Europe Motorcycle Tour

This was day three of our motorcycle trip from London, England to Santander in Northern Spain.

The previous two days had taken us from London to leMans in France, then from leMans to Montlucon where we had just spent the night.

The weather had been glorious so far, but today the sky was grey and there was an orange weather warning for our part of France. We were heading out from Montlucon to Millau, made famous by the spectacular bridge and were taking the dual carriageway for some 100 miles before turning off into the Massif for our first taste of mountain riding.

We were a group of eight, riding various hardware including a BMW R1150, a Bimota SP6, a BMW 1200GS, Kawasaki ZX9, Honda Hornet 600 (which even restricted to 33bhp had been happily keeping up at speeds of 90mph), a couple of Honda Deauvilles and me on my Triumph Rocket 111 Classic. I was a little apprehensive as I had only done 335 dry miles on this behemoth before leaving England!

I had very much enjoyed our blast down through France so far, and been very comfortable and enjoyed the power and speed that the Rocket's 2.3 litre engine provides. Even around the French country lanes the day before the bike had shown itself to be well mannered and coped well with the bends.

In recent times I have to confess to being a mostly "fair weather rider", and when it started raining after about fifteen minutes of leaving the hotel, I found that the summer screen I had had fitted was no match for the rain, and the fact that I could hardly see out from behind my rain streaked visor took some adjustment. It seemed that no one was prepared to appear to be phased by the weather, so we continued on the dual carriageway at some speed, until stopping for fuel and a coffee after about an hour and a half.

This was where I discovered that niether my boots, gloves or jacket were waterproof! I was soaked thorugh, although my new trousers were completely waterproof, everywhere else was wringing wet. I squelched into the cafe!

Even though I was uncomfortable and wet to the skin, the bike just seemed to shrug the whole thing off. It is so heavy it just remains stable and is completely unmoved by the fact that you are trying to ride in a river! The power delivery is such that it is completley laid back, and one can simply put in the power gently and maintain smooth riding.

In fact, the bike was so easy to ride I started to enjoy myself a lot more than i thought I would in the wet, and the heated grips were invaluable, particularly as the road signs were telling us that we were at 1500 metres and climbing.

We took lunch a little later than planned, but were glad we did because as we ate a thunderstorm passed over.

As we climbed back onto our bikes after eating, the sun decided to make an appearance and the temperature rose back into the high twenties. My own temperature was about to get higher too, once I got into the mountain roads and the sharp bends1