The day was very Paris centric, with me riding past the Stad de France, Christopher riding through the centre up the Champs Elysée, and Christopher's partner, Tpong, already visiting Paris and no-one of us met up!
I met up with long lost friends just outside Paris and added to my journey time by not electing to take the expensive péage bypassing Versailles; it's a nice area to ride through though. A lovely late lunch was had.
A quick refuel and back on the motorway, and for the second time today, the péage became an obstacle. The first time, the paper ticket that you pick up when entering the tolled section refused to be recognised at the péage when leaving the tolled section. I was stuck waiting for the "l'aide" to respond. Eventually the ticket was accepted and the payable amount shown - nearly 10 euros for the section to Paris from Brussels! The second time, I couldn't even get a ticket, the buttons were unresponsive. The problem occurred for the third time, when that ticket was also not accepted when leaving the toll road. I'm beginning to suspect there's a sensor in the road that my motorbike is not triggering.
Finally underway and at almost 300km the sputtering engine indicated that I had emptied the fuel tank and needed to switch to reserve. By my calculations I could reach Limoges, our stop for the night, with the fuel I had in the reserve tank.
30km later, the engine died. I coasted to a sheltered area on the hard shoulder, but the engine refused to start. What could it be? The engine had been running fine and surely the reserve of 4 litres was not empty yet as I should get 400km out of a tank on the motorway. But just in case, I emptied my 'just in case' 1 litre of emergency petrol into the tank. The engine fired up almost immediately!
I got off the motorway and used Google to find the nearest petrol station 7.7km away. I got there coasting on the downhills to save fuel. Strangely when I filled up, I could only get 16 litres into the tank, yet it's supposed to be a 21 litre tank. Something is not right - to be investigated.
I met Christopher at our lodging for the night, parking up beside his whale of a contraption. He has the biggest and widest set of panniers I have ever seen. No filtering between traffic for us!
Leon, fish brasserie for dinner, which was rather nice and inexpensive.
Long day. 700km on the road. My airhawk pad is working well, but there may be daily updates from the saddle, both surfaces! 🥴
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