InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

A group of French BMW owners from Europ' Touring in Arras came to England for a day trip and Claire and I offered to meet them and act as tour leaders on a trip around Kent and East Sussex. I planned quite a long route that would take in some scenic roads, a trip on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and then lunch. After a very warm and sunny spring week, Sunday dawned to almost torrential rain! The short run to Dover was against gale force winds and it rained mostly all day. First hassle was an accident on the exit to the Dover Docks that had traffic held back through Customs to Immigration. Then when they finally arrived half an hour later we wouldn't have made the Tenterden section in time for the train. We adjourned to the Little Chef at Seabrook to re-group and decide what to do. It was still raining quite hard and so after a short break we togged up and set off. We met Lol at Tenterden but had missed the train we had hoped to get and the next one was a diesel and didn...

The original plan for Easter was to spend the day in Belgium with the GS Club UK at the GS weekend at Kasterlee. As it was only a week after coming back from the US, I had to cancel those plans. But the bike needed a 20000km service before the Czech Trip... and so I decided to see about a service in France and use the ferry ticket for that instead. I searched on the BMW France site for a dealership in the north of France. Purely to see if it was cheaper than in the UK. In the end I booked in to Europ' Touring in Arras. In France both 6000 miles and 12000 miles services are about 40% cheaper than the UK. Even with the cost of a cheap crossing over or under the channel it would be cheaper. And as I was less than happy at the standard of the service done at SPC at 6000 miles, plus the place was in the middle of nowhere and had no loan bike on offer (to me at least!) despite buying the GS from them! SO, a dealership in a town had to be better. Patrice, the owner, lent us a Scarver 650 ...

The original plan for Easter was to spend the day in Belgium with the GS Club UK at the GS weekend at Kasterlee. As it was only a week after coming back from the US, I had to cancel those plans. But the bike needed a 20000km service before the Czech Trip... and so I decided to see about a service in France and use the ferry ticket for that instead. I searched on the BMW France site for a dealership in the north of France. Purely to see if it was cheaper than in the UK. In the end I booked in to Europ' Touring in Arras. In France both 6000 miles and 12000 miles services are about 40% cheaper than the UK. Even with the cost of a cheap crossing over or under the channel it would be cheaper. And as I was less than happy at the standard of the service done at SPC at 6000 miles, plus the place was in the middle of nowhere and had no loan bike on offer (to me least!) despite buying the GS from them! So, a dealership in a town had to be better. Patri...