Fuelly App

For a number of years I have been using the Fuelly app and its desktop version to track the mileage and miles-per-gallon I get from the vehicles I own.

It's easy to use and came about when I switched from an iPhone to Android and the app I was using on iOS wasn't available on the Android platform.

I currently keep a log on the three vehicles that we own as a couple, the Juke has replaced the Insignia, Vera Strom has replaced the Rocket III, and I added the Kettle "Suzi Triplo" just to see how much fuel I use!

It all helps when planning a trip. How? It gives me a pretty accurate idea of how far I can go on a tank of fuel. 

I am one of those guys that likes to have a full tank when I set off on a ride/trip.  Belt and braces I guess. My metaphorical pants aren't going to fall down!

When I am away on a longer trip this applies too.  I'd rather fill the tank, even if I have only done 50 miles on the current one before I leave the overnight stop. If that means tanking up before the hotel/B&B, then that's what I will do.

So for this trip that's my thinking. Fuel stops also mean giving the butt a rest, a change for a pee and a coffee/lunch!

Vera's current Fuelly dashboard.  It's a public post so anyone can view the stats.

Fuel Stops - Homeward Route

Another route filled out with prospective fuel stops.  This is liable to change and  have have shared it with my brother. 

I suggested that we go down to Spain his way and come back mine. 

This is the bare bones route, overnight hotels and the fuel stops.  

There's plenty of time to see about some stops on the way to break up the journey and take a lunch or tourist type break!

It is a holiday/vacation not simply a rubber and fuel burning exercise!

Fuel Stops - Outward Route

With all my planning I tend to not add in fuel stops to my routes. Neill does as he usually tours with his friend Patrick. Patrick has a Honda Shadow with a smaller fuel tank range.

I have been through my outward trip and added some fuel stops.  Vera is currently averaging 50mpg dead on the Fuelly app and this is mixed riding in town and on the motorways when I do tend to push the speed limit to it's outer envelope.  

With Covid-19 being rife (and cases on the increase!) across the EU countries and Channel crossing fares being a complete and utter rip-off, I haven't been away to test what sort of mileage I can expect "over there"!

With a 20.5 litre tank I am looking at around 170-180 miles between fill-ups to ensure a margin of error. So far I haven't done more that about 149 miles on a tank. 

With a non-toll route in each direction there will be some fairly low speed limits, but there are sections of non-toll motorways that can be experienced, and speeds might get nearer 70mph on those sections.

This is my outward journey, mostly using the N10. Neill's is a little different.

In the end we may go "out" to Spain using Neill's route which is pretty much the same as this with different hotels, and a change at the bottom of France. I want to keep my return journey as it is the N20 route north instead of the N10 route.

Hotel at 7 covered by Fuel 8

Plan B

From the previous post I laid out two options, Plan A and Plan B.

The latter was to leave after racing and stay in a hotel in Lleida.

We have decided to do that.

So I have amended the booking at the El Cid and removed the Sunday night and added another hotel instead.

The new one in Lleida is the Ramon Berenguer IV. Quite budget but all of Lleida is cheaper in comparison to hotels nearer the Catalan coast. 

The hotel has private parking at €7 a night for a car space and in my booking I asked for a space to be reserved.  Although there is street parking if the option to have secure parking is there, it's worth taking!

That change saves us about 110 miles on the way home on Monday.

The saving will allow us more time to thread our way through the Pyrenees at Pont de Reu and then into France. 

We need to check the distances and overnight stops on the way upwards.

More changes..

It looks as though my brother Neill is onboard for the trip.

He has been planning routes of his own and the way out is roughly the same as mine until we get to the south west of France. His route angles off before mine and goes through the Túnel de Somport.

It makes the route down slightly shorter but not much in it. It would be nice to go over the pass and ignore the tunnel but I don't think we have the time.  From Somport it is still about 4 hours to the hotel.

I would like to keep my route back though. It would give some variation to the trip.

We can look at other places to stop off on the way.

The Routes - So Far

In blog-time it's not that long since I made the first post. I have been working on this in reality for the best part of two weeks though!

