The 1st International VX800 Rally
(European Division) 8th-9th May 1999

We were travelling as a group of four – myself and Ross from Taunton were the VX800 contingent, and two of my friends, John and Ken from Shropshire were coming along on their Suzuki GSX750s. It was all planned; I’d taken Friday and Monday off work so that I could meet John and Ken who were travelling down from Shropshire on the Friday. I’d planned to meet them at the old Severn Bridge services at around 3pm.

Friday morning was spent preparing, making sure the VX had oil and air, packing my bag etc. It was when I got my bike documents out to take with me that problem No.1 arose. My bike insurance had lapsed on the 9th April! Panic phone calls revealed that I couldn’t renew it and would have to take out a new policy, and anyway with my insurance broker being over 100 miles away I wouldn’t have a Cover Note to take with me that day. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as a quick phone call to my local broker revealed a saving of about 6ukp over the quote from the other one.

However, as time was now a-wastin’ and I still had to complete the paperwork for my new policy, I finally left for the Severn Bridge at around 2.45pm, with an hour and a half’s ride ahead of me to meet the others. The British weather showed its true colours and I got rained on along the way, finally reaching the Bridge at about 4.20. Sure enough, there was no sign of them – I had the feeling I had caught a glimpse of them on the M5, but I had been too busy concentrating on the wet motorway and other traffic to be sure.

So I turned around and rode back again. Knowing the road as I do (it’s roughly the route I take on my daily commute) I made good time, and arrived back at my house only 2 minutes after John and Ken! We now had about 2½ hours before Ross was due to arrive from Taunton, and I was confident that I had everything prepared for the journey, so we got some food and relaxed for a while. Ross arrived at 8.00pm as arranged, and we planned to leave at 9.00 which would get us to Poole in good time for the 11.45 ferry.

As 9.00pm approached we started togging up for the ride, and in passing John mentioned passports. Problem No.2 – I hadn’t looked mine out! Much frantic scrabbling ensued (without the knowledge of the others - all they knew was that I was taking a long time), and eventually I found it. Breathing a sigh of relief I hurtled out of the door and we finally set off at 9.15. Having allowed 1½ hours to get to the ferry, we were still on target to get there an hour before we sailed, so I wasn’t unduly worried.

We had a choice of 2 routes, one of which was pretty boring (but quicker), so I had decided to take the more interesting one, completely ignorant of the fact that it would be dark and the quicker route would have been preferable, and this was where problem No. 3 reared its ugly head. My heart sank when about 15 miles into the journey the dreaded blue-and-white sign appeared – Police-Accident. We were diverted along a narrow and sometimes muddy lane, and I began to feel a mild panic coming on. I had no idea where we were! Faced with the choice of retracing our steps with the certainty that we would be cutting it fine for the ferry, or continuing until I saw a sign for somewhere I recognised, I chose the latter. Imagine my relief when after what seemed like ages I saw one.

The rest of the journey to Poole was thankfully uneventful and we arrived at the ferry port in good time, boarding on schedule. Brittany Ferries at least tie the bikes down for you (unlike some other company who shall remain nameless, but they are mentioned in the Ireland Diary :) so after a cup of coffee we headed for our cabin to get some sleep.

The ferry arrived on schedule at 7.00am, and the four of us disembarked. As we rode along the exit lanes of the ferry terminal we saw some bikes travelling parallel with us on the road outside, and at least two of them were VXs; the reception committee! We negotiated our first right-hand roundabout without mishap, and stopped at the Esso garage where they were all waiting for us. After many handshakes, greetings and introductions we set off for – who knows where! As was the case for the rest of the weekend, I just followed the bike in front.

At this point I'd like to apologise to anyone who was there who has a better memory than me; the whole weekend was such a blur I may have forgotten some details or got them out of order :-/ 

The next stop was a garage for petrol (much-needed in some cases). The pump only took credit cards, and appeared to have an inherent dislike for English ones :) Luckily the weekend's organiser and our host, Alain, came to the rescue, dutifully feeding his card into the machine for all who needed it, and accepting cash in return.

