France Tour 2016 - Day 2 - Brugge to Maubeuge

If you haven't read Day 1 of the tour diary, click here to catch up!

Sunday 28th August

Today started very leisurely as we (well, mainly me actually) needed a decent sleep and so we ended up leaving Brugge at around 11am. We started off by heading to Ghent on some relatively boring roads but they needed to be done. There was actually a bit of a breeze today so it was a more manageable mid-20s degree heat.

Quick photo stop on the way to Ghent

Riding by the river is always nice

After arriving in Ghent around 12 o'clock, we had a wander around the town and the food market that was happening before having a leisurely lunch by the river. As we walked around the food market, I was approached by a guy who thought I looked Dutch and said it was really cool that I rode a motorbike which was nice.

A flower market that was on in the city

Relaxing by the food market with a drink

Overlooking the river before heading down to eat

2 and a half hours later, we finally set off from Ghent and headed south towards Mons and the French border. After spotting some old American army trucks, we decided to stop in Mons and had an ice cream in the square whilst listening to the brass band that was playing. 

The square was really busy with pretty much all of the cafes and bars looking rammed but the rest of Mons seemed a bit dead. As we hadn't really got any plans of where to stay this evening, we decided to carry on with our planned route and headed back to the bikes. As we were putting our gear back on at the bikes, two blokes drove past in their car and the passenger felt the need to shout "wow, nice bike!!!" out of the window as they turned into the car park. He then ran over to quickly talk to us as girls on bikes are great.... I've never had anyone really mention the fact I'm a female biker before but today it got mentioned twice by people who seemed to go out of their way to do so. Maybe it's a European thing. 

From Mons, we headed into the beautiful countryside and the national parks on the border between Belgium and France heading towards Roisin which is a tiny little village in the countryside which holds no real interest apart from the fact that Róisín happens to be one of our family members' names and we thought we had to go and have a selfie by the sign!

Selfie!

My one complaint about Belgium, as lovely as it is, has to be the road surface. They seem to be huge fans of concrete roads which make any bumps much harsher than they probably should be and they can make for some loud riding too. I can't fault much else though! 

You could tell when we arrived in France by the change in building style although we were unsure for a while as to whether we'd crossed the border or not because Ath has all of their signs in French but the cars were Belgian and the only flags that were around were the purple, white and yellow ones of Ath.

Eventually we arrived in Maubeuge at around 6:30 and we decided it was easiest to stay in the Campanile there which was basic as expected but had everything we needed. Overall today, we only did about 100 miles but it took us 7 and a half hours to do so!

Parked up at the Campanile

The plan for tomorrow is to head to Reims where we are staying for two nights as it would be rude not to go champagne tasting in the champagne region!

Daily miles: 122;

Total miles done: 400.

France Tour 2016 - Day 1 - Home to Brugge

At the end of August, starting on the bank holiday Saturday, my mum and I decided to do a mini tour around Belgium and France after being forced to scrap our planned trip to Germany to do the Fairytale Route due to my illness at the start of July and my strength still not quite being 100%. This is a tour diary for the trip! 

This was only my 2nd time abroad riding my own bike but the first trip of having to ride on the wrong side of the road (the last trip was in Ireland). We had three planned days off the bike to use as rest days and the main aim during the planning stage was to end on the beach as that's what you always seem to miss when you go on a bike tour. So, without further ado....

Saturday 27th August 

Our first day was always going to be a long one with 200 odd miles to cover to get from home to Folkestone for the tunnel so it was a nice and early 6am start for us so we could be on the road for 7:30. As someone who likes their sleep and had only had 6 hours sleep the night before, you can probably guess I was less than pleased with this get up time! 

In the morning, we made good time, probably because nobody wants to be on the road that early on a Saturday morning for no good reason. We'd just started riding on the A14 and were near Stanstead when it started to bucket it down. It felt like hailstones but we rode along for 5 minutes or so thinking it was just going to be a shower as we'd passed through a couple of spots earlier on. 

We then assumed it probably wasn't going to stop anytime soon as it all looked pretty grey and gloomy and so we pulled off to put the rain covers on our seat bags and I also out on my waterproof trousers as I'm wearing my leather trousers on this trip. Now, we'd stopped on a slight slope with the bikes facing downhill and when I tried to get back on my bike, I couldn't seem to be able to get my leg up to the seat to slide on at first and had to get my mum to help me balance. Not ideal but oh well! We then got back on track and were happily riding along even if it was slightly damp and then bam... Blue skies everywhere and a very fast drying road. Typical. 

Our first proper stop (I'm not counting the faff with the rain covers) was at about 10 at the Birchanger Green with 110 miles under our belts and only 90 more until the tunnel. We bought some sandwiches whilst we were there to eat on the train. 

Parked up at Birchanger Green

After arriving at the tunnel about 2 hours later, we managed to get on to train leaving 2 hours before the one we'd booked for... I got up at 6 for nothing?! Not particularly impressed but it did mean we'd get to Brugge earlier than we thought which was good. 

Waiting to board, my seat bag made a great back rest

...and now the trip begins!

