Karman Continues

2012-01-30T16:50:00.003Z

The middle of winter, fast asleep on a soft bed in front of a roaring fire.

Cat bliss.

2012-01-02T10:33:00.002Z

2011-10-18T10:30:00.002+01:00

2011-05-31T14:41:00.005+01:00

A few random images from our recent run to the North West Coast of Scotland.

Return to Trabuco

2011-04-25T15:22:00.005+01:00

Eighteen months have slipped away since I visited our base in Spain. Last week Ali Charlie and I flew over for a few days, and despite there being a heatwave in the preceding week, we found mainly rain in Trabuco. The place hasn't changed much, if anything it seems to have been tidied up. Apparently the mayor is putting as much money in to public works as possible to deal with the recession.

We drove over to Nerja one day in search of the sun, and found the sea shimmering with a radiant turquoise.

A new Village sign had arrived.........and if we needed more evidence of the heavy rainfall, Iznajar was once again full for the first time in five years.

Diesel magic

2011-03-28T13:29:00.005+01:00

The Ford Focus has has a hard life, and recently after 108k miles I had to replace the clucth and flywheel. ouch! the best part of £900 moved from my account to the local garage who did a fine jobe for £300 less than the Ford dealer.

The car drives like new again, but the spiraling cost of diesel forced (£1.39 per litre) encouraged me me to examine how savings could be made.

The car is supposed to deliver up to 65mpg, but in real driving conditions, the best average I get is around 42, even with the lavish amounts of motorway driving I have to do. I once saw 52 mpg, by sticking at a 70mph for a few hundred miles, but that was very hard work.

I've read about remapping the ignition system, and heard that major gains could be had, but laziness prevented me from traking further. With the added incentive of high prices at the pumps I decided to re-visit, and rather than a re-map located a CR Tech box from Bluespark Automotive.

This is a piece of electronics that plugs into the Fuel inject circuit and re-interprets the signal to make the engine more efficient. The claim was 30% more power, which translates into economy because you don't need tyo feed the engine as much because it's performing more efficiently. I had my doubts but decided to give it a try.

It works. straight out of the box, The engine behaves as before, but there is definitely more oooomph when you put you foot down. My first trip down to Milton Keynes saw an average mpg of 62mpg at 70 - 80, and on Saturady I re-set the average figure on a 20 mile trip on the motorway and saw 70mpg! The average soon drops once short journeys and colds starts are indulged in, but the average around town is now 52mpg.

I wish I'd installed a long time ago.

2011-01-14T12:28:00.002Z

This week I finally found a restaurant in Northampton that serves good food. It's in the centre of the town on the ring road, and was a church some time ago. In fact it was one of the oldest churches in Northampton before being defrocked, and the town has grown up around it.

It was quiet when I arrived, and after been shown to my table I looked up and saw this ghostly figure perched in a window, high above the dining area.

Great food - I had soup followed by fish pie. I enjoyed it so much , I returned the following evening!

Removing the cold barrier.

2011-01-09T19:02:00.002Z

Today the sky was blue, and the temprature crept up to 6 degrees centigrade (where is that pesky degree symbol when you need it?). Previously it would have been too cold for riding, but today I broke with tradition and donned my christmas present from Ali, a set of Keis electrically heated vest, gloves and boot insoles.

At first I wasn't sure how effective the gloves and soles were - I could feel the heat on my back but everything else seemed just OK rather than hot. I changed the setting from medium to high, and set off up the M55. I cold still feel the heat from the vest but everything just seemed comfortable. This is some acheivement when you take into account the windchill factor that motorway speed brings, driving through the digits until they hurt.

After 50 miles I thought I need to see what it would be like without the heating, and after a couple of miles at 30mph, my fingers were hurtingto the point of being dangerous, so the experiment has been a success. I made my way home, and after 80 miles my legs began to complain, my hips seemed to freeze and discomfort penetrated my knees. Next time thermals will be worn.

After 95 miles, I returned home, sharing the last part of the journey on the M6 and M55 with a guy on a Triumph Rocket. As we pulled up at the last set of light I could see the wires leading into his gloves. Electric heating - it's the way to maximise the bright winter days and cure the blues.

I washed the bike down to get rid of any residual salt, and by the time I finished the cold was making me shiver - I wa no longer protected by the Keis gear!

