket were they in? Oh yes, one of the inner ones, so unzip jacket completely. Then struggle with one of the plugs that didn't fit properly and about fifteen attempts later finally get it in. Reverse the procedure with balaclava, jacket, helmet and glasses to put everything back on. Ok, that it , lets go. Not quite. When I took the helmet off I'd put it over the right hand mirror to keep it off the wet ground (did I mention it was raining!). The mirror had been knocked out of alignment and had come loose so I was going to need a spanner to tighten it up. So, dig out the toolkit from the depths of one of the panniers, spend a few seconds actually tightening the nut and another couple of minutes putting it all away again. At this point I was too warm from wearing all the layers of bike clothing while not moving so the helmet visor was steamed up. The quick workaround for that was to ride with it up but I soon stopped again as I had no idea where I was going. I knew the autobahn wasn't that far away but my game of musical junctions the night before meant I'd come into Wurzburg from a different direction. Now I didn't recognise any of the directions on the signposts and fearful of riding round at random until I ran out of petrol, I reluctantly had to stop and get the sat-nav working. Inevitably it decided to sulk and go on a search-to-rule when it came to finding the satellites. Actually it probably didn't, it just feels like it when you're sitting stationary waiting for it to auto locate.
Part of the reason I was getting impatient is that this was going to be a long day. I had a ferry booked from Calais the next day at 4.00pm so allowing for delays, waiting, booking in time etc I had a target arrival time of 2.00pm in my head and that meant my overnight stop had be no more than 200 miles from the ferry. Based on that my destination for today had to be somewhere between Aachen on the German border and Brussels. Brussels would have been nice but I really didn't think I'd get that far so I compromised with somewhere in the middle - and that meant Liege. There's no Etap hotel (the chain I was using) in Liege but there was a Formule 1 just off the motorway and that's what I'd booked. That meant a journey of around 270 miles and it was already past 10.00am. 270 miles on the autobahn doesn't sound like that far and it would be an easy day in a car or on a big bike. I've regularly done 750 mile days back from our flat in France and a couple of times have managed close to 1000 miles in a day on a Gold Wing but when you're down to second gear on some of the hills and celebrating when you manage to get beyond 50mph, 270 miles is a long trip. At least, being Monday the trucks were back and I could try to use them to speed things up.
An hour or two into the day I was riding in the wake of a truck near Frankfurt airport, buzzing along happily at 55mph when I glimpsed two bikes stationary at the side of the carriageway. I just had time to register that they were on UK plates before I'd gone too far to be able to stop. In any case you couldn't have chosen a worse place to break down. The edge of the carriageway where they were wasn't the edge of the motorway, it was a dividing concrete wall separating this part of the autobahn from another section going somewhere else on the other side. Whichever way they went it would mean crossing at least half a dozen lanes. Good luck, and I'm glad it's not me was all I think.
North of Frankfurt the motorway makes its way up and over the Taunus mountains. I remembered this area from the way down as I'd followed a fuel tanker most of the way on the up side and been pleased with how the bike had managed to keep up. This time it was different. As I slowly climbed higher I noticed that the rain was turning to snow and then settling. Within five miles the whole area was covered in snow - on the trees, in the fields, even creeping onto the edges of the carriageway where the salt was less effective. This is what I'd been expecting at the rally and I decided I'd like to try and get at least one picture of the bike in a snow field. Within a couple of miles there was a sign for a small rest area so I decided to pull in and see if I could at least get something on camera.
It was after taking these photographs that I noticed the first problem with the bike. The lights were no longer working. I'd been riding with the headlight on (it may be a legal requirement in Germany, I'm not sure, but it's a sensible thing to do on spray covered roads anyway) and they'd been working ok when I saw the reflection in a van about half an hour earlier but now both front and rear lights had out. I guessed it was probably a problem with the bulbs and as I was going to need to stop for fuel shortly I'd have a look at them then. Until them my emergency back-up plan would have to be used. That consisted of a battery powered bicycle rear light that I'd fitted in anticipation of this happening and my tent light fixed to the front of the bike with velcro and powered from one of the spotlight lithium batteries. At least they worked and about 10 miles later I pulled into a service station to started unscrewing things.
The headlight bulb had indeed blown - probably through vibration, something that's a constant problem with the high frequency buzz you get from small two strokes. Because of the cut price nature of the lighting system on the Bloop, if the headlight goes, the rear light gets all the current and has a subsequent life expectancy in the millisecond range. So I needed to replace both bulbs. I chucked in a new spark plug while I was at it for no other reason than I had one and I had the spanner handy. The bike was running fine before and didn't run any better afterwards but whatever, put it in the category of preventive maintenance or something.
