My France/Spain Trip 2008

[Faldo]

After reading various threads on touring here on BCF, I decided the time had come for me to take the plunge. I found the perfect excuse when I saw the Catalunya MotoGP was on in a couple of months time. I didn't want to use the ZX7R I had in the garage as it had done 22k miles, and owed me a fortune, and so I wanted to keep the mileage down.

I looked at many /many/ bikes to do this trip on. I was mostly looking at VFRs/ZX9Rs. Although I only started riding just over a year ago, I had five bikes in that time, mostly Kawasakis, so when I saw a 2002 ZX7R on eBay, that had only done 8500 miles for £2100, I jumped on it. Ok, it's not the most desirable colour scheme, but it rides superbly, and is towards the end of the 7R production run. (Just seen a 22k mile, '96 P1 model on Ebay, and the guy wants £3k for it! Dreamer!)

I installed 2x 12v sockets under the seat to charge sat nav and phone, had a pair of Pirelli Diablo Strada sports touring tyres fitted, and bought panniers/tankbag. Adjusted the chain, checked levels etc. The bike had a Datatool System 3 fitted from new.

My plan was to mostly thrash through France (Considered using motorways, but decided against it), to get to sunny Spain, then watch MotoGP and carry on down to Gibraltar and back up to the Tunnel.

Day One

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Finally the day to leave came, I left at about 11.30am. I had a fairly uneventful ride down to the Eurotunnel. All long and boring motorways. Of course, 2 mins after getting onto the M6 the heavens opened, and it continued to p!ss down all the way to Folkestone. The only slightly interesting thing on the way down south was 20-25 mins of filtering past standing traffic on the M25, as they were clearing up after something had gone through the central reservation.

I had looked at the Eurotunnel prices online, and it appeared the most I'd be looking to pay would be about £40. So you can imagine the shock I had when the guy at the checkpoint asked for £72. The prices I had looked at must of been for passenger travel. Oh well, I'd rather go by train than ferry anyway.

There was only one other biker on my crossing, an Austrain guy on a Ewan & Charlie stylee Beamer. We were the last vehicles to be herded onto the train. We got chatting during the crossing, and he was telling me he had done 6000km around GB, including Isle of Skye and Isle of Lewis. He also told me how sh!te the UK's food is, and also how everything is expensive here. He also told me how good the food was in France.

35 mins later and we hit France, and all was sunny! I rode about 1/2 mile off the train and saw an Etap hotel! Checked in, quick shower, and back on the bike to find some of this legendry food I had been hearing about. Alas, my lack of understanding of the French language (And also that everything seemed to be shut!), meant it was a quick McDonalds meal I ended up with! Oh well, plenty more time to find some decent food in France. Back to the hotel and an early night for me, as there was no bars etc within walking distance.

Day Two

Left Calais at about 10am. Last night I had used the hotel's Wifi (Thanks Itchy, you were right, Orange operate it. I think it was 15 Euro for 10 Hours worth), to find the postcode for an F1 hotel, which is the cheapest of the Accor Hotels. I put the postcode of the hotel in Dijon into the Sat Nav, set it to avoid motorways and off I went. The rain was persitant, which was rather worrying as I hadn't bothered to put my laptop or clothes bag into binbags earlier!

Most of Northern France appeared to be like this:

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Just long straight roads, hardly a bend in sight. I wondered if I had made a mistake in not planning the routes with a map, and relying solely on the Sat Nav to plan my routes.

Today was when I noticed that around every corner there was someone cutting grass. And I mean it was on an industrial scale. I suffer bad hayfever back home, but over in France it was driving me crazy. If you're going to France and suffer from hayfever, take 3 times as many tablets than you think you'll need!!

The rain halted for a bit, so I decided to make up some time. This lead me into overtaking a Gendarmerie (Or germ as I nicknamed them) at about 110/120 mph in a 90kmh zone They didn't give chase, and I don't think they'd of stood much chance as they were in a Berlingo or Kangoo. Somehow, French authority cars just didn't stand out to me at all. In fact, I'd probably spot an unmarked British police car before a Germ.

