What a waste of a day.

After another night that was not brilliant, sleep wise ( I will be glad to get back in my own bed,) I was up and on the road by 8am as I had a ride of just over 300 miles to my final hotel of the holiday, Formule 1 at Ghent in Belgium. I rode about 48km and stopped to re-fuel and to grab something to eat and a drink as I had had nothing when I got up. It was then back on the bike with the intention of knocking off 160km before my next stop for a stretch, at least that was the plan.
After about 30km, I was passing a lorry which was in lane 1 of the motorway, when I heard/felt something strange from the back wheel, my heart leapt to my mouth but all seemed well. I must admit I was travelling at 100mph at the time listening to my ipod. Anyhow I shot past the lorry and after a feww hundred metres realised all was not well. I cruised to the hard shoulder and found that the rear tyre had deflated. I had seen nothing in the road and can only assume something came from the lorry. I put the bike on the main stand, and turned the back wheel, and found a cut of about 1cm right in the middle of the tread on the tyre. No wonder it had deflated.
At least the view from where I had stopped was good, I was right above the Canal des Houilleres de la Sarre, pretty eh. I made a quick phone call to my european breakdown recovery people at Carole Nash Insurance and was told as I was on a French motorway I would have to call the Police who would arrange recovery, I was then to ring them back once recovered. Well, muggins here, ex motorway police officer, breaks the cardinal sin, and phones the police from his mobile phone. I explained the situation and have my position from the marker post and the officer says he will sort recovery so just sit and wait and enjoy the view.
As I said, the view was nice and it got even better when the boats started travelling along the canal.

The puncture had happened just before 1030 and I phoned the police at 1030, however by 1130 still no recovery, and it was getting rather warm by now, and there was not much shade, so, I did what I should have done in the first place....walk to the emergency phone, you've guessed it, the police had not passed over any message! After speaking on the emergency phone assistance duly arrived after 40 mins and Blackie was put on the back of a recovery vehicle to get clear of the motorway.

What a sad sight.

Truly recovered from the motorway I was taken to a garage that happened to be a Renault dealer that was unable to fix bike tyres, so it was back on the phone to Carole Nash to sort the repair. They immediatly paid for the recovery, and asked what was needed, so I gave them full tyre information, stressing that the tyre HAD to be Bridgestone BT023 GT in order to match the front tyre, and in order to take the weight of Blackie. I emphasised the GT part because this means Grand Tourer and is specifically for heavy bikes (the tread is harder in the middle than on the edges to help with the tyre wear) Peter, from Carol Nash, said he would ring around garages in the area I was in and get back to me, the only problem being that it was lunch time in France and everywhere was shut till 2pm.

Peter did eventually phone back,and told me he had found a Honda dealer in a town about 30km away which had the tyre in stock, I asked if he was sure it was the GT and he told me that the garage said it was....no problem, back into the recovery truck for the trip to Moto Concept, the Honda dealer.

We eventually got to the dealer and Blackie was put up on the ramp ready for her tyre. The fitter eventually brought the tyre over, and I checked, and it was not the GT version. Off goes the fitter again, sorry we don't have a GT (in fact he had never heard of the GT and thought it was the same as the sport tourer tyre). As he did not speak any English and I speak no French we struggled a bit but eventually worked out that he could get a tyre in 3 days!!!!!

Back onto the phone to Peter at Carole Nash and he asked if the bike could be fitted with the none GT version, I explained to him the difference and told him that with the weight of Blackie I would wear through the none GT tyre by the time I got back to England and would have to replace it again which would be a waste of my money. He then suggested that he square it with his boss that Carole Nash would pay for the none GT version and then I could replace it when I got home and I would not be out of pocket, he then hung up to sort this out.

As soon as he hung up, a very excited tyre fitter came out of the stock room with the correct GT tyre, thank god, it could all be sorted at last.

The new tyre eventually cost me 170 euro, money I did not want to spend, but hey, at least I was back on the road by 1730hrs having wasted the best part of the day, and still 250 miles short of Ghent.

I did eventually reach the hotel at Ghent (soaking wet after a rain for the last 20km, I got caught, and by the time I got somewhere where I could get waterproofs on, I was already soaked to my underpants, so did not bother to stop) I managed to do the 250 miles with only one quick stop to re-fuel and eat a banana and drink a large can of Red Bull.

I must say I have nothing but praise for the staff at Carole Nash, especially Peter, for his help. Not bad when the breakdown recovery came free with my insurance.

My room at Formule 1 is like a laundry at the moment with wet clothing hanging everywhere, but no doubt it will all be dry in the morning. I shall have a look around Ghent tomorrow before travelling to Zeebrugge, via Bruges, on Thursday, for the boat back to Hull on the evening. Then its across to Liverpool, where I shall meet Chris at lunchtime, before catching the evening boat back to the Isle of Man..........and then work Saturday morning...what a shock to the system.