Where did the last three months go?

2010-12-29T21:10:00.000Z

The last post was my Daughter leaving for Uni, and now she's back home, and my son is out at work, and the year is about to end, and 2011 is waiting to make it's debut.

Snow surprised December, and delivered a white Christmas, and after overstaying it's welcome, has almost disappeared. The seasonal colds and flu visited the house just as Grandad and Grandma arrived for the holiday, but it didn't prevent us having a great time. The enforced house arrest made the old folks restless, but it was far too slippery underfoot for them to walk out. We did have a stroll around the well- salted retail park on Boxing Day and Dad seemed very impressed with the iPad. If it had a camera built in, I think he'd go for it. Despite the press building up the day as the busiest retail event of the year, Blackpool was very, very, quiet.

Two more days left, then in to the New Year!

She's gone

2010-10-04T11:37:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we packed the car with most of what we thought Charlie would need. Defining "would need" proved to be emotive, but tempers were kept in check and we eventually set off on the 220 mile trip to Cambridge. The journey was uneventful, and we stopped for lunch at a branch of Nando's in Kettering.

Cambridge was busy, and we reached the entrance to the old part of town which is pedestrianised, and a traffic warden checked our document then lowered the bollards to allow us to drive up to Trinity College.

Charlie's digs were located on the 5th floor of a nearby building, but fortunately there was a lift. The only snag was the Uni didn't have enough Ethernet cables until Monday, so after dropping the belongings, we set off to park the car, then find her a cable to connect to the internet. This was purely selfish, as I didn't want to wait until Monday to skype. All the shops had sold out, so I left Charlie and Ali and went further afield, eventually finding a Maplins and the right length cable.

On our way back to Charlie's room, she nudged me as I passed someone, who turned out to be Jimmy Carr. It's a shame I didn't notice him, we could have had a conversation to determin we were not related..........

We left Charlie with a guy from the year above who had been assigned to look after her. She had lots to do, and we were holding things up. It wasn't a sad parting, the accommodation was good, the town is beautiful and she is very well placed, so we know she'll have a great time.

Wow!!!!!

2010-08-19T08:50:00.000+01:00

Charlies' A level results were revealed just after 6 am this morning. The school asked her to go in early because it was the only time they could get the local press there.

A * in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, and an A in Physics. She has secured her place at Cambridge!

The Nowhere Boy

2010-08-01T14:12:00.000+01:00

We watched The Nowhere Boy, the biopic about the young John Lennon last night. I warned Ali that she would probably cry, and the film did indeed leave her a wreck.

It was very well put together, and the feel of 1958 was pretty accurate (even though I wasn't around at the time, I spotted the strange fences that were common when I was young, oddly shaped lengths of wood bound together with wire, and buses and bus shelters that rang true. I don't recall ever seeing anyone hitch a ride on the top of double deckers though, but I was on the east, and who knows what those scousers got up to!

The tale of loss and betrayal John felt is well documented, but this film brought the relationship with John, his mother and Mimi into sharp focus.

Well worth watching.

Tan Hill Inn

2010-07-26T17:11:00.001+01:00

The annual meeting of Sportster UK took place over the weekend. We all agreed that the group should now be called Ex-Sportster UK, as there wasn't a single example of Harley's lean machine in attendance, but that's not the point, the group provided a common point for friendships to develop, and after ten years we still gather.

This year the meeting took place at the Tan Hill Tavern. The weather hadn't been good, in fact it's been very wet since the modern day rain making-spell (also known as a hose pipe ban) was cast. It didn't stop the progress through the land from points as far afield as Perthshire and Derbyshire on a variety of machines though. Rob Pete and were the first to arrive, travelling a paltry 90 miles, and we were soon joined by the brothers Andy and Richard from Derby, who had the fore site to book rooms in advance. Not too long later two Ultraglides pulled up outside, and Jim and Graham from Perthshire had arrived to complete our gathering.

As we were erecting the tents, a gang of guys pulled out a chest fridge, obviously full of beer, from a old red transit and six of them carried it to a large tent/pavillion in the camping area. Further inquiries revealed we were sharing with a stag party, so at that point the possibility of a good nights sleep in the tents, which was always a remote chance disappeared completely

The Golden Sheep ran out, then the Black Sheep, so Old Perculier was quaffed while we waited for the barrels to be replaced. The food was very good, Rob and I choosing steak & a pint, for £13. The steaks were enormous and cooked to perfection.

