I traveled form Wigan to Plymouth and used Brittany Ferrier to get to Santander giving me 15 days in Spain the way I booked. I also booked a room for myself and a mate rather than be knackered in a reclining seat - who does that?? Both crossings either way were pretty good with no drama or accidents, and the bikes were fine also, although I did see a small scratch which I don't remember before, but TBH it could have been in the next couple of days
The plan was simple - book a day ahead and dodge the weather
We met a fair few people who had booked a week or more and had a set itinerary - they all got soaked on several days 
School boy error at the start and end of the season when the weather is quite unpredictable - we managed to dodge it all, just about 15 mins of rain and an hour of wet roads in the whole two weeks with a bit of weather forecasting and changing the route to suit it - nice 
My mate was on a 21 plate HD Pan America, they have reliability issues, and he was plagued with warning lights and thinks his fuel pump has started making a noise - not great for a bike with under 10k miles on it, good job he works for HD and will get it all sorted under warranty
Mine just started every time and ran exactly as it should have for the full two and a bit weeks I put a few accessories on mine before the trip, a Sargent seat, Power Bronze touring screen, handlebar risers, and foot peg lower's:
We headed down through central Spain over 4 days, it was cold in the mountains at this time of year -3 on one morning
, but we were geared up for it and the heated seat and grips on the RT were great, didn't even have them on past 3. Lucky there was no rain there or it would have been snow the next day 
We spent a few days near Malaga as he has friends there, and we flew the wives out for a few days also - we know how to travel in comfort
After that the plan was to head for Portugal, which we did, but we knew there was a weather front coming in, so we hoped for the best and watched the weather app, which is only accurate for short ranges due to the mountain there, it can be bucketing down in one place and sunny in the next valley, so luck as well as care and skill are required for route planning.
When we got to Southern Portugal we made the call to turn back across central Spain - Portugal got hit with about 3/4 days of solid raid, and a few folk on the ferry were drowned for most of their trip as the weather also extended up into Northern Spain and the Pico's mountains around Potes.
We traveled typically about 250 miles a day give or take depending where we were going to stop, we had the BMW sat nav app set to no tolls or motorways, and then adding a few drop pins to push it onto the roads we wanted to travel it was not too bad to get us from A-B. It did have a few brain farts like many sat nav's, some roads just were not on it, some junctions were on it but were just cattle tracks, particularly off round abouts, so you had to watch the exits to get the right one, and as it's a live app, it's just a second or two behind you time wise, so we made half a dozen wrong exits due to this, but always managed to get re routed and back on to the right route. I still think this needs work, it should fill the TFT screen more, and instantly connect to the bike, which was a pain when it dropped off at every petrol station and coffee stop where the ignition got switched off
On the plus side - the RT took everything we threw at it, some fast bits, but mostly slower touring, it averaged 65mpg including 500 miles of 75/80mph motorway in part of the mix (M6/M5).
We snaked back up under Madrid and towards the Pyrenees, always watching the weather and booking accordingly. We thought we may get caught out with a storm across the North, but we decide to take a gamble and do two nights in Logrono as we reckoned we could get there in the dry, sit it out for a day, and leave in the dry the next morning and miss it going to Santander - What a call - perfect planning prevents piss wet through riders
So that's about it.
The OEM Michelin tyres lasted better than I thought, I had about 5k on them by the time I got home, which would have been bin fodder on the big K1600, but on the RT they must have at least another couple of K left in them if not more, so I was pleasantly surprised, especially as they still have about 90% of their profile and they gripped perfectly the whole time, being good on rough surfaces and also tar over banding and painted lines.
The sergeant seat was way better than the original, I took a sheepskin with me and done alternate days with it on/off, which gave a bit of extra comfort, and the risers and foot lowers made it a lot more comfy for my 18stone, 6"1" frame. I was just wearing summer gloves, so despite having grip puppies my hands got a bit viby on the motorway sections at speed, but I've not noticed that with padded gloves.
So overall it was a great trip, the bike was excellent, a lot lighter than I'm used to, and it was great in car parks, U turns (sat nav) and switchback bends that the bigger bike would have been a worry in - because I've done them all on that and was often stopped or had my feet down
Right then .......... Scotland
James
