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When I started this site!

Hello! Hope everyone is well! Sharing the latest post from my travels. I find it difficult to find the time to prepare these posts while I am living on the road, but I am always happy when I am done. As an old lady, I need all the help I can get when it comes to remembering all the adventures. https://www.grasshopperspath.ca/post/parking-lots-trains-windy-paddles

Marcel is right, you don’t go far enough to need a big bike . Get the CRF 300 Rally and show us what a Dakar god you are

The suspense is killing me.... Better not be a fucken ktm... I'll have to flouce in shame...

And the Piaggio.....and The Turd....the list goes on, and on........you want to buy Lemons?.....then iam your man.

Flowers in the morning sun.

Tricked her? After 40 years she's pretty wise to the shit that I pull.

I went with the crf 300....30 hp is plenty for what Pete does with his bikes... I'd put a nice basket on the front..

Get yourself a proper bike and stop this puddle dodging

Fair play to the dealer

Had it done couple months back and a leisure battery and fold down bed , television … hopefully do Europe next year mixture of staying in hotels and nights in van . Im a man of adventure , not just good looks .

Well this blowhard is a bit busy riding a bike

This is CSJ MP3 Ride Report territory!

Oh ffs , not all this again

you are still a total idiot.

Got a decent hotel overlooking the Loire , what a mighty river she is. Had a a nice meal and then walked around admiring the sights

Steady road ride up through France to Saumur today. Phil rode with me as far as Brantome where we stopped for a coffee and then I set off on my own .

Warning- skip this if you dont like lots of words. I’ve split it up into different posts but theres a few! Not for Buck or Six or anyone with something interesting to do Packing up and heading home Eventually after missing two flights due to Covid doing me wrong I caught the third flight I’d booked and arrived in Spain painfully lighter in the pocket on a completely packed flight. The empty airport days of Coronavirus are well and truly behind us (at the moment at any rate ). Repeating a very positive test doesn’t alter it even if you will it to?! I was fearful the bad google reviews I’d read about the airport parking were true and I’d arrive to find my bike with a flat battery, ravaged by sandstorms with my new Schuberth helmet I’d left on the bike in tatters- if you don’t read the small print (ahem) and request indoor parking your vehicle can be parked at another site left exposed to the elements I needn’t of worried they arrived in five minutes with the airport transfer bus (its over the road from the airport but theres no pedestrian route to it) and the bikes had clearly been looked after, the optimate later confirmed the batteries were in good nick. I loaded up a mammoth suitcase on the back of my bike. With the panniers also full I knew I was at the top of the weight I could handle on tip toe and the initial riding might be a bit sketchy. Mr Slowly checked the tyre pressures with the steampunk stethoscope gauge I’d brought along, a bit bulky tbh but sometimes the heart wants what it wants and I like analogue stuff that doesn’t need charging. To my amazement he says they’re ok but “we’ll stop at the first garage we see and top them up” Sketchy didn’t cover it! I get to the first roundabout and discover there’s no way the tyres are ok.. unless tyres are supposed to be made of jelly! Mr Slowly is taking his turn navigating, his bike is a lot lighter and that bit faster, chasing him down is fruitless, he just doesn’t stop.. Eventually he pulls over in a garage and my front and rear tyre take in 10psi.. each! Who wudda fort that could transform the bike handling?!! The rest of the ride was uneventful, the usual bright sunshine and heat you expect in Andalucia in June and then the enormous gratitude you feel when you’ve been up since 2am and find previous you stocked the fridge/freezer with beers and pizza that you consume while a sea breeze makes the palm trees wave and induce bliss

@Slowlycatchymonkey.......can you clarify whether you fall into this demographic? Bob wants to know for some reason!

Ballsuckers , I nearly spat me beer out Does that include @Slowlycatchymonkey

I only got home a few hours ago, still wading through ginger bike updates.

Loaded ….

My refund just hit the Bank! Time to move on from this trainwreck!

Always does …. What about yours

At what point did you realise …..