An unexpected highlight was the fact that live music was scheduled, and the blue grass band Harpeth Rising played their final UK gig before returning to the States. An interesting combination, drunken Yorkshiremen (the stag parties) and a folk band, which resulted in men throwing themselves around the room in a desperate attempt to dance, which resulted in the expected spilt drinks, and much merriment.

Eventually time was called, much to everyone's surprise, but presumably as a way to control the stags, and we retired to the tent. Rob was sharing my tent which claims to be a two man, single skinned affair, but when two men are in it I soon began to doubt the description. The Inn is so high, it spends most of its time shrouded by clouds, and this night was no exception. I woke around 3am and apart from wanting to have a pee, noticed that my foot felt wet. The end of the sleeping bag had made contact with the wall of the tent and drawn the moisture, clinging in droplets to the tent, through onto the bag and then onto my foot. I rolled onto my side, curled up and went back to sleep until 6am, when the call of nature was too great to be ignored.

The sky was blue and the sun shone as I made my way to the toilet, realising that it was unlikely that I would get back to sleep. There were a few people up, and I decided to take advantage of the peaceful hours and strode out over the moor to take in the views over to the east.

Much later we forced our way in the pub for a much needed breakfast, and while enjoying the Tan Hill Sausage, I looked up and spotted the web cam ( http://www.purepcs-store.co.uk/tanhill/) . We speculated on the possiblity of viewers around the world taking bets on who would finish the meal first......

Andy and Richard left first, then Jim and Graham, and eventually after much more tea, Pete Rob and I completed packing and hit the road, heading down hill in a north-westerly direction to find the Hartside Top Cafe. Pete was riding a a newly acquired hard-tailed chopper , with no rear suspension and no front mudguard. He also hadn't established how much fuel the tank held, or how much fuel he had used, so finding a petrol station was a priority As we closed in on the target, the rain started. Having no front mudguard is fine when there is no water on the surface, but when it rains, Pete found that the front wheel fired a stream of water into his face. Not good. After re-fuelling, Pete decided to take a slow ride south rather than join Rob and I on the search for the Cafe.

Hartside Top Cafe is even higher than Tan Hill, at 1904 feet above sea level. The Tomtom took us through a variety of landscapes, then we began to climb, higher and higher into a cloud, the pattern of the weekend. We found the Cafe, full of motorcycles and cyclist, and warmed ourselves up with the traditional fare of steak pie & chips, then climbed aboard the bikes for the journey home, hoping the temprature would increase as we dropped down. It did.

As we passed by the Lake District, I suggested Rob could show me his new love, a sailing boat moored on Windermere, so we made our way there and found some mutual friends, Jon and Avril on their boat, moored near Rob's. As we chatted a Spitfire tore through the sky above the lake, part of an air display taking place.

Eventually we made it home, tired, but happy.......and dry!

The disappearing ticket

2010-07-08T18:20:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I tuned into Danny Baker on Radio 5. I didn't realise he broadcast on R5, so it was a pleasant surprised, marred only by the lack of music - his old shows on Radio 1 (or it could have been 2, so long ago I can't remember) were always entertaining.

One of the topics he was investigating and ranting about was how things can actually disappear. Common objects, like a cat walking out in the snow, leaving prints, then nothing. The cat in question re-appeared some time later, but the owner never found out how and why it disappeared. One explanation offered was that it was picked up by a large bird of prey, possibly an owl, who managed to carry it some distance before letting go. We will never know.

With this in the back of my mind I had to drive into Blackpool to find something, and chose to park in the Houndshill multi- story, and old concrete monstrosity that has had some work done to try and make it serviceable, but still has the worse one way system ever to plague a build intended to house cars, along with very narrow ramps that make ascending and descending an experience fraught with expectation of hearing the thud of a wheel mounting the kerb and then falling down 5 inches. I drove up, collected my ticket at the entrance and stuck it in my mouth, as you do, while I drove in and closed the window. I then found a queue of cars while someone crawled around looking at the gaps in the bays to see if their VW would fit in between. Eventually I moved on and climbed ever higher seeking a bay. On the roof, there was plenty of space. I slotted in and prepared for the Blackpool shopping experience:

mobile phone - check
wallet - check
car park ticket - ?