Tanks replenished, we headed for the hotel to check into our rooms and a welcome breakfast. Within a very short time we were off again, to Carteret Harbour to meet the other bikers who were to swell our numbers to over 30!

On the road again, and a very short distance into the journey I heard a loud backfire; for a moment I thought it was my VX (it has been known to do this on very rare occasions), but then the VX about 3 bikes in front of me stopped. It was Andre, who had ridden through torrential rain to get here from Belgium, and his VX had obviously objected. Much confusion ensued. Some of us rode on, others stopped. At one point a lot of us sat in a long stationary line along a wide main road, while a French lad on a much-modified Yamaha TRX entertained us with wheelies and stoppies! Eventually the lead was taken up again by Alain (I think), while Andre took his stricken VX back to - er - somewhere, and eventually caught up with the rest of us riding pillion with - um - Dominique, I think.

The next *official* stop was Pont De La Roque for a rest, where Dominique and Andre caught up with us. I was

busy with the camera when I heard one of the French contingent shouting "Prenez une photo!" amid much laughter - I turned to find one of the other French bikers having a "biker's tiddle" into the hedge in full view of the road! Being British and reserved I wondered if this was a common sight at the side of French roads, and decided not to take the requested photo.

Pressing on, the group began to get a little fragmented; I was following Ross, and after a while realised that he was following - no-one! I saw him slow down and glance in his mirrors frequently, waiting for someone who knew the road to take over the lead. This eventually happened, but not before we'd missed an important turning which was to have taken us to the next scheduled stop, just across the bay from Mont St.Michel. So instead we headed on for Mont St.Michel itself, where we had to wait for a while before those who had stopped across the bay to arrive.

The group reunited, we entered the old town itself. Standing in the courtyard waiting to be ushered through, I noticed Brian put his lid down on top of a pile of cannonballs, and a few moments later I heard the sound every biker dreads - a "clunk", and a rolling sound. Ooops!

Eventually we were beckoned through the main gate, and proceeded to climb millions of steps. A slight exaggeration you may think, but in biking boots, carrying my lid and bike bag it certainly felt like it! We finally arrived at a balcony area overlooking the bay, and Alain and the other organisers produced what seemed like a re-enactment of the Feeding Of The 5000! They didn't seem to have been carrying much luggage, but proceeded to extract mountains of bread, cheese, ham, eggs, mayonnaise, beer and soft drinks from their bags - *most* welcome!

After a good rest, and suitably refreshed, we made our way back to the bikes to continue on the next leg of the journey, to Utah Beach. On the way we stopped at a garage, where there were only 2 unleaded pumps so it was quite a long stop, with over 30 tanks to fill! While we were waiting to fill up, I noticed Alain balance his lid on the seat of his bike. *Clunk*, roll... oops! We also stopped at some sort of castle, but - well, as I said earlier, my memory ain't too good!

Utah Beach has some very interesting WWII relics, and, strangely enough, a beach! Sadly, the topless sunbathers Alain had promised were notable by their absence, so we retired to the cafe for beer or coffee.

After a stroll round the gift shop for things to take back, we set off on the home leg, taking in St.Mere Eglise. This has an effigy of an American parachutist hanging from the clock tower, which hopefully you can just make out from the picture (the sun was in the wrong direction for a perfect photo).

Here a bit of seat-swapping went on; Helene would like to be able to ride Florent's VX, but being somewhat "vertically challenged" finds it a little too high. Most folk reckon that the Corbin reduces the seat height, so with a Corbin from another VX fitted, Helene tried Florent's VX. With a mighty effort, she lunged the VX off its side-stand. From my viewpoint I could see that her right foot was still a long way from the ground by the time the bike started to lean to the right, and the inevitable happened. Letting out a shriek, Helene vainly tried to stop the VX from hitting the ground too hard, but there was a sickening crunch as the bike lay down on its right-hand side, thankfully with little damage to the bike.

A number of VXers tried Brian's bike, to mixed reviews. None disliked it, but I understand some felt that what it had gained in smoothness and top-end power, it had lost in low-down "grunt". Ah well, 'orses for courses...

