Leaderboard

The other side had bad road rash visible through the paint. It was a teenager's bike, maybe he just felt like updating it from teenager Rossi to adult Rossi and had a couple of cans of spray paint and a mate with a sticker printer. I found it funny as hell after my initial "weird Yamaha" when it firstly ring-a-ding-dinged from a distance. My GS got a thumbs up from him after noticing the non gay tires, so the dude's ok with me!

I've been out on the Louigi Moto xmas doo. Anything I post from hereon in may be alcohol induced . Anyway , John McGuiness was very entertaining . it was a good laugh and at the same time you wwere in awe of his skills .

FFS About as much use as tits on a fish.

Let there be ĺight....and there is.

The Old Post Office at Tintagel

really , im going over there to slag the cunt ...

Isn't that award yours after the 'ditch' incident ?

Felt deflated and disapointed with not going to Morocco, yesterday's dinner was also sad, a takeaway pizza alone at my room. It was made worse by the wifi not working in the room and the tv seemed to only display a short selection of german satellite channels. Not the happiest of dinners, later went for an overly expensive coffee and used the bar's wifi to post the report. Not happy and not entertained, I fell asleep early to then wake up at 3AM thinking it was already 8. A couple of hours of non sleep ensued to them crash and wake up at 8:30 with a call from Spain Breakfast was a pear and croissant bought the previous evening from the local supermarket, plus orange juice and a soluble coffee overlooking the already loaded GS, pure class! Cool tree overgrowing it's allowed ground space I headed to Spain, crossed the border same as going to Morocco but instead of doing the 400km motorway stint to Tarifa, got off and headed Northeast, the roads were more or less boring but ok, and I took no pictures as the landscape wasn't really interesting either. Stopped a couple of hours later to navigate and figure out where to go, a plan was made to sleep back in Portugal and make up for last night's sad excuse of a dinner, but to first ride to and through the Sierra Morena, which is North of Sevilla if you want to see on the map. It looked like a cool place on google maps, with just the right kind of green and squirely looking roads While I was parked two idiots stopped their horses to have a conversation, poor animals were a little frightened when the mighty GS rumbled to life, but they didn't seem to be in a hurry to go away, so there! Heading into Sierra Morena proper, google maps showed a longer detour to get to the same location, 25 minutes to do a 10 minute thing and I took it, and was presented with the first proper road of the day. The 20kmh limit seems a bit extreme and I don't think I've ever seen one in Portugal, but after the corner there's a VERY narrow bridge, one motorhome can hardly make it: In fact, if there's one thing this area is lacking is in proper roads. There's plenty of tasty dirt roads going off of the tarmac proper road, but there are a LOT of mines around and trucks are often diverted off the tarmac road and onto gravel ones, so the real nice GS'y roads are filled with dust and heavy trucks doing work things. Anyway, at almost 13:30 I was desperate for a week and some food and found just the right place at the little town of El Castillo de Las Guardas. Stopped at a cafe/pub/restaurant type of place, and had a 20cc non alcoholic beer with carne con tomate, the beer was ok and the beef was super tasty and very garlicky. What you see in the picture is one of the few Spanish good things, a portion made for eating along with a drink, this beer is tiny, but the portion is made for you to order two or three as tasters along with a few beers or wine glasses, it works perfectly as a smaller lunch when on the road. If you're from the UK and traveling, just show up at one of the places where there are a lot of men going in at lunch (later than yours), and point at what they're having at the counter and job's done, people will be friendly (more so if you're on a big motorcycle). While I was eating a couple of young dude rocked up on 50cc 2 strokes. The one on the Derbi traillie parked away, which was for the best as it would have contaminated my meal with whatever he was burning, but the little Aprilia parked next to my bike, from a far I was curious as to the bikes decoration, but it was all transparent when I looked at it upclose. It's an Aprilia RS50, probably a Nastro Azzuro livery RS50 belonging to a Rossi fan, the other side of the bike showed that it led an even harder life than this side does, so eventually it must have had a respray too many and as Rossi turned to Yamaha so did this Aprilia. The owner is too young to have bought it new, but there's no mistake his next bike will be an R1: The town itself is worthy of a 20 minute longer visit than what I did, there's a small castle / fort / monastery thing, I rode one lap around it and fucked off as I wanted an angry day eating kms, not looking at things. Around this time, I made plans to book a room in Monsaraz, already back in Portugal, it was still far away considering the time of year and the early sunset, but there's a really great restaurant next to it and I was in need of comfort after last night's lonesome sad pizza. Rode into Cazalla de la Sierra, and got lost inside. A few streets' one way signs didn't match google maps' opinion so I ended up doing two or three laps of the inner part of the maze of old streets, turns out it's a cool town and I wouldn't have minded staying there for the night, but left and headed back home. Exiting Cazalla, almost still in town as the 60kmh signs state, phone started buzzing and I gave up and stopped to have a few conversations, it was now 15:30 (16:30 in Spain) and the weather cold, the sun starting to go down but gorgeous: 10 or 15 minutes, again with the bloody phone : The next bit of road, after that, though, made the whole day. It's a typical mountain road in the Iberian peninsula, narrow, shit surface, twisty and you can go miles in second and third gear in a normal bike, maybe third and fourth in a GS since gears are so short, I stopped this once just for you, to see the roads's camber going from one extreme to the other. If you're on a road traillie and you don't enjoy this then change bikes: Don't know how many kms I did on that, maybe not that many since it's more intense than the ground it covers, occasionally the scenery popped through openings on the trees (only 15 minutes between pictures): I did get a little too enthusiastic and caught a little air going from bend to bend, liked this road so much I stopped to take the previous picture just to have it on my phone in the maps app if I want to go back. A few more miles went past, didn't stop, the road turned from murdered tarmac to F1 grade surface, lost a little bit of character but by then I appreciated the smoothness. By 17:30 I was getting really cold. Stopped to fuel up with cheaper (than Portuguese) Spanish petrol, and as the sun was setting, put on my neck warmer and warmer gloves, have a hot a nasty coffee to warm up before the last hour to the border and room for the night: Well in the cold darkness, and after a car in front of me almost running into a lost sheep crossing the road, now getting cold I set the cruise control to 110kmh through faster country roads and enjoyed the GS's powerful high beams when I could, I made it to Monsaraz after an hour, a brief stop by the castle for a picture or two in the darkness, and then to my home for the night: I enjoyed my dinner in the "Sem Fim" Restaurant quite a lot, it's an old olive oil cold press warehouse, now converted to resrtaurant. I love it. I enjoyed a bottle of delicious local Monsaraz wine, which I will buy at home and see if it tastes as good taken away from it's original location, and had a very typical entree of garbanzo beans a codfish, and then the baked mutton and small tatters. All was great, I walked back to my room through cold streets now feeling comforted. This area, Monsaraz near the Alqueva dam, is considered the best star gazing location in Portugal and one of the best in Europe because of it's clear skies and absence of light pollution, this means that when it's cold at night, it's really cold. I really like these old school Alentejo streets. See you tomorrow, I'll figure out what to do at breakfast, either going straight back home, or whatever.