No sign of the ticket. It had been in my mouth, but wasn't there anymore. I must have taken it out and put it somewhere. Pockets checked, negative. All the possible places where I might have put it in the car? Negative. I could feel the effects of the heat ray of panic begining to turn on me. How could a ticket disappear? I tried to check under the seat but there wasn't enough space to fully open the driver side door, so I moved out of the bay I was in and found another bay with no neigbours. On my knees I continued the search, but found only a pencil. How did a pencil get in the car? I never use them. Never mind.

Nothing on the floor, I prised the joints in the drivers seat apart, nothing. This was was worrying on two fronts. 1) How was it possible to lose a ticket in a car and 2) how much would I be charged for this foolishness.

Having exhausted the search at the drivers side, I walked around and opened the passengers side. Nothing on the floor or under the carpet. Then in desperation I checked the plastic trim on the door side of the seat and there was the parking ticket stuck deep in the trim. I've no idea how it could have got, but it must have been down to either a freak gust of wind while the window was open or poltergeist activity, because I couldn't lean over far enough to bury the ticket where it was hiding while I was in the drivers seat.

Relieved, I set out on what was to be an unsuccessful shopping trip, but I continued to check that the mischievous ticket was still fastened in my jacket pocket all the time I was away from the car....................

LEDs

2010-06-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

Some one commented on the horn cover of the bike a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that it would be more impressive if it illuminated. It's in the shape of a skull. part of the zombie/destroyer range of accessories. I had wanted to replace the chrome cover with something black, and this was the first one I found.

The idea lay dormant for awhile, then finally prompted me to research LEDs. This is the result:

Fathers Day

2010-06-22T18:21:00.000+01:00

I woke not toooo early last Sunday. Saturday had been written off after a Friday night out with the lifeboat crew. Too many beers and too much curry, but we were celebrating the impending nuptials of one of the crew. A good evening in the Taps in Lytham and the Red Fort restaurant. It was followed by an aching head on Saturday morning and a lethargic day while I re-adjusted.

Back to Sunday. The weather was good again and I wondered down stairs to be greeted by presents from Charlie and Tom. Once Tom was packed off to work, washed, fed and dressed, roughly in that order, I set off to visit my Dad, over in Driffield.

The 140 mile journey can be shortened by going cross country, but I thought it best to spend more time visiting than travelling, so stuck with the motorway and arrived in just over two hours.

Mum and Dad were pleased to see me, and spent sometime talking over how everyone was, checking Dad's laptop, which was running fine, then we decided to go further east to visit my Sister and Brother in Law in Bridlington.

By half past four, I was totally coffee and tea'd out and decided I needed to be setting off back home to spend some time with my family.

The weather was still fine and warm, and even though the traffic was heavy, and someone had overturned their caravan on the York bypass, I made pretty good time and was home by 8:30, all the better for having communed with the bike for a few hours and 300 hundred miles. It was nice to get back without feeling cold, and the bike had flown well, and I felt good enough to go for another couple of hours. Oh well, another time maybe. A good meal and a bottle of wine waited for me.

A good day.

Beautiful weather in May?

2010-05-22T20:04:00.001+01:00

The forecast was good, so I decided to get some riding in today. I left her indoors slumbering, and jumped on the bike unsure of any destination. It was warm, comfortable and bright, so I took the M55 and the M6 to the junction with the A59, which has to be one of my favourite roads for biking. I landed in Leeds by noon, and decided to call on a friend who is intending on holidaying in Thailand, to ask if he was prepared to sign up for the revolution.

He wasn't in, so I climbed aboard again, and made my way to Castleford, for no good reason other than thinking about where I could go next. I decided to surprise my friend Andy over in Hull, as it was his birthday. The sun beat down and the temperature rose, but the journey was fine with the bike beating out the its melody of power pulses. When I arrived in Newland Park, Abigail, Andy's daughter told me they had gone out on the bike! A quick nosy around Sutton in East Hull, then I decided to call on some other friends who live out east in Old Ellerby, Ann and Derek. This time the call was successful, and we passed a couple of hours in the garden, catching up with events.The clock headed towards 4pm, and it was time to make a move. I said my goodbyes to everyone then headed towards Beverley, then Malton, Helmsley, Thirsk and back to the A59 to traverse the Pennines, stopping at the Cross Keys in East Marton for a pint of Blonde Witch from the Skipton brewery, before making my way home.

