Le Mans was signposted all the way from Le Havre so there was no real need for maps. The guys sped off at ungodly speeds leaving me to trundle along at 80/90mph enjoying the scenery.

Just before our first re-fuelling stop I spotted Adrian (Suzuki GSX1400) parked alone at the side of the road. Thinking he had bike trouble I pulled over. He babbled that Dai VFR’s stuff had flown off the back of his bike at 110mph, his sleeping bag hitting Adrian’s front mudguard, catapulting it some 20 yards into a field. I jumped off my bike and traversed a ditch to recover Dai’s sleeping bag…Tossed it to Adrian, by which time Dai had done a U-ey and come back to get his stuff. Adrian then told me that when all this happened, a lorry travelling in the opposite direction reacted by slamming his anchors on and parking across both carrieageways to stop all the oncoming traffic so that Adrian could run around the road collecting Dai’s stuff in safety! AMAZING! The French are SOOOOO courteous as motorists!

We stopped for fuel at a little roadside eaterie in the middle of nowhere. It had 2 fuel pumps and a typical French Peasant-like man filling the bikes for us…fuel pump in one hand and cigarette in the other! Easy there, Tiger! At least 70 or 80 bikes must have stopped to re-fuel there while we sat at the picnic benches drinking coffee and munching on Pain Chocolat & Croissants watching all the bikes flying by. WILD!

I caught up with them again at ….yep! you guessed it…another fuel station for Joss, and after that I didn’t see them again until I arrived at the campsite. After passing through Alencon I stopped for a cigarette and to get my bearings for the final 50km ride. I approached the campsite thinking they’d all be sat at their chalets, drinking coffee and checking their watches wondering where the girlie was…Not so!…They were all at the gatehouse. Uh? This didn’t make any sense….They should’ve been miles ahead of me the pace they were travelling! I later found out that they were going so fast that they’d overshot the turning for the campsite and had gone flying straight for Le Mans. Joss apparently spotted the `deliberate mistake`…wound his bike up to catch Allen…managed to communicate the problem and then Allen shot off on his Exocet Missile (GSXR 1000) to catch the others. It became a standing joke…the tortoise (me) and the hare (the guys). I’d just plodded along and ridden straight to the site! HA!

Our evening meal was a very welcome a` la Carte `feast` (a term used lightly in a` la Carte context) in the Le Vieux Moulin (Translation : The Old Mill) restaurant adjacent to the campsite. It was washed down with lots of Kronenbourg 1664 and 4 bottles of house wine. PERFECT!

Saturday 12 April

We headed off for the circuit at around 10.30am. It was madness in and around Le Mans. We joined the swarm of bikes heading for the circuit…and this was our first taste of the atmosphere and enthusiasm for this event. It was incredible!

The whole of the approach to the Circuit entrance was lined with tents…both in official campsites and on grass verges and roundabouts! Again the atmosphere was amazing…Revving and beeping of horns…Smoke from burn-outs…Doughnut rings dotted every few yards on the road…Drunken bikers at 11.30 in the morning (on foot of course!) It was like we’d just gate-crashed a massive party!

Racing started at 3pm…we found a suitable perch on one of the spectator stands to watch a few hours and then took it in turns to go wandering. As you can imagine…as with all racing events…watching the bikes go round and round in circles from one spot is pretty damn boring. It was the atmosphere that made it!

Early evening saw us leaving the circuit to go for a short ride and to forage for food…preferably something not involving bread! Fuller (Kawasaki ZX9) found us a supermarket with a restaurant. Even supermarket food is lovely in France, though Swampy’s pathetic attempt at trying to communicate left him with an unidentifiable big greenish-brown ball of `something` and a plate of green beans. Hmmm! This of course was highly amusing. Fuller headed off to use the public phone and came back announcing that they had a live cow in the foyer….Needless to say more jokes ensued about Swampy’s `unidentifiable spherical object`!!

We got back to the circuit in the dark, to watch some of the night-time action. That was spectacular! They seemed to be going faster, but in reality they were going about 2 seconds a lap slower, and each bike had it’s own unique lighting configuration so that the pits could recognise their own riders. Of course the sound was more pronounced too. At one section of the course, a long sweeper, the bikes were hitting their rev limiters and popping and burping as they flew past us. It was truly awesome!

We headed off for `home` at around midnight. The guys wanted to have a few beers..but I was too nackered…so I left them in the bar in the village and headed off back to the campsite. I was woken a few hours later by a loud rumbling sound…and the chalet started shaking. Half asleep…my first thoughts were EARTHQUAKE!…but in reality it was just the arrival of Joss’s bike! Joss stumbles in, telling me that Paul (a tee totaller) had done a relay ferrying all the guys back from the village on Joss’s XR…and it was 3am. GROAN! We had a chat and a cigarette together and suddenly there was a loud bang and the lights went out! Great! It’s 3am and the fuse has blown…no heat and no light! Joss fumbled around in the dark for my torch and we carried on talking. Then his curiosity gets the better of him and he goes outside to investigate. He comes back a few minutes later in a fit of giggles. Apparently, Paul and Allen were running around the site unplugging everyone’s chalets. The loud bang was Paul almost getting himself electrocuted!! On spotting Joss apparently Allen tried to hide in the bushes…in his day-glo Dianese leathers…Er! Hello-o! Earth calling Allen!….Mad fool! After the madness was over, they plugged us back in and our heater rumbled back to life…Thank God! Of course Fuller, Dai and Adrian had just ignored all the activity outside and settled into semi-drunken comas…that of course was until they got plugged back in and their chalet lit up like a beacon…blinding the buggers! All you could hear was loud groans and blind fumbling for light switches! Complete madness!