InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

We finally arrived about 2010 local time. A total of 10 hours on the road with a few short breaks. This was from home admittedly via Reggie's kennels. Traffic horrific from Antwerp to about Amersfoort. It took 55 minutes to get around Antwerp on their ring road. F*** knows how long through the middle!! Plus Belgian drivers are terrible. No signals. No lane discipline and absolutely shite at undertaking all the time. As for the Dutch. FFS. Booked in the hotel and had a comfort break and the dinner and a few beers. Very nice. Bed at 2245. posted from Bloggeroid

And away we go. Reggie dropped off at Wyncot nice and early and I filled the tank at Tesco before heading to the Shuttle. The Insignia managed 40.0 mpg on the last tank. With no long journeys and just local driving I had hoped for better. We arrived at 1010 and didn't get an earlier crossing. Our 1120 crossing had been re-timed to 1119!! They might as well have re-timed to 1136 as that's when we wheezed out of Folkestone. Eurotunnel maintains its 100% record of leaving late when I am paying to travel. posted from Bloggeroid

So the BSB tickets have arrived and Neill has his so that he can call in on Friday if he is up there early enough. We are on the 1120 Shuttle from Folkestone and that means we won't hit French soil until 1255 local time.  TomTom calculates that it will take around 6 hours.so we are really looking at arriving at the hotel about 7pm.  So no stop off at Assen on the way past. Tonight I need to pack a bag. I have a series of motorcycle oriented t-shirts ready to pack, plus of course waterproofs. Last weekend in September and Holland/Netherlands can be iffy on the weather front. So we need to pack for all eventualities. Being in the car in pissing rain might be a bonus over the bike, but it is still as wet when you get out..... so brolly? So that's about it until the morning.  Drop off the dog at his holiday suiter and then top the car up with UK diesel and then straight to the Shuttle. And away....

I joined the Legion again for another year. A small price to pay to put money towards an organisation that supports our veterans and has done for getting on for a hundred years. https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary/thank-you/

Saturday AM had the new Goodyear Eagle fitted.  The guy showed me the damaged tyre. The screw about 3 inches long and lots of damage inside to the structure of the tyre.  So that's another £150 spent!!!  Bugger.

They seemed better looking in the shop.  For me they are a bit too " Elton John " and they have turned out to be useless for the computer. Once I got used to them, reading my kindle or other printed matter they are okay, but not for the computer screen!

When booking apartments with RCI there is a gamble.  Or it is a gamble.  When you login there might be plenty of choices or there might be few.... either way you have to decide whether to take one that is there, or wait a bit to see if any come online. When I booked Weston a few weeks ago for week 2,  I of course looked at week 1 as well. There were a few resorts in the Orlando/Kissimmee area that were in the yes column, and quite a few in the maybe and a few in the no column. With 23 points left to spend there was plenty of scope but today I logged in and there is a sale on rci.com .  By sale they mean that some resorts are down a few points in price. Although the total number of available resorts hadn't gone up, it had brought some places that were above our points level into play. For it to have evened up a bit, I guess there were resorts we could afford that had been booked and no longer had vacancies. Where we stayed before at Silver Lake has a few points knocke...

The trip is getting closer. Hopefully not travelling at a weekend on the Eurotunnel Shuttle  might mean that we don't get the ridiculous delays that I had on Saturday coming back from Belgium on Saturday. Delays in both ways but the return was ridiculous.  Not so much the breakdown but the lack of information and disregard for the paying customers. The bright spot is that the tickets are in the post and should be with us in a few days. I can give Neill his and he can decide what his travel plans are. I expect on his "Ginny" her will make better progress than we will in the car. The Insignia has a range of about 650 miles on a full tank of filthy disgusting child poisoning polluting  (TM anti car groups) diesel so with it topped up before we get on the Shuttle, we should easily make it to the hotel near Assen with plenty to spare.  Depending on the € price per litre I might have to splash and dash instead of a full tank fill-up. The best UK mpg I have ever had was 47...

