Hey guys, I haven't really got a lot to say
for Silverstone, but I did manage to stay away from James
and Chris at least. I kinda new it was going to be a tough
weekend after day one, this thing is such a handful around
this goat track. It was like riding a wild bull. The thing
has a bloody mind of its own! I was also able to keep my ass
on the seat as frustrating as two 10th positions
can be. So I was pretty happy to walk away from this one,
and try not to look back. The next day we were off to travel
world to get a few minor things done to the bus, we then
jumped in a cab to shoot us down to Birmingham Airport, and
catch a plane to Andorra. The cabby was insane, he must have
been late 60's super nice super talkative and super bloody
sonic. We barely dripped below a 100. Record time, record
price and again another happy customer.
Out visit to Andorra this time was to be my
last as an official resident moving over to Switzerland to
live with Isabelle in Zurich. So there was plenty of loose
ends to be dealt with and plenty of signing off to do, which
kept us pretty busy until Friday. (nackered actually). The
small nations Olympics were also on which basically brought
the already crappy traffic situation to complete stand
still. By the time we hit the border on Friday to exit
Andorra I was pretty anxious to open up our little Golf
rental rocket. About 10 km into our 150 km grand-tourism
track to Barcelona, I notice this bright red Ferrari
practically welded to the back of our car, 5 km later he
tried to remove the paint from our car as he roared on by, 2
seconds later the race was on!
I wasn't doing to badly, I wouldn't say I'm
the greatest driver, I think he was just particularly shit.
He was good on the straights, tough "tool"! Half an hour
later I got the bid nudge and if I continued my antics I
would be wearing Isabelle's lunch! So it was back into relax
mode, and let the red beast disappear into the horizon. It
turned out we'd done pretty good time so we could go and
grab a bight to eat down on the port of Barcelona. After
devouring something that defiantly didn't look like the
pictures we even had time to take a stroll around and check
out some of the yachts. We came across this massive cruise
ship; well you couldn't bloody miss it, 450 feet long with
security about and even a reception area. As we were walking
down towards it we sore a guy coming our way who had just
left the boat, so being a noisy bugger I grabbed him.
"Excuse me mate, is that for holiday cruises?" "No this is
privately owned by Larry Oracle and is worth 500 million
euro", in his German accent. All that fell out of my mouth
at that point was a big "wholly shit!" and "shall we leave
now?"
This was the most amazing boat I'd ever seen!
After half an hour of dwelling it was time to get our plane
back to England pick up the bus and head down to our 2 day
test in Magny Cours. My mates like to call them track days!
On the way passed Paris we stopped at Disney Land with the
Motorhome and watched the rain fall from the sky four 2
days. No fairy floss, no hot dogs but we did get to catch up
with our good friend Harry and went for a really tasty meal.
Thanks H.!
The next days we cruised off down to Magny
Cours to get organised for our test. It's really a relief we
can finally get to a decent track although late in the
season and get some solid track time under my belt. It's
been a bloody war between me and the bike. So I'm really
hoping we can sort things out and get back on track. At the
test we had a number of things to test, swing arms,
linkages, shocks basically everything that has anything to
do with the rear end of the bike, oh and Pirelli have
brought a heap of new test tyres, although not really
important right now, but definitely important for the
future.
As for the bike I could basically tick all
the boxes, the big girl was beginning to work in the way
I've wanted all along. So all smiles from this end! And for
the tyres, well some were better, some weren't, we'll just
have to wait and see what comes next. But it was really
great to see what's coming around the corner, and hopefully
your input turns into something.
After the test I jumped back in the bus and
rolled out. 6 hours and a couple of Red Bulls later, I found
myself back in Switzerland, unable to do the last 130 km. So
I slept on the noisiest road side services on the planet.
The next day I was pretty messy, but I managed to crawl the
rest of the way home. The next couple of days were all about
R&R. I did absolutely nothing; well I did go for a massage
and slept a lot. The following week I kept things pretty
light, plenty of stretching, a bit of walking and turned
some wheels on my pushy. This week on Monday I'll be beading
down to Misano. It's about 700 km so it will probably take
about 7 hours, a nice evening cruise. Than I just hang out
at the beach for a couple of days and then head up to the
track, inflate my blow up pool and get organised for the
week-end.
I gotta say I'm pretty pumped to see how
these new parts are going to work on a track like Misano.
Hot, bumpy and slick. Can't wait! Gotta go, c ya...!