Spanish Steps

Portsmouth

To those familiar with such matters, a Ducati V2 Panigale is not an obvious choice for a thirteen-day, 2,000-mile Spanish odyssey on unfamiliar roads. To those not, this is a lithe and beautiful Italian sports motorcycle designed and built for speed rather than comfort with practicality coming a distant third.

Factor in that the jockey is a card-carrying bon vivant, aged fifty-nine and three-quarters with a frame politely described as ‘amply proportioned' and the choice becomes even less sentient. After all, there is the option of a BMW K1600GT Sport in the garage with its plush seat, magic carpet ride and gargantuan luggage capacity.

But the days to act on such whims are getting fewer. At some point, what I’m contemplating will become physically impossible rather than just potentially uncomfortable. So I’m in the queue on a Sunday evening in late April, waiting to board Brittany Ferries’ ‘Salamanca’ for the 36-hour crossing to Bilbao.

Around me are people with the right tools for the job: GS’s & RT’s abound with proper fixed luggage, tank bags and other strap-on wizardly. I just have two excellent Kriega packs (the 10 & 30-litre ones) and being a bit of a matchy-matchy tidy-queen, various little Kriega bags and cases, stuffed inside the main ones to keep everything in order.

Oh, and some Dr Beckman travel wash…

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