Day 32 Stats and Reflections

Wednesday 7 August 2019

Day break on the North Sea

So that’s it for another Eurobimble. It is good to only have 45 miles to ride home from the ferry port in Hull. The usual 250 mile ride north from the tunnel up to Yorkshire is always boring and usually raining.

A Swiss girl on a Triumph tags along with us. We got talking as we waited to disembark and she didn’t seem to know where she was going. She is heading for a female-only bike rally in the Peak District but first she has booked a few days at Squires cafe for some other event. 

Squires is a biker hangout quite local to us so we suggest she follows us and we will put her on the right road after breakfast.

We take the route over the Humber Bridge and then the pretty road along the estuary to Scunthorpe where we get on the M180/M18 for the final leg into Doncaster. Our last stop before home is becoming something of a tradition. Breakfast in the cafe in Sandal Park, just a few hundred metres form home. Never has a full English tasted so good.

We point the Swiss girl up the A19 in the direction of Squires and then that’s it. Washing, cleaning and back to normality.

******** A FEW STATS *********

Distance travelled is 6,152 kilometres (3,822 miles) according to the TomTom. The bike thinks she has travelled a couple of hundred miles further. This is always the case. Maybe I rode some miles with the Satnav switched off.

Total fuel cost £478.12

Hotels paid for on credit card £299.60

All other accommodation costs, food, incidentals and tolls paid for in cash. I took €1,500 with me and came home with €70 euros plus change in my pocket. So €1430 which at today’s rate is £1,305

Overall cost of the 32 day bimble is therefore £2,082.72, or £65 per diem.

********  FINAL THOUGHTS  ********

From the viewpoint that I started out leading three other riders and came home with just one it looks like a very unsuccessful bimble this year. But if you discount factors I had no control over then this view changes.

So all in all another great tour. Neither of us fell off or crashed into anything. Zero mechanical issues except one fill up with contaminated petrol, and finally no medical issues or illnesses.

I always try to include regions and places of interest we have not visited before and this year was no exception. Although the original plan was to show Mick’s son Sean and his mate Jason some of the very best motorcycling areas in the Alps we adapted the plan after those two left the tour.

New to us this year was the Vercors region of France and a few of the spectacular balcony roads around that region. Special mention for the amazing Lacets de Montvernier road and Combe Laval.

There are so many well known pass roads to ride in the Alps, but all around them there are wonderful small roads that meander up and down the mountains. It is always a bit of a lottery what sort of road surface you will find on these small roads; sometimes they are very rough but occasionally they are quite perfect. And they are invariably almost traffic-free, so all that winter planning and Google Earth searches really pays off.

This year we found new and interesting roads in the Piedmont and Lombardy provinces of Italy.  But I think the prize must go to the northern borderlands of Slovenia up near the Austrian border to the north and east of the more famous Triglav National Park where most of the tourists go. Riding through the forests and gorges of this sublime area you meet no traffic on the hill tops and minor passes. The roads are good and the scenery is spectacular.

The Nockalmstrasse in Carinthia has become obligatory whenever we are in that region of Austria. It remains my favourite biking road in the Alps. 

The Bierhotel Loncium has also now become a must-visit watering hole (should that be beering hole?)

Each time we visit a mountain pass that we know well it is interesting to see what kind of condition it is in now. Resurfacing is a constant and necessary task for the authorities in the Alps.

This year a favourite pass from previous trips, the Naßfeld, between Austria and Italy has to be demoted from The list of best roads, it is badly in need of resurfacing. Meanwhile the northern side of the Wurzenpass between Austria and Slovenia has improved beyond all recognition with a new and perfect tarmac coating since our last visit.

Top pass award has to go to Passo Giau out of Cortina d’Ampezzio. We rode this long pass three times without the luggage. The first time was before 8am and the roads were completely deserted. The surface is pretty much perfect and you lose count of the number of perfect camber, single apex hairpins on both sides.

Note: when planning it always pays to see where the big cycle races (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia) have been or are going last year and this year. Guaranteed perfect roads, big business this Lycra lads stuff.

So that’s it for this year. Planning for next year will start very soon. I now have around 60 hours of GoPro video to review and edit. I will also be revising and adding to this blog, turning it into Day1 to Day32 order and adding video links and extra photos.

I also intend to set up a YouTube channel to for my videos. 
<Now set up. Search for 'Dave's Eurobimbles' on YouTube> 

Thanks to all for reading my ramblings.

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