Well, the fiendish plan was to take my beloved 2015 Yamaha TMax scooter plus my sweet 2013 Honda CB500 back to the UK and to collect my brand new Yamaha TMax 530DX which was waiting for me at Alf England (www.alfengland.co.uk). Yamaha have just launched the TMax 560 so many dealers were caught with stock of the 530 and I managed to get a good deal from Martin, he wanted to sell his last one.
Unfortunately the only one left in stock was black which is NOT my chosen colour for cars or bikes, (my old one was white which I much prefer), but beggars and choosers and all that and the deal was excellent so I could not resist mainly because my old one did not have ABS which I regard as essential for 2 wheelers. You may not notice until its toooo late.
So I set off from Roma on a Saturday morning at about 7am, destination Chamonix for my overnight stop cos I love Chamonix and the Mercure Hotel is lovely just a few kilometres after the Mont Blanc tunnel. When I arrived at about 5pm the temperature was already sliding down towards zero so I decided to park the van in the hotel garage for an extra 10 Euro, to avoid having to scrape and de-ice the windscreen in the morning as I was planning to leave fairly early (but not at dawn). Well, I pulled out of the hotel garage at about 6am at minus 8.5 degrees and the climb up to the road was all ice and snow, the van however was great on her wonderful winter tyres. I headed north and as usual in France the motorways were excellent, not too busy and totally clear of ice.
I hit Calais at about 4pm and was put on the next P and O ferry leaving in 30 minutes, I then headed up to the Business Lounge for my free newspapers plus tea, coffee or champers and as usual I had two or three coffees and read several newspapers. At Dover I then headed to Cambridge and luckily the traffic was fairly light, I hit the M2/M25/M11 and was soon in Shelford for beers and rest.
Then the next morning I headed north to the Midlands to see Martin and the gang….some pictures below!! By the time I returned to Amalfi my red van had covered 5150 kms and averaged almost 11km/l, not bad for an old girl. Great trip, zero oil consumed too cos the van is only running at 2300rpm at 130 kph, very relaxed.
Service no limits! 