Motorcycle road trip coming up – and it feels overdue

In recent years and for a variety of reasons my travel plans, along with the plans of millions of other were disrupted.

Obviously Covid 19 played it’s part. Many many people were tragically impacted or knew of folk who were tragically impacted by the virus.

I suppose coming out of the other side of Covid if you got away with just cancelled and changed holiday plans then it’s not really much to grumble or complain about. But the world does move on and thankfully we are now  in different times.

My last bike trip out of the UK should have been to Spain and Portugal but was cancelled due to injury. I had routine shoulder surgery in 2019 and as was making a decent recoverer when an innocuous trip whilst out walking saw me fracture my knee.

A long recovery period

The knee fracture took me a long time to recover from and it was that injury that led to me cancelling the Spain/Portugal trip.

Then of course along came Covid and travel was pretty much curtailed for everyone for quite some time.

Since then bike I have managed a few trips –  three bike trips to Ireland and about four or five to Scotland.

The BMW F800R I bought in 2020, is the only bike I have had in the last 20 or so years that hasn’t been away any further than the brilliant trips to Ireland.

And another change of plan

Regular visitors to this blog will know I had plans to spend a couple of weeks in Ireland and Scotland last month (July) but the dreadful weather we have had in the UK led me to cancel that trip.

The weather forecasts which went on to be proved correct would have led to the trip being a complete washout. Whilst I don’t mind motorcycling in the rain, there really isn’t too much fun in riding in storm conditions everyday for a couple of weeks.

The weather reports for the locations along the outline route I had planned in Scotland and Ireland more than bore out that my decision to cancel had been the right one.

North of the border

I did manage a short trip north of the border when I thought the rain hd stopped for a few days and I recently headed to Scotland to ride some of my favourite routes and roads – especially the A708 that runs alongside St Mary’s Loch. I wrote about that short trip here.

I’m not complaining about my travel this year – by the end of the year I will holidayed with my wife in Poland, Hungary and Wales and biked in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Portugal and Spain.

But at the same time as not complaining it would be fair to say it’s feels like it’s been a pretty disappointing biking year for me.

That disappointment comes from a couple of angles – personal commitments of one form or another meant that quite often when the weather was decent I was busy. And on more occasions that I can recall, when I did  have the time to ride it seemed as though we were living in some sort of monsoon zone for days, that stretched to weeks and then seemingly to months.

It really has felt dismal.

Coming up …

The clue to my next bike trip is in the list of countries I wrote above.

I decided I really did want to ride and enjoy some decent roads before the end of the year.

So with that in mind I have booked a ferry down to Santander and I’m heading off on the F900 to ride in Portugal and Spain … so don’t forget to keep an eye on the blog for more updates on that trip.

There’s a couple of roads in Portugal and down in Andalusia that I’ve have biked before but am keen to do again – other than that I think for the most part I’m expecting to see new things and travel on new roads.

I really am quite excited about this trip, and I feel some warm Portuguese and Spanish roads calling me, calling out my name …