Tuesday 10th July – 397.9 Miles Nurburgring

Wet start with a sore knee. It seems to be my bladder that wakes me most days on this trip. We followed Lake Lehman round North. The towns were hectic and full of traffic before we got to some windy rural roads. It was also still raining on and off.

Unknown to me (my comms have been down for the duration of the trip) Paul had decided to stop at the start of a series of windies to don his shades (on the second day of relentless rain... I know!). Half way down I realized I'd lost him so I slowed to a crawl just in case the rain was causing him to ride slower but to no avail. After a while I belted down the rest of the twisty hill to catch the other two. They told me about the shades and so we waited. And waited. And waited. I decided to ride back up to where I'd last seen him (it was an excellent excuse to ride the windy hill again – twice in fact) it was an otherwise fruitless exercise. He'd turned of and shot down the Motorway at top speed in an attempt to catch us up.

By the time we resumed contact (via mobile phones) he'd gone miles in the other direction so it was decided that we would contact each other every stop and try to meet up again. Failing that we had a final destination of the 'Ring'.

We all pressed on a little disheartened at being separated. The mileage looked daunting as a group so it must have been even more so solo. We also found that a lot of it was Motorway which is not fun; even less so in the driving rain in fact! We rode through Luxembourg in a matter of minutes. The only joy for me came when we got off the Autobahn. The roads around the 'Ring' are brilliant race track smooth sweeping heaven. I didn't even care that it was still chucking it down – they're corners!!!

We eventually found a camp site right next to the track and booked four of us in. Then we heard from Paul who'd hold up in a Motel in France somewhere. I don't blame him, the weather was relentless and on your own there's no-one to give you that all important boost when you most need it. The rain persisted while we erected our sodden tents in the boggy marsh. We didn't even wash or change; just rode into the nearest town to find a warm, dry bar to have something warm to eat. Dinner turned out to be the best meal of the trip yet, it was just such a shame that Paul couldn't be with us.