After a quick ding dong with a ZX10R, which promptly got pulled over as I passed. French bikers have a much better sense of camaraderie than we do. If they overtake you they stick their right leg down, always wave when passing in the other direction (Even cruiser riders, mostly). Then there's the cagers. Literally about 95% of car drivers will move well over to allow you to pass them. This will happen whether you're in inner city traffic, or out on the open road. As a thankyou, French riders drop their right leg off the peg. It's less of a case of 'cagers vs bikers', more of 'everyone vs authority'. That's the impression I got anyway!

So, i arrived at the F1 hotel only to find it fully booked. Fortunately there was a hotel 10 metres away. This was a Khyraid (?) hotel. It was almost twice the price as the F1 hotel, but I couldn't be arsed to go and find a cheaper hotel, so I paid the 58 Euros. At least there was free WiFi here (Didn't Work!! ). Had a few pints (at 5.50e each!!), and a steak and chips, which for 12e I found was pretty pants TBH. I was glad to go to bed to try and escape the hayfever for a few hours.

Day Three

Day three started out warm, but overcast. The Sat Nav redeemed itself early on in the morning, as it found an awesome road which ran side by side (and over) a canal. The road was very twisty, and ran through a few sleepy French villages. I had a proper smile on my mush as i was peeping the horn at people waving on passing barges. All was good, and I didn't want to have to stop riding this road. A couple of pics from this road (I managed to pick the most boring part of the road to photograph, but you get the idea)

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After this I started to climb up up up. The rain resumed, as did gusting winds. After another 75 miles or so of these horrible conditions I decided enough was enough, and instructed the Sat Nav to take me to the nearest Etap hotel. As the route started dropping down the town of Le-Puy-en-Velay came into view. It really was a beautiful old place.

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However, the automated Etap was full. I followed the Sat Nav to an Ibis hotel around the corner which I was told was also full, but I could try another Ibis 1 mile down the road. I tried there and he told me they were full, but the Ibis I had just come from had rooms available as he had just telephoned and asked them for the person who had just walked out as I walked in!! Perhaps it was because I was a biker? I don't know.

By this time the rain had ceased, and I decided to push on to my original destination, Montpellier. I'm really glad I made this decision, as the next road blew me away. After climbing back up into the mountains, and a bit of riding through the clouds I came across the best biking road I have ever been on. All conditions became perfect. The rain and wind stopped, my hayfever went, the knocking the engine had been doing was hushed. For the next 45mins-hour, it was hairpin/s-bend/long fast sweeping bend after the other. Total bliss. I remember thinking this is what I came here for. After a while riding this road, I decided to use my back brake more to give the front one a rest, which resulted in boiling the fluid in the back brake. I've never boiled brake fluid on an English road that's for sure. After letting it cool down for 10 mins whilst I had a ciggie and took some pics I pushed on. Turning a corner, when imagine my suprise as I went offroading in Long Way Round fashion. It looked as if the roads were about to be resurfaced, but the didn't do it in tiny sections. I was riding on grit and dirt for about 5 miles! Which is not easy on a supersports bike with luggage let me tell you! Still good fun though.

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I had the camera in totally the wrong mode I'm afraid, so you don't really get the scale all of this was on, but it was stunning. You might be able to make out the two old viaducts in the background. I rode across that dam 10 mins later.

Not far after these pics I had to stop for fuel in a tiny village, where the garage attendent (mechanic really) put the fuel in for me, which was novel.

When I was not far from my destination, I turned a corner to find Ambulances and Police all over the road. There was also an Air Ambulance parked up nearby. I was goingto take a pic, but it seemed quite serious so I thought it best not to really. This is the first oppourtunity I had to use the "Avoid Roadblock" feature of the TomTom (Which I've had for well over a year, and bought a Western Europe map for it for 50 squid). This worked really well and I was soon at my next Etap hotel.

As with the other Etap hotels, it wasn't really near much. They seem to build them away from everything, so if your travelling on your own, there's not really much to do at night. I walked about 1/2 mile and found a bar, which was closing (9pm), so I went to a nearby pizza shop and had a pizza and a few Heinnekin tinnies.

Day Three was probably the best (Due to the roads) and worst (Due to the rough conditions I had earlier) day of the trip.

Oh yeah, it was today I opened my bag to find that a full bottle of Jean Paul-Gaultlier aftershave had undone itself and soaked most of my clothes. Bollox

Day Four

My preconceptions before leaving was that I would hate France. Everyone always says the French are assholes, and I didn't think I'd like the roads, people or culture. But as I was setting out on Day Four I was quite sad to be leaving France, whilst at the same time excited about the next leg of my trip, Spain.