Delivery was supposed to be Monday......but it turned up this morning. Looks a bit complicated......I might have to get the wife's advice on this shit!

In this case the BOAT is a Byway Open to All Traffic, It seems that Merthyr council have been sly dogs and not put one of the byways on the map and nobody knows it exists, that was until they had a sly meeting where they have proposed closing it which meant they had to put it on their page for the public to see and luckily somebody spotted it, so the plan today was to ride up to it and ride it while it's still legal which is a bit ironic because everywhere i rode to get to it isn't legal LOL. Anywho set out around 08:00 this morning, it was quite frosty and was -1.5c but with clear blue sky's and very sunny. I had around 3 miles of road riding before i got off road and after the first mile i was already thinking about turning back to put warmer gear on the heated grips were working overtime trying to keep my hands warm inside my summer enduro gloves but i stuck it out because temperature is a different story when you hit the dirt This is the mountain where i spotted that tetradactyl before LOL This was one of the legal lanes, it felt a bit exposed to the right now that everything is dying back for the winter, the bridge carries the A470, Merthyr to the right and Cardiff to the left I ride up past my parents house and onto trials of my past heading down towards the old Cefn Glas railway tunnel as i have done many times before Further on i have to cut through the forestry to avoid a deep mud hole i didn't fancy riding though it on my own and risk getting stuck, the cold has gone now and i'm feeling quite warm After the forestry it opens out to this moorland, a stretch of land I've hated riding from the age of 16 as it's riddled with ruts hidden by the long grass its quite slow going picking your way through the ruts although I've seen good riders go through here like it's tarmac Back into the forestry and its still frosty in the shade all the water from here on is frozen typical Merthyr weather I end up taking a detour due to get around fallen trees and end up having to negotiate this, something i wasn't comfortable doing on my own and as usual it doesn't look that steep in the photos but believe me it was and i'm now steaming hot and sweaty This is the last time you see my mirror There's a steeper short drop off onto the forest road and i decide to walk the bike down to be safe but i loose my footing when the front wheel drops off the short step and i end up falling down the bank taking my mirror with me when i go back up for the bike it's also taken the Radiator Shroud off where it dragged on the bank knew i should have just ridden down doh! From here there was lots more mud and fallen trees to negotiate and eventually i got onto the Byway i was looking for. The start was nice and easy so i could catch my breath and cool down heading into the sun now An nice drop down into a gully and back up. the trail goes sharp left up to the top left corner of the photo and was similar dropping down to where i am Back on some easy stuff About halfway along i get lost, there's trails going off in all directions and i end up by the Abernant railway tunnel it goes from Merthyr to Abredare and theres rumours their going to reopen it for walking and cycling This is a photo of the inside from stolen from on line, i would have loved to have got in there again its just under a mile and a half long. I went through there on a Honda 400 superdream when i was 17 years old but it's all locked up now with a thick layer of grease on the gates to deter anyone climbing over One of the fallen trees to get over there were quite a few like this on route no real problem for the mighty Beta And this would take me into Bike Park Wales mountain bike center, the fallen leaves from ere on hid lots of slippery rock which got me all hot and sweaty again A bit more road work to get my onto Heol Cymro which is a half mile steep climb covered in loose rock made worse today by the low sun flickering through the trees blinding me From here it was a gentle ride over my mountain to the petrol station for a wash before home You can clearly not see my missing rad shroud here Another good day's riding lit the fire when i got in so it's all toastie in here and i'm now sinking a few pints of Skippy piss chilling out

