Here we are in October and I have still not managed to get out on the bike since the storms as they put the roadwork schedule back by a couple of weeks so still not had the opportunity to try out the flat seat mod that I completed last month. On the upside the road works have progressed from...
This...
...to this
The problem is they put heavy barriers each end of the road to stop anyone driving on it but! when it got to the point in the second photo you can see the barriers were changed for light plastic ones so.... early Sunday morning I got up and moved them out of the way and went for a 470 mile road trip.
Still hard at it finishing the roadworks!!
So early Sunday morning I set off on an epic one day road trip to Consuegra and back which is near Toledo, and is famous for the windmills from the Don Quixote book and as I am reading the aforementioned book at the moment it seemed like a good idea and of course I hadn't been out the bike for a while.. There is a cross country route but according to google it would take me over 6 hours I will do that route one day but I only had one day to do this in so I took a shorter route, not all motorways but A roads, I stopped off a couple of times for fuel and liquid top ups it was hot. Having said that I wore my new mesh jacket for the first time and it really worked well, too well! It was about 23 degrees when I left home but the Plains of La Mancha are a fair bit above sea level around 1000 metres so at one point I was actually cold brrr!! but it soon heated up to the mid 30's.
New Summer mesh jacket
It took me about 3 and a bit hours to get there I was taking it steady trying to enjoy the scenery as I went, I am glad I made the trip as I had seen some photo's but none of them do the place justice if I am to be honest, anyway here are some of my efforts.
Tried the panorama setting on my phone
A little video clip
It was brilliant to be back out on the bike put a big smile back on my face and I have to say the flat seat mad works, it's not perfect as I don't believe any saddle is that good, but boy did it make a difference? yet another reason to belong to an owners group the wealth of information is endless.
Trying to become a member of the Motor Cycle News Ride 5000 club means I have to complete 5000 miles in a 12 month period, because of the over-run on the road works I have gotten a bit behind schedule but I am getting back on track, the trip was 756.1 km which is 470 miles.
Again converting km's to miles I now have around 689 miles to go to complete my 5000 which is now looking far more likely than a week ago. there is always a down side to everything and on this trip as I approached home it was very very hot 36 degrees so I had my visor open just a little bit and you know what is coming..something like a bee hit me at around 80 mph got under my visor and under my glasses, dam it hurt I had to stop for a while and try and wash my eyes out with water then hobble home at walking pace where my wife Lorni sorted me out, I knew it was good job marrying a nurse.
The day after and I am still a little sore but I emptied my jacket pockets of petrol receipts and got out my calculator and worked out my MPG from litres and km's and astounding as it may sound Tina is returning me nearly 58 mpg not too shabby for big heavy girl. I am well pleased.That gives me over 250 mile range which is something I have always sought after...Excellent!
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