Recent Trip To UK & Road King Trip

 

 Expat Living In Almerimar - Good To Be Home: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well I am back from the UK having picked up the Road King Classic, watched the Guinness Premiership Final, enjoyed all the technology and ticked off pretty much everything on my list of things to do when back in the UK.

All in all it was a pretty hectic, but fun trip back. I thought that in terms of this post I would give a summary and then more detail:

Summary

Thursday – flew Almería to Manchester, called in at the Manchester Harley Davidson dealership in Stockport, then headed down to parents in Stoke on Trent
Friday – day hanging out with parents, fixing Garmin Zumo 550 to the Road King Classic (failed with the power attempt though), and bought some food (introduced to and hated Tesco self service) to bring back to Almerimar
Saturday – watched Man Utd retain the Premiership in a pub close to Twickenham, then watched the Guinness Premiership final with my parents and @jaffamaddin
Sunday – day sorting out parents technology (iMac, MacBook, Apple TV, Mac mini, iPhone)
Monday – meeting in Aylsebury with Ranieri PR then a curry with parents in Rugeley
Tuesday – ride down to Portsmouth. Couple of glasses of wine with Twitter friend @Boogaloo1 then ferry overnight to Santander
Wednesday – ferry and a 200km ride down to Burgos
Thursday – 800km ride down from Burgos

In Detail

In addition to my usual excessive Tweeting and Twit Pic updates I did take some photos and video of the trip.

Day 1 – Almería airport, Harley Davidson Stockport (Manchester) and parents

Wasn’t a particularly early start and I certainly didn’t have much to pack other than all the technology mentioned above, so it was pretty easy to get ready and head off:

I have always liked Almería airport, well as much as you can enjoy any airport! The fact that it is so small means that it is easy to get around, and it doesn’t have a lot of over priced shops selling stuff that you don’t need to tempt to you. The food is reasonable and not overly expensive, and you certainly don’t have too far to walk to security, departure or your plane. Sands mother had arrived on the Gatwick flight that morning so we all had a coffee (6€ for three coffees and a bottle of water) before I headed through to catch the flight to Manchester.

The flight was OK. For once I took some photos on departure and landing, but apart from that I ate some food that I had bought at the airport, listened to my iPod and slept.

In addition to the above photos I took some sneaky video as well:

Almería airport a small but efficient airport with good facilities

Click To Play

As a Harley owner it is a unwritten rule that you buy either a pin or a T-shirt at every dealership that you visit. It doesn’t count if you have then bought for you so naturally I had to buy a pin at the Stockport (Manchester) dealership, although at £8.50 I can’t say that I am sorry that I don’t visit them that often. I used to have a list of all the dealerships that I have been to so must try and find it and update it as I have been lucky enough to visit them in many parts of the world.

I wanted to pick up some oil and parts to service the Road King Classic and the Fat Boy, and to discuss how best to get a power supply from the battery. All the official Harley options were out of stock and wouldn’t be delivered in time, so the best they could advise was to splice a standard cigarette power socket into the battery.

Of course a trip to a Harley dealership wouldn’t be the same without a look at the bikes. Every dealership now has to have a Harley Owners Group meeting area, so while I was sorting out the parts my parents had a free coffee and a wander round, with my mother buying some discounted mules that were very hip indeed!

Part secured (£96.85) it was time to jump back into my parents new Toyota Prius Hybrid which I have to say is very impressive indeed and head back to Stoke on Trent. I will mention the car again as we ended up doing a fair few miles during the trip!

Day 2 – Fixing Garmin Zumo on the Road King Classic and Tesco

Only had two objectives for the day: to fix the Garmin Zumo 550 to the Road King Classic and get the power supply sorted, and pic up some groceries from Tesco.

The first part was pretty easy, once I had sorted out the fact that the handlebars on the Road King Classic are too wide for the standard Garmin Zumo 550 mount. Got round this with a 89p exhaust mounting bracket. In theory the cigarette lighter socket should have been easy ….. a cable to the +ve on the battery, a cable to the -ve on the battery and a cable to ground. Well I could get the light bulb to light up on the socket so it was getting power, but it wouldn’t power anything i.e. the cigarette lighter of iPod charger. Had to give up on this so is on the list of things to do this week!

