On the Road Again!

With all my planning I tend to not add in fuel stops to my routes. Neill does as he usually tours with his friend Patrick. Patrick has a Honda Shadow with a smaller fuel tank range. I have been through my outward trip and added some fuel stops.  Vera is currently averaging 50mpg dead on the Fuelly app and this is mixed riding in town and on the motorways when I do tend to push the speed limit to it's outer envelope.   With Covid-19 being rife (and cases on the increase!) across the EU countries and Channel crossing fares being a complete and utter rip-off, I haven't been away to test what sort of mileage I can expect "over there"! With a 20.5 litre tank I am looking at around 170-180 miles between fill-ups to ensure a margin of error. So far I haven't done more that about 149 miles on a tank.  With a non-toll route in each direction there will be some fairly low speed limits, but there are sections of non-toll motorways that can be experienced, and speeds might ge...

I have been looking at the non-toll route to the El Cid hotel that will get me/us there on the Friday afternoon.  Having decided on Option 1, ride both ways, I now have to decide how long to take and how long Claire will suffer me being away.  I was looking at a week away or in reality 8 days - two overnights out, three at the GP end, and then two nights back.  If Neill comes along he might want to take longer and that will need some debate. I have booked the hotels in twin bedded rooms but if it is a solo trip, then I will see about changing to a double room and have a big bed just for me.... It's pretty much the same route I took way back in the 80's when I rode with my ex-partner to Biarritz for a week in a villa owned by a colleague at Reuters. We wanted to avoid the toll motorways and what was then called the N10 went all the way from the outskirts of Paris (where we got lost near Versailles) to the Spanish border. Back then I was on the Kettle aka Suzi Triplo. I hav...