The Planning Continues

Team Jobbie is now 4 strong. We are proud to welcome Charlie Swanborough to the team. 

All four dedicated adventure motorcyclists met today at D&K Motorcycles in Newcastle under Lyme to continue the planning. 

Oh no, my mistake, there were 3 dedicated adventure motorcyclists and Rich "I have to go to work" Edwards. Yep, your eyes do not deceive you, it is a Saturday and Richard has gone into work! not good mate, sort it out :-)

We arrived at 11.00 on the dot as arranged.

Swanny (it will do until I think of a better nick name) and Morris (equally unimaginative) arrived at 11 on the dot, Williams waddled in a little later....but at least I made it "I have to go to work" Edwards!

Planning was meticulous and regimented, starting with a tour of the new bikes, realising that we did not have much time we then had a look at some used bikes, getting even shorter of time we moved onto the classic stuff and finally when we realised that we really should get down to it we had a mid day breakfast.

The above lack of commitment makes the detailed plan below even more impressive.

It was decided that the above might not be to scale so out came the trusty 7" tablet and google maps. Below we can see Williams about to head-butt said device in frustration as his sausage proportioned fingers fail to locate points of interest even in the correct country. Swanny can be seen here offering the benefit of his technical expertise which pretty much consisted of stabbing at the screen with a biro.

D&K, for those who don't know, is the largest motorcycle showroom in the UK. We somehow think they may be cheating a little to keep hold of that title when you look at the state of some of the bikes in there. We did find a rather nice K1200s like Richards though seen below, this one was in the process of being stripped down to get at the combined servo and ABS unit, that will be another £2000 lighter BMW owner then.

Breakfast was of the highest standard which is more than can be said for the cutlery which looked like it had been used to serve the cats dinner (not the actual photo by the way before I get sued)

Anyway, after an intensive night of Facebook debate we have a modified route.

This route is now fixed until the next time we meet up and decide to change it all again.

We have a plan

The plan below is the result of an intensive couple of hours at our favorite eating place. The Midway Truckstop in Whichurch.

Ferries booked, only another 15 weeks to go.

It should be noted that only Williams ventured out on two wheels with Edwards and Morris stating it was too cold. 

The day started out with a meeting of hundreds of bikes at Smiths Honda on the outskirts of Chester which was the starting point for a charity motorcycle Toy run for Claire House.

Williams's C90 stole the show and left the owners of their Italian exotica looking perplexed and annoyed at being upstaged by the throbbing single cylinder beast.

The photo below shoes a rather shifty looking Santa ho I think wanted the C90 for the Christmas present round.

Sort of a plan

1) FRIDAY Cannock to Ferry 364km

2) SATURDAY Calais to Stuttgart 753km

3) SUNDAY Stuttgart to Genova 643km

4) MONDAY Genova to Piombino via Pisa 268km

5) TUESDAY Piombino to Rome 265km

6) WEDNESDAY Rome to Pescara 201km (seems short)

7) THURSDAY Pescara to Venice 533km (seems long)

8) FRIDAY Venice day off 0km

9) SATURDAY Venice to Stelvio via Verona 359km (had trouble getting distance??)

10) SUNDAY Stelvio to Klotten 249km

11) MONDAY Nurburgring day off 0km

12) TUESDAY Nurburgring  to last Spanish hotel?? ???km

13) WEDNESDAY Home ???km

OR

11) MONDAY Nurburgring pay and play to Arnhem 268km

12) TUESDAY Arnhem to last Spanish hotel?? ???km

13) WEDNESDAY HOME ???km

Another daft idea takes shape

The plan for this one began as they normally do over either a beer or some heart attack inducing food. It was the latter in this case with a cold early November morning ride out starting at the midway truck stop on the outskirts of whichurch.

I turned up 10 minutes late but was immeditly able to spot the florecent yellow K1200 that belonged to Richard (I like to moan over the intercom) Edwards.

The plan is simple, has to be really for men of our age! we will ride down to Italy during the Easter weekend of 2015, tour the coastline of Italy, pop over to Scicilly on the Ferry and fire back to the UK before anyone realises we have gone.

So far we have signed up quite a list of adventurers for this particular trip, me and Richard! I am sure when other bikers latch onto our complete lack of planning, the intense heat we will see in southern Italy and the inevitable breakdown adventure (planning to complete the trip on an Italian made bike) they will be queuing to get their names on the list.

The breakfast at the Midway lived up to its reputation by taking a year off our already shortened life expectancy. Richard went up for seconds and was told "I think you have had enough sir". I was worried he might kick off but he just burped and said "I'll take my custom elsewhere then".

We headed out to the cat and fiddle, once famous for being the most dangerous road in the UK but now famous for being a fantastic road spoiled by average speed camera. 

We stopped off at the Cat and Fiddle pub for a brew and a warm. This is the second highest pub in England and as such gets very cold up there this time of year. The real log fire is very welcoming and you really don't want to leave once you have settled down for a warming brew.

From there we headed out to Matlock Bath, Richard was still sulking over his lack of breakfast seconds or "pudding" as he likes to refer to it. I was worried about his collesterol and felt that without his wife here to look after him the role of dietician fell to me. 

We were torn between Chip Shop A and Chip Shop B, both looked inviting but the decision was finally made for us when Chip Shop B's owner came out and told us that Chip Shop A was "sh!te". 

Taking this impartial review into consideration we settled down for a couple of Chip Shop B's finest chip sandwiches, and fine they were too. Richard tried for seconds again but was appeased when I pointed out there was still some salty oil left on his plate.

Plate licked clean and we headed off home somewhat heavier but happy.