I would say I woke up, but the reality is that I didn’t. I was green, in fact, I was so green while everyone else was sat outside loading their bikes up, I was contemplating emptying the contents of my stomach down the porcelain telephone. Yes, I was hung over and it was the hangover from hell.
The room was spinning when I got into bed earlier that morning, and it did not stop spinning. I was in a mess and a real mess at that, and thankfully everybody was sympathetic toward me, ok I am lying the ripped me to bits when I eventually staggered out into the road.
It took a lot of courage and determination to throw my leg over that saddle, but I took it for the team and did the very best I could not to hold the job up. I have never ridden a bike in the condition I was in before, and I am not doing that ever again, however, I made it out of the city alive and the fresh air that was being rammed down my throat was making me feel better and all I wanted was a big fat fry up, but that was never going to happen.
Today we were heading to our friends Graeme and Louise and at the end of today was going to see us having a rest for a couple of days so it was going to be good to rest, and that is pretty much what got me through the morning.
On this trip, all four of us are connected using Scala G9x headsets, and that has been great for the first few days on the trip, but today I turned the volume down as, quite frankly, I was not interested in what anybody had to say, and I was quite happy trying not to fill the inside of my helmet up with last night’s dog steak and ale.
At every service station, I drank a gallon of water and ate a sack of crisps in a bid to try to flush out the bad stuff and by around 14:00 I was starting to feel human again, which was damn handy because the roads were about to get a whole lot more twisty.
The scenery was stunning and Twiz pointed out that there was a bout 20kms of really good twisty bends coming up to Graemes and we should all be prepared, that was all I needed; I truthfully did snap myself out of the hangover and got my head in gear ready to really enjoy it.
The road to Graems was bonkers, it was like a two-year-old child had scribbled over the sat nav screen it was brilliant. Twiz took the lead again and started to set the pace through the roads, it is always nicer to follow someone else through a bend as they become a bit of an early warning, especially as we were all chatting to each other. We come through one bend and Twiz hit a patch of tar and lost both the front and the rear of the triumph rocket III and although the video does not make it look bad, it looked desperate at the time from my point of view.
The road was great fun, but I was more than pleased to be welcomed with a smile from both Graeme and Louise, especially after the brutal start to the day.
I was ready to kick back and relax at this fine place that is a Villa nestled in the mountains and not having to ride far for the next few days was brilliant. That evening we ate we drank, and we slept it was the perfect end to the last boys’ night away because tomorrow we will pick the wives up from Valencia’s airport.