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Some of those Dumbarton girls....they drink directly from the Clyde. I’m saying nothing else as it is only 50 miles from here and I don’t want to wake up dead.

Absolutely! I also love riding around Laos on my 690 with random guys on the back of my bike, holding the shopping... the surprised looks from local teenage girls and old ladies are priceless.

Well coronavirus has definitely crashed the party for 2020 - most of us are facing various restrictions that are getting in the way of our epic ride plans ride now. But what about the people caught out in the middle of it - halfway through an epic ride you can't get home from? My friends over at Mad or Nomad have compiled the stories of a whole bunch of rtw travelers who've been caught out - where they are now, how they're managing. If you're stuck at home with a cup of tea, it's an interesting little read. https://www.madornomad.com/motorcycle-travellers-trapped-by-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0EyKgX5nWSxlEiiMUj60VCm9HM8jFR0yYLh5pwpKL1nWBAdpLGrb6jHfw I found the different perspectives really interesting - we're all "adventurers" of some kind, but some people are more chill about this sort of thing others!

I care about them, an old BMW is a cozy place to be, specially in the winter. Maria's treasured E30 that I now use to go grocery shopping when it's not raining: And my brother's beasty, only 30% of it is still E30, though ?

Iberian Meet: sounds like a great idea to me but....! Long story short, my wife is a nurse been off work for a while, just over a year with a very bad knee she has had a knee replacement but was sacked just before Christmas RE: "Capability to work" after several weeks of phone calls to the UK nurses union and solicitors she has her job back and has booked a flight for the first week of June, That means I am restricted on where I can go as I have two dogs here at home and one is elderly so can't leave them for long. Also I haven't sorted out my Spanish Licence yet because of this Virus crap so if I get my licence change sorted I can only go on a longish trip once my wife is back here in Spain which will be roughly every 6-8 weeks. If we can work the meet around that...brilliant.! Excuse the delays in answering Pete I am in the middle of writing a book for the ride reports section .

You got beaten up by a woman in Dumbarton some of those Scottish girls are rough

The girl who rode her Fireblade up the Sommelier in Italy (an off road track) with her partner on pillion (a guy) gets my vote https://www.dangerousroads.org/europe/france/8294-col-del-sommeiller.html

Was in a club with her when this bloke turned up giving her grief. As he went to thump her, I got my punch in first, as you do, laid him out, then two of his mates joined in. When the bouncers turned up they realised that I was Welsh and joined in as well. I got used as a football down some stairs. Cracked my nose and headache for a couple of weeks. Transpires that the guy who started it shared a cell with the woman's ex and was out to cause trouble. Savages. Cops came along and wanted to press charges but I let it go, thinking that revenge is best served cold. I was up there years later but the club had closed down. Shit happens.

Town still empty.......and just getting to the end of Lockdown Week 8! Hoping for some relaxation of restrictions on Week 9 which would take effect from Monday.

If it was the '80's and you had a porn star moustache it was Nigel Mansell ?

Getting back out...

What is the most off-the-hook modification you've ever made to a motorcycle? And DID IT WORK? I have been reflecting on this since I saw my friend's lockdown project. Business has been dead under covid19, so he's been using the spare time to solve the main problem he was having with his scooter - lack of power. First he put in a carb jet from a TZR, but something more was needed. A supercharger, perhaps? Um yes, that's a supercharger off a Subaru. See the red steel pipe? Well at first he used radiator hose but the suction created by the supercharger was so great that the radiator hose collapsed in on itself. No problem - just use steel. Nobody was harmed in the modification of this scooter (yet). Coming soon to a drag race on a Chiang Mai superhighway near you...

No, thats all they do is break..Team Green died in the late 1970's....

Yeah I think the supercharger was 100 baht, so just over $3. Why not indeed

Looks ok but it'll look much better in Yam blue. Why no HP data?

And that things made for a 4 cylinder, don"t need to be spinning that thing up much to gain horses. If you've got the time and parts, why not.

It might be worth having a look at this web site Pete https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/spain/abandoned

The mods i do is replace broken kawasaki parts!

Getting stuck somewhere because of all this would suck.

Not strange at all! No lack of talent and ability in the pool. Laia and Maria are absolutely shit-hot riders who've been ripping it up their whole lives and, obviously, their skills absolutely rock. My observations were more focused on possible opportunity/confidence barriers that could be subtly deterring larger numbers of women from getting into motorcycling for pleasure, especially when we're coming to it as adults rather than being lucky enough to have early opportunities to give it a go. There's Laia and Maria and then there's us normal people ?

I think we should work on our sub african market outreach! The numbers are Looking grim down there!

That is why he likes it, goes well with ginger.

That colour’s rather turdesque. ?

All three on various occasions! ?

Only once when I got beaten up in a nightclub in Dumbarton. Long story with a woman involved. ?

No danger of being bitten at least.

No hedges here Alan! Dell's accident was nothing to do with the environment.......more to do with the shock of him seeing this in his rear view mirror!

I’m not fat, I’m big boned.

Serious pain! Anything that involves bureaucracy in Spain has to be avoided at all costs!

Pushing the Royal Oilfield no doubt Ray?

Seems a problematic place to have a chain and a spinning compressor, right inside your core when you're in full tuck ...

I think riding a motorbike for pleasure is a different skill set than getting around town on a scooter - certainly here in south east asia, every woman can ride a scooter (usually also off road to the village, loaded with a couple of children, her neighbour, 3 chickens and one pig). When you go to transfer to an actual motorbike, they have fantastic roadcraft when in dense traffic but the skills required for managing a taller, heavier motorbike at higher speeds, with bigger wheels, different steering geometry, different centrifugal dynamics, a clutch and proper gearing - these are quite different skills that need to be learnt. And I find that most ladies here, who have been riding scooters since they were children, still find that switch very intimidating. Is it because it's just new? Is it because all the men in their lives have told them that girls can't ride big motorbikes? I dunno. But I find that confidence and risk appetite are really influential factors when it comes to learning to ride a big bike and, more importantly, whether you enjoy doing it. Whereas I LOVE watching little girls fanging around on pee wee 50s like they're indestructible. They're so small that they don't even know that apparently girls can't ride motorbikes. They're just little wild animals, having fun, learning about physics in the dirt, and I absolutely love it. I reckon, teach your daughter to ride dirt bikes with the boys and even if she never grows up to be a rider, she'll never be intimidated...

Same thing with my Jeep CJ.5's, they loved fresh snow, next day, not so much.. of course my KLR loves snow...lol .

Makes no sense to me! It's like having a bird on the side and not fucking it!

??

Whooop!!!

My R1100GS in travel modus before the conversion My R1100GS after the conversion in travel mode My 790 Adv in travel mode

Welcome Grace!!! Great life journey!! Soon you will be able to continue.

The reports I'm getting now seem to say that all regions of Andalucia will be moving to Phase One.......EXCEPT Granada and Malaga! This is fucking insane......in this part of the region we've only had 3 cases and all recovered. Granada CITY has had the cases......not us! And we're 100 miles from there FFS!