4. To go or not to go....??

There's cutting it fine and then there is cutting it fine.I got a call from Dean today to let me know Doris is ready for collection, now of course that's what I have been waiting for however? I can't pick her up tonight as it is too late, tomorrow Lorni is working and the forecast is for some heavy rain "sooooo" it looks like I wont get my hands on Doris till Thursday, now that's the 31st so for the sake of one day I will lose a months tax or do I risk it? The next problem is I was hoping to be on a ferry on the 1st but! I need to do a few things to the bike first like fit the tank bag wire up the sat nav etc and of course pack. I don't think I can drive up to Goole and back and sort out everything else in such a short time. So it now looks like I will have to catch a ferry on the 2nd.  I have been looking at prices for all the crossings I was thinking about perhaps coming back via Santander but either the ferries are full, or there are no sailings on the days that I need the same goes for Bilbao so that's it then it's going to be Newhaven to Dieppe and back the same way.

I think I may have just dodged a bullet here I have just booked my crossing for the 2nd September from Newhaven and then I did a really silly thing, I looked at the weather having just a read an article about severe flooding in the Costa del Sol area..

My crossing is at nearly midnight so by the time I get to Gandia the weather is going to be glorious if however I had managed to leave the day I wanted to I would have been caught up in some really angry storms., Looks like luck is on my side for a change.

Also had a little good news I have had a trailer up for sale on e-bay if you read the first page of this blog you would have seen my Harley with a blue trailer hung on the back rather over loaded because of this I bought a larger trailer but never got round to using it so I decided to sell it after finding out that Squire no longer make trailers I was told it was worth probably double what I thought it was, so I put it up for sale for £850 and tonight I have 14 people watching it and one guy who wanted more info like unladen weight and could I send him pictures of the inside...

You can certainly get a lot in this trailer and on top of this my new helmet turned up today with built in blue tooth what a great bit of kit I just love technology, time to go I have to sort out my return trip for the sat nav.

3. Where to then...?

If everything turns up in time then the plan is simple, book a ferry crossing between Newhaven and Dieppe, I like this route for two reasons one the Ferry leaves at 11:25 pm and docks in Dieppe at 5am local time so that gives me a whole day of daylight to get trough as much of France as I can and secondly it is away from Calais and it's associated problems with immigrants, police harassment and fake police trying to fine English tourists. If everything goes to plan then day 1 should look a little like this....

click on picture for larger image

I hope to get as far as Bordeaux or just outside so I will now look for for some sort of overnight stop, I have an Accor hotel loyalty card so will look for one of their establishments. F1. Ibis etc I have around 13 to 14 hours to do roughly 550 miles, I know that's pushing it a bit but I am trying to do the trip in 2 days not 3 as time is at a premium,  I may take 3 days for the trip back, we will see.

I have never been this route before so should be interesting, for those that don't know me I have driven and ridden down to Spain on a number of occasions but usually only as far as as the Costa Brava area, So hopefully after a good nights sleep I am left looking at the rest of the trip for the second day.

Day 2 sees me over the Pyrenees ( more on that later) and into Spain then down to the Valencian coast I will be in unknown territory all of the second day which adds a bit of spice to the trip, I am hoping to get to my home before 10 pm at night, the bike will go in my garage and I will undoubtedly sleep well. My house is in a village near the town of Gandia and is not too far from the coast but far enough not to get caught up in tourist traffic and crowds.

with all pictures click on them to see larger images

As you can see from the map the Med is not too far away in fact you can see it from my roof terrace, I am so looking forward to getting there for this trip even more excited about moving there permanently in the near future. So that will be half the journey completed I have to still come back to the UK of course I am not sure if I should just reverse the trip or go another route I will have a think on this over the next day or so.

Getting back to the trip over the Pyrenees for a while, A couple of years ago....4 in fact I found out that altitude has a very negative effect on fuel consumption, at around 3000 metres my old Harley with a carburettor was struggling for power and eating fuel like it was going out of fashion at one point when we ran out I put a gallon back in and it only lasted 9 miles.I am going to have similar problems with Doris as she is also carburetted I am hoping that I can fit a gallon can in the top box along with a few other bits and bobs. time will tell.

2. Bits and bobs

I am hoping to jump on Doris and take her across the channel through France and into Spain but I am running out of time, by that I mean I have to get going before my step son goes back to University on the 10th or I have no-one to watch the dog as both Beth my step daughter, and Lorni my wife work. So there are things I want for the bike the first on the list was a tank cover

The reason being I am going to try to keep the bike in as good nick as possible so to save the tank getting dinked, a cover seems a good idea however like a lot of things I am finding difficult to get hold of as the bike is no longer made and hasn't been for over 17 years, I did find one but it is coming form Germany and definitely wont be here in time for my trip, The next thing I wanted to do was to upgrade the known problem of poor headlights so I have found and bought an Osram H4 bulb for her.

