MooN

I was bringing a group ride back from the alps / vercors when i got Bucks message this morning. It took me a while to process. By the time i got halfway home it was pissing down with rain an thunder claps you could hear over the exhaust noise. It 30 odd years i have rarely ridden in such bad weather. Thanks Pete.

the stress of running this place finally got to you then Pete? Speedy recovery mate.

I did a ride report from Ouradour as well a few years ago. You should go, but don't go with a bunch of mates, it really isn't that sort of place.

Yeah I tried to do a panoramic pic of the statues cos there are 1475 of them between the monument and the beach, this photo shows I gues less than a quarter of them. It does really make it real.

the ride home the next day was only eventful insofar as my knee was was so painful that I had to stop every hour and thenevery half hour to walk the pain off. we did a little over 1400km in the 4 days and it was clearly toomuch for my poor failing carcass. I did feed it properly though

this has been a long time coming as it is something that I have been wanting to do for a fair few years now. I originally planned this as a solo trip, but things change and a couple of mates tagged along, one for the whole thing and one ( + wife and dog) for the Normany part but not the "there and back" bit. With unstable spring weather and unsure of my own ability to ride km in a day and still be able or willing to set up a tent in shit weather, I booked what they call a "cyclo tent" in the municipal campsite in Bayeux. It cost me 90 odd € for the 3 nights and as it has é beds and my mate Manu came along Ionly paid half of it . It's a kind of semi rigid tent, and looks like this: ( that's Manu in the pic with his RT1100 The campsite is well organised (but everybody's GPS sends them to the swimming pool and not thecamp site) well maintaine and equipped with new, clean and heated shower / toilet block. t's half an hours ride from any of the invasion beaches and all the main sites, i'd recommend it if you're thinking of going. The ride North from here on wednesday went almost without a hitch, the weather had changed radically for the better and I left home ataround 08h30. I met up with Manu as planned, at a petrol stationjust this side of Joigny on the N6. We then headed eastwards toward Montargis and Orleans, rounding Orleans to the south and then turning northeast towrds Chateaudun where we stopped for lunch. Top Tip for eating rapidly in France: Get to the restaurant by 12h00 at the latest (11:45 is better) cos the french feed from 12 to 2 and the ALL arrive, en masse at 12h00. We got there at 11h45 so were pretty much first in, first served and first out. as we left at 12:45 they were still queuing at the door and more were still arriving. It being a Looooooong weekend, the whole country and his significant other were on the roads (Including, much to my surprise a large number of citroen 2CV, many pulling caravans FFS! I failed to get a picture of this, as I was too busy trying to not fall of my bike from the surprise!) From chateaudun we moved ever north and east, through Nogent le Rotrou, Mortagne au Perche, Sees, Argentan and Falaise (not only famous for the "Falaise Pocket" but also the home of William the conquerer, whos chateau is still visitable (looks like I'm going to have to come back here...) We stopped fro a break and a coffee in Falaise, as I had planned the only autoroute usage of the trip from here to Bayeux, as it would be getting on fot rushhour as we approached Caen at this stage we'd been on the road for nearly 7 hoursand I just wanted to get to the end. From Falaise north, the Autoroute is a "voie rapide" similar the the autoroutes in Britanny so no toll, but with a speed limit of 110kph rather than the 130 of the toll roads, but that's fine as the tiger is probably at hermost comfortable at this speed. The traffic around Caen was bad, and I had to resort to lane splitting with is "tolerated" inFrance and codified but not legally. It isnot something I'm very comfortable with as I never need to filter in the part of the world I live in, but most of the drivers being Parisien, it was surprisingly easy, you just sit on the white line between the two outer lanes and the cars open a passage for you like Moses parting the red sea! My ride plan had us arriving at the campsite at 17:15 and we pulled up at the gate at 17: 14 which had the other couple who were waiting for us accusing me of witchcraft (the french are not good at punctuality, for the most part...) we strolled into Bayeux for a feed that evening, and back along the river Up and out early the next morning wanting to beatthe crowds. We're one month away from the 80th anniversary celebrations and its a bank holiday weekend of 5 days AND the weather is glorious... 