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Under a blue cold sky, on a ride to deliver wine and other goods. Stopping at @Catteeclan's favourite location amongst my usual routes.

Unlike some of you who seem to bin your bikes relentlessly......I've had a clean sheet since Feb 78. The carnage I was involved in from 71-73 isn't relevant to this discussion. However, my DNA has today been involved in the act of "Binning it".......courtesy of my 20 month old grandson in Poland. But he got back on as if nothing happened.......didn't faze him one bit!

Nope, couldn't be arsed to remove the topbox either.

You see this @XTreme , that's a great photo right there. Cool bike, great backdrop and well composed. BUT , do you know why that's a winner .................. ...................... BECAUSE HE'S SPENT 30 SECONDS TO REMOVE HIS TOP BOX AND TAKE THE SHOT

Damn it storm Arwen This bloody storm has knocked my garden waste bin over, God only knows what would have happened if it had something in it I had to walk all the way out there to set it upright Better not be another one next year

Just on our way back from a Black Friday sale!

why is it so bad there... midget dago bummers own all the shops ?

Bastid

Boys 18th birthday this weekend so i'm the taxi for him and his mates but on a more interesting note when looking for a photo for bike of the month i found some photos of what i was doing on this very day and date in 2010 it was an interesting ride though the Elan Valley on the dog and with my old mate Gary

I think i like this one for this month

Honestly sweet stay off the book thread until you reach level 5

reading a book !! ... i get halfway through one of @Slowlycatchymonkey essay posts and start to drift off

Oi !! stop sending your sprogs to Bristol , you know it's not right.

On a bit better note......the snow has gone.

Lobbying for votes!!!!............Order!..Order!...........Out of Order!.....

In north wales people hear my accent and think I'm going to steal their car!

You don't have to go to Spain for that i have a strong welsh accent and whenever i work in north wales people hear my accent and they start speaking to me in welsh and i can see the disappointment on their faces when i say i don't speak it

Tis the worn expression of the poor Spanish folk that have to serve the general public when they realise you dont speak Spanish. Ive seen it a few times now cos its November and the Brits are mostly gone home so with a mask on, brown eyes and dark hair they assume Im Spanish, they start talking to me and are unable to hide the disappointment when my response is some gibbered barely comprehensible pigeon Spanish F

Get professional help you fucking weirdo!

I bet you could take a picture of an expresso machine and make it look amazing as long as it was outside under a pretty sky! That's almost cheating!

A whole month went by already?

I'm off to Albox!

My late boss was a Millwall fan. He used to tell me that Danny Baker would turn up to watch a game and get physically impossible filth about Janet Street Porter shouted at him all the time.

I will enter my Bagheera this month. Autumn Picnic... l'll call it.....

Here's mine......not that I have many to choose from this month!

WOOOOOOAAAAH Like I want the dumbest shit Ive done on a bike (excluding the Himalayas with a twat n a half) on your front page for a month?!!! Plus @Sir Fallsalot has friggin nailed it. Mind you Mawsley has for the first time made me consider a scooter! And then theres the beautiful Himalayan. Oh god don’t get me stated again

yeah, I seem to remember when I took the picture I thouht about taking the box off but decided that " It's my bke, it's my ride, on my terms. I take a picture during the ride, I'm not an artist, or even a photographer trying to projetct some message or image. This is me, this is my bike, in this place, at this time. " I really don' care if others think it would be better somehow else, ( and besides, I couldn't be arsed)

Spring of 1991. I went to pick up the Ducati 907ie that I had put a deposit down on months before and of course, it starts raining. So I ride it home and park it, anxiously awaiting the next day when it's supposed to be clear. The next morning I get up to sunshine. Suit up, head out. This was before the 900ss came out, and before Ducati's big come back, so most people had NO idea what a Ducati was. People who did know what it was often thought they had gone out of business. So the bike was a but of an oddity. Anyway... I'm tooling along and saw a guy I kind of knew, a friend of a friend who was in to bikes. I pull into his driveway. He has no idea who I am, he only knows this brand new Ducati is pulling up. I get to the garage, start to turn, and realize I haven't got enough room to turn around, I'm going to hit one of his cars. So, against everything my brain was telling me, I hit the brakes while still turning. And promptly fell over. I'm on the ground. Brand new bike is on the ground. This guy has no idea who I am yet. I don't recall taking off my helmet or picking up the bike or anything for a bit. Nice enough guy though. He told me the story of how he was pulling a BMW into the garage one day and fell over onto his dad's newly repainted Jaguar. Made me feel a lttle better... but I still went straight home and went back to bed. The only real damage to the bike was a cracked mirror and a couple scuffs in the paint, so it could have been worse. Messed up my wirst too but I didn' tfeel that right away... Years later, a friend asks me to ride with him in a team Hare Scrambles off road event. I had a KDX250 and had ridden off road for about five miuntes in my life but sure, why not? I had off road gear, what could possibly go wrong? He takes the first leg, then hands the bike off. I fumble around the track for a bit, mostly trying to stay out of everyone else's way. I was climbing a hill (a weak point in my already very limited skills) and I hear a two stroke coming up behind me, so I try to up the pace and get to the top. The bike hits a bump, I go up in the air, the bike drops, I start to drop, the bike hits another bump and comes up while I am still dropping down, and the tank crashes into certain body parts that are not known to resist impacts very robustly. Fack me. I got to the top of the hill, pulled over, and took a little rest... But that's not the embarrassing part. I remounted and continued on, a bit worse for wear and getting pretty tired. Suddenly the trail opens up into a small field with a checkpoint table. Open field after all the riding through the woods. Nothing to avoid, no trees to dodge. Well, I mean there was one small little tree there, out in the open, before the table. Not much more than a sapling really, right there by the table. You'd have to be a complete idiot to... oh son of a bitch, I clipped it with the bars and went down. Right in front of everyone sitting there doing checkpoint stuff. And I'm not exactly running with the pack so there wasn't much else for people to be watching when I pulled up. One guy has his kid with him. The kid starts laughing. The dad tells him not to laugh. I stood up and told the kid it was ok, that was pretty funny. And I started laughing too. It was that or cry. I got back around to the pits and handed the bike off to the other guy. It had been so long he thought I had broken down. And that was the end of my Hare Scrambles career.

