InvictaMoto's Devall Boys!

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...

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...

It will be two years since the last trip we did as the Devall Boys.  Last time we had a trip to Brno to see the Czech MotoGP and to stay with friends near the circuit. The 2018 trip will be shorter and will be a weekend across to the Netherlands for the MotoGP and the Dutch TT at Assen. About 260 miles each way.  Easily do-able on the Rocket.  I don't know what my brother will have by then. His Sprint is getting on for 4+ years old already and he must be lusting after a new one. I have booked a hotel in Groningen. It is called the "Hotel de Doelen".  It is also 3* and right in the city centre. It's as near as possible to the circuit given the massive numbers that will go.  I did look at one and put a hold on it temporarily but it was in the middle of nowhere. Not easy to get food and drink in the evenings. It's still 8 months away but it is one of the most popular meetings in the calendar. Not much wriggle room now as there are so few hotels and B...