1st up; the Merville Battery and museum, you can look it up for specifics. It was aninteresting visit and the information dotted around the site was very instructive and complete. The Dakota parked in front of the Hangar is known as the "SNAFU special" so I had to translate that for all and sundy as it was the only thing not translated on the information boards . Again, we were almost first in, but by the time we laft, the car park was full and there was a 15minute queue at the entrance to the museum. We moved back down the estuary and river to Bénouville and the site of Pegasus Bridge. I believe the first objective of the invasion and the first attack by glider born troops. The 3 glider pilots in question managed to place their machine so perfectly after a 5 mile glide that it is still today considered to be one of the greates feats of airmanship of the war. The original bridge has been replaced, but is still intact and the museum has been built around it They also have built a scale model of one of the Horta gliders used, from the original plans. I was so overawed by the sheer balls of any of the blokes who dared to actually fly inone of them, that i forgot to take any pictures. None of the original gliders have survived intact. This tank did though (built a little moe solidly I think) Iwas intrigued by the graduations painted on the turret. Aparrently it was to enable an exterior spotter to give precise firing directions to the gunner inside. We ate at the restaurant "Les 3 Planeurs" right beside the bridge, good food and reasonably priced. Again, we managed to keep one step ahead of the crowds. By the time we got the "The Grand Bunker" at Ouistreham things were getting crowded. This bunker was a command post with fire direction for the germanshore batteries and was not constructed with the ease of movement of hundreds of tourists inmind... interesting though, and an extensive collection of parephanalia, from an original landing craft to communication equippement and telemetry gear for ranging guns. this is hand canked air filtration system in case of gas attack The rest of the days activities, I had planned to be outdoors, as I struggle to deal with crowds in small spaces, so we moved on to The british memorial at Ver sur Mer and this is where I got the title "Standing with Giants" you canlook that up too https://www.standingwithgiants.co.uk/#:~:text=The 1%2C475 giants reflect the,April 2024 - 31st August 2024. you can see the remains of the Mulberry harbours at Arromanches in the background. moving mong the silouettes, reading the history, the phrase "standing among giants" becomes achingly apt. Having been somewhat subdued by the Ver sur Mer memorial we moved on to Arromanches, cos I wanted to see the remains of the Mulbery harbours, the dog wanted to run on th sand and we all wanted an ice cream or cold beer... or possibly both! The tide was pretty much out so good timing. What with the sun and the sear air and all the rest I slept prety soundly that night. Next day, up and at'em early again tobe amongthe first visitors to the Us cemetery at Colville sur Mer. If I remember correctly, this was the first US military cemetary of the war and is the larges US military Cemetary outside the US with 9433 soldiers buried here and the names of a further 1500 odd names of soldiers lost but not found or identified. As with all such places it is very sobering. The organisation is impressive and clearly top notch. The parking attendant told us they were expecting 10,000 visitors per day leading up to the 80th anniversary with apeak of 12.000 at the weekends and 14 to 15,000 on the -th June. They have car parking for about half that... needless to say, there was a vehicle queue of about 2 miles when we left. we had a quick look at Omaha beach and moved on to the Point du Hoc https://www.abmc.gov/Pointe-du-Hoc some of the bunkers have survived almot unscathed but the ground has beenlaft pretty much as it was in '44 and the depth and size of the craters gives some inkling into the destructive power of a battery of 14 inch naval guns (of the USS texas I believe) The fact that the rangers managed to scale those cliffs, locate the guns (that had beenmoved), take the battery and hold it for tw days untill support arrived, absolutely beggars belief. Grandcamp Maisey for lunch, where Manu's bike managed to punch a hole right throgh the pavement with its side stand and fall over into the road... my helpful comments about just another german making holes in the Normandy villages were, surprisingly, not appreciated... we wpent most of the afternoon at the mairee sorting out damage reports and insurance claims for both pavement and bike. the damage o the bike was, fortuately, only cosmetic and the third member of our party being an insurance agent, obviously helped in avoiding any unneccessary palaver. Having lost a lare part of the afternoon in this manner we sadly had to pass over the museum at Omaha beach, contenting ourselves with a visit to the beach itself, or part of it, but it nowbeing high y=tide there was not much of it to se so we pushed on to St Mere Eglise, with it's iconic 3john Steel" parachutist dummy hangng from the church, as per the film "The Longest Day". The event did effectively happen in real life, though somewhat differently from the film. The village manages to generate 200,000 visitors a year from a rubber dummy and some parachute materiel. It was the only time during the trip that I thought things had been allowed to get a little out of contro and border on the distateful.