As for Tesco trip …… who ever thought that Self Service was a good idea??? What a disaster! Everyone seemed to be having trouble and the staff seemed to spend all their time running between ’tills’ to help people out ……..

Still I did find Marmite Rice Cakes which I never knew existed which was an unexpected bonus.

Day 3 – Guinness Premiership Final

Woke up to a relatively nice day and a great view!

I must say that the UK was looking particularly green this trip. I wondered if it was because I have been away for so long, but my parents confirmed that it was a lot greener than usual.

The drive down to London was great in the new Toyota Prius Hybrid. I was particularly impressed with the engine management system, and the fuel consumption was amazing.

Stopped off at the Welcome Break service station on the M40. Nice coffee and very clean facilities but it did seem expensive. £2.65 for a coffee and £1.65 for a chocolate brownie that was called a Impulse Buy on the receipt which sort of says it all. Seemed to me that throughout the whole trip wherever you looked there where places to buy food and drink, and people consuming it.

Very much a day of two sporting halves.

First up we stopped off at a pub near my fathers old college in London (Borough Road) where I have to say I was really impressed with the quality, quantity and price £7.95 of the Chicken Madras that I had.

With two pints of Guinness costing £5.90 I must say that it was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be, and certainly a lot cheaper than we pay here in Almerimar. The Guinness in particular was good value, and when I asked a local he said that the pub had a reputation for the cheapest drink around. It certainly had a good crowd in to watch the Man Utd v Arsenal game!

Having seen Man Utd retain the Premiership we headed down the road to Twickenham where I had arranged to meet a number of Twitter Followers and rucku members in the Guinness Village for a few drinks.

Have to say I thought that the Guinness would be about £6 a pint so the fact that it was £3.80 was a very welcome surprise.

REALLY enjoyed the game. It wasn’t a classic match and I would have preferred London Irish to beat Leicester, but the atmosphere was great, and Twickenham looked amazing. It was great to meet so many ‘online friends’ but the highlight was being with my parents for the day. It is a long time since we all went to a match together, so lots of happy memories, and a fun day out.

Enjoying the atmosphere at the Guinness Premiership Final

Click To Play

Day 4 – Technical Sunday

Spent the day sorting out my parents growing (and impressive) technical set up, watching some sport on the TV and enjoying a steak in the evening.

Day 5 – Meeting in Aylesbury, Curry in Rugeley

I had a meeting with a client Ranieri PR to discuss the use of the blog with their staff, talk through some future plans and discuss a few new initiatives. Also picked up a new Brenthaven computer bag from them as well.

This trip gave me the opportunity to test the Garmin Zumo 550, and it was pretty funny having the two GPS systems competing with each other, bit like an echo and I have to say that the map on the Garmin Zumo 550 was more up to date than in the Toyota Prius Hybrid.

Stopped off in Rugeley for a very pleasant Chicken and Chick Pea Balti and a pint of Cobra. Again I was pleasantly surprised at the price £8.95 and £2.65 respectively. I think that as we lived in the South and frequented London a lot when we lived in the UK my experiences and memories of price are somewhat biased, plus the recession seems to have made many places in the UK reduce their prices and offer more ’specials’. A ‘proper’ curry with Poppodoms, pickle, naan etc is certainly enjoyable every now and again!

Day 6 – Ride to Portsmouth

The start of the journey home, with a 205 mile ride down to Portsmouth. Weather was OK. Rained on and off but I missed the worst of it, but I have to say riding a bike in the UK really isn’t enjoyable at all. The quality of the roads, the attitude of most car drivers and the volume of traffic makes it a pretty unpleasant experience.

Was a good test of the Garmin Zumo 550 though and it was great to be back on the Road King Classic. Met up with @boogaloo1 for a couple of glasses of red wine(£3.65 for a small glass of red wine and a packet of crisps ….. what was it I said above regards prices in the UK!). Was good to meet a Twitter Follower in the flesh, a example of what a weird world we live in, not that @boogaloo1 was (that) weird LOL!!!

Then it was time to catch the Ferry. Arrived in plenty of time and met a lot of other bikes waiting to board.

Boarding was painless and I was soon sat in the bar, complete with a stalker who had attached themselves to me as we secured the bikes and seemed intent on latching onto me. With 24 hours on the Ferry that wasn’t an appealing thought so I reverted to Plan B …. I fell asleep while he was talking to me and when I woke up he had left, but we hadn’t! Departure was delayed, so it gave me the opportunity to take a few photos through the window and find a good spot close to power suply.