So where are we at the moment?

Day 1 - Shuttle or Ferry to Calais. Overnight - Tours Première Classe

Day 2 - Tours to Bayonne. Overnight - Bayonne Première Classe

Day 3 - Bayonne to Morella. Overnight - Morella El Cid

Day 4 - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid

Day 5 - Plan A - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid

           - Plan B - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Lleida. Overnight TBC

Day 6 - Lleida to Cahors. Overnight Cahors Campanile

Day 7 - Cahors to Chartres. Overnight Chartres Hôtel Inn Design Resto Novo

Day 8 - Chartres to Shuttle or Ferry - Overnight Home.

There are a few ends to tie up but this looks like this could be the final plan.

If the weather is still nice and warm, hot even, I might get to wear my bandana again!  Without anyone laughing!

It's rude to laugh!

Inward Route and Hotels - Plan B

Plan B already!

Working with Google Maps and MyRouteApp in different windows I can see that with the road conditions crossing the Pyrenees, either by the suggested (shortest?) route and my alternative route via Andorra are going to be over ambitious.

So Andorra is definitely dropped.

Google Maps gives three options from Morella. Via the Bielsa Tunnel, the Somport Tunnel and via the N-232 to Pont de Reu and the border there.

I am moving more towards a re-vamp of the plan as follows.

Lleida is about 110 miles from the El Cid and about 75 miles from Motorland Aragón, Packing up my stuff at the hotel on the morning of race day and after the racing finishes mid-afternoon go from there to a hotel in Lleida. I've had a look and there quite a few at a very reasonable price!

This would cut down the mileage on Monday by that 110 from the El Cid. From Lleida to the currently planned stop at Cahors is around 280 miles and six hours on the road. It takes the N-230 to the border which is a bridge over the River Garonne at Pont de Reu (3)

It's a further 150 miles to the Campanile already booked in Cahors. From there it is pretty much as already planned up the N20 as far as Orleans before diverting off to Chartres.

The N20 and A20 are toll free for all but a short distance near Orleans so we can make good time on the dual carriageway sections.

I haven't changed any bookings as yet. You never know what changes are still to come.

Inward Route and Hotels - Plan A

On the way out I have planned the no toll route that basically is get to Rouen or nearby on the free sections of the motorways and then head across to join the N10 (or whatever it is numbered in each départmente) and head south or south-west. 

What about coming back?  Do I want to tread the same path? Or seek out a new one. First step fire up MyRouteApp and select Google Maps.

I am currently booked into the El Cid Hotel in Morella. It's about 43 miles from the circuit at Motorland Aragón. 

What if I change the El Cid booking and pack my meagre belongings into my panniers on the Sunday morning and head to the track and then use that 43 miles to head off to a new hotel on the way home?  

Something to ponder?

For now I am assuming I will be solo on this trip. If my brother Neill decides to join me then it will halve the cost of the hotels, and I'll have to change the sleeping arrangements at each hotel!!

So what does MyRouteApp come up with. Well. It depends on the map settings.  If I leave the default mapping as OpenStreetMap the route from Morella is via the motorways passing Barcelona, Lyon and Paris back to the Shuttle at Calais. Around 980 miles.

Change that to Here or TomTom mapping and it reverts to the motorway version of the ride down and around 960 miles.

Neill is adverse to paying motorway tolls and although I am also a bit averse it depends on whether I want to go faster and get somewhere more quickly. Coming home I tend to want to click off the miles.

To vary the suggested route I need to locate a first night overnight stop and get the waypoint in and then see what it does. Is there another no tolls route available? We shall see.

First night on the way back I looked along the N20 (and it name variants) as it is a north/south route. I found another Campanile hotel in Cahors that fits the bill. This means leaving the El Cid and heading up past Alcañiz (!) and to Lleida to the border.  The off putting thing about this is the Tunel de Bielsa! This may force a major re-think of the route as it looks a bit nasty from the write-up on that website.

Pause for thought!

Avoiding Bielsa makes it hard work getting to Cahors and so an alternative hotel needs to be booked. Also the mileage for the day would be too high given the conditions riding into the Pyrenees either side of that tunnel on very minor roads. 