It was very, very windy in the South of France. I was literally hanging off the bike to keep it in a straight line at cruising speeds. This is when my alarm started to play up. As I was riding along, it was doing the beep it does when the alarm is de-activated, which also meant, that all four indicators were coming on simultaneously!! So I pulled over and rung a friend and asked him to see if there was a way to disarm the thing totally. The simple answer was no, it had to go to an authorised Datatool dealer. Great. On my way I went, with the bike beeping sometimes every now and then, sometimes going mental!! My main worry was that it would have adverse effects on the built in immobiliser, which would pretty much leave me stranded. Good job (after much deliberation) that I took out that European breakdown cover!

Soon I reached the Spanish border, and just like when crossing into France, the passport was undisturbed in the tankbag!

Once in Spain, I found myself driving down quite an intimidating road. There was Police everywhere, prostitutes (Or an empty chair!) at the side of the road every 1/2 mile (this was at 3pm). There were a few vehicles flashing their headlights as they were coming the other way, and I had a BMW driver flashing his headlamps up my arse for no apparent reason. I was riding at about 70ish, but he got right up behind me, so I decided the safest thing was to get away from this knobhead, so I dropped 3 cogs and fcuked off from him past about 30 cars. Whilst driving through the first little village, there was a biker in front of me making all sorts of hand signals, and pointing his hand trying to get me to pull over, to which I thought no chance am I pulling over here, so as my bike was far more powerful I again pinned it. He didn't bother trying to keep up and I saw him turn off in my mirror. When I felt it was a bit safer I pulled over to check the bike over, checked the lights, indicators etc, all appeared fine.

As I was about 45 miles away from my hotel, I noticed that the low battery light was flashing on the Sat Nav, which meant either the connection of the charger had come out of the Sat Nav, or much worse, had come out of the 12v socket under the pillion seat, under the laptop, under the Reebok bag! Of course it was the later. I had to pull over, bear in mind it's roasting hot, and I'm in full black leathers. After half an hours fcuking about with bungees, panniers and cargo nets I was on my way.......

.......On my way to city centre Barcelona at rush hour. OH MY GOD, was this fun. I thought driving in inner London was bad. There was one long, long, 6 lane road with traffic lights literally every 250 yards. And the scooters, there were scooters everywhere. It was an experience I'll never forget. Nobody waits for the lights to turn green neither. And it was hot. Of course, the bike was running hot in all this traffic, so the fan (Which is almost never on in the UK), was on full time, blowing hot air onto my hot leathers. Twas fustrating.

Eventually I found the Etap hotel, and promptly had a much needed shower, before heading down to the adjoining Ibis bar where I met a couple who had come from Kendal on a Harley. I slowly got sozzled with them and drunk the night away.

Day Five

On day five the only riding I needed to do was to the Novotel hotel I had booked a couple of weeks before leaving which was in South Barcelona.

After checking in to the hotel, I thought I'd go for a ride around and to buy some cigs as I'd run out by this time. A very frustrating ride was had. I went to countless petrol stations and even supermarkets and I still couldn't find anywhere! 3 hours later and I saw a sign which said Tabac, hurray!! For dinner, I got a sandwich, which turned out to be an ham ommlete sandwich. Urghhh! It was rank, and was duly thrown away!!

Back to the hotel, and watched qualifying in Spanish. Then out to find some food. Again, there wasn't much near the hotel. After walking for about a mile, I found a little pizza shop. As I couldn't understand any Spanish, I ordered a Mexicana, which turned out to be just a load of mush. No visible toppings. It wasn't nice, but I had to eat something so I ate it all.

As there wasn't a great deal going on near the hotel, I went for a ride up to the track area at about 7ish. It was about 25 miles north from my hotel in Montmelo. This gave me a chance to get some piccys of the centre of Barcelona.

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Montmelo was full of bikes/bikers/police. The sound of engines being bounced off the limiter rang through the air.

Back to the hotel and I watched Portugal vs Turkey and sank a few expensive pints. I got speaking to a couple from Brum who had been out in Barca the night before and had paid 10 Euros a pint!!! OMFG.