Spent the evening watching a couple of movies on the MacBook Pro, drinking an awful cappuccino from the machine (£1.90) and eating a truly disgusting beef stew that cost (£7.95). Managed to get some sleep in the reclining chair lounge despite some seriously loud snoring from a couple of people.

Can’t say I was at all impressed with the services and facilities on the Ferry.

Day 7 – Ferry and ride down to Burgos

Spent the majority of the day talking to Freddie Allen a ex Paratrooper, DJ, Parachute Instructor and currently a voice over artist and dedicated biker. Topics discussed included bikes, America, politics, blogs, podcasts, his potential book, maintaining his web site etc etc.

Once we had docked it took an hour to get off the boat, so I was always going to be a little late to Burgos, but I had a thoroughly enjoyable 2 hour (115 miles) ride down. Getting out of Santander was easy enough and the first half of the ride down was like having my own private two lane motorway all to myself. Stopped for some petrol when the road became more of a country lane and picked up some water and a tortilla sandwich for dinner (3€) as I really wanted to find the Hotel Espana, eat and get some sleep.

The Garmin Zumo 550 was brilliant and took me straight to the Hotel Espana, although the actual road that the hotel is on is now a pedestrian only area, but what the hell ….. rode along it anyway! Dumped the bags in the hotel where they very kindly let me store the ones I didn’t need downstairs rather than take them up to my room, and then headed off to park the bike (14€ overnight). I took the opportunity to take a quick look at a couple of bars suggested by @blogofago from Twitter as places for good Tapas:

Pancho – Calle de San Lorenzo 13-15 (Tel: +34 947 20 34 05) where he had advised I take a Cojonudo which is a Morcilla and Chorizo tapas, and

Rimbombín – Sombrerería 6 (Tel: +34 947 20 93 96) where the Alpargatas a cured ham toast was advised.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time or energy to try them but they looked great, and I really liked what I saw of Burgos!

The Hotel Espana was excellent for 35€. Central location, large and functional rooms and free WiFi.

Day 8 – Burgos to Almerimar

The main day of the whole trip!

Day started at 9.30am with the Road King Classic fully loaded and a pleasant ride through a lovely city, but soon I was making good progress with the sun starting to shine and the Road King Classic eating up the miles. The only slightly negative aspect was that the scenery reminded me too much of Northern France, but it was definitely Spain!

Throughout the day I was totally impressed with the Garmin Zumo 550 in particular the way it gave advanced notice or turns and speed cameras and the speed with which it re calculated routes.

Riding the Road King Classic was a re kindling of a great love affair, am so happy that we have it back here in Almerimar. Have every intention of using it a lot more than we ever did before.

I didn’t stop until I had done 160 miles which basically meant I was just through Madrid, which is a pretty easy city to get through. After that the roads are great, in particular the section around Aranjuez, and of course the Sierra Nevada is impressive. My favourite section though is the N96, so although I hadn’t got round to fixing the camera to the Road King Classic I managed to capture some photos.

Arrived back at 7pm, 9.5 hours after leaving Burgos, with a total of 8 hours in the saddle, completing a total of 630 miles in the day ……. GREAT!!!

Route

If you have the ability to handle .GPX files with Google Earth, Google Maps and your Sat Nav system then please feel free to download my Santander to Almerimar route.

Photos

You can see all the photos from the trip on this photo gallery

Costs

Overall a pretty cheap trip:

To UK:

• Flight 67.18€
• Petrol to and from airport 25€
• Drinks at airport 6€
• Snack for flight 8.80€

From UK:

• Petrol to Portsmouth £16.81
• Drinks on route £2.50
• Drinks in Portsmouth £8.00
• Ferry £113
• Drinks & Food on Ferry £9.20
• Petrol in Spain 45€
• Hotel 35€
• Food & Drink 10€
• Parking Burgos 14€

Twitter (#rktrip)

And finally …….. a sample of the Tweets that I sent during the ride:

