Tuesday, June 26, 2007

It's persisting down

I found Belgium! It's at the end of France if you need a point of reference.
So, 1001.5 miles in 3 days. No one fell off or broke down and only one puncture amongst 80 bikes. The IAM should be proud!

I was impressed by the Eurotunnel as there's very little fannying about, ride on, wait 30 minutes then ride off into France. As it was my first time the captain invited me onto the flight deck. He then attempted to chat me up and ask me out on a date, I turned him down of course.

The picture above is of the Eurotunnel flight deck on the British side. On the French end the steering wheel is on the other side and the electrics are dodgy.

The entire trip ended up being extremely wet, it started raining at Junction 11 off the M25 in the UK and didn't stop 'till 10 minutes after I got back.

The most impressive thing about riding on the European mainland is the lack of traffic, no open shops and..... no people! I also noticed that the few locals we did meet could speak fairly good English, which is how it should be of course.

I have a medical condition which prevents me from understanding foreign languages but have since managed to say a few french phrases, mostly gibberish, some offensive and a few made up. As I didn't get thumped or arrested I consider that a success.

I also met a fellow WVAM member called Peter Lee. Which is odd because I used to live in Peterlee but was purged sometime ago. No doubt he's got a very large colon. I didn't get much further with Peter as he hummed of "management" and had a forced ambitious side to him. I've no doubt he's a very nice person and will end up happily married to a beautiful and faithful wife with a big house and own several large screen TV's and a heated swimming pool.

4 comments:

chux said...

looks fabulous !!

Shame about the weather, did it spoinl it for you? I can only imagine riding in the rain being a scarey situation to be in myself.

Peter Lee eh, nice little cynical flick there in the end!

It does seem to me that the crappy part of Europe is the bit we live in as all the rest seems nice. Unless Turkey is in Europe then no thats a smelly hole and worse than being here although interesting. (went off on a tangent soz)

Anonymous said...

Well I am the dork of the universe. I'm just reading along assuming you were talking about a BICYCLE when I got to the last picture. I was absolutely impressed with your stamina until then. :>) Sounds like a great trip.

Delmonti said...

Kat: I'd love to do that sort of thing on a bicycle, but my poor worn out hip ont allow it. Maybe in a few years when I've had it replaced

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'll let you off the hook until after the hip replacement. Like I should talk, if I tried to ride a bicycle two blocks I'd fall off with a coronary I'm so out of shape.