October 2024 found me ‘head down, arse up’ working like a Trojan with three Expert Reports to finish and issue!
It’s still important to keep on top of my fitness – especially when doing a couple of all-nighters – so I tried to make sure I kept to some sort of routine.
Activities: 30 Distance: 448.11 km Time: 18:47:15 Calories: 16,242
Turning to my weight, at the end of September I weighed 87.1kg and at the end of October I weighed 86.7kg, which is down slightly at -0.4kg. Still eating too many sweets and dried pineapple of an evening with the cats!
We’ve recently celebrated eight years of ownership with another dealer service and MoT, this time with Stellantis & You at Guildford as it’s a short drive from where we now live.
And it passed with no problem at 40,374 miles, up 5,451 miles on last year.
I expect the mileage will go down even more now, as we’ve bought a Ford Focus ST Estate for the longer drives where we need to carry stuff and/or other people.
September 2024 saw the end of the holiday theme starting with a few days in Prague and ending with a weird week in Corralejo. Weird? Well the last time we were there it was as residents moving back to the UK full time and this time we were back as bloody tourists staying once more at Bahiazul.
The complex contains the ‘main’ Bahiazul operated villas but also others we’ve used before: Villas Veaco and KATIS Villas. The upside of booking with Bahiazul is two-fold:
Breakfast in their restaurant is included so that sets you up nicely for the day; and
You have access to the gym which is relatively good, though not as good as our Pain Cave.
As far as I was concerned, I could simply run or walk but my knees and post-crash issues make that uncomfortable to say the least, plus I wanted to ride a bike anyway. This meant hiring a mountain bike from Easy Riders which was a painless experience and recommended. As I knew I’d be heading out on the roads past the dunes, I needed to wear a bike helmet and didn’t fancy hiring one, so I bought an alpinestars Vector Pro Atom helmet and some needlessly flash Galibier Campionissimo Luxury gloves. Both were excellent.
The hire bike – a Trek Marlin 7 – had two issues for me:
The gearing was great for climbs and no doubt spot-on for off-road riding, but on the road I was unable to pedal quicker than 31km/h due to the low gearing (104rpm cadence). My fault for choosing an MTB but the road surfaces can be a tad iffy out there.
The seat post kept descending due to my weight and the bumps, so I was needing to stop to heave it back up again because I didn’t have the necessary Allen key.
Lesson learned and next time I may hire a road bike or choose one with a larger front sprocket.
Anyway, here are September’s stats:
September 2024 Stats
Activities: 41 Distance: 406.47 km Time: 31:12:40 Calories: 20,118
Turning to my weight, at the end of August I weighed 85.4kg and at the end of August I weighed 87.1kg, which is up 1.7kg. Too many good breakfasts and restaurant dinners!
August 2024 continued the holiday theme following my son, Jack’s wedding before heading off to Venice for a few days at the Hilton Molino Stucky and ending with a few days in Prague at probably the best hotel we’ve ever stayed at, the Mandarin Oriental.
Hitting the gym at these luxury hotels was difficult so we also went walkabout a lot – Alison is going to compete in 2025 in the Masters’ Bikini Class, so needs to bang in many thousands of steps every day along with her workouts.
So here are August’s stats:
August 2024 Stats
Activities: 22 Distance: 288.87 km Time: 21:34:09 Calories: 14,161
Turning to my weight, at the end of July I weighed 84.7kg and at the end of August I weighed 85.4kg, which is up 0.7kg.
After breakfast, we set off and after a few hours on the fabulous N-260 road, we were still 3 hours away from the night’s stop. Sadly the cafe we stopped at wasn’t serving food due to a staffing problem, so it was just a Coke and a water for now (plus one of Alison’s Rice Krispies bars).
RT roadside in Boltaña
Then it was on to our next Parador, the Parador de La Seu d’Urgell with the mileage now up to 637km so far having enjoyed all the sweeping bends of the N-260 today.
Secure parking for your motorbike is always a bonus, so I was pleased they even had a special shed for motorbikes too, which is nice. Luckily they don’t do Aperol Spritzes either…
The food was good, but not as good as the night before, sadly.
Day 2 dawned bright and early as we had to be up and out of our cabin a half hour before docking into Santander at 8.00am and we wanted breakfast before as well.
I had already planned a route and imported it into the pitiful BMW Connected app and set it to “Winding”. That setting gives you three options: “Min:, “Max” and a middle setting. and I assume – because there’s no help file – that Min means it’s not too windy and max means it’s going to take you all round Will’s mother’s.
So off we went. And yes, it decided that what we really wanted to do on an RT touring bike on road tyres, two-up with luggage was to use gravel tracks… And that was when it was actually keeping Connected. I think BMW Motorrad are taking the piss calling it that, because for any navigation you have to use their app. To do so, you have to pair the phone to your bike – woe betide you if you want to use your phone with your intercom on any other bike, because the bike has to be the intermediary and you have to unpair your phone and intercom.
Once you’ve connected via Bluetooth and planned your route, you tell the app to navigate and then you have to set up an additional wireless connection to the RT just to see the maps.
So far, so good(!), but at a random – or many random – points on your journey, that wireless connection will drop out and to top it off the Bluetooth connection might also randomly drop out, leaving you to have to stop by the side of the road, open the storage compartment, re-establish the connection – which may or may not mean restarting the RT – and then get going again.
Later on, the RT decided it might just reboot itself completely, leaving you with a blank screen without any speed information, let alone any navigation.