Deeper into the damage.

2010-03-02T15:59:00.000Z

The next step was to remove the clutch, crankshaft sprocket and primary chain to find out why the jackshaft wasn't returning.

Without removing the clutch, there wasn't enough clearance to take the jackshaft out, so it had to come off. The crankshaft sprocket is securely attached with a 1 1/2" nut, and the clutch with a 1 3/16" nut, and I had neither. Ten days later and I had acquired both tools and braved the sub zero temperatures to move to the next stage. After some heaving, the clutch, chain a crankshaft sprocket came off, and at last I was able to look into the housing of the jackshaft.

The mystery was revealed. The oil seal above had been installed incorrectly, with a lip that should have been facing the gearbox, projecting in to the primary instead, and preventing the jackshaft returning and the keeping the starter engaged. Inspection of the gaskets also highlighted that the clowns at Southport, while claiming to use OEM parts had used pattern parts.

Time to gather all the bits that I needed to get the bike back on the road. The following weekend, armed with gaskets and oil seals the primary went back together, and this time the starter retracted, but didn't have the power to turn the engine properly, irrevocably damaged by the run home from Southport. Another week slipped by while a replacement was procured. but at last the beast fired up and sounded as sweet as ever. Re-assembling the bike also provided clues as to why the business had made such a mess of what should have been a simple repair.

On replacing the oil seal the instructions advise that the splines on the clutch must be taped over before the Inner case is passed over the main shaft, or the oil seal will be damaged. It also stresses that the jack shaft oil seal must be installed with the lip towards the gearbox. The "business" don't use workshop manuals..............

Well the "business" have taken over £700 from me, £600 worth of parts and labour from Preston Harley Davidson, wrecked my starter motor - another £350, and failed abysmally to effect the repair they were contracted to deliver. When I began work on the problem the repair took me no more than 4 hours in total, and I've had to re-do everything the "business" in Southport did, and more. It's a sad indictment of the motorcycle business when anyone can claim to deliver a service without being qualified to do so.

Normal service resuming....................

2010-01-01T19:13:00.000Z

It seems like a lifetime since I last blogged, and three months have slipped by. It was good to hear from readers who were concerned about the sudden and unexpected void.

The unexpected hiatus was due to the escalation of the dispute between myself and a motorcycle "business" in Southport, a self proclaimed independent specialist in Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Resolution has not been possible so its time to get back to where I was. I'm happy to share the details of the dispute with this business if it saves anyone else falling foul of them . Frosty the owner decided not to buy the bike, and I engaged solicitors through my insurance company, who took two months to examine the case, then advise that whilst civil action would be possible, it would need the employment of an expert witness to guarantee success. Instead they suggested that a letter from them would persuade him to end the deadlock. Once again he refused.

The case is technical and requires an understanding of how the component parts work together, and indeed, are likely to fail. The main piece of evidence ironically is the the photograph Snowman emailed through to me after I collected the bike. I asked for the adjuster and he refused to hand over my property, but emailed this photo through for me.
Here's the photo, which demonstrates not only that no one at the business can operate a camera, but also that they didn't understand how the chain tensioner worked:

I've circled the springs installed in the device, and a great deal of empty space where the inner spring should be. The tensioner requires two springs of the same length to be installed for it to provide the correct amount of tension for it to work. The photo above shows the inner spring is less than half the height of the outer spring. I obtained replacements, something which was beyond the capability of the "workshop" crew, and here is how the original springs look at a similar distance and angle:

Is this conclusive? No.

However the circumstance of the "failure" of the unit is worth considering. The automatic tensioner went in before the last trip to Spain, and performed flawlessly right up to the bike entering the workshop. On the day I first took the bike over to the business, I saw the tensioner dismantled on the bench. This was before the "spannerman" who was working on the bike, knocked his coffee over and before I was told the workshop didn't have the bearing in stock, so I had to leave the bike with them.