Movember Yes, it's about six weeks away in fact and we head towards it like a rocket.... click on the link. They take loads of currencies so just a $ or a £ or even a pre-Brexit € will do.   Multiples of them even better. CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

So dropped the wheel off at Kwik-Fit in Cheriton and the guy had a quick look and thought that the self-tapping screw that had buried itself and then lost its head was too close to the shoulder of the tyre. But would get the tyre off today and check inside.  I missed their phone call at about 0846 this morning as I was on the train in tunnels. I called back. Bad news. The tyre inside is damaged and they can't repair it and so it will have to be a new one.  I asked them to order the same Goodyear tyre to keep them matched at the front. Very annoying as the buggered one has less than a 1000 miles on it. Luckily I was at work so I was unable to get too angry and swear a lot. Pick it up Saturday morning. I hope.

Always when you are in a hurry.  At least the Insignia comes with a tiny spare wheel with its narrow little tyre attached. But not what you want at 0720 in the morning when you are heading to the station on a Monday morning. I changed it in slightly longer than it takes an F1 team to change all four wheels on a race car and was off. Only missing my usual train by two minutes. With work all week I am driving all the rest of the week on this squeaky very shiny piece of plastic rubber. Hopefully I can get it fixed on Saturday if I leave it at the tyre shop all day.....  The tyre is only a few months old and the nail has gone into the tread not the side wall..... and at £125 I hope they can fix rather than replace!! Update . Have physio on my shoulder this afternoon, pain and stiffness not aided by the wheel removal either!!! So I will try and drop the wheel into the tyre shop near the station this afternoon and if they can do i...

Why is this in three parts?  Initially I started to create the posts on my phone using a blogging app. Luckily blogger accepts posts from email as well, although this time I haven't had to use it. The first part was started in Belgium and then the second added after I had returned, and this the final countdown. Today. The day after. From Palingbeek the plan was to visit the two mine craters at St Eloi. I had got the gate code from the tourist office whilst in search of the elusive Last Post Association pins. I almost missed it and there is little parking.  Rather than the big hole I expected, it is a garden between two houses. Whilst I was there an English couple came up and I shared the gate code with them. As I prepared to move to the next waypoint, I heard the sound of Harley's.  Anyone that has heard a hardly with a loud exhaust will know the sound. A group sped past.  Even though I was in bike gear, holding a bike helmet in my hand with Pepe parked up, not a sin...

The ride to Palingbeek was fairly short and when I arrived the car park was pretty full. At the entrance is a café and the CWXRM* have an information point and a statue. A robot? From here it us about 150 yards to the decision point. Left to the Bluff and the two water filled mine craters and then to the viewpoint overlooking the Egg. Or right at the info point to the sculpture and then the egg. I went right. The sculpture. Gradually the egg will be filled with the dog tags of the 600000 dead. And then to the main egg. The first glimpse of it over the hedge. And then all of it. Fantastic. The return is via the Bluff. Along the way are "speakers". When entered it triggers the sound system. Poems from the war poets. Sadly none in English. Once back at the bike I attempted to cut a couple of the waypoints off the route. But I was defeated. So off to St Eloi. * Coming World Remember Me posted from Bloggeroid

I was up bright and early. Or rather early. My shoulder was feeling fine and the best it has been for a week or so. Unfortunately Eurotunnel weren't as bright. On checking in I was informed that the 0850 was "retimed" to 0858. At 0922 we pulled out of Folkestone for the 35 minute crossing to France. Pepé had required the dbPower unit boost to start first thing and again once we were given the go ahead to board the train. Playing catch up I was last on. Thankfully at the French end although prepared, seat off etc, Pepé started okay. From there tbe ride was uneventful along the A16 to the A25. I know that many riders poo-poo using motorways but if you want to get somewhere using the newly reduced limit N roads then you need days rather than hours. Arriving at the old Franco-Belgian border I stopped to take a pic for the 50/50 Challenge. The old border and customs buildings are slowly rotting away. Testament to Shengen? From here I followed TomTom instructions to Vlamerting...

Another update. As the route would take me through Ieper/Ypres/Wipers anyway I will stop in the Grote Markt for a short time and visit the Tourist Office and also I might have time to get across the the British Legion shop across the road.  Always a sucker for a new pin badge! I don't want this to become a whistle-stop tour but I need the gate code from the Tourist Office to get into the St Eloi Crater park.  Although if it is anything  like Bayernwald,  when I got there someone had left the gate unlocked and slightly ajar so the code wasn't needed. If time starts to get away with me after Palingbeek I can always cut one or some of the stops out of the route.   When I used to plan these trips for the Kent Centre SOC and then the Meldrews I think I used to build in too many places to stop and then had to remove some on the hoof as it were.Probably better than too few and having to pad the trips out!! My primary focus is to see the exhibit at Palingbeek as it...

