Ready to Rock 'n' Roll

This time tomorrow (Tuesday) I expect Phil and I will be sweating our nuts off in our waterproofs and in 19 degrees, half way to our first overnight stop in Blois, France. Forecast isn't great, least not until we get to Spain, where it is currently 26 degrees. As I write, Phil is on his way over from Cheltenham and I'm expecting him by 18:00. We'll have a pre-trip noshup at Wetherspoons I expect and a couple of  beers, to get some practice in. Before that though, a catch up on the last few weeks.

Ginny went in for her 42k service on 18th August. Turned out, it wasn't the big service, so it was ready again the same day. I'd already arranged with Mark that I'd collect it Tuesday though and that's what I did. I wore my new Rokker jeans. They are comfortable. Looking forward to seeing how they are on a long journey. Tuesday also saw the arrival of my new Neotec 3 helmet. It's a lovely snug fit. I expect it'll take me a little while to get used to the difference in visor and air vent opening but otherwise there's little obvious to differentiate it from the 2 version. I mentioned I bought an adapter kit for my intercom. That was fitted last week, fairly straight forward really. It's not as flush as the made to measure version but don't fix what ain't broke, eh? The intercom has been fully charged too.

I finished tweaking the routes and Phil downloaded them. Then when testing, I found some didn't work as expected, taking us on toll roads, so had to redo a few waypoints. They're all good now. It'll be interesting to see how they match up on Phil's satnav compared to Tomtom, especially when he leads.

Ginny is all prepped to go, tyres pumped, tomtom fitted, panniers attached. I decided, given the forecast to forego a wash but did give her a quick spray/brush to get rid of some of the crap from the Athens trip.

Packing is 99.5% complete, just some electrical bits and my meds to go. ETD is 06:45 for our 08:54 train. Nowadays you have to check-in at least an hour before crossing. I think that's everything covered. 

Bye for now.

Shush, don't tell the kids!

In my previous post I mentioned I was going to get myself a new helmet and take a look at some new riding jeans. Well, yesterday I took myself over to Motolegends at Guildford to offload some of my daughters' inheritance. Joe took the necessary measurements of my bonce, which indicates to him any additional padding required to the standard sized helmet to give a nice comfortable and secure fit. Unfortunately, they didn't have the colour I wanted, in my size, in stock, so we used another to get the fitting sorted. They will send the correct helmet on for when I get back from holiday. I have to say, I was expecting some electronic gizmo to scan my head but no, it's all done with mechanical measuring equipment. Anyway, the resulting fit was nice and snug. 

The helmet itself, a Shoei Neotec 3 has had some changes from my Neotec 2, which are aimed at making it even quieter and easier to open/close the visor. There's some other minor changes but I shan't bore you with them. The main change for me, is that the fixings for the comms system are different to the ones on my current helmet. Happily though, Shoei make an adapter kit, so rather than buying a new comms unit at £300+, I was able to buy the adapter kit at just £16. I wasn't too keen on the idea of junking a perfectly good system, so I'm a happy bunny now. Whilst we were sorting out the helmet, I got them to do a price match deal with another company, which meant I bought a spare visor and pinlock anti fog visor insert too, saving me a few quid. 

That sorted, Joe passed me on to Maggie, to look at some jeans. These 'single layer' biker jeans are all the rage now. My Hood jeans have a kevlar type inner lining to them, which I'm sure will protect in a spill but they are very heavy and uncomfortably warm, compared to a normal jean. The single layer jeans, are just like a normal jean but the strength and protection comes from the fabrics used and the way they are weaved together. They look and feel like a normal jean and can be comfortably worn all day long. Joe was wearing a pair. I tried 3 different pairs, 2 Rokker, 1 Halvarssons, settling on the Rokker Legend Straight pair, which gave the best fit. I'm looking forward to wearing them in a few weeks on the trip to Spain/Italy, where I'm expecting it to be fairly warm.

Ginny is booked in with Mark for her 42k service on 18th August, so she should be ready for another european excursion well before the off.

As mentioned last time Spitfire Club's Short Scion was going into Rochester Cathedral. It's now there and I've taken a couple of turns facing the public. It's been enjoyable imparting some knowledge and listening to stories from people who have had family members working for Short Brothers in times gone by. I'll do another couple of stints when I come back off  holiday. The Scion is being exhibited until the end of August, when it will be dismantled and moved back to our workshop. Here's a photo of it.  

Short Scion II - G-AEZF

Think that's all for now.