Day Six

Yay, race day. Up early to get int the queue for the track. Finding it certainly wasn't a problem, just follow everyone else. Even as I rode in file on the pavement past all the cars the atmosphere was building. Everyone in the cars were sounding there air horns and waving at the bikers going passed. Got to the ground and parked the bike up, fully loaded. This was quite a worry, as everything I bought with me for the trip was going to have to be left on the bike!

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Once at the track I bought a ticket from a guy outside the ground for 70 Euro. I don't think he was a tout as he was actually sitting in the grandstand near me when I got up there with his family.

However, buying this ticket from a tout had meant I had no currency left. I was going to pay by card. So it was a case of routing through my leathers to find a few coins so I could at least buy some water. I bought two small bottles of water (5e), but they were served sans bottletops!! It was boiling hot, and I honestly thought I was going to end up with sun stroke or something if I didn't get more water! I had no hat, was in leathers, and no sun cream! Oh, there was a Desmocedici going round the track doing pillion rides! It sounded awesome, probably louder than the MotoGP bikes!

Fortunatly I spotted some Brits, top blokes from Lincoln, and one of them swapped me 20 quid for 20 Euro. Lifesaver!! Also got speaking to a couple of lads from Blackwood in South Wales before the main event.

So up into the grandstand to watch the main race. And what a view

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The atmosphere up there was amazing. A lot of the Spaniards were actually cheering for Valentino, but of course the majority were shouting Ped-Rosa, Ped-Rosa!!!

As well as the race between Rossi and Stoner, there was a brilliant race right at the back between Melandri and West (I presume that's who it was anyway, a Kwak and a Duke).

After the race I didn't really know where to head next. I just needed to get away from Barca, which took well over an hour, even on a bike so God knows how long it must of took in a car!! I pulled over to put my gloves on after the manic filtering of the last hour and decided I wanted to be back in France, so back over the border to Perpignon. Again, it was bloody windy in the South of France.


Day Seven

Day seven was a really easy days riding really. There were some nice roads with long sweeping bends. Up until today I had only accumulated only about 10 flies on my clear visor which I had worn the whole trip. Today was a different story. Everthing got covered in flies. I pulled over for a cig somewhere and to look at yet another fantastic view, and as soon as I took my lid off a got literally attacked by flying things. One of them was huge! Low flying birds (of the winged variety) were also becoming a problem. One hit me full on in the shoulder, and another just clipped me on the shoulder, and I had to duck and dive out of the way of a few, some well into triple figure speeds too!

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The route took me through Millau, but not over the bridge unfortunatley. I did get a couple of pics though.

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Got to Clermont-Ferrand in good time, but alas, nothing was going on nearby, so a quick trip to the Total garage to get some tinnies it was, again.

Day Eight

The night before I had debated whether to head for Calais, or about 125 miles south of Calais to Rouen. I decided Rouen in the morning. Today was easily the hottest day, way hotter than Barcelona. I'd say it was at least 30 degrees. It was again windy and quite hard work.

The first Etap I found in Rouen was full, and the guy behind the counter tried to direct me to another Etap a mile away in his limited English. I just used Sat Nav to find it but I was going round in circles trying to find it. The third time in the same place again, I was hot, sweaty and frustrated, and down a really small side street. So I pinned the throttle in 1st, and just as the front wheel came up I heard a duh-duh-duh-duh coming from the back! Fcuking great. My initial thought was that the chain had come off. At this point it had been slapping about for the last thousand miles, and was on the second to last notch of adjustment before I started the trip. So I stopped, and whilst still sat on the bike looked downwards to see the chain in place. I pulled off again and the noise had gone.

