Pedro

I think it’s a 50cc.

Preliminary change of submission

15 beers, for a group of people?

The space and desolation that he finds comforting, that’s my favourite thing about that as well, along with the mountain and sandy desert roads.

A flouncer sounds like something you usually catch fishing.

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.

It's vintage, the Z250 is collectable, it's got period patina, it's two stroke and oldschool. Each one of these terms brings in an extra 5 to 10% more in value.

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!

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

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.

This Aprilia I saw today, it identifies as Japanese

Ok, third time and it won’t be funny anymore. And it’s because whites will keep increasing prices, not discounts.

It’s a source, what’s your opinion on why it’s called black friday?

I have noticed a drop in ride reports, so have been looking at every motorway emergency gravel exit for her, but no news! @yen_powell had been missing for fucking ages, though!

Are those the kind you screw from the outside of the tire or from the inside? Looking forward to those reports, but do carry some warm soup with you or whatever, looks like unforgiving terrain for an older person…

Haven’t listened to podcasts in years now, but Revisionist History was my alltime favourite. It’s about history, obviously (although US oriented), so it’s always current.

What did you do to have so many old ones? I know nothing about computers but have the impression an old macbook is a very well built thing. I’ve bought three MacBook Airs, all the same except the later one with a bigger memory, lost the first two for two different car robberies, but this current one has endured a lot of punishment inside my bike’s pannier and works like new.

Start switching relays, two won’t have broken at the same time. I did that in Morocco once, sound logic. Bike came back on a trailer…

I thought it had something to do with the stock market, but wikipedia says different: The history of the day is linked to the chaotic scenes of Philadelphia in the 1960s. It was then termed as Black Friday when Philadelphia Police used it to describe the havoc caused by the suburban tourists flooding the city for the holiday shopping.

Just bought some software, I think it was my first ever black friday purchase.

Happy Birthday Phil!

It is lovely, but feels cold.

Don’t know where I’ll go tomorrow, but it won’t be on a ferry to Africa.

Thank you, but turns out I won't need much luck. A lot of stuff came up today and I will have to dedicate some time to work next week, so Morocco is out. Not much of a bummer because my heart wasn't really in it either, felt like I was going to do it for the sake of it. Regardless, did have a nice ride today leaving home and heading to the Algarve all the way on back roads. Left later than usual, at around 10. Everything was really pretty now that we had some rain, 2 or 3 hours later stopped for lunch by the side of the road next to a pretty field, and had my sandwich. It felt a lot colder than the thermometer showed, so it was a treat to stand under the sunshine. There was absolutely no traffic, three vehicles passed during the entire time, so I had fun taking pictures standing in the middle of the road. 20 minutes later, and I stopped for a post lunch espresso, like you do. Heading South on the N2, this used to be Portugal's main road if you were to drive through this part of the country. Getting to the Algarve, I took to some smaller roads. weather, the twisties and the tarmac were perfect, but I took a detour via some dirt roads with some nice views. The destination would be the same were you to stick to nice tarmac roads, and only a 10 or 15 minute delay by taking these. Below the tarmac bit that will take me the last 10 or 15km to the seaside, which you already see in the distance in the previous pictures. I love this part of the Algarve, riding in hills and mountains but not more than 10 or 15km from the beach and with a clear view to it from above. After a warm shower, I went for a walk. This is the same place I stayed in last year before leaving Portugal, watched the end of the sunset by the water, and started being attacked by mosquitoes, so went for a walk.