Still the weekend here, 'oliday monday morning pic it is. Discount parking spot du jour...lol

That’s because it posted by a gay fecker

it's that legenday BMW reliability. That or the ginger jinx. Hey, maybe I just figured out why Pete changes bike so often?

Ok trailer boy

Coming from the guy who has a grill strap to the back of his bike..

Well I'm glad it kinda happened.... Cause we'd be riding on the wrong side of the road like total idiots...

A pair of honda Navi's . One for each of you.

Got to love the sunflowers Saumur is wine country, this would keep you going for a while

Spotted this old council house near Confolens It’s Sunday so everything in France is shut, for lunch I resorted to my emergency packet of Love Hearts

Ya it's driven by one of the guys wife... Have to agree... To me it look's like a snow machine with wheels.. Doesn't require a motorcycle license... Just a weekend course... It would be good for someone getting up in age and can't ride much ( Pete)

Today is ferry day. Theres not far to go and forecast is warm/hot and sunny, slight cloud no rain.. apparently! I dress accordingly, light summer clothing and a mesh jacket, the forecast soon becomes very wrong. It’s a torrential downpour that just doesn’t stop, well maybe it does briefly when you’re so high in the mountains the zero visibility cloud shrouds you and can’t see more that 2 feet ahead. Had a nice little stop before the shitstorm hit at a garage that sold one of my favourite road snacks- Conguitos. Spains much loved cringey illustrated chocolate covered peanuts, then the heavens opened. So so wet and cold with only a waterproof jacket over the mesh and no waterproof trousers I can’t feel my hands or feet that are sloshing around in boots filled to the brim with rain water. Then the inevitable phone thing happens “liquid detected” and charging stopped but that wasn’t all that stopped. So did the navigation, although completely stopping would have been a blessing over the strange conniption that kept directing us up the mountain away from the port. The Brittany ferry website telling us its clearly signposted couldn’t have been further from the truth, there were no signs, zero. Mr Slowly thinks they must have changed the layout and not replaced the signs. After several loops in among many other lost vehicles we are separated. I eventually stop in a side road despairing at the satnav trying to direct me back up up the mountain again so I sit in a bus stop looking at my phone willing it to work and hoping the incessant rain will stop. It didn’t, it got a lot heavier and by now I’m so cold I can’t stop shaking. I briefly consider giving up and finding a hotel before a sudden wave of “fuck you sat nav” washed over me and I let my phone know “youre a piece of shit, its a fucking ferry, its going to be at sea level not up a sodding mountain” and headed back to the seafront. Five BMW riders who had passed me 15 minutes earlier whilst sat in my bus stop funk suddenly appeared behind me looking as pissed off as I was. We went our separate ways as they were clearly still trying to follow sat nav and wouldn’t make it, eventually somehow I found my way in to the heaving port to find a relieved Mr Slowly. Mr Slowly shows his true feelings and I manage a smile of relief before resuming a resting bitch face He’d had an angry man in a spanky new range rover shout out the window at him “ARE YOU GOING TO THE PORT? RIGHT IM FOLLOWING YOU” to which he replied you can mate but I can’t find the fucking way in either. He went puce and left He then spied a policeman and rode up a pedestrianised part to ask him how the hell to get into the port, the policeman replied its almost impossible, he should ignore the restricted access signs and to ride though the pedestrians until he reached on the other side of the road, can’t imagine that happening here! Eventually the understandably stroppy BMW riders turned up and we all whined about the lack of any signage and crap satnav. We quickly destroyed the calm clean cabin with wet clothes hanging everywhere and got a couple of bottles of Chablis from the piano bar, purely medicinal you understand, my pruned feet and fingers were unhappy at the fast change from a blue freezing cold to a raging red hot and needed a dose of painkiller. Wannabe trench foot and chilblain fingers The bay of biscay is known for rough seas but the previous crossing lulled us into a false sense of security and we weren’t prepared for what was coming next My favourite anti-emetic (chocolate coated stem ginger) hadn’t faired well in the heat and had the appeal of a dog turd so we just settled for laying there feeling sick. Yum yum We dock the next day and everyone departs for the passport control queue in Plymouth. This is the smaller bike parking side the other side of the boat is even more packed. Ah warm sunshine again We head back home in the long forgotten horrible traffic of the UK both of us having close encounters of the blind cage driver variety, grateful to see our front door a couple of hours later. We now have just one day to unpack and repack before the Adventure Biker Festival which I plan to spend mostly asleep

