A day out on the bike

[Rynglieder]

Oh dear, dammed if I tell you the story damned if I don't.....

[Rynglieder]

Actually three days and 450 miles on the GSX this time!

I mentioned earlier in this thread that a project down in Devon had been eating into my motorcycling time; In July last year I bought a holiday chalet / bungalow thingy and since then I have been down nearly every other weekend and the requirement to hump around tools, materials and bits of furniture has necessitated the use of the car. There was a goal in sight though, I had hoped by this summer it would be sufficiently complete to allow me weekends away on the bike and open up the roads of Devon and Cornwall to me for a day or a half on two wheels.

I can't claim it is finished, there are a couple of dozen niggely little things shouting for my attention, but it is near enough done and this weekend just passed presented its self as an opportunity to take a bike down there.

We had taken a few days down there on the GTR a couple of months back but with this year's Europe trip looming I decided to spare the GTR's relatively new back tyre the motorway miles and it would be nice to spend some time on the GSX again
In a fit of idleness I put on the soft luggage that had served us through a dozen different countries over recent years. I still have the side frames and Shad hard cases for the GSX but it didn't seem worth the hassle of fitting them for a long weekend. (I still need to decide what to do with the Shad gear, it cost us over £400 and has just done the one tour and is now sitting doing nothing at the back of the garage. Perhaps I should sell it on but I know I'd regret it). It was of course the wrong choice of luggage. I'd forgotten how much Carole struggles with sitting on the seat pad and has a constant battle to stay perpendicular to the bike around bends and under braking. It will be the last time with that soft luggage when two-up, but I'll hang onto it in case it is useful for a quick solo trip.

Our habit is to leave home around 19:30 by which time the commuters are all out of the way, it's about three and a quarter hours down to Dartmouth from home but arriving after 23:00 is not a big deal when you only have to turn the key quietly in your own lock and stick the kettle on. It was the first "night ride" I had done on a bike for as long as I can remember and I really enjoyed the blast down the M5 except from the shuffling and grumbling from Her Behind Me. The trip does take longer on the bike than in the car though; as I am one of those who still enjoys or depends on a cigarette there are two stops involved and even the GSX's tank won't stretch to the whole run without refuelling. The journey was also made longer than usual by the closure of the A38 at the junction with the A380 resulting in a detour via Newton Abbot and some twisty roads that I was less familiar with having to be ridden in the dark. The GSX headlamp got us through OK but I did find myself wondering if there is some upgrade available if this was going to be a regular event.

Our trip down had taken place on a Thursday night as I had taken the Friday off work, a carpet fitter had been booked to take care of the chalet lounge so Friday became another day of shifting furniture, bits of painting and making sense of the spaghetti that resulted from the rushed dismantling of my AV equipment. Sadly the only use the bike got was when I was despatched by the Domestic Authorities to Sainsbury's for emergency provisions.

Saturday was a different matter though. My good lady seemed strangely content looking at our new carpet with all of our furniture sat back on top of it and she suggested I should have a run out on the bike while she caught up with the omnibus edition of Easterdale Street (whatever).  So I grabbed hold of my OS map (sensible) and my Garmin Zumo (stupid) and off I went.
It was only going to be a short run, exploring the local roads and East Prawle was selected from the map as it had a car park near to the coast path and what looked like a big enough village to sell me a cup of coffee. I set off, at first using the route that I had memorised from the map but as I became uncertain I fell into the clutches of the Zumo which had been telling me I was doing it all wrong from almost the moment I had started. One thing I now know about West Devon's roads is that if there is a sign at the start of them saying "unsuitable for HGVs" they are almost certainly not going to be any fun on a bike either, regardless of what a Zumo tries to persuade you. You hear all about the disappearing vegetation in the rainforest on the news, I can tell you exactly where it has gone, it is down the centre of the bloody lanes between East Allington and Sherford. Inevitably I came up on the back of a large German 4x4 (although I still can't work out how I caught up with anything at the speed I was crawling). That in turn then came across three cars trying to ascend the lane from the opposite direction. There was of course a Mexican stand-off; this was the moment I found out how hard it is to reverse a GSX1400 up a hill. After a bit of straining and grunting I managed to get it back far enough to nestle it into the hedgerow and watch the door cills of the traffic in front of me skim the rear pegs as it passed by.

I eventually found my way to Frogmore where I stopped to take a fresh look at the map and a picture of the bike. I then pressed on using my preferred strategy of looking at road signs and entirely ignoring the Zumo. With these improved tactics I had a fairly enjoyable run into East Prawle, the promised cup of coffee and a walk down to the old costal defence ruins.
The return to Dartmouth was made by selecting roads that looked as if they might have white lines down the middle of them. A further stop off was made alongside Slapton Ley where the map was again consulted as the coastal road is still undergoing repair after erosion and collapse last winter.

I caught up with Carole back at the chalet and the final run of the day was into Dartmouth for fish and chips and a pint on the wharf in the sunshine at Bayard's Cove –I'm hoping that there is going to be more of this in my life in the future.

Our run back to the midlands on Sunday allowed me to experiment with varying our trips to and from Devon. There should not be a rush to get there once all of the work is done and I would like to think that when I am on the bike it won't necessarily always be motorway. Our little optional detour took us past Clevedon and on to Portishead where we spent an hour watching the boats entering and leaving the marina through the sea lock.

Not a bad weekend and a few lessons learned to make future breaks better. It was good to be feeling the miles go by under the GSX again, with buying our place in Dartmouth and taking on the GTR it has been a bit neglected.

0306 Frogmore
0310 East Prawle (It's a bike so I only put one quid in the box)
0320 WWII Radar bunker
0327 Slapton Sands (I didn't put anything in that one, they should have mended the road)
0330 Back at my Country Estate
0331 Portishead

Carefully selected for your motorcycling enjoyment by Garmin:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.3157241,-3.7220706,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJ6fjnmcRTtpfp69CkplwZQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[ARH]

Very nice Rynglieder!  Don't know why you persist with the Zumo though....