Last weekend we decided to ride to Le Mans. Our friend and former team-mate Steve Mercer was racing in the 24hour Motorcyle Endurance World Championship and we wanted to go and cheer him on. I also wanted to see what the difference between National and World Endurance racing is really like.
It’s the first long journey since we bought the new bike, and in fact, the longest journey we’ve ever doneon a bike so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
We got an early start on the Friday to get to Folkestone for the EuroTunnel train to Calais. It was just getting light when we left and it was really foggy, which wasn’t particularly nice. But we managed to avoid too much traffic on the motorway and got to the train terminal with time for a quick breakfast in Leon.
I love going on the channel tunnel train, it’s so easy and the journey is so quick. They gave all the bikers our own carriage and before we knew it we were the other side, having to remember which side of the road to ride on.
We travelled south from Calais, stopping at Abbeville, Rouen and somewhere about an hour outside of Le Mans. We got a lovely steak-frittes at a service station and had a few coffees to keep us going on the way. The BMW is very comfortable, but there’s no doubt about it, Le Mans is a little bit further than we’d kinda realised. Or rather, I’m not really sure I’d considered what 6 and a half hours on a bike would feel like. Numb bum!
Thankfully the weather was beautiful and I had lots of amazing scenery to distract me. You can do a lot of thinking on the back of a motorbike but I definately need some sort of voice activated recorder so I can remember my genius ideas after I’ve got off! Mind you, I was also doing a lot of very bad singing, so not sure I’d want that recorded…
We finally arrived in Le Mans about four o’clock, quite stiff and tired, but otherwise excited to be there and excited to have finally made it. I didn’t get bored once and it was a great adventure.