InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

I was up at 6.50am and out before 7 30am. Pepé needed the dbPower unit to start as I had expected. I had had it on charge to make sure it was at 100%. Why? I expected to use it a few times in the day. The first obstacle was J11 was closed other than northbound on the M20. A truck had overturned and the carriageway was damaged. A little self made detour (turning around the end of the centre verge (median),  and I continued onto the A20 to the Shuttle. Both UK and French passports were taking time to get through. A terrorist attack in London the day before was probably a contributor. At UK I had to take my helmet off. I had chosen the Shoei over the LS2 flip-up. It looked like I was going to miss the booked shuttle as I waited for the queues to move. In the end it was gone 8.30am before the barrier lifted and I was off to be squeezed into the last carriage. Or so it seemed. I was told to park, as usual front wheel into the kerb. The cars shuffled forward.  And I was on my lonesome. The c...

So the weather is turning drier tomorrow. At least the rain looks to be holding off. Instead temperatures are to drop into low single figures. Centigrade that is. A high of 7°C. I popped out briefly last Sunday to fill the tank with our cheaper unleaded 95 fuel. With a full tank it means theoretically I could get to Ostend and back.  In reality I will need a top up. I'll most likely do that on the way to Ostend on the motorway near Veurne, once in Belgium. On Sunday I used the dbPower charger to start the bike, but risked starting it at Seabrook without it after fuelling and it started.  Still. The unit goes with me. Fully charged! Whether it will boot up at the Tunnel....  From my local riders I will be Billy No Mates. Instead I'll meet up with Tony Young at the Velodrome. He went today and booked in and got the special event t-shirt. It's €15 for the weekend and €10 for a day visitor. The t-shirt included.  50th & last So to tomorrow. Up early and out of the house for...

The scenic railway is called the "Train des Merveilles" and it runs from Nice Ville to Tende. Train of Marvels So how do we get there? My plan is to leave early on Sunday and head south on the motorways as far as Nuits-St-Georges. This will be the longest day to kill off miles in Northern France. Next stop Annecy. It's not a long day and I have set the routes from here to be "no tolls". I don't see the point in spending all day on the road and arriving with no time to see anything. The no tolls route takes us along Lac Annecy and then down to Albertville, then alongside the A43 to Modane.  From there you can take the  Fréjus Tunnel  or take the D1006 over the first pass of the trip over the  Col du Mont Cenis  at 2083m. This route joins the same route at Susa that would have come through the Fréjus Tunnel. From there it is into Italy. The route loops down and around Turin ending in Cuneo. I have booked an overnight here. This is the former end of the Train d...

Tomorrow sees the visit of Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt to the Emirates Stadium in game 5 of  6 in this year's Europa League group stage. Whilst we are not expecting to have the area around where I work at Highbury Corner full of pissed up Germans we mustn't underestimate the Germans' natural instinct for invasion.  We saw it most visibly when we had Cologne visit for the same competition. Why?  Eintracht are currently serving a fans away travel ban for a variety of offences. But of course there will always be those that travel without tickets and try to get in. It means with the Arsenal fans unhappy (to put it mildly) at the current league position, on pitch performances and the seemingly out of his depth coach in Unai Emery, that this could be the emptiest the ground has been. As a season ticket holder and Arsenal supporter I will be there. There have been calls to boycott the game to show the board how the fans feel.  This is okay if...

So where do we stand? After the stability of the same manager/coach for 22 years it was a shock to the system at Arsenal when Arsene Wenger finally hung up his zipped jacket and left for a spot of retirement. When Unai Emery was named as coach there was pretty much incredulity among fans. Here was a guy that was successful at Seville in Spain, but in  France he actually hadn't set the world afire at Paris St Germain - even though they are in effect the only thoroughbred horse in a field of donkeys.. And where he is now it seems he has no real idea what his best starting eleven is.  He seems to play players out of position.   The board and he didn't strengthen the defence over the summer. The signing of David Luiz was a slight positive and on his day he is still a decent player, but like the rest of them, prone to that killer mistake. After the weekend's set of games we are 8th in the Premier League after anot...

When we saw them back in February in Folkestone they said they would be back.  Usually the tickets go on sale soon afterwards but this year it seemed we were going to miss out.  An email from ATG last week letting me know that they were going to be on again... Tickets bought. 

A big  👏👏👏 Sportsbikeshop. I emailed them to say that sadly the jeans didn't fit and they sent me a return label.  I had thrown away the outer bag that they came in, so the went back this morning in a box, care of the Post Office.  Back to the drawing board. Maybe next time I'll just find a stockist and see if they have fat lad sizes. Update 25/11/2019 Superfast!  A great company to do business with.  Shame that the sizing didn't fit me but no quibble returns policy and the refund complete.