From here it was on to the restaurant, where a fine meal and entertaining conversation (in spite of language barriers!) was had by all.

At 11.30pm or so, having had maybe 4 hours sleep on Friday night, plus what seemed like almost non-stop biking for the last 24 hours, John, Ken and I decided we'd like to retire to the hotel. After a brief conversation with Alain for directions, we set off. A few miles along the road, the directions already seemed to have gone awry. "I don't remember Alain mentioning a main road", I thought, as we came to one. After trying each of the three possible directions for a couple of miles, we decided to return to the restaurant. After a fruitless conversation with Brian, who was leaning out of the window (he didn't know where it was any more than we did!), I went in and asked Alain about it. At this point I'd like to say to Alain "Je suis désolé - j'étais très fatigué" and leave it at that :)

Eventually Alain arranged for one of the others to escort us back to the hotel, and after what seemed like another trip around Normandy, we arrived back at the hotel, to very welcome beds.

Sunday saw us up, breakfasted and more or less ready by the time Alain arrived to start on the return journey to Cherbourg, which was to be a very leisurely affair with lots of stops at picturesque locations along the coast. First though, we went to Alain's house, where much to everyone's surprise we were all presented with a commemorative T-shirt (thanks Brian!), and had our photo taken.

Photo session over, we headed off into the wild blue yonder (I told you I just followed the bike in front!). Happily, Andre's problem of yesterday turned out to be just a wet gremlin in the works, and we were back to 12 VXs again. After a while we arrived at an excellent viewpoint which I'm reliably informed is know as Biville. More photos, and then on to another place on the coast where the now famous "VX photo" was taken.

From here we continued to a restaurant, where Alain and the others decided to abort the extra planned leg of the run in favour of more time for the meal. Good call Alain! I was sat amongst some of the French contingent and was finding it increasingly frustrating that in spite of my French O Level I could hardly understand a word they were saying! With this I determined that when I got home I was going to refresh my knowledge of French ready for the next time.

Another good meal (and the inevitable wine :) consumed, we set off for Cherbourg. Once in Cherbourg, we arrived at what appeared to be a supermarket car park, to find a full-scale motor race meeting going on! The photo shows someone testing a car by the way - even the French don't race without helmets! Never in England (on a Sunday!) though...

On to Cherbourg ferry port, and the inevitable sad goodbyes. It had been a wonderful weekend, and we would all have liked to stay longer. The next planned meeting was to be arranged in England in September, and it was agreed (somewhat reluctantly!) that I would speak only French, and Bertrand (who knows a little English) would speak only English! Should be interesting...

Ross, John, Ken and I boarded the ferry without mishap, and we had an uneventful (and thankfully flat!) crossing, passing the time chatting and drinking coffee, investigating the decks and visiting the gift shop and the inevitable (and soon to be no more :( ) duty-free shop. The weather was dry when we disembarked at Poole, and we stopped for John to rearrange his luggage (a much better idea than trying to do it before leaving the ferry, as we found out coming back from Ireland!). Sure enough though, after a wonderfully dry weekend in Normandy, about 10 miles along the road it started to rain, as if to say "welcome home". I didn't think it was bad enough to put on my wet gear, but the others disagreed, so I waited along the road until they caught up. we'd arranged that Ross would leave us at Dorchester for a more direct route to Taunton, and as it happened the rain became torrential just as we arrived there so I set about struggling into my wet gear. More goodbyes said, Ross left us and John, Ken and I continued our journey home (my home that is - they still had the 180 miles to do back to Shropshire the next day).

We arrived wet and tired, but happy. It had been a great weekend, and had left us with a taste for Continental biking we hadn't really had before.

I'd like to extend heartfelt thanks to Alain and all the others for the work they put into organising the weekend, and finish by saying:

Au prochain!

http://www.windfalls.u-net.com/normandy/normandy.html
Ian "TwoVXes" Johnson.
 
'92 Red VX800
'90 Blue VX800
Somerset, UK
http://www.windfalls.u-net.com
05/06/99