I am looking at Montauban as the first overnight stop.  El Cid Hotel to Andorra is 200 miles.

In the end it may be better to scrap all idea of evading the toll roads until we get into France and see what that does to the overall mileage and possible cost implications.

The Pyrenees form a pretty decent barrier to north/south travel. So whatever route is chosen getting across will give limited options.

Outward Route and Hotels

I have been looking at the non-toll route to the El Cid hotel that will get me/us there on the Friday afternoon. 

Having decided on Option 1, ride both ways, I now have to decide how long to take and how long Claire will suffer me being away.  I was looking at a week away or in reality 8 days - two overnights out, three at the GP end, and then two nights back. 

If Neill comes along he might want to take longer and that will need some debate. I have booked the hotels in twin bedded rooms but if it is a solo trip, then I will see about changing to a double room and have a big bed just for me....

It's pretty much the same route I took way back in the 80's when I rode with my ex-partner to Biarritz for a week in a villa owned by a colleague at Reuters. We wanted to avoid the toll motorways and what was then called the N10 went all the way from the outskirts of Paris (where we got lost near Versailles) to the Spanish border.

Back then I was on the Kettle aka Suzi Triplo. I have an embarrassing photo somewhere of that trip.

But I digress. 

This time I fully expect to be riding Vera Strom.

I looked at distances and let MyRouteApp and Google work together to choose the route itself and then dip in and out to get a decent and achievable mileage and time on the road.

Day one may not be the longest day on the way out. It all depends on what sort of time we arrive in France from the Shuttle. 

I have booked a cheap Première Classe Hotel near Tours that night. Google reckons 308 miles from the Shuttle and 6h 18m riding time. Usual free cancellation etc terms.

Common architecture!

Over the years I have used Première Classe hotels many times. They are budget and they are often quite neatly placed near a Campanile hotel. Part of the same group of hotels but with a restaurant that is usually good value. If you are looking to stay somewhere luxurious with a pool then look elsewhere. The most we have stayed in one was two nights when we took the nephews to Futuroscope in the car!

Continuing south on the N10 (or its new designation) past Bordeaux and the Atlantic coastal dunes.

At Mont de Marsan, the suggested route takes a left turn and heads towards the Pyrenees. I have changed this as the choice of hotels between the fork in the road and the Spanish border is very limited. When I say limited I mean not many and none that match my budget!

Instead I looked around the Bayonne/Biarritz area and found a Première Classe near Bayonne. 

Google makes it a long day at 356 miles in the saddle. Around 6h 20m on the road. Not too bad before you factor in fuel and lunch/pee breaks.

Okay, it looks a bit in need of a clean up!

This Première Classe also has a Campanile in walking distance. Oddly it has no twin rooms, only doubles and a triple.  In the end I booked the triple. If I am on my own I can change to a double!

From Bayonne it's still on the N10/D810 to the border near Hendaye or so I thought. Google and MyRouteApp had other ideas  

From Bayonne we avoid the last bit of the N10/D810 and branch off southwards on the D932 and then D20 towards Cambo-les-Bains and then onto the border.

The third day on the road should be around 280 and a calculated 5h 20m on the frog and toad.

This route joins the original route at Zaragoza. It's a little further on my route but the hotels are cheap and cheerful but for overnight stops I'd rather save a few quid.

At the end of the day I/we should be in Morella and the El Cid Hotel.  

This is the rough route at the moment. It might change.... 😉

Hotel near Motorland Aragón

As you can imagine with a Covid restricted crowd as big as 20000 in 2021 and a circuit basically built in the middle of nowhere, there is pressure on all accommodation and on hotels! In non COVID years the crowd is even bigger.

Last weekend they estimated that there were 75000 at Valencia for the final GP of the year and to see Valentino Rossi's last GP.

If you like to camp then that's okay with me. See you another time. I've been a hotel or b&b only man for about 22 years.

Having camped at GP events before I know first-hand there's not a lot of sleep to be had!