Better still he can come down and show me on my bike LOL

Maybe you should ask @busabeast how it’s done.

We can report you to the EU? I wish I had known that before. How do I do it?

FTR1200 for me. Although I do also really like the VMax…

When out for a bimble this morning over to the north coast. Lovely clear dry day but cold ish around 6c. I wanted to take a photo by the Old Post Office at Tintagel. The place where King Arthur’s Castle is supposed to be. Not convinced myself but there is a castle there. Then went on to Trebarwith Strand but bit disappointed with the photos from there bins and road marking spoilt what could be a fantastic view. Fed up with cameras I bimbled off down the coast road past Delabole and Port Issac. To Wadebridge. Then took the Atlantic Highway (stupid name) further west to Newquay then headed home. I must admit I am happiest on the bike bimbling along A and B roads on my own. No twats around me being stupid, there is a lot to be said for that. Took an iron will not to go into a cafe for a fry up, but I was good. Big thumbs up for thermal gear, you wouldn’t think one thin extra layer would make such a difference. Also heated grips, I don’t want to ride without them anymore. Now thawing out at home over a coffee. Chilled right out. Oh and in case I haven’t mentioned it, I fucking love that Hornet.

I thought Mawsley was a great attribute to the forum......cos he was a great writer, and you could never predict what bizarre lifestyle choice he was going to make next. So you'd never get boring posts from him! Unfortunately him and Six got into it, so I asked them both to calm down. Six went along with it, but Mawsley didn't. He just kept posting way OTT stuff directed at Six which I deleted. Then the next thing I know I get a very abusive PM from him telling me to delete his account and all his posts or he'd report me to the EU. So I complied! Don't ask me......I've got no idea why the likes of Ursula von der Leyen and Guy Verhofstadt would be interested in Mawsley's forum account! And at that time Britain had already left the EU.

It was a glorious morning today so Paolo and I set off for a walk along the old Midland line that used to run from Bath to Bristol. We got on it at Staple Hill as Paolo had never walked through the tunnel before , it was a frosty start but the sunshine was great . Can you spot the pigeons ??

been in over there , probably a ban coming my way and guaranteed the other twat geronirous or what ever his name will have something to say

Why does it come with a foam dildo , is that for your wife ?

Good job Pete isn't there as your tool passer he'd constantly be like

going into the shed to strip the Tupperware off the scoot.......I may be gone some time.

You look as toothless as Ren!

His answer will be a resounding yes, maybe or no!

Classy bike outside the restaurant now

Funny enough Pedro it's like that here when Swansea twats turn up

I was chatting to some bird on a horse a few weeks back when i stopped for her to pass, she also rode bikes and had a Desert Sled and was a really nice girl we had a good chat but by fuck she fat her stomach was resting on the horses neck all i could think was the poor thing must be suffering (the horse not her) it was a sturdy welsh cob and she was miles from home on it

Cool, I just reported Pete for being maliciously ginger.

You should have gone over and played the Portuguese Gammon with those Johnny Foreigners!

They're the rock in my shoe

Spanish?

