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Out … notice the Art Deco building in background .. bike of the month for sure

Got home today and my garden is in bloom. Looks brighter in reality, pretty warm out here too.

After a good wash...and kerosene for the chain and back wheel...she's almost ready....think summer might be near....all above 10 c forcast for the coming week.

It's like a ferry but with food and drink provided Pete.

swim in the Thames anyone ?

Took the bike to church this morning then after the service headed out the Queensferry biker cafe for some scran, tea and a cigar and a catch up with the assembled greasers.

Closest you twats have been to a cruise is watching Top Gun or Mission Impossible.

This one's a frame worthy one I reckon. Loving the doormat changing it from any time since colour film came out to right now time. Well that and the perspex I spotted as I typed this!

I think that I would.

Just to give some context to the above photos, they do all this in a village with a population of 6,000 people

lovely day today, first proper "spring" day we've had. spent the afternoon fiddling wit the bike to see if I could move the phone hoder abouve the clocks ( I can't not without fabricating some sort of bar. I then loaded it with a load of old engine parts from work that a guy I sort of know wants to try and incorporate them into some "Aaaaaaarrrrt", Two 1000cc twin camshafts are a bloody nightmare to try and attach securely onto a top box rack! they'ref'kin heavy too. Bike feels reqly top heqvy with them on the rack. I'm going to drop them off in Chateau Chinon tomorrow afternoon along with a few pistons and con rods "liberated" from the bin at work.

Was it one of those Walt Disney them cruise with a bunch of kids on it..?

We road them bloody things everywhere when kids. They were almost unbreakable and cheap on fuel which was pretty important back then.

Zoom in and you can see our traffic light. We're oh so proud of that.

It's gay all right - just not Harley Davidson gay.....

Day out in Naples today, big bonus was that the wheels were still on the car when we got back to it

haven't you told them that there's a power shortage...

The Auld Alliance between Scotland and France was signed in 1295... but apart from that, I like a good kebab from time to time

yeah but it;s still a suzuki

Posting old pictures again.

they was all Canadian ..little fat fuckers , chucked em overboard

There was another version where they were sitting in a floating hot tub with a little bar in the middle, but none went past when I was there.

A cruise? You fucking Ponce!

You have a traffic light !!!!

Thank you for my church and cemetery. What is behind the grill on this?

I know we have been talking about the Honda CT125 and how good or crap we individually think it is, I thought it was relevant how good its grandad the C90 was off road green laning in this video. I remember being an L plate hero with loads of my mates mostly with small dirt bikes. One who was not as well fixed financially had a C90 his dad gave him. That C90 went everywhere we did, as demonstrated in the context of this video.

