Pedro

A wooden crate like they use for fruit or vegetables, or a plastic beer crate, that’s the style for topboxes on that bike. Or a cardboard wine bottle box!

Think of the effort needed to hang on on corners. It doesn’t lean into a corner so you do have to hang on.

Not a very mainstream event is it?

Happy birthday Pete, it’s sad that you were treated like that on your birthday, but I hope you find a way to have a nice time with Allie and a special dinner.

I voted for Sofia, because of the style

I don't think I am, but someone might have called me a mune que other day, as I was passing a row of cars stuck on a stoplight.

The day in which you ride a female?

In retrospect, there might have been better pictures

You can feel the love from here I’m in Ericeira living my best life, playing vet assistant and enjoying Sofia’s company, and drinking cold wine at sunset. That might be the plan for the weekend, maybe riding home on sunday. The GS is 105.000km now, but what’s weird is that I get the urge to go on a big ride every few days, then it goes away and comes back every few days later. I might need to go to Morocco again later in the year.

There’s plenty of castles, maybe @Specs will find an even better horizontal one for tomorrow

I have endured a significant disadvantage on BOTM this month. You see, on one side I took a perfectly focused and pretty picture of @Sofia’s Speed Triple with her smile and pose next to it, and a great scenic view behind. On the other hand, I got this focus when I spotted a nice opportunity for a BOTM picture and asked for my picture taken. Granted there's a big difference in the quality of our smiles, but look at this She got it perfectly focused when I was struggling to back the GS up a step onto the road, though I have been bamboozled.

I expect we might have a contender from @Specs too…

Not a great picture, but I just love the location and the views from this dirtroad. Somehow never translates the dimensions over my phone pictures.

At Bragança airfield

Wait, there’s a video of me going there for the picture: There was a huge guard dog sleeping on the other bank, with some children playing around. As soon as I started crossing the river he gave me a look and stood up paying attention. I was happy to go back

Penedo Durão in Freixo de Espada à Cinta, go there via the N221 heading north. Can’t go wrong. Call me if you need anything, I’ll PM you.

Might be to not allow debris from flowing past, I'm not sure. Regardless of the primary reason for building it, it clearly is being used as stepping stones and I had to try it for myself. The picture after that was taken from almost halfway into the river. They're a little too far between each other to walk casually across but ok to take one big step at a time. The Portuguese love stone floors like that, but in this case they used uncarved stones just put into concrete to hold them. Also cool that the bikes sleep on that overnight. I don't remember it being tilted, the chairs felt normal so it probably is an effect of the sun being very low. That was 15, maybe 30 minutes before sunset.

We wake up sort of earlyish, and by 8 we´re putting the luggage on the bikes, ready to go back for breakfast and then leave in a stylish fashion, without fuss, like you do. After a proper breakfast, I stop to take a picture of a safe. This is an old safe, it's made out of wood and highly decorated, I will have to investigate what it actually is and if they actually build it around a treasure to keep it safe. After following the N2 south of Viseu for a while, we stop for lunch in Castanheira de Pera. Not much picture taking going on that morning, great roads and nice scenery but we didn't stop much except this once: Bikes looking good parked next to the cafe as we eat some traditional soup, a bit of a let down of a lunch compared to what I had planned, but it was hearty soup that made for a good motorcycling lunch. Fortunately, going out of Castanheira de Pera the road I had planned on taking was closed, we took a detour via a smaller road straight over the hills, turns out I had been up there before but completely forgot about the place. Good result, almost deserted roads with surprise views. We pass a couple of older gents cruising up the hill on 50cc two strokes on full speed, and a little later stop to take a scenic picture, the second one adopts a salt lake top speed record pose as the little 50cc screams past Right on top of the hill and before we start our descent towards the east and closer to the coastline, Sofia gets a call that is supposed to take a few minutes, so I go explore a dirt road leading 2km into a small chapel with a view. It was here that I realize I've been to this place before At Ansião we stop for a coffee, after the nice road going down the hill I take my helmet off and a bug comes out. This bug got into my helmet and tried to get into my ear a while back, I thought I had taken it off but turns out he was hiding in the linings, little guy just migrated 50km into the other side of a mountain. From Ansião we get on a fast IC roads and cruise to Jomotos, in Pombal, for a quick stop by a motorcycle shop, a treat for Sofia. I disregard the new stuff and take three fotos of interesting or quirky bikes. Jomotos is a dealership for BMW, Honda, Suzuki and KTM/Husqvarna/GasGas, they're properly big for Portuguese standards and the chief mechanic is a cool guy that has looked after my bike a couple of times for routine maintenance. They say KTM and Husqvarna and Gas Gas are the same bike in different colors, they're right: After they look at the Speed Triple chain and give it a spray, he head home on motorway mode, after a quick race we settle at a steady 80 / 85mph and make the last 150kmh a haste, in time for plenty of fun arriving home to puppies that missed her terribly. It was a nice trip, lots of bad weather made us appreciate the following days, I'll certainly be going back to Tras os Montes.