MyAppleStuff Right time to mount up again! Zumo was saying eta 1730 when stopped but that will slip back the more I stop. #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @poppyscorner LOL will be good to be back #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @estoni yes. It was calm but boring, apart from a guy who I met that was cool Thanks!!!! #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Taddy69 LOL should get sunnier as I head south #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @ionwen can’t complain!!!! #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @philhawley so do I LOL even though means one night with Mother in Law! Though she left today but is tomorrow #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @michaels_feed yep 2002 Road King Classic. Rides great. Spain a superb country for riding #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @jaffamaddin going great so far mate #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff 160 miles. Just through Madrid. Time for fuel and a coffee. Bit cloudy early on but great ride down from Burgos #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff All loaded and ready to leave Burgos. Slightly late but hopefully means less traffic out of town. #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Rafeon yep, very cool indeed, cheers #rktrip
3 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @NoReinsGirl Burgos, Northern Spain #rktrip
3 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @chirpycat cheers has been ok so far, today the big ride #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @ahh_shazbot cheers. Sun is shining already so should be a pleasant ride down through Spain #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @philhawley LOL so do I!!! Body aches a bit already as long time since ridden this bike and any kind of distance #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Sheffman2 got 800km to ride today so home this evening #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Sheffman2 just got to Burgos. 24 hours on ferry is very dull indeed #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff And we are off. Next stop and tweet Santander in 24 hours #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Think the boat has enough bars etc. They shoukd convert one to a Twitter lounge? #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Felt good to be on RK again and it ran well. V impressed with Garmin Zumo 550. Looking forward to ride thru Spain #rktrip

MyAppleStuff @philhawley LOL so do I!!! Body aches a bit already as long time since ridden this bike and any kind of distance #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Sheffman2 got 800km to ride today so home this evening #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff @Sheffman2 just got to Burgos. 24 hours on ferry is very dull indeed #rktrip
3 days ago from Tweetie

MyAppleStuff And we are off. Next stop and tweet Santander in 24 hours #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Think the boat has enough bars etc. They shoukd convert one to a Twitter lounge? #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Felt good to be on Rk again and it ran well. V impressed with Garmin Zumo 550. Looking forward to ride thru Spain #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff LOL fell asleep for 20min and when woke up my stalker had gone #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff No WiFi on boat! Going to be a long 24 hours. Could sleep now. Good ride down but tough after so long off bike #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Correction! Wine was with the charming yet cheeky @boogaloo1 not @boogaloo #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

samozzy @MyAppleStuff Woo stalkers! lol #rktrip
5 days ago from TweetDeck

MyAppleStuff On Ferry eating cheese sandwich my mum made me! Already picked up a stalker! #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff 205miles. Checked in at port but hour delay due to bad weather. Lovely! #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Couple glasses wine with @boogaloo! Need food then off to Ferry #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff 130miles. Stopped for fuel. Bit wet on last stretch. #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Mounting up again. Probably do another 75miles then fuel. #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff Welcome Break M40. 75miles. Bit of rain but missing worst of it so far. P & coffee then off. #rktrip
5 days ago from txt

MyAppleStuff (cont) so no responding for a while, possibly for a couple of days depending on time and WiFi/3G access will TwitPic as and when #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff there is something nice about loading the bike up for a road trip! anyway shutting down the MBP now so future tweets from N95 (cont) #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @Pietro_Ranieri 1200 miles roughly from you to me in Spain driving down through France, is a nice trip #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @Pietro_Ranieri i can pick you up on the way through #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @keithbohanna hi!!! I will, once i get off the ferry ….. 24 hours cut off from the real world!!!!!! #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @DaveCapo i am just heading back home to Almerimar with a Harley that has been stored at my parents for 3+ years #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff right let the trip begin!!! by that i mean i am going to get up and start loading the bike, have a shower, grab some food …… #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @salisburydowns thanks, the spain bit should be fun, the uk ride will be dull, and 24 hours on ferry boring!!!! #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff @ahh_shazbot riding to portsmouth tonight, 5pm ferry gets me to spain 6pm wed night, then 200km ride burgos, thu ride 800km home #rktrip
5 days ago from web

MyAppleStuff thanks to all at @ranieripr for hospitality (and hob knobs) yesterday. exciting times ahead follow the trip back folks #rktrip

MyAppleStuff awake sort of long day ahead! ride to portsmouth, couple of people to meet up with then 24 hours on ferry tonight #rktrip

Popularity: 4%