That was it for the day really. I called in at the Limburg services for old times sake and over a cup of coffee chatted for a while to another couple of Brit bikers on their way home from the rally. As Liege eventually got closer I dug out the sat-nav, programmed in the hotel location and this time managed to come off at the correct junction. I arrived at the hotel reception just as it was getting dark and, having crossed that invisible line in the sand, was able to speak to the receptionist in French rather than, as in Germany, having to hope they could speak English. I parked the bike where I could see it from the bedroom window and watched a movie for the evening.
Next morning when I looked out the window I saw, firstly, sleet being blown in horizontally on what seemed like gale force winds and already plastering the side of the building. The direction of the gale force wind suggested it would be head on all day. Wonderful! The second thing that caught my eye was that the although the bike was still there it seemed to be surrounded by other bikes - in the same parking slot. Maybe I should have fitted a proximity alarm or something. Because the Bloop is so small and light it's not unknown for people to disregard it. A couple of times on the trip I'd left it at the petrol pump in the services while going to pay and come back to find someone moving it so they could fill up their 4x4. A few cross words had then ensued although as mine were in English the exact point I was making may not have come across exactly. If it had been a car or a Harley with a sticker saying something like "Satan's slaves, Mannheim chapter" it wouldn't have been touched. Now that I was back in the Francophone part of Europe let me put it in simple words - ne toucher pas le moto!
Actually it wouldn't have made any difference as the bikes were UK registered. They belonged to father and son, Rupert and George and they'd been the people I'd glimpsed stuck at the side of the autobahn near Frankfurt. It had taken most of the morning for the rescue services to turn up and get them back on the road so Liege was as far as they'd managed to get. Rupert was on a mid 70's Triumph - and I thought I had problems! Chatting to them over breakfast meant that I was late setting off again but at least the sleet had stopped by the time I got going and there was actually some blue in the sky. I needed fuel but even more urgently I needed some two stroke oil. I'd calculated in advance how much oil the bike would use but that was based on a somewhat optimistic expectation that I'd get 75+mpg. At 60mpg not only did it use more fuel it also used more oil and now the tank was empty. I'd been looking in the services to buy some but German services didn't seem to stock it - or at least the ones I'd been to the previous day hadn't. Maybe Belgium would be better. I hoped so otherwise I could be putting cooking oil or anything into it.
After a very slow plod - even by Bloop standards- along the autoroute I eventually came to a service station just outside Brussels. By his point I was starting to get very nervous. I had the 2L can of spare fuel but the oil level had dropped off the end of the sight window so I was really pleased to roll onto the forecourt with the engine still in one bit. They actually stocked the correct sort of oil so that was another plus but it was back to the pre payment system that I'd scratched my head over on the way out. To cut down on the delay I tried to use my visa card but the system wouldn't take it so I had to go into the kiosk, give the attendant €20 and the pump number, go back out and fill the tank and then go back in to get my change. Each time there was a queue at the counter so the whole process took about 15 mins. Only Belgium seems to have this system - why? Are there more drive-aways in Belgium? Have the Germans or the French been coming over the border, filling up and clearing off without paying? It's not as if fuel is cheaper in Belgium.
I eventually arrived at Calais just after 2.30pm. The day had brightened up and for once it was dry although the head wind had me doing the whole coastal section from Brugge to Calais in third gear. Waiting an hour for the ferry to arrive and unload I passed the time watching the UK security people examining the parked lorries for "hidden passengers" The dog seemed to be enjoying it even if the humans looked like they'd rather be anywhere else than on some windswept dockside. It didn't seem like they found anybody and I spent some time musing on whether finding someone or not finding anyone would count as a successful day for them. I also spent some time wondering what to about my lights. Both bulbs had blown again and they were my spares. By the time I got to Dover it would just be turning dark and while my emergency battery powered lights would be ok in the town there was no way I could come back along the motorway with them - not using the front one at least.
I decided I'd farm out the problem and call the AA. I was amazed when a van turned up in under half an hour - I hadn't even finished watching the movie on my ipod. I'd already stripped the headlamp down so I could show him the bulb - this time it was black internally which suggested some sort of fault and his response was initially as I expected - "I don't have any 6v bulbs". His next sentence surprised me though - "but I can fix it". Using the battery lights I followed him up to the local Halfords (I didn't even know there was one in Dover) where he found a suitably sized bulb and glued it into the bulb holder with plastic metal. A cable tie held it all in place for 15 mins or so while it set and - it worked. OK the beam pattern was a bit out but it was brighter than the original and easily good enough for the journey home. It's still in there now. So, thank you Mr AA man - you're a credit to your organisation and that bodge gets added to the list of fixes available to me in the future.
So that was it, just under 1900 miles over the course of a week in almost constant rain or snow on a bike that only a few months earlier came very close to becoming landfill. Apart from the bulbs nothing at all went wrong with it - I didn't even check the chain, and it's still running happily around here now. That's the end of the trip to the Elephant rally but the last entry on this blog will be a bit of a retrospective - a look at what worked, what didn't and with hindsight what I would do differently, but as I got there and back without any serious issues I didn't get it too badly wrong.
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