I’m beginning to hate this time of year.  It’s true, I am a fair weather biker these days.  That doesn’t mean the sun has to be shining and the temperature high enough for sunbathing, just so long as I can avoid getting soaked to the skin and arrive home without frostbite then I’m happy.

But this year in the UK there has been so much rain it’s become almost suicidal to go out on a bike.  Yesterday I looked up the road closures map due to flooding or drainage issues published by Hampshire County Council. I can’t go in any direction without running into a flood within a few miles.  Driving around in the car it’s evident that the problem goes beyond rivers breaking their banks and excess surface water with many roads suffering severe structural damage as a result.  A few days ago, whilst driving the car, I narrowly avoided killing a cyclist.  Not because either he or I did anything stupid, on the contrary we were both showing exemplary road manners which was what saved his life. The road surface had sustained such damage, a pothole, hidden because it was full of water, grabbed his front wheel and threw him off just as I was overtaking.  If he had not been riding where he should have been and had I not been passing with plenty of room for error the result could have been catastrophic.

Road conditions here at the moment are appalling.  It really is very dangerous to venture out on two wheels of any description so if you can avoid it please do.  The unfortunate consequence though is that I’m suffering from a severe bout of Parked Motorcycle Syndrome (PMS).  I’m a miserable sod with no hope of reprieve for quite some while to come.  

I hate this winter, roll on spring…and hopefully some well repaired roads.

What a brilliant weekend we’ve just had.  The Old Dragon and I headed off to the Ace Café for their Cruiser Day.  The plan was to meet up with my brother and friends from the Brackley Festival of Motorcycling (www.bfom.co.uk) on their Victory cruisers and also friends from the Suzuki 800 forum (www.suzuki800.com) all on various Suzuki Intruder cruisers.

The weather on the way out was sublime.  The temperature was in the mid 20 degrees C and, because that it was relatively early on a Sunday morning, the roads empty.  The sun shone and God was in his heaven as they say.  We all eventually met up at Ace Café and how impressed was I that a member of the Suzuki 800 forum, Dave, whom I had never met before walked up to me and started chatting before I could even remove my helmet.  Dave actually runs the forum and we have had many a chat online over the last year but even so I love the way this happens in the biking community, we’ve never met before but there we were chatting away as if we had known each other all our lives.  It is unique in my experience and something to be treasured. It was so nice to catch up with others that I have exchanged messages with and benefitted from their knowledge over the time I’ve been on the forum.  Not to mention, of course, catching up with little Bro, Andy and Linda, which is always a pleasure.

All in all it was a brilliant day.  However, a word of caution is in order here I think.  On our way home with the temperatures reaching uncomfortable levels we saw more than a few sights than send a cold shiver down my spine.  There were numerous young lads out on the roads on powerful sports bikes dressed in shorts and T-shirts.  On it’s own this is bad enough and bordering on suicidal but combine that with the way these fools were riding and it left me cold.  To make things worse and drive the point home when I arrived home there was an article on the local newspaper website stating that 6 motorcyclists in their 20′s had been involved in fatal accidents over the weekend in Hampshire alone.

Can I use this blog to make a heart felt plea to everybody who rides a motorcycle please.

Motorcycling in something that gives me and thousands of others a great deal of pleasure and a sense of community that is unique and very special.  It is also a relatively dangerous pastime.  We don’t have airbags and crumple zones.  Our safety aids lie between our ears.  If we don’t anticipate and out-think the other idiots on our roads then we stand a better than evens chance of getting hurt.  Please, please, please think about what you are doing and don’t take unnecessary risks.  It is better to be hot and sweaty than dead.  Life is short enough as it is, go easy, take care and enjoy riding a bike for many years to come.

A great day today.  The Old Dragon and I managed to get our first really good run out in glorious weather. We managed a 150 mile trip to visit my little brother all along lovely A roads across the Southern downlands. Beautiful scenery was enjoyed from the tops of the ridges at decidedly leisurely cruising speeds all of which reaffirmed my decision to move away from sportsbikes and into cruisers.

On a more spiritual level these are the days I live for.  The woes of the world were forgotten, a beautiful part of the world thoroughly enjoyed, spirit renewed and the whole experience shared with people special to me. Life is good when you can do things like this.

I have an apology to make.  I’ve been neglecting my blog and I’m sorry.

In my defence there are a couple of, in my opinion, good reasons for this.  I’m in the middle of my 6th redundancy process and am consequently running around trying to sort my life out.  Secondly, in case you haven’t noticed, the weather has been bloody awful so there haven’t been too many biking experiences to write about.

I recently celebrated my 50th birthday.  The plan was to take a few days off to visit friends and tour the West Country with my wife and brother.  The trip was long in the planning, routes were formulated, examined and revised.  Accomodation was researched and booked.  Packing checklists put together amd arrangements for meetings made.  The long range weather forecast was consulted and it looked like we were on for a chilly but reasonably bright trip.  Expectations were high.