The ideas are still bubbling away.  With an Old SOCs weekend planned in the English Lake District for the middle of August this trip needs to be done from late July. I had the idea of fulfilling one of my bucket list points and heading for Poland.  Auschwitz has been a pilgrimage for me for many years and I have never made it. Once in the 90's when I worked in Zastávka u Brna I did get as far as the Czech/Polish border at  Český Těšín  and got no further. The bridge over the river was closed to traffic although I did walk across to the halfway point to say I had stepped foot in Poland. I have no idea whether this was just that day or (semi) permanent. I watched Richard Ayoade's " Travel Man - 48 hours in Krakow " recently and the lure of a salt mine was almost too great.  But the lure of a scenic railway tops that! The railway in question is Train des Merveilles and runs between Nice and Tende.  It winds its way through the mount...

Maybe it's me. As I wasn't intending to wear these until the spring I wasn't in a hurry to try them on. Confident that 44L would be perfect.  As I also said in the original post "Christmas is Coming" complete with Sean Bean GoT meme, so they needed to be wrapped, put away and to go under the tree for that Christmas Day surprise.  Good job.  Although usually a 42" waist, I bought these a size up at 44.  Nearly everything I buy comes up smaller round the arse and so I tend to get a size up. As I stuck a leg through the left leg hole, I thought they were a little snug.  BTW, They came with pockets for knee and hip armour but no armour. With right leg through it was plain to see that these are not 44". The gap between both halves of the waist was somewhere around 6 inches!!! The "rise" (crotch to waist) was made for a more slender bloke, although the L would be perfect when sitting on the bike.  I have a...

This year's panto at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury is Mother Goose. We usually buy tickets as soon as we can to ensure we get our favourite seat but this year.... Oops.  On a shopping visit recently we dropped in a bought them.  Panto Website

You could be mistaken for thinking that after so many misfires of late,  and points being lost from winning positions, that at home to Southampton would be the cure-all for shite displays and lack of any seeming direction from the coach, Unai "Dick" Emery. The Xhaka incident still looks largely in the minds. That the fan-boys have their boy Ozil back in contention for a place and the boo-boys in general will be out in force, means that this looks like another day of infamy. It's also a 3pm Saturday kick off. Only the second we have had this season.  The last was home to Wolves where we led and then capitulated and were lucky to get away with a point. Whilst we moan we really need to give ourselves a slap.  We are currently 6th in the English Premier League.  We look to have little or no chance of catching the Top 4 who are already 8 points ahead.  We are behind Sheffield United on goal difference;  a club that came up from the second ti...

An early start. Definitely. I guessed that Pepé wouldn't start without an infusion of electricity. I was of course right. Without dbPower he is d e a d. Looks like  new battery in the new year. Maybe one of the Motobatt "big yellers" like I had on the GS a while back. Plenty of cranking amps. Anyway, the miles to empty gauge showed 1. By the time I got to the first meeting point it was up to 81. Remember this. The ride across the top of the Marsh was done slowly. There are so many leaves on the road. On the edges, and down the middle where they have been thrown by cars and trucks. It is very easy to come a cropper!  At the bottom of Knole Hill in Aldington I set the Yamaha My Ride app running, then headed to the meeting place.  To my surprise the app worked!  Only short but at least it worked. The phone was upright in my inside jacket pocket. I will reveal  the stats later.  It was slippery underfoot remember! From Hamstreet we (Iah J, Paul R and Cal) and m...

I had hoped that Claire would have felt able to go on the bike.   I looked in October at the long ferry to Spain when Brittany Ferries released the prices and the booking system opened for the summer.  In the end that didn't go any further. We toyed with a cruise but none met with where we wanted to go or the dates didn't quite fit when I can go. So. No cruise. No bike trip.  Some while back when I was hoping for a bike trip I had a look at visiting the eastern part of France - the Vercors. I scrapped that and deleted all the routes I had worked out.  Until I started going on trips with my brother where he plans to the Nth degree, including prospective fuel stops.   I haven't been that exact.  My level of planning was to choose a place, what to do/see and where to stay to achieve that. A chance email from Claire and a French contact from work about Evian les Bains has given me food for thought. I do have some restrictions....

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) is gearing up for this year's Motorcycle Live show, which is one of the country's premier annual motorcycle events. Leading riders' rights organisation, MAG, is busy putting the finishing touches to its stand at the NEC 'Bike Show', to be ready for the show opening on Saturday 16th November and running until the following Sunday 24th November. MAG's Chair, Selina Lavender, stated "As we do every year, we are looking forward to attending this prestigious annual motorcycle event. We look forward to meeting you in Hall 4 on Stand 4E01.  Come along and have a chat, renew your membership, join up if you're not currently a member, and even set up a Direct Debit payment to ensure that your membership doesn't accidentally lapse.   MAG looks forward to meeting you soon! Our stand will be manned throughout the show by a rota of valuable volunteers, which will include our political lobbying team who...

