Travelling nightmare

Whilst travelling, I got off the ferry at Bilbao and the throttle cable on my ZRX1200S snapped.

The bike was fully laden with luggage and it was raining.

After calling the breakdown service, I waited five hours in the rain for them to appear.

I loaded the bike on to the lorry and off we set into Bilbao, only to be told that Bilbao was shut for a week due to a festival.

This meant I was chucked out in the town with a phone number, watching the bike and lorry dissapear into the sunset – well rain.

I found a hotel and phoned the number I was given by the breakdown company but there was no answer.

And so I tried the next day, only to get Spanish answer phone message.

I telephoned the English people who organised the breakdown service (got them from the MCN) and they couldn’t find the bike, which still had all my gear attached to it.

This went on for four days before I eventually went into a shop, asked if anybody could speak English and got the guy to phone for me. 

The guy, who is also a biker, was on the phone for about an hour and sorted everthing out.

I got the bike back the next day and had it repaired. Then I rode down to the Costa del Sol, five days late but met up with my relieved wife.