This weekend I have a day trip planned across to Belgium to visit one of the 1914-1918 WW1 monuments at Palingbeek . It is in great danger as I have a bad shoulder. Okay, a bad shoulder might be underselling it.  I have a lot of pain in my left upper arm around the shoulder. At first I thought it was frozen shoulder but the physio says not, but it's really an age related problem.   As a consequence of working at a desk with a computer for company for many many years I have become round shouldered, this in turn means that at certain arm positions the muscle is being trapped by the bones in the shoulder.  Pinched enough to cause pain, and sometimes severe pain.  I have a set of exercises to do to try and strengthen the muscles to pull my shoulders back to relieve this pressure. On the bright side, It usually happens at about 45 degrees from my arm straight down and the bars on the Rocket are about 90 degrees. What with be...

After reading a post on one of the blogs I follow ( https://ontwowheels-eh.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-russians-are-coming.html ) I had a look to see how international my audience was. Mmmm. For a mostly British oriented blog the largest proportion of my audience seems to be from the US and Russia. Did I say I simply adore Donnie J and (Ras)Putin?  Only joking folks.....

MAG wins charge exemption for motorcycles of all ages in Birmingham City's Clean Air Zone                    The Motorcycle Action Group has won a landmark campaign to gain exemption for motorcycles of all ages from Birmingham City Council's Clean Air Zone (CAZ). At a special meeting of the Cabinet today, Birmingham City Council has approved its CAZ business case submission.  Once approved by Government, the proposal can be implemented with the launch of the zone scheduled for January 2020. Birmingham is the first authority outside London to propose the "Class D" clean air zone model that allows for charging of all vehicles including private transport.  The Motorcycle Action Group has consistently argued that motorcycles act within the transport system as net reducers of congestion and pollution, pointing to studies that demonstrate that a simple 10% modal shift from single-occupancy cars to motorcycles and scooter...

It's that time of year again - La danse macabre de l'assurance  begins. My current insurers sent the renewal quote and a note to say that it would be automatically renewed 5 days before it was due - on the 18th September. La danse macabre All would be well if the premium hadn't gone up from £251.93 to £282.31 (£30.38)! Considering the depreciation on a 7 year old car and the lower risk a break-even quotation might have been acceptable. As it was, La Danse was just beginning. Take your partners.... I logged into my account with the Meerkats .  I have successfully used them before and have always saved money.  The trick seems to be to change companies every year to maximise the "new business" enticements. The first few pages of insurers wanting my business were all cheaper than last year's quote (!) and I chose the cheapest. Choosing the cheapest may not be the best way, always, but after checking that all I ne...

Attached the 410 to the laptop tonight and it needed to do a Europe Map update, This apparently caused by the new out of town speed limit introduced across France that sees the limit reduced from 90kph to 80kph. As far as I have read this is actually only a trial period.  Let's hope France and her people see sense.

No wonder there are no tickets left.  I was allegedly buying tickets on the pre-sale day as they don't go on regular sale until tomorrow. So once logged into the booking site I can see about 70% of seats are already booked or greyed out..... Despite not being able to book a seat anywhere I preferred as I might leave a single seat, there were loads of single seats dotted about!  WTF? Anyway as I am Paul No-Mates I managed to book my one seat roughly where I wanted, but only as it was a single seat, that somehow got left on its own?

After a couple of years Tache-free I have decided to have another go in 2018.  I was surprised to see that over the years I have been a Mo-Bro I have raised £625 for the charity. Men's cancer charities are very much in the shadow of women's charities and far less publicised by mainstream print and TV journalists.  Not very equal! It's time that men took more time to promote fundraising activities and this is one of them.   My page is https://mobro.co/invictamoto  or  https://uk.movember.com/mospace/2865109 Please donate, even if it is a pound or a dollar or a euro...... Every penny counts.

With the second week of the trip ending with the Easter holiday; our flight home is Good Friday, everything ramps up price wise and with RCI, points wise also. What might be 13 to 15 RCI points the week before becomes 23 to 25 or more with exchanges starting 13th April. So I have booked the apartment in Weston near Fort Lauderdale for the second week. We have stayed in a different resort there before. Weston isn't on the beach or the Gulf and I find it difficult to see why it was built at all. The centre is laid out in the usual block system but has curved/circular roads..... like a spider web in places.  There's not a lot there but it should be plenty relaxing. Plus of course this is a "short week" for us as we have to leave on the Friday to get to the airport rather than the Saturday. It also means we aren't licke dput at 10am and have 8 hours to find something to do to fill the time. That leaves 23 RCI points to spend on another week elsewhere. It looks like a ...

