The trip to the Belgian Laverda meet was our first post covid trip to the Continent. With a freshly rebuilt Jota what could possibly go wrong? The ride down to Dover was great. The rear Falcon shocks are of particular note โ soaking up the bumps, no jarring just the steady feel of the rebound working its magic. Preparation had been squeezed a little by other things in the diary. We had to detour due to road closures and this took us past the pitiful migrant camps down in the woods โ wretched.
I took my time to get used to riding on the right and settled in to battle down the E19 while revelling in memories of starting many journeys down this road and enjoying the change in language. Everything is familiar and yet different. Antwerp was a traffic nightmare โ gridlock! We laboured in 1 st and 2 nd for 30 kms before the traffic thinned and we were able to get back up to our kph cruising speed.
We had planned to call into the rally but decided we should just press on for Mierlo. I got tailgated by a Dutch SUV so pulled left and gave him the finger as he sailed past and then as I returned to normal duty the bike coughed โ we were onto reserve but a glance in the mirror also showed a trail of blue smoke. We were fortunate to be by an exit so left the dual carriageway and rolled to a halt. I put my right foot down to find it covered in oil. Lucky I had a pipe to fix this but of course no oil.
So middle of nowhere in the rain with a busted bike. Why is this so familiarโฆbut in once sense having trodden this route many times before we just got on with problem solving. A lady appeared from the house. I could leave the Jota behind a locked gate until the morning. We were both shivering but got a call into Rene who arrived in the hour to whisk us off to Mierlo.
I gave myself a pat on the back for ensuring I had a contingencyโฆ. First off running out of fuel caused me to see the smoke. We also had the failure near an exit โ another kilometre would have seen us by the side of a wet, dark and very busy dual carriageway. And of course we had Rene to come to our aid! Rene rolled his RGS out into the autumn sun and together we headed off to the rally at Achtel, near Hoogstraten. The Jota sounded and was running good.