Hi Bob, I'm still alive but having a proper job has been playing havoc with my riding scheduleand as the kids get older they seem to need more of my time than when they were younger. I've been dong very little riding this winter but have a couple of trips planned for May which I might get some pics of. Apart from that, when I do come on here and catch up a bit, I find that I have nothing worthwhile to add to any of it.

Iuse anold bmw carjack that someone gave me, but I don't carry it on the bike. That would be lighter and easier to carry on long trips. Um... why do you have rigging U bolts screwed to your driveway?

fuckmine! thats less than half the price it would be here! i actually just started tigger, I went out to take the battery off, planning to take it in to work on monday and have our battery bod test it and charge it for me, and the baterry terminal connector bolts were finger tight or less... i tightened them and gave it a whirl and she started fine. I wasn't able to go ride it but run it up to temperature and then a bit longer at higher revs. it was charging at 14.3v, varying very slightly with revs. i checked it agin about 15 minutes after switching off and the battery was at 12.9v I'll check it again tomorrow, but even it it seems good I'll replace it ( it appers to be the original battery, ( fabrication date on the battery same year as the bike) so if that's the case it's 12 or 13 years old already.

Tiger won't start this morning. I'm not really surprised, the battery was showing signs of weakness earlier on in the winter but I though I'd managed to ride enough to recharge it. To be fair this is probably the longest I have ever left a bike unused ( apart from 2016 following an op on my back) and I obviously havent disconnected it or used a charger or anything intelligent like that. The battery shows 12.5v on a digital multimeter, so i'll probably hack it off and take it into work on monday, nail a charger to it for 24 hours and then hammer it back into the bike and see if that sorts it, at least temporarily. The battery is at least 8 years old, so it may just be time to replace it anyway, but batteries are fookin expensive here ( i'm looking at 150 to 170€ for a decent quality one. I could get one from work MUCH cheaper but it would be cheap chinese rubbishand I want something reliable. I know that all my ex client boat-owners brought batteries out from the uk as they were far cheaper, what does a bike batterie cost in the uk nowadays? ( i'll be over in the car next month). the original is a YTX-16BS 14Ah job. any thoughts?

Rant... I was supposed to be going to Lyon today, they have moved bro in law's care home to a new location to the east of the city and it's been a complete clusterfuck from beginning to end, so bad that of the 65 staff, only 3 haven't left, including the director, so everybody there is an interim worker, paid by the day and has no clue about the patients or their needs. Bro in law has, as far as we can make out, been parked in his new room. we have no further nformation since wednesday and can contact no one, except an interim "director" who is not on site, knows nothing and cares even less. The French bloody peasant farmers have come out on strike and are blocking all autoroute access from Nemours down as far as Chalon sur saone or Tournus which makes the road trip to Lyon 5h each way ( under normal traffic conditions, and as all the trucks are off the autoroutes, it is currently FAR from normal trafic conditions) I am now trying to wind myself up to make the 5 h drive overnight, be there in the morning to find out WTF is going on and drive 5 hours home sunday pm... or to take a day off work and try going on wednesday, in the hope that the fucking peasants have moved their shit north to Paris where the fucking politicians are rather than wrecking the lives of the entire population who have nothing to do with their problem. Rant over...

well i've pretty much finished the planning for this trip, two dasys travelling ( one up & one back) and two days doing some museums and memorials, starting on the right at the german batteryr at Merville and moving west via pegasus bridge, the bunker at Ouistreham, , the British memorial at Ver sur Mer and Arromanches and SWORD beach. Then a US day taking in Colville cemetry, OMAHA beach, le point du Hoc, Utah and st Mere église. If I get enough time i'll try and sneak a quick peek at the bayeux tapestry ( wich is neither a tapestry nor from Bayeux...) but that's secondary. I have contacted a couple of B & B's in the area but I think I'll probably use the municipal camping in Bayeux as a base. 1120 odd km trip in theory. I now just need to persuade people that they really won't be interested in what i'm visiting so they really don't want to come...

