When making plans for this weekend my fiance told me to take my Ducati out for a ride. Lately, I kind of lost interest in making day-rides and coffee-trips and I have only been riding to work. I think it is the turning back that bothers me, I just want to continue riding. I’m ready for a new tour, a ride with a destination, far away.
Out and about
Anyway, my fiance rarely tells me what to do so I thought, why not listen to him? Of course, he was right. The weather was lovely and this is one thing I certainly could not have done if I lived in Sweden, not for months to come. This is, after all, why I moved to Spain, and shame to not take advantage.
A distant view of Manzanares el Real
I stopped in a few places to take pictures and enjoy the view. I still have some problems with my legs and I certainly want to pace myself and make sure to take breaks often so the problems don’t increase. The idea of changing bike is starting to grow now, let it grow slowly, I hope to ride yet another year with my Monster.
the wonders of carretera de Hoyo de Manzanares
These are views that I, for sure, would not see in Sweden. But I’m certain the view would be just as beautiful if seen from another bike.
Until last summer when I travelled from Sweden down to Spain to import my Ducati Monster I was almost totally ignorant when it came to maps. Usually I ride with friends going to specific places, on my own not bothering where I’m going or following a familiar path. Well, not entirely true, I did travel in Australia on my own some years ago, but there is not many roads so weak map reading skills isn’t such a big issue. Fantastic country for riding, from what I remember I was only lost twise
Anyway, last year I had to learn, and literally on the road. Of course I try to stay away form cities at almost all cost but I also had made pre arrangements for all my stays. This not needing to stress about not finding a place in the end of the day. Now I was stressing about finding my stays. I guess if your that kind of person who gets stressed easily, there will always be a reason.
Well the Netherlands and Germany went quite al right. I did arriwe very late both these days, and finding my stay in a village outside Trier was hard. Generally mistakes like that and many more like it later on is caused by not having a map detailed enough, being to tired or not wanting to ask for help. Or possibly all of that.
Later on in France I noticed after a day of riding that my problems reading the road signs were due to the colours of them. In Sweden a white sign would have no significance, instead you look for yellow signs for villages, blue for cities. When cracking this sign reading code I did much better. Another thing is that in Sweden signs towards places always displays the distance. For some reason we think that it is reassuring to know this on regular basis. There fore the road signs are put up regularly along the way so you can confirm that your on the right path. Most other countries don’t have this, and since I’m used to it I do miss it. Seing this sign there is 3 km left to ride to my parents house
While riding a bike it is time consuming to have to stop and check the map. If you have a memory like a goldfish, like I do, you stop ridiculously often. To look at the map while riding is not something I can handle, even though I seen it done. I generally break down my planned route in road numbers and cities/towns/villages that I will pass or ride towards. The when I somehow get it all wrong, I just recalculate, like an GPS but manually. Alcobendas - Pamplona in road numbers
While getting totally and utterly lost in Luxenbourg this summer I cursed my map reading and swore not to return there without either a GPS or a map reader. The problem though was that my map wasn’t detailed enough. It seemed like it would be an easy matter of following the road passing through the city but instead I ended up circulating the city for nearly 2 hours.
I got lost around Bonn in Germany for the same reason. And last year in the French Alps I asked for help showing the old man my map of the whole country of France and he sighed. I was on a road that didn’t exist on my map. So I had actually tried to learn form last year, but finding detailed maps are hard, there is not much between the country map and the super detailed road atlas. Bringing an road atlas for every country is hardly an option, at least not with my luggage possibilities. Col du Glandon - riding a road not existing on my map and feeling lost
This summer I got the possibility to experience riding with an GPS. I had high expectations. But it wasn’t as easy as it would seem. The GPS kept redirecting us to the highways and we had problems to sticking to the roads we wanted. In the end we went back to my system of writing down road numbers and names of places. Anneli is trying to make the GPS talk to her
For some reason England and Wales seamed easy to manoeuvre in. The road numbers were clearly marked and places signposted. Something I found amusing was their road markings. I’m used to roads marked with white lines, no road markings means no lines at all. In Britain the roads had the white lines and in addition to that arrows to prepare you to turn left or right and encouragements to slow down. When occasionally entering a city it was just as difficult as anywhere else though, reading signs, realising to late the turn I should have taken etc. Quite possibly it was harder than most places, since it was all done on the left side of the road.
Navigating on smaller roads and countryside I seem to have a quite good hang of now. I use photo copies of a road atlas taped to my tank when I ride out around Madrid and I always prepare it with road numbers to make riding more smooth. Riding in cities I don’t know if I ever learn well, since I get so stressed when many things are happening at the same time, then I would still prefer a map reader whispering in my ear where to turn so I can fully concentrate on the traffic. Out and about with a photocopy of road atlas tejped to the tank
When evaluating the purpose many thoughts spring to mind and it is hard to keep my thoughts in a straight line and write something that makes sense for others to read. This is the result though, I hope you enjoy your read.
Not great goals for evaluation but I give it a go:
I hope by writing this blog I can inspire other women to do similar things.
I sure hope that I have been able to inspire people to travel. From comments on the blog and word on the road people have said that they are impressed, amazed and that they wish they could do the same. This does not necessarily mean that they will do the same but nevertheless I’m proud to hear it. The best compliment was possibly from Claudia, vice-president of WIMA saying that I do a great thing for women all over the world.
I was thrilled to see that there was a spanish translation of the first pages of my blog and a really nice presentation of me on the Ducatistas forum. If nothing else, it shows interest. On the other side of Europe I was disappointed not getting the local newspapers interested in my home town but happy to await the latest club magazine from the Swedish Ducati Club which requested an illustrated article of my journey. And the Swedish central organisatin for bikers, SMC, is about to put my article about the WIMA rally on their their travel section. So it isn’t over yet.
I want to show that you don’t need travel company or a touring bike to do great travels. All you have to do is to plan according to your abilities.
How did it really go with that? To be honest I loved riding with Anneli, we made a perfect team and while I was a more experienced rider she was the one organizing food and rest. I hope to be able to ride with her again in the future but I’m also, still, happy to rode alone rather then riding with someone who isn’t riding the same pace like me or sharing the same values when it comes to behaviour in traffic.
My bike is fantastic in many ways and I have been riding and loving Ducati for 12 years now. Now I feel that I have taken the Monster to the limit of what it can do travelwise. Not only due to the problems with the nerves in my leg and feet, the vibrations and the posture. Bringing only 60 L of luggage when traveling for several weeks is tiring too. I have not felt it before, but now I do. I dream of a bike with hard cases where I can bring seconds of changes of clothing. While I’m writing the wishlist, why not the possibility of bringing a passenger and luggage at the same time? And maybe, I say maybe, I could benefit from a bike that shields a bit from the wind, to make the riding less of an athletic endurance. Nothing wrong with planning according to your abilities, that is always essential, but I just ponder the possibility of a change in abilities. I've seen my past but I don't know what awaits me around the corner
This last journey changed me in a way that no other journey has. In the future we will see which gets the better of me, the love for Ducati or the urge for riding out to find adventure.