This should help with night riding, next problem is how to wire up the sat nav as I wont go anywhere without it, there are two ways of doing it , one is to run the cable for the holder down to the battery via a fuse which is what I have on my old Harley..

The second way is to run it like I would in the car straight from the cigarette lighter bearing in mind I am going to run an axillary power cable though to charge the phone etc I think this way would be better as then there is only 1 cable run to put in,

So now all i have to buy is a cheap little bracket with a ball lock on that fits on the handlebars and that is another job done.

Next problem is how do I hear the sat nav, on my Harley I had an intercom system that plugged in via a lead and my phone was blue toothed straight to the bike and on that matter I have another problem all of my older helmets are now in a state of repair that I wouldn't want to use anymore the only other helmet I have is one that says Harley Davidson all over it and has the intercom system already plumbed in, so it looked like I would have to buy a new blue tooth headset and a new helmet or..what I have done is to buy a helmet with the blue tooth headset built in and funnily enough the colours were blue, black , black and yellow or.....burgundy LOL so burgundy it is.

Complete with disk lock ok so nearly there I only need a set of boots now as my monster cruiser boots I use with my Harley wont fit under the gear change lever. I would like a tank bag as well but we will see on that one and I have to get a pair of gloves as Motorcycle news ran an article about motorcyclists being stopped for wearing no EU compliant gloves, bloody hell they just keep getting the tools to stop and  fine bikers anyway best have a compliant pair, I have a textile suit to wear and I picked up a little sunshade for my sat nav to try and make it easier to read.

The only bits I would love to have is a full luggage set but no-one makes them anymore so getting hard to find so I will will use my old Nelson Rig set from the Harley and sit it on the seat behind me and strap it to the top box.

The tour pack consists of a medium size suitcase and roll bag on top loads of little pockets all over it this with the top box will have to do., so much to do to make a motorbike into a usable device.

1. New bike new adventure

It is sometimes very difficult to know where to start, a lot of people would suggest "the beginning" and therein lies the problem, where is the beginning? I can't put my finger on when my love affair with two wheeled transport began...was it in my early life as a kid with bicycles ? anyway lets start with my latest acquisition. A Burgundy 1999 mark 2 Yamaha XJ900 Diversion whom I have named "Doris", that would be "Doris the Divvie" I don't know if anyone else names their bikes I suspect they do all my bikes have had female names and my latest bike is a middle aged lady so Doris seems to fit.

As you can see she is in dam good nick for an 18 year old motorbike Doris has done less than 12000 miles and is fitted with a top box and lower fairings which I am told are now rarer than rocking horse sh*t, She came from Dean of "Everything Diversion" up in Goole and I have been told this bikes whole life story OK so that's the start of this bikes life with yours truly.

So what about me, yours truly? I am Russell Anthony Heaven and yes that is really my name I am heading 60 at far too fast rate of knots but that doesn't stop me having a good time.

Yep that's me, looking a bit dorky but to be honest I don't like having my photo taken as a rule so there not many pictures of me around. Yes that is a Harley logo, OK so lets get something straight right from the get go I am not a one make snob I like all bikes it just happens that over the last few years (for years substitute decades) I have had a number of bike, Goldwings, three Harleys, A Valkyrie interstate and an Aprillia Mille, So as you can see there is a theme here....touring!! I love touring on two wheels in my opinion you see so much more on a bike than being stuck inside a can. I still have my 1999 Harley Davidson Springer softail.

Harriet the Harley like Doris is also a '99 vintage and we have been through a lot together and yes that is a tow bar and yes I do tow a trailer with her and have done all over France and Spain and parts of England...

As you can see I usually travel light!

I've done a few miles over the years so why a Divvie then? well I wanted something I could work on that was simple to fix didn't have a chain wouldn't cost the earth and that would still be able to tour across the continent and still be used to nip up the shops, that narrows it down a lot doesn't it?, I have done some homework and it seems these little gems will do huge mileages without too much trouble if looked after correctly,  in my youth I was always a Yamaha boy and my brother has had two of these bikes and...he wants another one,  In 2015 I took my then new Harley Ultra Limited to Barcelona to   the annual Barcelona Harley Days  Festival, my brother Dave wanted to come on the trip with me so he spent a lot of time and money n his 900 to get her ready for the 2,500 miles we were going to do.

Brothers mark 1 900

Unfortunately a few days before we were due to leave some bast*rd fu*k wits stole it and torched it we found it later like this only a few hundred yards from his home.

 So in the end we had to double up on my bike but we still had a good time and Dave has been on the lookout for another 900 ever since.

 So back to the plot after reading and hearing so many good things about the 900 Divvie I went looking and came across Doris the rest is history so they say, I will be picking her up in the next 7 to 10 days. I am looking forward to my first trip on her, more on that very soon. in the meantime I am now looking for a tank cover and a tank bag I am having a taller screen fitted and fender extenders put on I will also fit a power supply to  charge phones etc. and fit my sat nav.