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Temperature being perfect for a ride around, I was feeling like cheering up so rode up my favourite hill nearby on my regular roads: A short stop on a freshly surfaced road, it's got brand new tarmac but keeps the same bumps as before and no lines, just so you still know it's Portugal Then, coming back home I felt like finding an alternative route via some dirt roads and stopped for a picture when opening up my jacket vents, getting too warm for goretex and slow speeds now. The plan was to climb a small hill that is not accessible by road, but that climb was too steep and loose for me to feel like attempting it would have been fun. Last few days were heavy with rain, so I started ending up in mud holes that looked like clay traps, when they got too big and covered in water I decided to turn back and bail. Will have to try that climb on the XR, I think it'll easily do it. Short stop for a afternoon snack before coming home

So onto another lane where I came across this.................... I have never seen lying water so black, I have no idea what caused it , pesticides draining off the fields ? cow piss ? all I know is I fulled intended NOT to fall off in it. Of course had Pete been there he would have phoned for Taxi immediately And then back across the old Abergavenny road and onto some lovely green lanes, I took some photos of the wild flowers for Michelle............ Then onto a cracker of a lane, it's hard to believe that this would have once been a main route for carriages back in the day..........

He bought this a month ago.

So I had a late pass out for today so I plotted a route last night at 10.30 pm to do some lanes that I haven't ridden for probably 15 years. Made my way on the less travelled roads around Bristol and then across the Severn Bridge......... Once I passed Chepstow I found that the A466 Tintern road is closed so a diversion was made via Trellech where I did a short lane and discovered that it was very wet. On over Cwmcarvan Hill where the roads are narrow and have high hedges/banks.............. Trust me to meet the Milk tanker coming towards me, I had no option but to dismount and make a 27-point turn to ride back up to a point where he could pass. Here's the bugger, I met him later on in another lane but thank god we were travelling in the same direction............ Anyway, as I said earlier there was a lot of water today as it has been raining continuously for the past two days. A lot of the lanes looked like this.......... It also had the effect a leaving a 2-inch layer of red slime on some of the lanes as the rain had settled on the clay dust, it made it hard work at times and there certainly wasn't any 'styling and profiling' going on , just a lot of paddling to remain upright........... It was about 11.00am now so time for a coffee stop, this old oak tree made a good place to stop.........

Further down the road is this, I'd never see it before it seems there was a hunting lodge here in past times, all that remains now is the moat........... Apparently this lane is known locally as 'Knicker Lane' as a lot of courting took place there in the 60's/70's . You'd have a hell of a job to get your Ford Cortina up there now

It was the hardest ride I've had on my own for a long while, I'll sleep soundly tonight .

The only problem with this lane is the amount of gates you have to open and close, when you're on your own it can be a real chore...... Further on it gets a bit narrow, the rut in this part is so deep that my bike is wedged in it here.......... The 'wedging' resulted in a bent brake lever, must be made from a re-cycled Thai wok Once I got back down to the main road I stopped to repair the lever and sorted out my leg. It was well sweaty by now with all the exersion so to save another 'incident' I sorted it out

Tomorrow I shall be mostly planting plants on my garden. Starting at 8:30 with a ride on a pickup to buy 100 something plants, and try to make it before getting too late. Trying to make my house not look abandoned isn't easy ...

Brittany ferries are doing their bit towards disaster planning planning a disaster. ”Breaking News! Brittany Ferries may be putting in a service to Portugal!!”

I heard about that today. Makes total sense to not have a match between two UK teams taking place in the UK but instead making all those twats flying over to little old Porto Haven't you guys got a field somewhere over there in which to hold that match?

Plenty of stops for pictures, that's an old school ride report!

You maybe my West Country hero @boboneleg Love it. Love the green n brown n wet n dirt n blue sky.. love the tenacity (I know it was not warm today) love that you just went where you wanted to be. If there was a triple like button Id press it

I'd gone as far north as I was going today so started heading back south and onto the next lane.............. There were a few obstacles in this one as well............ The next lane drops down over a hill and ends at a ford but there's a twist as you have to ride in the ford for a couple of hundred yards to get out...... and then we were close to White Castle so popped up there to get a photo for the castle lovers...........

So into Abergavenny to get some petrol and then onto the next lane, this was a good point to stop for my sandwiches.......... At the other end of the lane there's a farm on the right, nothing unusual about that but what was strange were the Peacocks on top of the horse box At first I thought they were 'ornaments' but then the ornaments started moving and showing off their backsides, it was quite comical............ Once I was back on the road I saw a sign for Llandewi Skirrid church, I'm not at all religious but I love the architechture......

Came accross a little pond/puddle of dark water today, I turned back Also, those english roads with the edges next to them and no space for people walking or visibility really look claustrophobic to me.