Looking on booking.com wasn't that good either. I use them as they offer easy accessible information on hotels and also you can book with "free cancellation" and most often no prepayment.

Many of the hotels come up as full or sold out.  Gradually you get further and further from Alcañiz and the circuit itself that is to the north-west of the town.  At the same time, the hotels that are coming up are eye wateringly expensive. Even the Parador is fully booked!

So as I worked my way in an ever expanding circle,  I finally arrived in Morella. The El Cid Hotel.  It's £145 for three nights for a twin room with private facilities so fits in with my £50 a day target. It has parking on site.  There is also a restaurant and it's in a scenic bit of northern Valencia province.

Hotel El Cid

I have been to Morella before back in 2008 as we drove inland from Marina D'Or where we went for Claire's birthday week.  

Morella

A reminder of Marina D'Or.  A completely manufactured resort town where they had ploughed over the orange groves and built hotels etc.

Morella though is about 43 miles to the circuit.  It's a "holding" hotel and I will check to see if others come online during the next six months or so. I have seen a few others nearer but they don't look too good and they don't have free cancellation should things go a little pear shaped...

Morella is on the main N-232 road that goes from the coast towards Zaragoza and right past the track as well as the hotel!

How to get there?

If we consider that this is a motorcycle trip, then there are a few options.

1. I can ride all the way there and back - Eurotunnel and/or short ferry
2. I can take the Brittany Ferry one way and ride the other way
3. I can send the bike on a truck and fly down to collect it possibly ride back

I have to admit the third option only appeared after I had read an article this afternoon where some guys packed their bikes up with a specialist transport company, then they flew and met the bikes and  as they were "professionals" they left the truck to bring the bikes back and the flew home.  Possibly not for me, but worth pricing up?

"But" I hear you say, riding is the point of a bike/motorcycle trip. And you would be right.

So I have been mostly looking at options 1 and 2.  

1. The return trip is in the environs of 1800 miles from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais to Motorland. On top of that will be all the wrong turns and detours en-route to get to petrol and to hotels. On top of that there will be petrol getting to and from the circuit on practice/qualifying day and race day. Eurotunnel is 6 miles from my house.  So the petrol budget would need to be about £200.  I'd estimate two stops on the way down and two on the way back. A total of 7 nights in paid accommodation @ say £50 a night. plus food.
   
   
2. The Brittany ferry with a bike, rider and the cabin would be around £375 one way. Accommodation included. Depending on when it sails and arrives in Spain there may be an additional hotel needed on top of the three nights near the circuit. Bilbao is 275 miles to the circuit (£20 in petrol?)  Maybe a lot more to a hotel. The ride home another 900 miles so that's £100 in fuel. That could mean six nights in hotels at the same £50 a pop.

I'll look at option 3 another time. Looking at the above it does make the long ferry and ride one way look a lot more expensive.  But it does include a cruise!

It looks like there is a lot to be considered.

Bucket List

A trip in 2022 to the MotoGP at the Motorland Aragón circuit is a bucket list trip.  

It night not be on my wife's list of things for me to do in 2022 or any other year.

I have wanted to "do" a Spanish round for a few years. Until lately that has meant only Jerez or Catalunya.

It looks as though the Spanish organisers want to have as many Spanish rounds as possible.  Aragón is really the only one that would fit in with my other commitments in 2022.

As I said in the first post. Covid-19 is very real. It is still a threat to life as we know it.  Even those of us with THREE vaccinations! Yep, two plus the November 2021 booster.

So let the planning commence!

First Post - Aragón MotoGP 2022

A first post has to be the start of what's to come.

This blog is meant to be for a single motorcycle trip that is at the planning stages in November 2021.  There is a 50% chance that it might not happen and maybe another 50% that it will.

The bike to take the trip on will be Vera Strom, my 2018 Suzuki DL1000XT L8 V-Strom.

Circumstances change.

In November 2021 Covid-19 is still about. 

It is still hospitalising people all across the world.

It is still infecting people

People are still dying.

With all that in mind, this trip may just turn out to be a bit of fun working it out, and never take place.

Thank you for joining the circus..............