A call to the International Recovery service supplied with Carole Nash Insurance saw a recovery truck arrive within half an hour and my bike loaded on soon after with the driver assuring me the 'Cat would be taken to one of the two motorcycle shops that would be open on the following day (Monday).
However, at around 17:00 Sunday afternoon I had a call to inform me that the motorcycle shop they intended to have carry out the repair would not re-open until 09:30 Tuesday morning which would be pushing it for the four hour ride I had to make the Ferry Port by the 16:15 check-in time so they suggested I change the Ferry to the Wednesday sailing 'just in case'.
Monday morning was spent phoning between the two shops who did open and my recovery service to see if they could help- the first shop I called, their mechanic was off sick but the second called 'House of Bike' run by two youngish chaps Baptiste and Charles were brilliant with Baptist meeting me where my bike was stored to fix the tyre there and then-sorted!
After another call to the Ferry company to change my booking back to the original time and date and I was all back on schedule.
Once we actually had a plan to get it sorted and with the Insurance company paying for Baptiste's call out fee, the extra two nights' stay in Angers plus the Ferry amendment charges it wasn't such a bad long weekend.
As the saying goes- 'Every Day's a School Day' and the lessons learnt this time were:
1- Don't leave home without a tyre repair kit.
2- Always try and get things sorted yourself before giving the bike up to the recovery service (particularly when in a town).
3- Still register the breakdown with the insurance/recovery service right away as they'll pay for any extra nights hotel etc.
The planned route but only making it to the Blue Dinosaur:
Before this happened:
Luckily Angers was very picturesque:
But even the underground parking tormented me:
We still got to see MM do his thing (again!):
Before some sight-seeing around the Castle:
Looking from the Castle across the river to the University side of town:
After the repair, back on the road with smooth tarmac and no clouds:
So not quite the riding trip we originally planned, making only one of the three destinations on the route- Brittany has a lot more to give and I will definitely be going back!!