Calais to Brugge along with the last 75 miles passed by pretty uneventfully apart from the fact it was about 30 degrees with no breeze so we did have to stop for a water break on the way. Being silly and from England, mum and I both still had the liners in our jackets so it was no wonder we felt like we were slowly melting. 

Stopped to remove the linings of our jackets and have some much needed water

Still in good spirits despite slowly melting

After getting sorted at the hotel and before I could fall asleep, we headed into the city centre and had some dinner, a wander and a waffle before heading back to the hotel at 9:15 and completely crashing. On to Maubeuge tomorrow via Ghent.

The fountain outside our hotel

Burning off our dinner

....and putting it all back on again with a waffle

The chocolate shops here are incredible

Total miles done: 278. 

BikeSafe Workshop - South Yorkshire

Hi,

It's been a busy few weekends for me recently, including being able to go on a BikeSafe workshop in South Yorkshire after being too ill to attend the one I was originally booked on at the start of July.

As the workshop was ran by the South Yorkshire Police Department and I'm from Derbyshire, it did mean I had a very early start on the Sunday morning to get to the police station for 8:30 but luckily the M1 isn't that busy on a Sunday morning so the 50 odd miles there went quite quickly.

There were 5 other riders on the workshop with me, all male. Bizarrely though, despite being the youngest one there by probably at least 15 years, I was one of the most experienced of the group as I've been riding since age 16! Some of the others there had only recently passed their tests in what they said was the midlife crisis stage of their life.

I was the first to arrive...

After the morning classroom session, we had some lunch and then headed out in pairs with one of the coppers for a ride around for them to assess our riding and give us any pointers they might have. I actually went out with someone who also owned an SV650 but theirs wasn't restricted of course.

The copper we were with was PC Dave Fields who was really lovely and we headed out on a loop around South Yorkshire (not being from around there, the roads and places were unfamiliar) with one bike in front of the copper and one bike behind. I must say though, it's really weird to have a bike copper sat behind you when you're riding - I was on my best behaviour! Especially with not speeding up before the national speed limit sign on the way out of villages..

We stopped every so often and switched around and got some feedback for us to work on for the next bit. Plus having some water of course. We got back to the police station around 3:30-4:00 and we'd done about 100 miles around Sheffield and South Yorks.

After a talk from an IAM rider about further opportunities to improve our riding skills, the day was finished and it was then time to head back home again. My feedback from PC Dave Fields was really positive so I was chuffed with that! Of course, there's things I can improve on but it's nice to know that I'm riding pretty okay generally.

My parents actually came to meet me after the day so we rode home altogether which was nice. So by the end of the day, I'd done just over 200 miles and although it was a long day, I did think it was really useful and a good one at the same time. I'd definitely recommend trying to go on one if you haven't been before - I'll leave a link here for you to look at if you want to.

I'm off to France on the 27th so the next posts you'll be getting from me will be the tour diary posts!

Until then, ride safe
TFB

BMMC Marshalling Taster Day

Hey all!

Hope this post finds you well and enjoying this lovely sunshine we've been having. Last weekend (13th/14th Aug), I attended a marshalling taster day ran by the BMMC at Donington Park. It's not technically bike related but it is motorsport so I'm hoping you'll forgive me.

The event that weekend was the MSVR GT & Formula Car races with 16 races over the course of the two days, all of which I was on post marshalling for. There were about 20 people on the day and I was one of 5 girls but a surprising number of the marshals were actually female which was good to see.

On the Saturday morning we went through a cars journey visiting the scrutineering bay, pits, paddock and garages. We also had a look around a couple of the race cars whilst the two people running the day showed us where the kill switches could be and where the fire extinguisher could be (every car has them in a different place, so not as simple as a bike!) and how to move a car should the driver happen to crash out.

Some of the cars in assembly

I also got to go up to race control and see how they work and what they do. I'd never been to a race control room before and I was really surprised by how big the room was and how many people actually worked in there, I thought it was going to 3 or 4 people! I hadn't realised either that the entire track was covered by cameras to help race control determine whether incidents are racing incidents and things like that, there's basically nowhere that is a blind spot and the cameras have got impressive zooms on them as well. After a quick walk through the media room full of laptops, phones, cameras, leads and coffee, we headed to the medical centre at Donington.
The medical centre is apparently one of the best in the country and the only thing they can't do on site is open heart surgery as they don't have a bypass machine. Pretty impressive for a race track I think. They even have a little mini ward if anybody (racer, marshal, team member or member of the public alike) can rest in if they need to. Luckily, there were no major incidents over the weekend and the highly qualified trauma consultants from Queen's Med in Nottingham and Derby City hospitals weren't needed.

In the afternoon, I went out on post between McLeans and Coppice for anyone who knows the track and I had a go at some flagging of the 8 races that were running. Luckily, nobody had any incidents opposite our post and anybody who did wasn't injured so I didn't have to go out on the track whilst it was live for any reason.