The next day is gloriously uneventful, the temperature had dropped to a pleasant 28 degrees and the route was again short. Leaving earlier before the sun switched on its full beams made for a pleasant ride. Madrid can be a difficult spot to navigate past as all roads lead there, all signs direct you to it and road numbers are shared, 5 or 6 of the same road numbers either side of a split in the road is normal! Most of it makes sense but theres so much information on their gantry boards its hard to take it all in before theyre gone from view! Its sunday and as is the way the in Spain supermarkets are shut. The food flasks pay dividends and the experimental kitchen dehydration bent I went on meant back up food was available, the food flask Jambalaya tasted good! Blue Peter style heres some stuff I dehydrated earlier. Vacuum packed into flask sized portions with rice n stock needs just a bit of boiling water. I can imagine you all excitedly rushing into your kitchens right now We arrive at Motel Emporio in good time. This is one of the weirdest places I’ve ever stayed. Its cheap, about 39 euros a night. Your bedroom door literally opens onto a garage where your bike is securely parked. You see no-one, the reception is shielded in the same prison mid grey of the rest of the building, you put your passport into a metal post office style parcel exchange box. The food is served through a hatch hidden in your wardrobe which you sign and pay for seeing no more than a hand! When I read the menu I realise this perfectly convenient well reviewed stop is a bit seedy... total anonymity and the room has a strange huge wooden cabinet in it filled with dvds you can pay to watch, many mainstream films, many not.. hot thing takes a lot of lovin’ etc, the hotel supplies menu includes many normal items, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap.. lubricant, condoms.. oh Yes Six you can have the address.

Bikes packed, oil topped up, chains lubed, tyre pressure checked and fuelled up for the off just carrying food supplies and a small case for the ferry leaving enough room for my Pops duty free order All good to start with until the real heat hit us, the wind was so hot if you opened your visor your eyeballs would dry out immediately. It was like riding into a fan heater. The bike temp gauge rose 36, 38, 42, 44, 47, 50, 52… this temp is effected by the engine heat but as I’m sitting on top of this blazing hot engine it still counts! If you were sweating you didn’t know about it because in the hot wind you were being desiccated in a fan oven The roads were empty- everyone else had wisely heeded the warnings and stayed at home. We stopped for a break and I poured water into my clothes. I felt just a moments relief before the water heated up too but it probably helped when riding more than I could tell. A vehicle appeared along side both of us for sometime, I assumed he was viewing the bikes as sometimes happens but no he was concerned we were alright and took some reassuring we were fine.. we’re British and accustomed to making dumb ass moves like this I try to ignore the plumes of smoke I can see billowing off some industrial looking site and the motorway warnings saying ‘Risego Extremo Excendio’ but still find I’m constantly checking the direction of the wind at each change in direction! We arrive exhausted hours later than anticipated at Casa Tio Lola in Puerto Lápice to a friendly welcome and.. what’s this gift from the gods.. aircon! Unusual accommodation all facing into a cobbled courtyard. I loved the roof tiles, bet @Grasshopper's Ride would have been able to take a pic that does them justice! Quickly stripping off for a shower before heading to the bar next door for an icey G&T revealed the heat had swollen my hand into a vile sausagemeat and Spains fan oven had started the cooking process! The next day the aircon (plus my superpowers ) meant they had largely recovered! The towns library is opposite the accommodation, it’s a large proud building in a town with nothing much in it. It’s also known for a butchers selling “the finest suckling lamb in Spain” but standing over a hob cooking with my own fingers already fried wasn’t on my agenda so I’ll never know!

WWII payback I'd say Fred!