If you look at a map of Portugal and look at the north border with Spain, and follow the half of it most inland, that's where this ride will take place. I had a short meeting in a bank in Vila Nova de Gaia, and only ended up leaving well after 9:30, got on the motorway north to Braga and from there got on the small roads, took the N103 firstly heading northeast to go past the edge of the Gerês natural park with it's charming old villages, it's landscape so bucolic it feels like it's manicured by god. It's very pretty place but not one for today. This was still on monday but the start of the holly week, and Spaniards must not have saints in Spain as they all flock to Portugal, Braga being a very important catholic town is invaded by tourists so I wanted none of that. Stopped at a big shop to buy a charging cable for my phone right after Braga, and had some breakfast before setting off properly inland. A few kms after, and although the N103 is very nicely surfaced, constantly presenting series of bends that allow you to enjoy any motorcycle from the most modest to a proper fast sports bike, I got away from it and onto smaller, narrower, and twistier roads off over the hills. A brief stop near the small village of Xertelo presented me with a very typical Gerês landscape. I was surprised that I couldn't ride through the village and carry on the other side as they only allow local vehicles inside, being a protected landscape they obviously mean for you to enjoy the place with no cars driving around, so I took a short stroll around before returning the one or two kms back to the main secondary road : Back on and shortly after I needed a pee, so got 50 meters off the road and came upon this place: A brief phone conversation had me stop to check some stuff on my phone and call someone back, while I talk the cows arrived back at their field and maybe one car drove past, this is quiet living here: The weather wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold either, the sky was very much overcast which ruins some of the pictures as everything looks like it should when it has a blue sky above. Arrived at Montalegre (translated to HappyHill), and stopped by the castle for a visit, I had never been here before and it is worthy of a stop. This place also marks the end of the typical Minho landscape and suddenly it feels more Tras os Montes, it's a place of harsh weather, lots of cold and ice, high winds, stone houses and hard people with tough lives, it feels epic and ancient too, and VERY different to the south. Montalegre has a beautifully fixed up castle worthy of a stop. It's on the border of Portugal and obviously served an important purpose in defending territory back in 1273, when it was firstly built. The tower came later, and sadly it was closed on my visit so had to stick to climbing one of the walls. Some of the castles I've visited don't really mind safety and you climb up and down walls along narrow uneven stone steps with a drop to one side and a wall to the other, here and probably being visited by lots of spaniards they made it tourist friendly with proper steps and rails. I could do with a stop for a snack but most of the restaurants were closed, I didn't feel like properly sitting down in a restaurant and having a proper lunch and couldn't find a place with seating outside, so moved on. Exiting Montalegre, I like the mix of very well kept old stone houses and the modern underground recycling bins: Traffic jam in Montalegre At around 2PM, I stopped at a small village, and got into a cafe to ask for a sandwich. Took a picture while the kind sir thinly sliced some presunto (raw bacon to you all), and made me a deliciously simple small sandwich. The cafe owner was very surprised I didn't go for his recommendation of going to the local restaurant and "eating properly", a proper Trasmontano lunch would invalidate riding in the afternoon I ate outside while chatting to an older gentleman, no pictures as the camera would have ruined the moment. For @yen_powell, a church and a cemetery I rode on heading East always quite close to the border, and mostly away from main roads. Another stop for a call: I intended on not stopping for pictures except in places where I actually stopped for whatever reason, but this made me stop and get off the bike for a picture of the road ahead, just to have the location saved when looking for it in the future, the surface could maybe do with a refresh but it had character, and if you look at the picture below you'll surely see what I like about this Another stop for urination, on an amazing location: I intended to stay for a while to enjoy the place and the river sounds but started to get swarmed with mosquitoes so went away. Instead stopped in Vinhais to have an espresso and figure out where to sleep. It was past 16:30 when I stopped in Vinhais, while enjoying my coffee I looked on google maps and found a few locations close by, all that interested me were either booked or didn't rent for just one night stay. Doesn't matter, I decided to carry on small roads and stop later at Bragança. The roads though the Montesinho (little hill) Natural Park (https://goo.gl/maps/nDo8TfSDmuXbK8Lz7) are gorgeous. Most of it is old chestnut tree forests, and it feels amazingly old like you could expect to see a night riding though on horseback, it feels like 3 or 500 years ago, but I feel like pictures didn't make the place justice, you loose a lot of the naked trees with the grey sky we had. I'll have to come back in prettier light, and I'm sure it's a great place to visit when the leaves are changing and in chestnut season. Bragança is the capital city of Tras os Montes, it's got a castle, an historic center, but I got a little fed up with it. Rode up to a hotel with underground parking for the bike, and stood in a line after 3 or 4 spaniards in front, the guy at the check in desk didn't seem to get a move on, that clearly wasn't for me so I walked out, phoned a small rural place in a village about 15km ahead and quickly made it there. By 19:00 I was in my room and enjoying a shower, the place was a good deal, in a nice small village and the covered and secured parking for the bike on the entryway was a bonus. It was never going to be dangerous leaving the bike outside but it was getting proper cold and I didn't feel like having a dew covered bike in the morning. The converted farmhouse was a charming location too: I think it was about a mile walk to the local restaurant in the next village, so I got out and went for a walk using up the last minutes of daylight, and enjoyed the old village as the locals were coming back home. Quite a few of the houses had life in them, but most people were already quite old, the lady driving the tractor in one of the pictures was surely well past 80, and the man waiting for her at home looked way older. He was washing cabbages outside, while the evening was starting to get colder. Hard people with hard lives. This dirt "street" is the straighter way between both villages, I was surprised it had street lighting and manhole covers but no proper surface. Public clothing washing tanks is still a think in a lot of rural places in Portugal, more so where water is abundant, some are quite well kept like this one. Outside the restaurant where I was hoping to find warmth and good food on a cold night. I did find both, toped with the typical transmontana hospitality and was made to feel at home immediately. The house wine are perfect for the place, and the beef cut is a traditional one of the region. You won't see beef cut this way in the rest of Portugal and I don't really know why, it's delicious. Ate and drank very well and felt happy, and went back to the hotel while chatting to a family of four out on a little trip to the north all the way from near my place near Lisbon. We got to chatting and eventually stayed up late playing pool and cards, and having some more wine for good measure. I went back to my room to sort quite a few work emails needing done but fell asleep with the laptop next to me. Slept like a baby.

The stupid Cardiff fuckers couldn't find the exit?

Meanwhile in Wales. Hundreds of drivers were trapped for up to three hours in a Cardiff multi-storey car park amid Easter bank holiday chaos yesterday.

That's a great shot!

Isn't that the case with all the modern stuff they are bringing out

I’m all for fusion foods and it’s lovely when different countries embrace each others cuisine rather than getting hung up on authenticity and PDO’s which stifle innovation and the movement of foods which would otherwise remain landlocked. If it’s good, it’s good. But I will confess that flyer looks like the jack of all and master of none

That exhaust is just ugly from every angle.

I'm off to Guadix!

5000 for me with a couple of highways bypassing the town center, nobody goes over 40 round town and there's always a parking spot right where you want it, life is good.

And it's not like it's all the time, get a year or so experience and see about getting on heavy haulage

Nob shaped veg? Hmm.

What was it before you threw it back up?

Didn't check, but usually it's a little place to put a lit candle on or the figure of a saint during special dates.

The joy of wet gloves at Trago Mills, Liskeard.