It is utterly pants. It’s not even like the navigation system properly displays POIs or warns you of safety cameras, for instance. Indeed, at the start of Day 3, I was very low on fuel and the Connected (cr)app was telling me the nearest petrol station was 87km away when there was actually one showing on Google Maps and Apple Maps 3/4km away. But you can’t use those apps on the RT because BMW are too stupid to get CarPlay working on their bikes, whilst it’s working on their cars. It Connected or nothing!
Anyway, whinge over, we set off and then rerouted manually to at least see some scenic roads and stops for coffee along the way to our first night’s hotel, the Parador de Sos del Rey Católico.
Now I’d first heard of Paradores on the wonderful Harry’s Garage YouTube channel from some of his road trip videos and unknown to me to start with, this particular Parador was featured in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’t excellent series, The Trip to Spain.
View from the terrace at the Parador de Sos del Rey Católico
Parador de Sos del Rey Católico Room
After a shower and a freshen-up – it had been quite a warm ride with us seeing 37°C at one point – we decided that wine and generous gins on an empty stomach would help help…
Before dinner, we headed off into Sos del Rey Católico itself for a little exercise despite it still being pretty bloody hot. The place is very hilly but very picturesque.
And then dinner: local food cooked to a very high standard. Very much recommended.
And finally, a little bit of footage from on the bike:
As I mentioned in an earlier post, following the shakedown trip to Berlin, we were heading off on a tour of Spain, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium in July.
We had ummed and ahhed about buying mesh jackets to wear instead of the Klim kit we have but thought that we would struggle for luggage space because we would need to stack the Latitude and Altitude gear somewhere if we were wearing mesh jackets and we were packing a lot of clothing already, given the quality of the hotels and restaurants we had booked, so decent shoes, trousers, shirts and dresses were already taking up a fair bit of space.
How much space? Well there was all the standard luggage space (including the optional top case) and on top of the top case we were again using the Kriega US-40 Rackpack but this time we had added one of my venerable old Kriega US-20 Drypacks on top using the wonderful strapping system engineered into these bags.
I also thought about buying a new drone to use on the journey but with only a week to go decided against buying it for now as the trip was going to be pretty mileage-intensive so stopping, setting up, filming, returning, repacking, etc. was probably off the table. Maybe next year?
A couple of days beforehand, I thought I’d just print out our travel documents. You may know we’d originally booked it for a week or two before before but Angelina’s graduation date was announced and clashed, so we had had to rebook… without the CClub Lounge access on our original booking. Luckily there must have been a last minute cancellation, so I managed to book the last two spots, meaning we could relax in a bit more peaceful surroundings and enjoy complimentary food and wine.
We headed off to Portsmouth after work on the Thursday, boarded and found our cabin. Two nights and one full day aboard awaited us. Sadly, Brittany Ferries’ “Salamanca” ship doesn’t have an actual gym or fitness suite and the spa was just a couple of chairs and a table near to the kids’ zone. Hardly relaxing. But the cabin was fine, the porthole looking out to sea was nice to have and the quality of the food and drink in the Lounge was good enough for us not to need to eat in the restaurants.
Overall? Pricey at £747 all-in one way, but comfortable if a bit boring and it got us to Santander on the Saturday morning ready to go. Would we do it again? Well, it gets you right into Northern Spain but £750 pays for a nice hotel or two and the petrol to ride down the West coast and through the Pyrenees.
At the weekend it was time for Alison to meet ‘her’ car, so off I went on Sunday down to Street in Somerset to pick her up from a few days staying with family.
The original plan was to meet in Taunton, especially as Waze was showing road closures on the A303 around Stonehenge, but what actually happened was that they were governing closures, scheduled to finish at 9.00am on the Sunday and I didn’t leave until after then.
By the time I’d reached the usual turn-off towards Street, ETA to Taunton was showing as 11.15am and they hadn’t left Street yet, so I re-routed and was at Street by 11.05am, which meant I could unload the car (mainly gym mats and some left-behind grandkids’ toys).
We then drove to Taunton with me explaining all the killer features Alison would need to know, like how to quickly turn off the nanny nags and why she should always have it in ST Mode – like we do the Sport mode on the Abarth 124 Spider – and get her connected to the car for BT, CarPlay and the FordPass app.
Coming back to Street, Alison took over the driving: she’s not really driven that much since moving in with me 10 years ago, so familiarising herself with a new car – where the clutch bites, how much to accelerate and what the steering’s like – was what that was all about.
Her verdict? Very nice to drive.
That’s just as well given all the money we’ve spanked on a car ostensibly for her to take to the West Country for family time.
And then home, via a very circuitous route and re-route chosen by Ford’s navigation system to avoid some of the issues with the touristy route back. We still sat in a lot of queues as usual around Stonehenge, so much slower coming back. The M3 as we joined it wasn’t much better either.
The plan had been for Alison to drive back, but happily I was told to do the honours instead. Alison couldn’t get over how much leg room she has with the ability to then recline the seat, unlike my lovely 124.
Overall? Fairly economical. Fast. Quick. Comfortable. Well-equipped. We even had a cool bag plugged into the 12V socket in the boot for perishables for dinner and a bunch of new plants in a tray and in the rear passenger footwell, including rose bushes and honeysuckle. Plus a carry-on suitcase. A proper family car!
Overall mileage when we got back was up to 362 miles with a busy weekend next weekend to look forward to as well.
No, it’s not a pick-up; it’s been picked up. Today!
I was dropped off at Group 1 Farnborough on the first wet and miserable day in a couple of weeks – with bonus mud all over our road thanks to the road builders further down – to do the final paperwork, pay for the dash cam we’ve had fitted and drive it home.
And here is is:
Its first longer drive comes this weekend with a 250 mile (or so) round trip with Alison getting to drive it back.
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