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/be-healthier/check-your-health/heart-age-test/ From a few questions it worked this out. I am obviously below average.  As I managed to beat the estimate of 80 by 21 years.   Oops.

Have added another stop to my tour* around the southern battlefield area - Plugstreet** With their usual inability to pronounce the "foreign" place names, Ploegsteert became Plugstreet to the Tommies sent to this sector.  After I let TomTom work out the route from the Island of Ireland Peace Park*** it actually takes me right past Plugstreet. I have added it as a waypoint anyway but from the pictures, I doubt I would miss it. * My Tour as it looks pretty much like I'll be on my todd again. ** Plugstreet -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploegsteert_Memorial_to_the_Missing *** Island of Ireland -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Ireland_Peace_Park At least I should score another 50/50 Challenge!  The round trip is about 240 miles.  I'll need to make sure the tank is filled to the brim with what might turn put to be cheaper UK petrol.

Following on from the Specsavers posting, today I bought what I call "car specs" (specs = spectacles!) from SelectSpecs online. They do cheap spectacles (aka glasses/specs/spex) and they might not be the most fashionable or even nice looking but they are perfect for the glove box to use when you are daft enough to have left the proper ones at home or have, what has happened to me before, had an arse/butt interface with them. So for £11.95 including, anti-scratch coating (perfect for bike riding), anti-glare and delivery, I have a pretty ugly cheap pair that are my new prescription and will be there if and when I need them. I currently have a pair of them in the car as my car-sunspecs.  They look cheap and they are.  But they do the job.

Today was a decent day. However, I overslept and didn't get out early so I missed the Meldrews run out to H's Café at Kent Motorcycles near Canterbury. Instead we went out with Reggie in Claire's car to put air in a front tyre. There was an error flag on the dash for a few days. A nice long walk in Lyminge Forest set us up for a coffee and cake at the Lord Whiskey Tea Rooms. It was still nice when we got home and I decided to take Pepé out for a short ride. I ended up at Sainsbury's at Folkestone and topped off the tank. A little surprised to only get 39.6 mpg!! Given that I hadn't given it too much welly it was strange. From there I went up to Capel but the Battle of Britain monument was closed and I couldn't even get a scenic photo as someone had parked a van across the entrance. I looped around and back home avoiding the M20. It was nice and I gave the LS2 open face. With sunglasses and the little sun visor down it was okay. Great for local rides only. Hopefu...

Arsenal away at newly promoted Cardiff City. Not a game where the "old" Arsenal would have had a care in the world brushing aside the team from the Welsh capital, but nowadays with a defence that leaks like a rusty kettle, there is always that fear that a few extra cockups will end in disaster. Forgetting that my brother was away in Canada flying in a WW2 Avro Lancaster* I sent out an SMS to say I was on "lockdown".  A phrase we use to say "do not send game updates"!  Claire and I were out walking the dog and so I would miss the 1.30pm kick off. I avoided looking at my phone, as kindly old Google sends me score updates! Okay when the game isn't on TV! Once back in I started watching the recorded version and skimmed through the pundits and the preamble.  I always think it is  pointless interviewing managers before a game! After 11 minutes the ethnic Albanians of Xhaka and Mustafi combined at a corner to put Arsenal 1-0 up.  Arsenal wer...

The last time I had an eye-test was two years ago and it was at Tesco in Ashford. I went mad and bought a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses with prescription lenses and a pair of Oakley clear classes.  Cost a fortune but two years later they are fine and maybe even still "fashionable". I don't think that Ray-Ban Wayfarers have even been unfashionable! Ray-Ban Wayfarer RB5814 Oakley OX8026 Currency So today I went to Specsavers in Folkestone for my bi-annual check-up.  As expected I need reading glasses.  Reading the screen at work has become a little more difficult without added blinking and concentrating.  I have had to up the font size on my Kindle too! Claire chose a nice pair for me in the £69 range.  They will be delivered next Saturday. Watch this space.  At least I'll be able to see it more clearly.... What was less comforting was when I did all the tests for distance and mentioned to the optician that I was having a problem with not pe...