Just thought you might be interested to know of my current travels. For anyone saying you can’t tour Europe on an old bike, I say, “Pah!” You can even do it on a 1975 Suzuki GT380
.
This is Gita at the start of her journey south.This is the story thus far, on my holiday:
On the first day I rode 430 miles from Airdrie (near Glasgow, Scotland) to Burnham-on-Crouch (Essex, England) for an overnight stop with family. By the time I arrived at 7:30pm, my butt was sore, my hands and wrists ached but the bike was running fine and hadn’t missed a beat despite a little rain. I thank NGK for making such great waterproof silicon rubber plug caps. In all the time I’ve used this bike it has never once misfired when wet. I did have one little hiccup when trying to keep up with a Tesla through the Essex country lanes I managed to scrape the right expansion chamber on the ground. This tore the exhaust wrap that I had fitted to make Gita a little quieter. I was able to blag some copper cable with which, in conjunction with cable ties, I was able to make a running repair (see pic below).
The next day I only travelled 41 miles to Dagenham (greater London) to visit friends. After less that 5 hours sleep, the following morning I left bright and early at 5:30am to cover 260 miles further to Plymouth. Arriving at the port around 11:30am, I checked in amongst the first bikes for the ferry bound to Santander, Spain.
Waiting to be loaded at Plymouth.
There were many bikers, but my 1975 GT380 was the oldest and smallest bike on the ferry by far. In fact she drew quite a bit of attention because of this.
The long ferry journey was a great way to relax and recuperate. I slept most of the journey. Yes, thats a lot of sleep, but I was knackered! I haven’t ridden so far for decades, so I wasn’t exactly match-fit.
Arriving at Santander the sun was shining and the weather was considerably warmer than old Blighty.
Once through passport control, I met my father with his 1988 BMW K75, whereupon we set our sights towards France and the Pyrenees.
Both bikes at the start of the Spanish leg of the journey.
Dad had travelled 640 miles from Estepona in the South of Spain to Santander via road on his bike, 500 of which he covered the previous day, before kipping in his tent in a lay-by for the night.
I must confess my heavily laden little GT was no match for the equally laden 750cc Beemer on the Spanish motorways. The standard gearing is a bit too high, so I was regularly dancing the left-foot-fandango on the gear lever in an effort to keep up with much more docile and powerful 4-stroke triple.
After 40 miles of uneventful cruising we stopped at Santona as it looked like a nice place to find a hotel. Which we did; a lovely little Hostel by a natural bay with a fine sandy beach.
It hadn’t taken me too long to get used to riding on the other side of the road, so the next day I determined to take the lead some of the way. My trusty bike satnav, “Gavin the Garmin”, giving me the confidence that I would not get lost and would know what speed I was travelling at. The GT speedo needle had started bouncing up and down like one of the old barriers at the Dartford Crossing during rush-hour. It told me I was doing some speed between 70 and 90 mph, but couldn’t be more specific. Thank goodness for GPS devices!
After tostada and coffee for breakfast we pushed on towards Candanchu. The weather was not in our favour and it wasn’t long before the heavens opened in a half-hearted attempt to clean our bikes for us. By the time we made our first comfort stop, we were soaked through to our undies. We sat in our soggy trousers sipping our coffee and eating more tostada. We had already identified one problem with our journey; the GT needed refuelling about every 90 miles, while the Beemer could easily go at least 150 miles without needing its thirst quenched. Dad had to get used to me regularly telling him we needed to stop before he was expecting to.
I had anticipated that he would need to exercise patience on my behalf, so had previously equipped myself with a peace offering given through his olfactory nerve endings. When stuck behind an old 2-stroke, the smell of freshly burnt castor oil is enough to placate any frustrated petrol head! I had brought one litre of the stuff purely so I could drop a couple of capfuls in each time I filled up. Dad seemed to think this was a jolly good idea, as I knew he would
.Synthetic oil still did the heavy work of lubricating everything via the CCI system. Just in case anyone wondered…no, I didn’t put any castor oil through the injection system. I had heard some years ago that it can sometimes react with other oils and turn to jelly, thus clogging the oil injection system. This is definitely not something I wanted to experience!
As we pressed on, the scenery changed and so did the roads. Much more greenery welcomed us and despite the mountain roads being wet, we had a most spirited and fun ride to the pre-booked hotel. Things were looking up. I can honestly say that I have never had as much fun in the rain as I did that day. Our pace was hardly that of a GP-rider but the front end of the GT was rock solid; her new Bridgestone BT46s gripping the road like limpets. I can’t say I have ever had such confidence in the front of any other bike. I was pleasantly surprised at this, as I hadn’t had much confidence in the handling of my bike before. Perhaps the steering damper I fitted prior to leaving Scotland added to this newfound stability, but I couldn’t say for sure. All I know is that I had complete confidence in pushing my bike through sharp wet hairpins up and down steep hills.
The sound of the noisy 2-stroke engine crisply crackling and wailing through the mountains was heavenly. It must have caught the attention of another biker who had stopped to take a pic of the beautiful scenery. He videoed the bike, panning across as I wailed past. I was also surprised that I was able to easily lose Dad through the twisty sections of the mountain roads. Who knew a GT380 was more nimble than a BMW?
I certainly wasn’t riding anywhere near the limit, but fell into a good steady rhythmic repetition of turn-point-squirt. I adopted the attitude that any bend I couldn’t see round was likely to be a tightening hairpin. It was a sensible precaution, as this often turned out to be the case.Disappointingly, as we approached yet another wonderful hairpin, our hotel came into view. It was a gorgeous old ski lodge that obviously had a rich history, and was only unwelcome because it meant cutting short a fantastic ride.
The receptionist welcomed us and told us we could park our bikes in the garage beneath the hotel for free. Considering car drivers have to pay for this privilege, we were pretty chuffed. We had traveled 230 miles that day, endured unpleasant weather on varied roads, but the view from the Candanchu hotel balcony was worth it.
More of the adventure to follow; stay tuned for the next instalment.
I thought it was the Tour De France, but Dad says it’s La Vuelta
. Though I was annoyed at myself, I wasn’t overly bothered as I had brought with me a brand new modern solid-state replacement combined regulator/rectifier unit (The amount of spares I had brought would have allowed me to cover most eventualities including a top-end rebuild). After rapidly fitting the replacement unit I started the bike and checked the voltage… my multimeter showed battery voltage only, no charging. At this point I was rather miffed. This was the second regulator/rectifier that had failed on me! With a little lateral thinking the solution presented itself. Why replace the regulator, when all I needed was a rectifier? 
. I realised my mistake a few seconds after I felt it bounce off my hip in the darkness. I pulled over, walked back half a mile and searched for it with my head-torch but it was in a black case, on black tarmac on a moonless night. I eventually have up looking and wrote off the phone and the £60 that was in its case as a loss. There is no way I was going to safely walk up the central reservation looking for it!