About half a mile later it became apparent that I had aquired myself a puncture. I pulled over outside a Peugeot garage. Bear in mind it was now 6pm. I asked if there was any tyre shops nearby, in the universal language of me pointing to my helmet, then to a tyre on a car, then making a pshhhh sound accompanied by the relevant hand signals. The tyre shop pointed across the road to a bike shop which was about 500 yds away. I was expecting to find roller shutters, but hurray it was open. The owner spoke a tiny amount of English, but was very helpful. We pushed the bike (Complete with luggage, so about 250kgs) across a very busy/complex junction to his shop. I was knackered. I'm not the fittest of people, and pushing a 250Kg bike with a flat tyre in full leathers was hard work. God only knows what would have happened if I was miles away. I pointed to the chain in the vein hope that it could be adjusted. He came back and told the chain was "finished", and desperately needed replacing. He said it would be 125 Euro to repair the tyre and replace the chain. Oiu and the thumbs up and the techs were on it. The puncture was right in the middle of the tyre so no problem. The chain was a different story. The kit they used must of had the wrong link in it or something. They sent someone to a different shop to get a different link or something, but this didn't work neither. In the end, one of them had the idea of cutting a link off the rest of the new chain with an angle grinder. ?? I know nowt about chains, but whatever he did it worked just fine. They had worked over by half an hour (It was now 7:30) to help me out. And he only charged me 117 Euro! I gave the two lads a 20 Euro tip. Not much really, but I didn't have much currency as I had been trying to use it before I left France.
Terrible pic because it was taken with my phone

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Found the hotel afterwards, it was were the sat nav had said, I just hadn't looked in the right direction Again, I went for a walk hoping to find a bar with the footy on, but I walked through the centre of Roeun and found 1 bar that was open, and it had one man in there who was about 80. I reckon I walked around for 3 or 4 miles before I gave up, got a pizza and yet more tinnies.

Day Nine

Not really much to say about Day Nine. A straightforward thrash home. The weather was again beautiful in France. I had the closest I came to an off. It could of been fatal too! I came round a bend, bike leant all the way over, when a 40 tonner came around the corner on my side of the road!!!!! He was overtaking a tractor (Cutting grass at the side of the road, shock !), so had to stand it up and head for the verge, which was about 2 foot of grass and then a ditch. Made it round, just. As I backed off the throttle to take a breath there was another 40 tonner on my side of the road. Fortunatly on the straight bit of road there was enough space without going on the grass. Crazy bastards.

One the way to Calais I saw loads of old British cars, mostly Morgans, MGs , TVRs etc. There must of been some kind of rally on.

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A very fast motorway ride back to Stoke. The alarm started playing games on the way back too. To bring me back to reality, as soon as I got back into Stoke, the heavens opened. I was definitely home!!

My Thoughts Of This Trip

Before I went away I thought I wouldn't enjoy France, but I really fell in love with the place. The people were friendly and helpful, even when I hadn't made a concerted effort to learn their language. This is one big regret. I could literally speak no French. A French phrase book was something that I didn't manage to buy from my shopping list, but I intended to buy one at the Eurotunnel. I managed to buy another Spanish phrase book by accident (I already had one of those in my tankbag!)

Biking in France is awesome. I don't know why everyone in France doesn't buy a bike. The roads are amazing, and cagers are not 'against' bikers like in the UK. The general standard of driving in France was much better than in the UK too.

Like anywhere however, France isn't perfect. The things that come to mind is the expense. Fuel was between 1.25 - 1.60 Euro a litre!! Also France seems to have a big graffiti problem. Even in the middle of nowhere, there were tags on everything. It's not even artistic Banksy style stuff, it's just w@nk tags.

The standard of driving in Spain was about the same as here in the UK, mostly toss. And the God damn scooters!

As for my trip, it was my first time to mainland Europe, and I was on my own. This got to me a little at night. If I was with a mate, then it'd be worth getting a taxi and going into town, but I got a little bored when off the bike. I think if I was travelling with someone I would of carried on down to Gibraltar.

I took, way too much stuff. I could of done it with just the big bag strapped to the back. My riding has improved no end also.

Using the Sat Nav worked brilliantly. I just got a little booklet from the first Etap hotel which showed all of their hotels throughout Europe, found somewhere about 350 miles away using an atlas, put the postcode into the snav and "Avoid Motorways" and route planned. Don't think I'd of managed with just maps!! Also the good thing was that if I made a mess of it and went the wrong way, it would get me back on track, and often with a decent road that I would never of found anyway.

The bike did well really. Considering it's a sportsbike, and a lot less comfy than modern sportsbikes, I found it did the job well. It lost two fairing bolts, which is no issue really, the seat got scuffed from getting on my fat little leg over it when it was fully loaded, and it had to have the chain replaced. There are certainly much better bikes out there for the job, but I'd have no hesitation in doing another trip on this one. In fact, if next years MotoGP calender is anything like this years, and Mugelllo and Catalunya are back to back, then I think that's what I'll be doing......

