Rosher.Net

So this started out as a “let’s ride the bikes to France” between two blokes, and then became “ok, we’ll take the wives”, and then the wives calculated it was almost as expensive to ride across the Channel as it would be to fly to Mexico… The outcome was inevitable. Climate calculations were attempted, then set aside – well there’s little being done by governments… we’re all doomed and we might as well enjoy the [a-ha] flight.

Now we’re home again perhaps it’s worth considering those carbon calculations. There are a number of articles out there which purport one way or another to calculate the carbon footprint – or wing print – of a flight. Climate Care is one such from 2005 but it shows emissions much higher than the fairly recent Boeing 787 Dreamliner we flew on. Working from the data on the Telegraph’s 2010 article the Dreamliner runs at about 75g/km – less even than my hybrid at 89g.km! – and that works out at about 700kgCO2e for the flight. Times two persons times two trips, of course. That certainly eats into the solar roof savings, and it will cost me a few quid in carbon credits (when I finally assure myself I won’t get scammed)!

The bike to France would have been a lot lighter on the environment, I guess. The Triumph Thunderbird Storm runs at 140g/km and cross channel ferries are about the same. Distances being far shorter the return trip to Paris would equate to about 84kgCO2e. I know we shouldn’t have listened to the wives! Mind you, it was raining in Paris.

So we went to the Pacific side of Mexico, to Puerto Vallarta. This post heads up a couple of pages of photo posts that will get uploaded when I find two minutes. We stayed all-inclusive at the Riu Vallarta, which turned out to be excellent, and took a few local trips, which turned out to be excellent. And spent time in the sea, which was as warm as a bath and also excellent. You’ll find the review, when I write it, on Trip Advisor. In fact we had an extra day, as the returning Dreamliner (or Binliner as we renamed it) was unable to take off from Vallarta because one of the onboard computers flipped out in a thunderstorm and parts had to be obtained… from England! If you’re going to experience a holiday crisis that’s the one to have – we got upgraded to suites, too, for the day!