I'd forgotten how good they are Fred, the conditions made them quite challenging today

That's the Tejo River, 40kms downstream from here it flows next to Lisbon Another pictures where you can better see it:

Holy f*ck how dont I know about this item till now?!?! Is it a boy thing that girls don’t need to know about? Or has it only just been invented? Or have I just fallen into an alternate universe where there’s equipment to do the job you want to do?!

I’m not even wearing my summer jacket yet, it wasn’t warm at all today, must have been 22 or 23 max for a couple of hours. Chilly on the hills, even, wouldn’t have minded a sweater for when up there ...

I'm planning on a TRF ride Saturday. leading some big bikes about locally, A couple of them are beginners so might have to find a holster for my camera

And you looked in your 40's then!

That was that hot summer. Kept falling off when the rains came. A gallon or so of SA couldn’t have helped!

I run usb's off of a cable with a sae connector/usbportthingie, just plug it into the sae connector for my battery charger that i hard wire to all my batteries. I have cig lighters with sae conctors, you can run stupd things like coffee makers, air pumps to micro waves hay if the battery is big enough. Get this, cook lunch in the top bag...lol

Well I would have gone out on Sunday for a blast but I’ve agreed to play golf on Saturday with some mates. There, I’ve come out of the closet.

Living in the wild and being made of bacon requires a bit of fortitude me thinks

My vegan cousin started moved in with her boyfriend who explored a farm in center Portugal. She was appalled to find their neighbor with the farm next door hunts will boars and has a small pack of trained dogs to helps him out. In a few months, she went from thinking he was a murderer to calling him on the phone to give him tips about where and when to find the boars in her farm. Nothing like a pack of wild pigs sniffing under your front door trying to get into your kitchen at 2AM to change your mind

I was out a few weeks ago with Dipper, and was due to go out last sunday but was not well.

Yup and me, definately not a lightweight anymore.

So there's a saying amongst trail-riders which goes something like 'one more lane, what could possibly go wrong? ' Today was that 'one more lane' It's a lane that I haven't ridden for over 20 years, I know that because when I last rode it I had two legs , and I rode it 'down' , and it was dry, and , and So I turned into it , opend the gate and thought , that doesn't look too bad........... and then it got steeper, and then I came to this............... Well I got under that one with a bit of manouvering and then I took off on some rock steps and landed here............ It may only be a 250 but when it's on its side and it's wet and muddy it's bloody hard to lift up on your own and why is it that in a photo it never looks as steep as it really is, I swear it was about 1 in 4 here.......... Just a bit further on the trail is crossed at right angles by a forestry track and I did think to bail out along there and hope that there wasn't a barrier at the end, but I thought 'it can't get any worse' . Oh yes it can............ This was a fecker as I could get under it if I dismounted and leaned the bike over to the right but what you can't see is the berm on the ground preventing me from getting any traction. In the end I inched it through by killing the engine , leaving it in gear and used the starter to inch it bit by bit until I was free... The fun still wasn't over as round the corner was big feck-off rock step, I couldn't face going back and there really wasn't anywhere to turn around so I took a deep breath and launched myself at it . This little bike bloody amazes me, the nay-sayers say 'its got no power' but what it does have is traction and you can have all the power in the world but if you can't put that power down then it's pointless. So after finishing off my coffee and phoning my wife to tell her I might be a bit late it was back down to Chepstow and onto the M48/M4 where I ran at 70mph on knobblies

I bet they were Bob

Shit......that looks like hard work Bob!

And no old shopping trolleys or stolen cars lobbed in it either?

Bear with the language, they're well funny! They're made from an old german cartoon similar to the Joe Bar Team ones Who hasn't done it? Oh, here's in English:

Mine is about 25 years old, so you're probably not as 'old skool' as some of us

No, Summer's now, by tomorrow it ends!

Or you can just leave the rear wheel with a healthy coating of chain lube

My run with Tony the Tools is off tomorrow! I had a shitload of work come in today, and of course I lost half the day going to Baza!

I was 24 and riding this :-

Like the rest of us he got fucking old! Call him in here.....be good to catch up with him!

A few minutes ago

My best guess is those chains will outlast the first few riders, transfer power better to the rear wheel then a shaft, consume less power and if you like you can change the rear ends ratio's with ease compared to a shaft or belt. Other than that chains suck cause you have to clean the back wheel more often.

Cool bike! Id love to have a Guzzi.

Not one of those pics gives a clear view of the left side??? Maybe you're right as most of these sold will never see the dirt.

I assume you're right, but I think it would be a very cool alternative to a shaft drive for 90% of users.

I never noticed not the sort of animal you try n get close too

My weighing scales will beg to differ