Skip to main content

Le Mans Trip

Planning a route is the easiest bit.  After all when you have a TomTom (other GPS systems are available) you simply type into it where you want to go and eh voila! It takes you there. Magic.


Of course there are some settings and preferred roads you might want to set. For me it is no tolls. I don't mind highways but prefer them to be free. And so that was entered into the mix.


Another consideration are fuel stops.  I didn't used to bother as I kept an eye on the trip counter and in conjunction with the fuel gauge decided when to stop when it looked likely that fuel was needed.


Pepé has a sensible operating range of about 180 miles.  The buttock clenching stomach lurching maximum is about 200.  I try to never get anywhere near that far on a tank with 189 being the furthest I have risked in the past. 


For this trip I looked for hypermarket fuel stops at around the 160-170 mile mark.  The home to hotel and hotel to home distance is around 230 miles.


It does mean that both days after the racing I'll tank up to ensure a full tank start the next day.


The estimated return journey hotel to track is 70 miles.  Add to that the 70 or so from the run down on day one and that's enough. A small fill up on the Sunday would assist the strategy.


Let's see how that works in reality in a couple of weeks.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bikers Loft 3

The last day. After leading yesterday's run to Ypres, I decided to take a back seat, or a different place in the line of 8 bikes. And so after a repeat of the previous day's self cook breakfast we packed the bikes and headed off. Aiming for Nieuwpoort aan Zee as the first stop. The plan to follow a canal all the way there to where it meets the sea at a huge marina. I was bringing up the rear of the column and saw a sign like this one. "No Motor vehicles" After only one short section of the towpath/road. We tried to alert those ahead but Cal and I were the only two not heading past this sign. We chose to turn left across a lift bridge onto the other bank, where Nieuwpoort was signposted 15kms away. As we headed along we sounded our horns and waved at the "first wave" to no avail. Some miles further on their side came to an end. By then we were way ahead despite dropping the speed to 40. We carried onto t...

New Battery?

The weekend showed how weak the battery has become.  Having had to use the dbPower unit on four separate occasions during the day in Belgium was the giveaway. We are in the second winter of this problem where the battery isn't strong enough to start the bike. In the summer it charges and holds that charge and although I keep the dbPower unit to hand I rarely have to use it.  But in winter it barely has the power to turn the engine over. It's simply "clunk". The lights come on though and that probably doesn't help. So what to do? Being a fair weather biker nowadays I won't be using the bike that often until the new year. Do I get a new battery sooner rather than later? It might end up freezing away in the garage. I have a garage in a block away from the house with no power, so a trickle charger is no use either. I have been looking at a replacement though.  A  Motobatt  with a high cranking power should be around £75. So unlikel...