When I picked up the bike, within 10 miles the clattering started, which I now believe was because because only the outer spring of the chain tensioner was taking the strain alone rather than working with the inner spring, and so it failed. This wasn't considered by the staff and management of the business, instead they allegedly spent hours working on the bike looking for other explanations that could justify the damaged seal and tensioner.

What else do we have? Well, there was the original explanation of the leak as being caused by porous cases, which they manage to disprove themselves, and then the allegation that the primary chain had stretched, only to be disproved by the business when they installed an new, manual and cheap chain tensioner. We also have the days when the workshop desperately tried to assert that the primary drain plug was at fault, but this line was finally dropped when I scanned the factory manual pages over and the plug was installed correctly. The manual also specifies that when replacing the oil seal, the splines on the mainshaft have to be covered with tape to prevent them tearing the oil seal when the inner case is replaced over the shaft. I don't think this happened, so the oil leak returned.

The rest of the complaint I guess is the unreasonable time taken, the absolute denial that they'd got anything wrong, and then charging me to correct mistakes. And no apology.

Here is the bill that desperately attempts to justify turning a job that should have been three hours at the most in to an 18 hour re-build! Click on the picture to view the details.

Points to note as well as the ridiculous amount of time charged;

1)The charge for fuel is more than the bike can hold, and is especially surprising because the tank was full when I left it in August, and empty when I picked it up. 340 miles worth of testing???

2) The charge includes oil seals. When I took it back I told Frosty that the oil was coming from the seal again, but the suggestion that the seal had been damaged was rejected. It looks like it has been replaced again.

There are no winners in this episode, the "business" may feel proud that they took money from Preston Harley Davidson for the repair, then a further £703 from me, but this will remain as warning for anyone considering using the business and hopefully they will look elsewhere and find somewhere that uses qualified, trained personnel.

I've now replaced the horn casing that was mysteriously damaged during the stay in Southport and have dismantled the starter from the bike, had it tested and the report is that it should work, but it is worn. Back on the bike though, the jack shaft isn't returning from the clutch basket, indicating that the jackshaft hasn't been assembled correctly when the "business" re-assembled the primary case. What a surprise!

This is the horn - the top bolt had been removed, placing all the weight on the bottom mount. The horn fell off as I rode through Lytham.

.

Back in Trabuco

2006-07-20T18:15:00.000+01:00

The first flight from Blackpool airport was not the best of experiences, because of poorly organized and/or under staffing of Monarch Airways staff. What should have been a relaxing evening turned into a long wait to book onto the aircraft. The three women operating the booking procedure seemed incapable of completing one full booking without stopping and walking away from their desk to fetch something – pens, tape, or anything that gave them an excuse to walk away.

We had intended to eat before boarding, but despite being 5th in line, it took over an hour so the meal became a hastily eaten sandwich. Once on the plane, I was again disappointed to find that Monarch offered “extra leg room seats” at an extra cost of £15. This “extra” space is achieved at the expense of the other seating arrangements. The seats are so close together that it’s difficult to get a bag down on the floor. The seats are also poorly designed and by the end of the flight I was very uncomfortable.

Have you ever noticed how intolerant of other people you become waiting for your luggage at the carousel? Why don’t people keep small children away from the conveyor belt? I bet a few kids have sustained injury from heavy bags being swung off the belt. Maybe it me………..

The queues for car hire were long, but Ali had snuck ahead and gone straight through to the car desk, so that was not a problem. The car had been upgraded to a Focus, I haven’t had chance to check out the specification yet but it drives nicely.

We reached our Spanish home at around 2:30am local time, and anticipation and expectations of the recently completed building work were high. We were not disappointed. Once again our Spanish builder Anastasio has delivered.

What had been a muddy, overgrown piece of wasted hillside, is now an accessible, two tiered sun terrace, the lower of the two has complete privacy and complete sun sunshine, while the top terrace is shaded by overhanging pine trees and commands outstanding views of the village, valley and mountains. The work isn’t 100% complete, because the balustrade and hand rail of the steps is not yet in place, but apart from that the guys have worked a miracle to get this far in the limited time frame we provided. The skanky old bathroom has been replaced and the room re-tiled and a new shower, toilet and basin installed. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t persuade the water heaters to do what they were designed to do though. A job for later in the day I think.