I had a great night's sleep, ate and drank very well, and then shut down the fridge and air-conditioning in the room so all there was was complete silence in the Alentejo countryside. Woke up quite late to a very foggy chilly morning. After a quick breakfast, things were looking a lot better. The plan was to get a little bit of an off-road fix around the Alqueva lake, and then head home or at least a little bit north. It was around 10AM when I left the hotel and 10 minutes later set wheels on some very nice gravel roads. @boboneleg, the Desert Sled would love it here: Old crumbling church in need of a fix up And a little bit of exploring dirt roads around the lake. Found an ideal spot for a picnic in the future, which turns out to also be accessible by a very nice tarmac road: Some pretty colours for the season: 3 hours into it, I stopped by the lake to eat my sandwich previously bought from a small cafe. I did give it a few moments before making myself comfortable there because there were a few sheep around, and although the typical Alentejo cattle guard dog doesn't care if you're traveling and are usually pretty chill, when you stand between them and whatever they're protecting they turn into a fierce thing, they're big, fast, and don't bark or give you any warning. After a minute I got my sandwich out, a very simple ham and cheese but the homemade bread made it marvelous. After eating, I sat there for a while contemplating, you heard a few of the sheep, the cranes, and even the odd fish jumping out and making a splash. After a bit, someone drove over, I knew I was trespassing but the nice man wasn't bothered at all. He came to check on the sheep and came by to say hello. We ended up chatting for a almost an hour and a half, Joaquim Santos, nicknamed Malaquias is 85 years old, and lives alone after having lost his wife and son. We got along well and he ended up telling me all about his life, since going there at 18 months old after his mother passing and living with his aunt and grandparents, having had planted 1300 olive trees when he was 13 to have them all submerged by the current water level, to going to war at 18 years old to Africa, to them building the dam that created this huge lake on land that looked very different before, emigrating to France to work on farming beetroot, to his current life and current ailments. After a while he drove off and went to search for the sheep who by that time had half wandered back home by themselves. I promised to return, and will do so for sure, a friend has been made. On the picture below you can see him near the water to the left, 85 and walking around like that seems very impressive to me. By this time it was now 14:30, I had at least 3,5 hours to make it home if riding properly non stop, today is Saturday and as such all the other places I usually end up in are a little busy and loud, so I called my previous nights accommodation and bargained the same low price for today as well. I was now glad I wouldn't have a long ride after all these dirt roads, and instead did a little more exploring reasured to have another great dinner tonight and a good night's sleep. After loosening up a little on the bike, I was now a lot more comfortable than in the morning. Trails weaving through trees and hills were now being done more a lot more relaxed than before, in third and fourth gear with ease, and I found out how lovely it is to slightly jump out of drainage ditches. They do these concave concrete paths so that water can overflow from one side of the road to the other between fields, and if you time it right you get a little air coming out the other side, makes me feel like a hero but more importantly helps the bike glide over the bumps usually present on the other side of those ditches. Another stop trying to get the elusive BOTM picture, my phone and my picture taking didn't make the light justice, it was gorgeous out there: I went up to the castle to get a nice scenic view of the sunset over the big lake, didn't even take pictures except of a nice couple who showed up on another GS and helped them take a proper picture instead of a selfie. Then, as I was enjoying peace and quiet and the view, spaniards showed up and fucked everything up for me with their incessant clucking, really, have a listen: I gave up on the quiet sunset view and went to the hotel to have a warm shower, and am now sitting comfortable posting this after a hot coffee. It was a lovely sunset, too Basically today I rode around all day with my luggage on and went nowhere

Unlike you .............

I see horse riders a lot when out on the trials but It's not often i see men on horses, here it seems to be a female thing. Only time i see men on horseback is when there was a hunt on is it the same there

Agreed completely. Your ride report names baffle me, seems like half are medicine names and the other half come if you type randomly with your eyes closed. Cool stuff though, and you're putting the new bike to good use.

Preliminary change of submission

15 beers, for a group of people?

You could always photoshop it like normal

mans a cunt... trust me

Twat i don't think i'll bother putting a photo in now

Enough room in them for a Moose,s back feet @Marcel ?

That'll be because I am nearly as toothless as @Renegade

I was disappointed.

Flounders, they make nice eating,

Fuck Off!....I have been nowhere near the place!.

From Boumalne, if he goes north to Imilchil it’s a great road with some nice offroad. Then from Imilchil go East all the way on the mountains to Midelt or Zaida, again very cool. Then North to Tangiers, that’s a way to enjoy coming back North if there are still no snow on the tallest bits. You have to respect those roads, after October you don’t know what the rains and floods did to them, though, and to push when you’re clearly struggling isn’t smart, having said that those places are less deserted than they look, 20 minutes and there’s always someone around to help. Don’t film your bike when down, it’s disrespectful to it, and mainly you’re wasting the adrenaline from the crash, it will help you pick it up but wears down fast.