If you've skipped to the end to see how long the thread is, and can't be arsed to read that lot, here is a link to all the pics I took

Total Mileage: 2550
Average Mileage/Day: 283
Total Cost: TBC
____________________
Current: ZZR1400
Previous: ZXR 400 L9, ZX-7R P5, ZZR 400, ZX-7R P6, Bandit 600, GSXR 750 Slingshot, DRZ400, DR650, ZX10R C1H, ZXR 750 L1, ZXR 750 L3, '99 ZX7R P4, KTM 300 EXC, ZX-9R E1, TDM850

[asdf]

A really good read. Looks like you had fun as well.
____________________
KTM EXC 125 Supermoto, Honda Cub90

Past - Aprilia SR 50 Ditech, Derbi Senda SM DRD, Aprilia RS125 x 2, Aprilia RX 125

[Whosthedaddy]

Big up the 7!
____________________
Current : MSX 125 Past : CBR 900RR Monkeybike : c50 LAC : ZXR750 H2 : FZR600 : ZX7R P3 : YW100 : TRX850: Trophy 900 T309 : GSXR 600 L0: Monkeybike : XJ6S Whosthedaddy

[Itchy]

Cool ,

And inspiring

again same mistakes as I made bought too much stuff found Hotels on the edges of towns which no night life etc....

Oh FYI

pneus = tyre
____________________
Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Faldo]

[fortknoq]

ufff...what an account. I sighed because of how much of an experience it sounded
I doubt many people skipped to the end, I found it engrossing. Carrying on to Gibraltar would definitely have been awesome.

Thanks for the read

Was this your first touring trip?

[roper]

Really enjoyed your write up. Can't help feeling that with a bit more planning and insider knowledge the problems you found in the evening could have been avoided.
Sounds like you had a great time anyway but a real tragedy you didn't find some fantastic food in Spain (BTW if you drink pints anywhere in Europe other than Germany you WILL get ripped off).

Order a 'demi' in France

or a

'Cana' or 'Cerveza de botella' in Spain.

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Good read.

A lot of French towns seem to be completely devoid of nightlife, even on a Saturday night. One of the main things Spain has got over it I think.

[Faldo]

[dodger]

[raak]

Thoroughly enjoyable read.!

had all the hallmarks of that first time journey.

Joy and misery
battle with the weather gods
Bad luck..

[Mjolnir]

I read this today during my dinner and really enjoyed it. Thanks for the write up and the pictures.

Stopped me being bored today

[keigs]

Enjoyed that. Cheers.

[shotgun]

Really enjoyed reading that mate, and glad to see you've got a more positive view of France now you've done it. I've been a fair few times and once I can afford it I'm off again. I was a bit surprised you felt unsafe in Spain, I found it perfectly OK.

Main question though, how did you rate the ZX7R comfort wise over distance? I'm after a second bike to take to my place in Spain, had a VFR800 (excellent)and would like something else, not too big, bit more sporty, that I can blat north into France. A Blackbird or similar is too big, so a ZXR looks a decent shout. Any good two up?

[Faldo]

[nokiakeys]

Very good read mate. I've never read post that long before , but I couldn't help it.

I'm looking at doing touring some time next year on my cb600fs, so this was very helpful.

Not sure if I should use hotel or do camping though

How much did you spend in the end on fuel, hotels and stuff?
____________________
CBT: 04/2010 -> Theory: 09/2010 -> MOD1 & 2: 10/2010 (That's right baby, both on same day)
Honda CBF125 -> Honda CB600FS

[Faldo]

[vindice]

Fantastic write-up. So when's your next trip?

[StevenF]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread here

That was an amazing write up, it's something I wanted to do last year and again this year, but probably won't due to the mrs not liking bikes! If I ever do it I would imagine it would be by myself, and like you think I would need the laptop and some DVD's to keep my entertained! Did you have it charging while riding?

How much do you think you spent all in? I would camp all of it, but still have no idea of the cost of such a trip!
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My Project - Honda CBR 600 F2/FM

[brownops]

Thanks for the great write up
Your experience in france was different to mine though. I found the french obnoxious and unfriendly. The food at the service stations from Calais was extortion too.