A popular advertising slogan not to long ago for the train over other modes of transport. Sadly, the train "service" in the UK never managed to actually keep up the pretence of being better than your own car! So when I had the idea of maybe having a birthday (pre-Christmas) trip to Lille for the Christmas market and a spot of lunch I immediately thought. Train? After all, I use the Southeastern HS1 service everyday to get to and from work.  I like the idea of a train trip.   But, (expletive removed) off!  Firstly the booking system at Eurostar couldn't find a return train from Lille to UK on the actual day of my birthday.  So I moved it to the nearest Saturday.  (Expletive removed) off again! How expletive much. You have to be expletiving mental. And then I thought of the car.  I know it is a diesel and the cause of millions of deaths a week from the pollution despite what our former Labour Government told us... It seem...

This coming Sunday is our monthly Meldrew's breakfast meeting.  The plan is to meet a little earlier than usual and head over to the Waterside Cafe near Hawkhurst for an arrival at about 1030am. As the weather has turned decidedly winter-like recently the run is weather dependent.  If it's too shitty we'll go the old HQ at the Blue and White Cafe in Mersham on the A20.. I plotted a route on MyRouteApp and it looks like a 59 minute ride across country.  The quickest route is to go along the coast to Rye and then turn northwards but we have a part-way meet in Hamstreet.  Putting a waypoint in actually knocks four miles off but also increases the time but only by a few minutes. I need to get the LS2 Bluetooth charged up and connected to TomTom.  I will also try and see it the "Yamaha My Ride" app will work this time on my phone.  I made the changes that their tech support suggested and have yet to try it out. Fingers crossed it's not pissing down or worse, fr...

Today was Remembrance Sunday. The real day is November 11th, but in the UK we move it to the nearest Sunday rather than the proper day.  This is the memorial in Hythe taken just after the ceremony. 

Well as someone famous once said: Christmas is Coming.  I haven't had an expensive kind of watch for a while. My last "name" watch is a Fossil with stainless steel bracelet and the LCD screen and two displays with the full screen seconds counting down as well as the hands. Sadly this has been junked as the winder mechanism has broken inside and they wanted £55 for the parts plus labour to fix it. The watch hardly worth that.  The strap on the watch that I have been wearing, since I bought it in March 2016, broke this week. The Mudder watch came from Amazon for £10.50.   So three and a half years wasn't too bad.  I went back to Amazon and lo and behold the same sort of Chinese plastic LCD watch is available. Several versions, so I bought one.  The only difference being this one doesn't have any little red trims. The cost? £9.95. Negative inflation at work.  See how long this one lasts. 

I've nominated  @dotslondon  (charity number 1182323) for a £1000 charity award. They do incredible work with people living on the streets and their dogs, and would do so much good with an award like this. Please consider nominating them via this link: https://www.ecclesiastical.com/movement-for-good/12-days/ Dogs on the Street website: https://www.dogsonthestreets.org/

Another group of old men coming back onto the circuit with a tour. I couldn't resist a Sunday night at the O2 in London. It's 39 years  (!!!!) since I last appeared on a Whitesnake recording.  Yes, I was there back in 1980 at the Hammersmith Odeon as part of the famous Hamm-O Choir aka the audience. The Live in the Heart of the City album was recorded over three nights in 1978 and 1980! I guess they bodged all the recordings together! I don't know how many tracks I am on but must be on " There Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City " though.  I haven't asked for my royalties yet.... I am still waiting Mr Coverdale letting me know how much I am owed..... Anyway, the old boys along with Foreigner and Europe (the band not the continent)  are on tour starting May 31st at the O2 and then across UK and Europe (the continent not the band). I bought tickets on the Livenation presale today. I have the album on vinyl and nothi...

Following an accident many years ago on the GT750 when Claire and I were chuffed up the back by another biker and I was hospitalised after crunching my head on the pavement, it was my legs that came off worse.  My ordinary jeans had not been very tarmac resistant and the scuffing and bruising was pretty bad.   I decided to get some more "biker" jeans and bought a pair of Hood jeans. These are thick denim with an aramid Kevlar lining.  Overall the jeans have done good service. Only once being called into action when I managed to almost write off the Europ' Touring  BMW K1200S when I fell off on a diesel spillage near Etaples in France.   There was only a slight scuffing to one seam, but they did suck up the diesel like a sponge.  By the time I was back at the shop and back on my own GS it was too late for any detergent to remove the stain. That was back in 2006.   In 2014 I finally got a bit fed up with them and wan...

That went well. After last week letting a two goal lead slip against Crystal Palace and the abysmal treatment of Granit Xhaka, this week was a chance to redeem themselves and regain the support of the fans.  It all looked good when Aubameyang scored his 50th Arsenal goal. But like last week the lack of any coherent strategy and defensive cover from a defensive midfielder and another mistake and boom. Another bloody draw. 1-1. Crowd dissatisfaction increased when the manager made some strange substitutions and we failed to win again. Two points from nine isn't the form that wins anything. Next game will be even more challenging.