No...I set the lawnmower on its highest setting (so it does not cut the grass) and it sucks them up into the grass box.....then I throw them over the fence onto council property....their leaves, they can have them back.

I have the leaves of about 20 trees to clear off my lawn.......if it had been a westerly wind my neighbour would have got them.

Back out to the winter gardening then..

@Sir Fallsalot and happy birthday to your boy. I always think congratulations are in order to the parents when they get to 18 in one piece That and a celebration of the freedom thats on its way to you!

In Kuching the dealer wiped my ECU but didn't do the 15 minute reset so the FI was all over the place. I'd been riding the bike for 60,000 km so I knew exactly how it was supposed to feel - but I didn't know that FI wasn't right. So I applied throttle exactly as I always did, and the bike cut out and I fell on my face in the gutter while trying to turn out of the dealership. An old man came up to me and said, "Your skill is very weak." I was so pissed lol. Nobody believed me that the bike wasn't right, and it got worse and worse until it became unrideable on the remote West Coast of Sumatra, and it took me three days to figure out wtf was wrong and fix it myself. I cried in the carport of the dingy hotel that didn't change sheets between guests, and the owner felt so sorry for me that he bought me some fried chicken. The end.

Incomprehensible Warning PM could be on the cards!

And I get mistaken for German or Dutch because of my general appearance and my language ability.

I'm currently re reading my way through the Patrick OBrien collection ( series of books the first of which was made into a dissapointing film "Master and Commander".) possibly not of much interest unless interested in sailing aships and maritime history. though exceedingly well written.

Really nice bloke is Gary but he definitely in the 'strange' category when it comes to bike choices

Brrrrrrr

not seen him in years he sold the bikes as he was having a few health problems but got that under control and as far as i'm aware he's still around and back on the bikes. I did hear he has a CB500 now bought it with over with over 200000 miles on the clock

Not me, my crayons are fecked

This picture reminded me of something, took a few seconds then it clicked.

Dumb fucking Brits everywhere! @Slowlycatchymonkey is now aware of this demographic! But it's mission accomplished......boot and back seat full.....€300 worth. Won't have to go back till late February now!

Sounds about normal for The Den. Some of the stuff that went on was awful; for example, I remember an away day to Bradford and on the way back on the train we pulled into Grantham station and it all kicked off on the platform. The train guard ended up being tied up and locked up inside his own cabin.

totally worth it! what's a little bruise compared to skills that will stop me a) being a crappy rider and missing out or b) having a serious accident on an enduro bike because of lack of skill. I'm all in

Ok Bob will have to fill in the exact location of this one, All i know is It was in 2011 and on a ride through the french/Italian alps with Bob and the rest of the moobs, we had spent a night or two in a small village a great place and real friendly people, when we were leaving it seamed like the whole village had turned up to see us off, as they were waving goodbye it felt like when you see those old films of loved ones being waved off to war on a train station and Freddy boy here pulled off so proudly on his Africa Twin and then ripped the pannier off his bike on a bollard, I turned around to see the horror on everyone's faces but within seconds the attention was off me as Steve pulled off on his KTM and cold stalled stopping dead and falling off, in this commotion i slammed the pannier back on and made a sharp exit, it was like a scene from laurel and hardy

Yes the ride started like this with just a bit of frost on the ground The snow came in heavy when we got to Builth wells which is where we should of turned around and headed home but both decided to head on, when we got to the Elan Valley the heavy snow had stopped so we rode up though it and over the mountain pass from Cwmystwyth to Llangurig by that time it was dark and the temperature had dropped below freezing so we we suffering, by the time we got back to Rhayader we were so cold we decided to book into a B&B and got pissed for the night and headed home in the morning which was even more interesting because the snow had now frozen, good memories of a great weekend

Seeing those bikes in the snow made me think of this song.

Brokeback mountain , Rhondda version