InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

Why? I think one of the problems with the charging of the TomTom on the cradle using the direct wiring is that the two pins on the mount are getting wet and maybe not working correctly.  I have given them a blast of WD40, a little blast, and see if that solves the problem. Then I saw another V-Strom owner had one of these to cover the pins. Not cheap for a bit of moulded plastic but should do the job when the TomTom isn't in the cradle/mount. Time will tell! Sold on eBay .

September has seen a lot greater mileage than I normally achieve in a month.  Over 2000 miles on the V-Strom and about 40 on the Kettle.  As I am unlikely to go out this week I have already registered my mileages on the Kilometerfresser website. I checked on the website and they have me only logging just over 2000 kms for September.  The 1972 miles I did from Auchan in Calais to Aragón and back to the same Auchan would have been 3155 kilometres. On top of that I had the ride to and from Auchan from home, the ride to Bromley for the football, and any miles on the Kettle.... I put a note on the forum post to re-iterate MILES. After a mistake last year they asked for miles and not for me to calculate kilometres. The calculation figure doesn't match the odometer photos....  I doubt I will be 14th in the table as we progress through the winter into summer.

One small problem when at the wheel of Suki, our Elddis Majestic Moho, is seeing the speedometer from the higher front seats as fitted.  I think the standard seats that are fitted to the Peugeot Boxer are a little lower. So I have invested in a HUD. Heads Up Display.  As can be seen from the Amazon advert it gets a pretty decent write-ups. I really want it for when we are away in Europe as the Peugeot speedometer is analogue and even more difficult to work out how fast you are going in kilometres.

Was this stuff any good? Have no idea. It was ordered from Amazon and after two weeks of delivery being delayed I cancelled the order and asked for a refund. It would seem that Amazon don't vet the people that use them to sell from.... This product was supposed to be despatched from Amazon warehouse!! http://invictamoto.blogspot.com/2022/07/unlimited-passion-ultimate.html But. I have ordered again. This time on Amazon but from a different supplier. Foolish?

The ride up was pretty poor. It was very windy and rain was forecast. So I decided to wear my cordura pants and FT jacket.  It seemed a good idea. For a three o'clock kickoff i decided that I needed to leave around 1pm. It was more like 1.20pm when I set off. The TomTom was programmed to get me to the ground. It was supposed to be 51 miles door to door.  It rained as I approached Maidstone but not enough to be too much of a worry.  By the time I got off the A20 it said 4.5 miles but 15 minutes to go. With traffic it was accurate. I parked right by the visitor entrance nearby the Oldham supporters' coaches.  I was probably the most overdressed person there but luckily the weather turned less sunny to make it more comfortable. As for the game? It was shite. A new manager just arrived but still the same crap under achieving players that have been trounced in other games. The ride home was a little better. Getting out of the car park was easy enough and even ...

I don't usually bother other than to enter my odometer reading into Fuelly to calculate mpg. Best mpg of this trip was 67.96 to the UK gallon. A total of 155.513 litres bought during 13 stops and mostly burned... The final tank was at Calais and I have still a full tank. The first top up was at Calais on the way over. Form Calais Auchan back again was 1972 miles ridden. Another trip over and out.

A few photos from the Aragón trip. I became too lazy to do the blog for the trip. Plus there wasn't much time each evening. Luckily my brother typed his up religiously whilst we were away. His can be seen over there ------> Amazing though it is, Blogger seems to have put them in the right order.

Since moving from the Rocket to the V-Strom I have been trying to get the TomTom mount, and more importantly the power supply, right. On the Rocket I had a power socket on the left side of the engine near my left shin. I ran the TomTom lead from there to the mount in the handlebar. No problem.at all. The V-Strom has a power socket on the dash panel under the rev counter. I cut down the long lead to make it shorter. The problem is when on full lock the clutch or brake hoses touch it and the connection is lost.  I have tried to find a shorter plug to keep it from contacting. But finding one is proving difficult. I have tried powering it using a USB plug rather than powering it using the mount. Even with the lash up of the small plug and right angle connection, it's not powering all the time.  So time to resort to the TomTom lead from the battery. I had to order one as I had cut down the other. The bike is due to go into Robinson's for a service and I will take it and ask them to...

Another away day in the south to see Oldham in the National League. This time I don't have to leave Kent! The last trip was across to Essex to see them narrowly lose at Southend.  Hopefully this trip will be less miserable even though the weather is turning for the worst. Rain. Last weekend sitting in 29°C in Aragón for the MotoGP and this weekend the forecast shows 12°C high with rain. It looks like I'll have to get the proper waterproofs out! At least Vera Strom will be using cheaper French petrol... 

Had a customer review questionaire in my email today from Eurotunnel. It asks about my last journey..... This is my comment: We were held up loading because a car driver refused to go on the upper deck. He was then hard up against the front doors of the last carriage. The motorcycles booked on C5 21/9/22 were crammed in. At Folkestone we had to back up into the entrance way to let this clown reverse to open the doors. This delayed our departure from Calais by 20 minutes and another 15 at Folkestone .  I scored them 4/10.  Absolutely ridiculous. The tw*t should have been told it was upstairs or nothing.

We stayed in this small town for the Aragón MotoGP.

My brother has been less of a lazy git and has blogged the entire trip: https://ndtea.blogspot.com/2022/08/aragon-here-we-come.html So I thought, "Why bother".

Another day started with waterproofs on!  We had to decide whether to take the Pass or the tunnel at Somport. The rain turned to drizzle as we headed further south. A short distance before the left turn up to the pass we stopped at some lights for roadworks. We decided to go for it.  It was clearing up and looked brighter. The twists and turn were exciting enough on a bike. The road surface shaming English roads! As we neared the top we entered the cloud!  We stil took a few photos. The pass is on one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago. There were a good few dozen walkers milling about.

The first job of the day was to junk the old boots and get some new ones.  So once we left the hotel we went different ways. I had Google Maps which seemed to have no idea that it was straight forward to find and I had a great loop trekking about 4kms when 1 would have been best. In the end the deal was done. Boots bought . The first part of the non toll route was in rain that occasionally became drizzle. Today we had two fuel stops. Sticking to the speed limits or there about produced over 59mpg for the first stop.  We stayed on the N10 in its various states and departmental names. Lunch was at a massive truck stop just off the N10. It had stopped raining but we weren't fooled. Waterproof gear stayed on until the fuel stop just after Bordeaux. We guessed the owners might have been Portuguese!! I had become separated from Neill as we turned onto the toll free A10. There was a single lane flyover looping to the right and left over the N10. It was nose to tail. Crunch. T...