Ambitions realised

2006-05-10T20:30:00.000+01:00

9th May.

First, a rant about wifi access, and they way ISPs dominate and dictate who can access a service paid for by an individual. Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few days. I had hoped to share Ann’s service,and then Jane’s, but it was not to be.

Ann uses a Spanish Vodafone 3G card, so really it was understandable that it wouldn’t work. I didn’t try using her card in my PC,instead I hoped to share the connection using a network cable – no go.

Jane’s was a different situation. She has a modem provided by AOL, and it seemed the only way to share this was to install the AOL software, which for me was a step too far. Surprisingly, it wouldn’t even allowme to log onto the (AOL) blog page, I could view the actual page, but was denied the log in script, so I couldn’t update it!

Anyway, on to the events of yesterday and today.

I had a really good nights sleep in the tent, only disturbed by the moonlight shining down, reassuring me that the weather had cleared. In the morning it was beautiful day, and the Pyrenees looked majestic in the hinterland, capped with snow, . No chance of breakfast soI broke camp and got out on the road. The stretch of motorway that runs from the border up to Beziers was littered with wind socks, so I guess it is renowned for high winds, and today was no exceptions, by the time I hit the turn off for Beziers and the A75, I was already feeling battered by head winds,but the journey north up the A75 left me thinking I had grown weaker(er) overnight, as the wind forced my head back and even worse, tried to force my legs out from the bike.

This stretch of road is now unbelievable. The last time I made this journey, vast stretches were under construction. It’s now finished and the road surface is perfect, and even better it is toll free. The road rises to over 800meters above sea level, and the scenery is stunning. What was concerning me as I made this journey was that the high winds would make the Millau viaduct impassable. I don’t like heights, but the last time I passed this way I had to go through the town of Millau,and could see this enormous construction dominating the landscape and since that day I have watched the progress of the viaduct and looked forward to making the crossing. Today was the day.

Finally the viaduct came into view and I was relieved it had a 110kph speed limit. I slowed down to 90kph anyway, to enjoy the view of the supporting towers, which really are a work of art, and the town, far below. The only disappointment was the viewing area is not completed, so I couldn’t stop to take photographs.If you haven’t seen it, google “Millau” and you’ll find pictures.

The only stretch of the A75 that I used that was subject to a toll was the bridge, and at €3.50 it was worth it.

After this highlight I left the motorway as I had been gradually chilled by the winds, and was feeling hungry. I stopped at a the Hotel des Voyageurs in Pont de Salars and enjoyed a Entrecote Borderlaise steak and chips, followed by a coffee, and felt warm and ready to go on.

The day grew warmer as I worked my way to Jane and Steve’s, through Rodez, Figeac and Rocomadour, where we had visited a few years ago with our friends Rob and Linda. Riding off the motorway on the N roads does not make the same progress, but is much more rewarding, and reminded of how fine the south of France is.They know how to do forests. Mile after mile, as far as the eye can see when you're on one of the higher view points. I was enjoying the bike, it is behaving flawlessly, and I discovered that while I don’t have to change down to overtake, when I do, it makes for the horizon at an impressive pace. It also spins the back wheel if too much throttle is given when pulling away.

I arrived at Junction 42 of the A20, around 5:40, and if I had followed Jane’s instructions, I would have been there at my predicted time of arrival, but I overshot by 15 minutes. Not bad.

Steve, Jane Dave and Naomi were all home and greeted me. The Barn is unbelievable, and has enormous potential. This place is huge and the family are slowly working to modernise and add the creature comforts. Progress is steaming on, and Steve and Jane are working with the myriad of organisations to ring the changes.

The highlight of the evening was provided by Dave who prepared a superb meal of slowly cooked spicy pork Puerco Pibil called , made famous by Rodriguez in an early film featuring Johnny Depp. Apparently, if the meal is as good as it can be, you have to kill the chef, but Dave was spared.

Many thanks to Jane and Steve for making me so welcome.Progress on the barn can be found at http://journals.aol.co.uk/janeswardrobe/RamseysBarn/

It was Jane who inspired this blog; it seems sensible to post news once rather than to a host of friends and relatives, so once again a big thanks to the lady with the bruised leg!.