On Sunday, I was on post at the Melbourne Loop all day for the qualifying, warm-up and race sessions. I practiced my flagging skills during the majority of the races, and due to several occasions of the safety car going out, the yellow flag spent a fair amount of time in my hand! This also meant that we actually only got about 15-20 minutes for lunch (we were originally allocated 40 mins) which just happens at some meets apparently.
When all marshals have to be standing and concentrating when the track is live and with sessions only 5 minutes apart and running from 9am until about 6 or 7pm, it's a long time to be stood on your feet for and trying to eat and keep hydrated during those times can be quite tricky. My lunch was spread out through the day and I know many of the other marshals' lunches were the same.

Despite this, you can tell the marshals love what they do, they seem a bit like a family with everyone laughing and joking. Yes, they have a serious job to do but if you're with only 2 other people for an entire day and you can't have a chat and a laugh, it's going to be a tough day. The main advantages are pretty obvious; marshals are super close to the action, as they are volunteering and working the event, it's free entry for them and it's probably one of the best ways to be involved in motorsport - I think I'll definitely go back and marshal again when I get the chance!

Ride safe all,
TFB

Flywheel Festival

Hi all,

Hope this post finds you all well and enjoying the sunnier weather out on your bikes! I got back from uni on Saturday (exams and post-exams was a bit hectic so I didn't get a chance to write a post - sorry about that), and the weather was lovely on Sunday so I went out on my bike.

So normally, most people would do a nice gentle ride just to get back into the swing of things after not riding at all for 3 months, but I didn't do that. I instead rode a 160 mile round trip to the Flywheel Festival at Bicester Heritage Site in Oxfordshire.

As we were riding along, we passed through Long Itchington where some sort of car meet was happening at the Long Itch Diner so we stopped to have a look because it would've been rude not to!

This was probably the longest car I have ever seen that wasn't a limo

After the brief stop at Long Itchington, we pressed on to Bicester and the Flywheel Festival. When we arrived it seemed relatively busy but another guy who had pulled in just after us said the numbers were down from last year.

We went into the show and had a look through the cars and then onto some of the planes which occasionally took off and flew around. A glider came into land as we were stood there and he did a great job, possibly the smoothest landing I've seen for a glider!

MG anyone? There was rows upon rows of these things!

A small selection of some of the planes that were there

There was a mix of everything at the show, except there was a bit of a lack of bikes. As it was at the Heritage Site, there was a lot of old army things there, like planes, tanks, ambulances and auxiliary fire service trucks.

Old school ambulance, I can't decide if those beds look comfy or not though

Auxiliary Fire Service with a couple of their Green Goddess

A really lovely Triumph TR3

It was these that made me sad to be 20 - I wanted a go!

I generally avoid pink like the plague but even I've got to admit this pink Cadillac was cool

Although, the colour of this was stunning

Don't think this tank is going very far anymore...

Stirling Moss was also there with some of the cars he used to race in there classic blue with the white nose stripe although I didn't actually see him in person. His cars were driven around the track though.

Stirling Moss' Ferrari 250 SWB

The inside of the 250 SWB in an incredible condition

The fuel cap has been engraved with the trophies this car has won over the years

To fit in with the army trucks and things, there was WWII era music playing and stalls selling all sorts of vintage trinkety type things.

The highlight of the show for me though was definitely the air display from the biplanes at the show and they even demonstrated some dog fight manoeuvres but unfortunately, the pictures I got weren't that great so I haven't got any to show you - you'll just have to take my word for it.

Overall, the show was good but it was a little bit pricey to get in which was probably why the attendance numbers were down but it was a good ride out and it was a lovely day so I can't complain really.

There will be a smaller gap until the next post, I promise!
Until then, ride safe
TFB

Pidcock Triumph Launch Evening

Hi all!

Hope you've all been enjoying this sunshine we've been having after the snow and been getting out on your bikes.

I just wanted to make a quick post about the Pidcock Triumph launch evening I attended just over two weeks ago. As the Triumph factory is in Hinckley, Pidcock Triumph, being based in Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire, is the closest dealer to the factory and they have recently moved showrooms and I was lucky enough to attend the launch evening in late April. I took a few photos and thought I'd post up the best of them. Without further ado...

The Triumph 865cc ridden by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible

Triumph Barbour Street Tracker

Loved the filler cap detail on this!

Some wonderful cakes baked for the event (I may have stolen a second)

Bonneville Spirit painted in a gorgeous blue - I don't think I could keep it that clean though!

Some of the showroom decor

The matte blue on this Scrambler looked fab

The custom bike to be unveiled during the evening

Unveiled! They really did a fantastic job

I can never resist the chance for an arty shot

One of the new T120s on display

Triumph - For The Ride

Speed Triple S in front of my favourite part of the showroom decor

During the evening, they revealed a custom job done by the guys at Pidcock and that's what is under the cover. It was unveiled during the evening after speeches by Chris Pidcock and Bruno Tagliaferri (who came from the Triumph factory and has been working at Triumph pretty much from the start) and was based on the new Street Twin.

Oh and by the way, that is the actual bike, not a replica, ridden by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible (and yes, I did get a little bit overexcited by that fact!)

I really enjoyed my evening at the launch and that last picture is a sentiment I love for bikers so this post is for anyone who goes the long way home.

Until the next time, ride safe
TFB