I would guess either somebody told him all about you and this site and all of what gets got up to on here... or he was just one of those people who simply cannot be doing with the incessant flow of utter bollox that this forum seems to specialise in. If nobody called him a twat or a cunt or told him to fuck off within the first half hour or so following his first post then maybe he just didn't like the tone of the place...

Yeah, I saw that.

anything where people are not telling me how i should be doing it ( which means VERY little these days)

-6c tis morning so probably won't be getting the bike out this weekend... The wife is away for the weekend so I'll be pretending to be a fully functional and responsable adult, cooking for me and the animals ( sorry, children) and doing some decorating in the girls room as they're going to be out all afternoon at some party. I also have to book the crossing for our february foray to the septique isle. That's going to set me back 300+€ which I can't afford. for the last few years eah trip is probably the last time I'll see Mum ( 93 and fading fast into alzheimers fog) so I can't really not go, but the cost wipes us out every time what with the crossing + accomodation+ fuel + autoroute.

I just rendered a young salesperson in an electronics shop speechless..., I told him I wanted som intra auricular "ear bud" ( not "ear pod") heaphones, not bluetooth but with a lightning connector to plug into my Iphone. " doesn't exist" " erm... well they did exist, cos I have some, and I'd like to replace them with a similar pair" I said. his replay of " well I'd like to see that, cos I've never heard of such a thing," was cut short by my timely presentation of said earphones from my pocket and his jaw hitting the floor. apparently anything bought over 2 years ago in their shop constitutes a relic from some dim and distant past, to be revered and sniggered at in equal measure. It would seem that such antidiluvian apparatuses are no longer to be found, Blue tooth only if you don't want apples own brand designer fucking useless "fall out of your ears if you turn your head" pods. wankers, all of 'em !

well I think our local prefect has finally lost it! this morning it was -8c ish and freezing fog, cars in ditches all over the bloody place ( i exaggerate a little... but I only have a 10km drive to work and saw 2, wifey does 20k in the other direction and saw 1 plus an accident) The mwin road through the village here was fun cos a water main burst during the night so it was a proper ice rink. Kids off to school on the bus, no problem, all the schools open. Tomorrow the forcast is for +4 in the morning, rising to 10 ish in the afternoon and rain. All regional school transport and schools are closed tomorrow due to extreme weather comditions... fucking lunatic i tell you.

chores today, it,s been cold this last 48hrs and not got above -3c all day today. I spent 2 hours outside assembling and then fitting roof bars to the car in preparation for a family trip to the UK to see my parents in feb. Bit of a pain and a financial drain that I really don't need but Mum's 93 this year and Alzhiemer is doing what it does so If I don't go when I have the chance, it may well be the last.

ST Malo is my favorite place on earth. ( so far...) first visited as a kid on a sailing boat and have been back numerous times since, it never gets old. but don't even think about going when Paris is on school holidays.

buy some earplugs. oh, and make sure your bathroom has industrial gauge waste system.

anybody here visited? 80th anniversay this year, and if my Britanny trip doesn't come off ( looking less likely already) my plan B for the 8th may long weekend would be to go visit the landing beaches. I'm looking for info on whether I need 2 days "on site" or if one is sufficient, and what to see and what to not bother with. As the internet is only capable of supplying commercial tour operators advertisements and information pages from conspiracy theorists explaing how, "in fact", none of it ever happened, i thought I'd ask a group of people who's opinions i respect. Obviously I could,t find one, so I'm asking you lot as a last resort... anybody been and done it?

Fair point. , so I'll see your mangled arm / hand and raise you a rheumatoid polyarthritis and twin teenage daughters ( if they don't count as handicap or a disease they f'in well should do )

if you're playing " one-upmanship" in this domain on this forum, I think it should be made clear from the start that neither Yamahead nor Bob Oneleg are allowd to play , They should have a league of their own where weight loss due to removal of body parts is a legitimate thing and the rest of us can sit and quibble about who's getting oldest the fastest...