InvictaMoto's Devall Boys!

With the hotel booked on the usual free cancellation/no prepayment basis we are in a dead zone until we decide that we are definitely going. Today I had an email from the ticket office to say that tickets for the event are on sale.  Eagerly, I clicked to see what the prices are for 2019. General admission to the track are €80 for the weekend and Grandstands with a booked seat are from €135. There are also a range of other stands for "fans". There is always a Valentino Rossi fan stand. I guess to sit there you need to make sure you have at least a yellow 46 cap and maybe say "for sure" in most sentences in English. But as for price. Who knows? On the website all grandstands come up as "SOLD OUT". Already? https://www.gpfrancemoto.com/en/grandstand/3-day-ticket

Booked today. Cost £64 for the car on top of the Assen MotoGP trip fare that I had parked with them after we couldn't go. To accommodate taking Reggie to the kennels for the weekend on Friday morning I have booked 28/9 1120 out and 1/10 1750 back. As we will be back too late to go and get him on the Monday I have Tuesday leave as well and so I can go and get him in the morning. posted from Bloggeroid

So. We have ordered three tickets for the race weekend Claire and I will go in the car and Neill on his BMW, I expect. Before then he had a trip to Canada to fly in the Lancaster bomber. Before we make any firm travel plans I have booked the leave from work and Reggie is booked into Wyncot. We need to sit down with Neill and see what his plan is for the journey up. He won't want to be constrained by the progress a car can make especially when the roads get a bit busy. We have to take Reggie to Wyncot. That is easily an hour round trip from home on nasty narrow country lanes. I don't want to be thrashing it all the way there to wherever the hotel at the Assen end is located. I think we'll be looking at around an 11am Shuttle. Anything not to be around Antwerp at lunchtime or evening rush hour. That place is a bloody nightmare through the tunnels and merging highways. The Insignia has a range of about 650 miles to a tank of diesel and so there sh...

I had originally planned the trip to the  Assen round of BSB   as a weekend away for me and Claire in the car but since the disappointment of the MotoGP at Assen it has got a little bigger. We have Claire's hip operation hanging over us and until we get a firm date or even a hint of roughly when it will be, it is difficult to start making to many hard plans. I had booked a twin room in hotel we have stayed at a few times before (in  2009 / 2010 ) before at De Wapse. Claire and I will still need to go in the car and Neill may still want to ride his BMW "Ginny" up there. So with three of us we need another room.  De Wapse was oddly full on the Friday night and I had booked Sat/Sun nights.   Neill has booked two rooms elsewhere from Friday to Monday, three nights.   At the moment it all hinges on the hip op.   Of course, Reggie still needs to go on his holiday and that will complicate things a little and at £14...

After having to cancel my 2016 tour due to a heart attack, this latest episode was yet another kick in the wotsits. I won't go in to detail but having been unwell during the night and waited forlornly for NHS Direct to get someone to get back to me (it'll be 2 hours, it'll be another 2 hours, it'll be never), I took myself and Catherine, off to A&E. 9 hours later I was being admitted to a ward, as I was hyperthermic and they couldn't let me go home in that condition. I was hopeful I'd be going home the next day and that we could postpone the trip across till Saturday. As luck would have it though, I was still running hot the next day, so they decided another night in hospital was required and thus the trip was scuppered. I'd booked a hotel for the trip up, so contacted Booking.com and asked to cancel and waive the cost of the room. I also messaged the hotel and explained the situation. Fair play, I was allowed to cancel free of charge and they came b...

Maybe we can recover the situation. I have already got a hotel booked near Assen for British Super Bikes at the round there. Have to see?

Sadly due to illness we have had to abort the mission. I have cancelled the Groningen hotel and as it was after the free cancellation end date we might have to forfeit the €111 cost of the room. I have sent a "special request" to them through booking.com to explain why we had to cancel in the vain hope they will do something.  It's not as though they won't be able to let the room as rooms really are sought after for MotoGP weekend. Luckily Eurotunnel have rebooked my shuttle ticket for another date in the future and I can still use that again. I advertised the Assen e-tickets via Twitter and have had no interest. So we will definitely be stuck with the loss. It's a shame but Neill's health is far more important than money. Update 4th July 2018 It was only in the early hours of this morning that I got a reply to my request to waive the cost of the room. I had emailed booking.com customer services to see what what has happening a...

We are due to set off tomorrow afternoon, an overnight in Gent and then up to Assen to see if we can arrive for some practice on Saturday. But. Neill had to go to hospital today and they kept him in. So I guess it depends on how he feels... and when they let him out. Best case scenario is early tomorrow and he feels chipper. Or later and we go Saturday. I can't cancel the Groningen hotel for free and to cancel will cost €111. If we don't go then it's tough but why let them book the room to someone else for double money? Have to wait until early Friday to see... posted from Bloggeroid

Four days to go. Pepé had a new rear tyre on Saturday and it will need scrubbing in for the first part of the journey. That will be mostly all on motorway so that should be quite straightforward.  Neill has just logged up 2000 miles on his Beemer. That's just under a third of the mileage I have put on the Rocket in three years.  I have become less of a fair weather biker and more of a plum. One of those guys that I used to laugh at when I was doing 20000 miles a year minimum! "More money that sense!" Pepé is almost ready to go.  I need to refit the panniers removed to let them have access to the back wheel and I have to decide on what bag to take for my gear.  We are away three nights so a few changes of undies and t-shirts, plus wash bag,  jeans and trainers should suffice. Given that, I might not need the massive Saddlemen bag but might just take a roll top waterproof pack.   Although the weather is forecast to be in the mid-twenties...

Added to the blog after locating it "On the Road Again" blog. The last time that Neill and I went to Assen together. This trip was with some other (at the time) members of the (now defunct/dead) SOC Kent Centre. http://invictamoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/motogp-dutch-tt-june-2009_22.html https://invictamoto.blogspot.com/2009/06/run-back-assen-2009.html This year it will be just the two of us. I didn't publicise it to The Meldrews this time as this is a brothers trip. Paul.

Eurotunnel tickets are now booked, Out on the Friday late afternoon and back late afternoon on the Monday. The hotels are booked for the three nights we are away.  So not much else to report.

So. The last update was mid-November. I had emailed the circuit a ticket order form. It was the week between Christmas and New Year when the invoice arrived. We had got the right grandstand.  But payment was only by bank transfer. Not much good internationally from UK transferring into Euros from sterling plus the bank charges meant it was madness. When I got an email in the New Year to say that ticket sales were now online I logged in and bought two tickets and could pay with a credit card and get an e-ticket in a few minutes. Much better. A copy of the e-tickets sent to Neill for safety. I have them in a folder on my phone but maybe a hard copy or two needs printing. I then emailed the booking office to cancel the tickets from the original paper booking. making sure that the reference number was different!! So all we need now is to decide when we are setting off on Friday afternoon or evening. Update 1/2/2018 Credit card bill arri...