Then the week before our departure the forecast started to deteriorate.   Eventually we arrived at the point where we had to make a decision or risk cancellation fees for the accomodation.  Given that there was a forecast 60% + chance of snow across the moors it seemed prudent to cancel. 

I was gutted.  And all of this the week before Easter !  What’s that all about. Just a few years ago I remember having a BBQ for my birthday and sitting on the patio drinking beer in the blazing sunshine.  What is happening to the weather.

Fortunately there was a plan B so a splendid time was had by all even if we did miss out on visiting friends.  Never mind, we will be down to see you soon DJ Legless…..assuming it doesn’t snow right through the summer of course.

If you have trips planned I hope you have better luck than we did this time around.  Enjoy.

Wow, what a trip.  I’ll admit this was my first motorcycle road trip and I had high hopes and wasn’t disappointed.

 Russ and I set off  mid morning Friday morning heading for lunch at Symonds Yat.  The Saracens Head is a wonderful place to wile away a hour and the food wasn’t bad either.  Sat beside the River Wye the pub where it runs through steep sided valley and it is beautiful.  If you haven’t been already you really should.  From here we set off across the Breacon Beacons heading for our day 1 camp site at Newgale.  at about 230 miles in and sat next to the sea with a pub a few minutes walk away it made the ideal place to end our first day of the road trip.  Situated just North of Milford Sound and South of St Davids we were at the South Western tip of Wales and in great shape for the next couple of days adventuring.  During the day we had met some real characters as well between filling stations and supermarkets.  Strangely they were all on bikes !

Saturday morning, having struck camp, started out with a search for breakfast.  This proved to be surprisingly difficult but eventually we found a great shack in Fishguard serving superb  breakfast rolls and acceptable tea.  Fortified and huinger satisfied we set off up the coast to Aberyswyth.  Great roads, lovely scenary and not too much traffic made it a pleasant trip….other than the prodigious heat.  Now I hate to whinge especially when we were being so lucky with the weather after recent weeks but bloody hell it was hot.  The air temperature gauge on Russ’ VFR was showing a consistent 27 degrees C which, with a complete set of bike gear even with vents open, was very nearly unbearable unless speeds above 60mph were maintained.  Regular stops to take on fluid were essentail if not entirely welcome with the consequent stops required to off load fluid !  From Aberyswyth we headed inland to Devil’s Bridge.  Another stop, more fluid and a moment to appreciate some great scenary then onwards to find our camp site at Cemmaes.  Now that should have beem a simple task but could we find it ?  Could we hell.  We found the village OK but that was as far as we got so, eventually, we decided to head up the A470 in the direction of Dolgellau to see what we could find.  Fortune smiled on us and just short of Dolgellou we found a fantastic little camp site, a very warm welcome for bikers and a bunch of trail riders from Birmingham.  The site at Dinas Mawddwy was brilliant, basic but brilliant and the company friendly and helpful, a real find and highly recommended if you’re looking for a campsite in the area.

We were both now suffering from the affect of the heat which made both of feel worse than we should have given the great time we were having.  However, that aside, day 3 started with the usual search for breakfast.  A Little Chef on the A470 at Delgellau served the purpose nicely before we set off around the Snowdonia National Park.  This was a particularly poingant part of the trip for us having spent many childhood holidays at a farm on the slopes of Snowdon.

 From Beddgelert we travelled around Snowdon, spotting the old farm house along the way, to Caernarfon,  down through Llanberis and on to the Ponderosa Café for lunch.  The scenary and roads around here are just tunning.  It’s an absolute biking must, not fast or furious just miles and miles of sweeping bends and stunning views.  The Ponderosa and Horseshoe pass were must do’s on my list of places to go and proved to be particularly amusing.  Whilst we were eating lunch a very large group of scooters from the Wrexham Scooter Club arrived.  I’d forgotten how good 2 stroke smelled.  The downside of this event being the horror the scooterists mode of dress invoked.  Maybe it’s because I’m getting old and, hopefully wiser, but seeing riders and passengers, many of them kids, riding motorcycles in T-shirts and shorts caused me great dis-comfort.  I may have been dehydrated and dripping in sweat as a result of wearing a full set of safety gear but rather that than the potential for massive scaring and skin grafts.  Some guys view of sensible clothing also added a degree of amusement.  Picture this: a Suzuki Van Van, large rider wearing motorcycle boots, good gloves, proper helmet and a back protector….strapped on over a T-shirt and shorts !!!  What’s that all about ?  The Horseshoe Pass isn’t as spectacular as I had hoped for but it was very pretty and worth doing.

Anyway, from here it gets a little less interesting.  We had planned to camp another night before the blast home on Monday but having found our camp site and given the lack of shade and 34 degree C temperature we took the decision to find how far we could get on the way home in the cool evening before looking for somewhere to camp for the evening.  As it turned out as far as we got was all the way home making it a 350 mile day.  That in it’s own right was a bit of a surprise, I didn’t think I had it in me to do a 350 mile day on the bike just yet.

At the end of the day Russ and I had a great time, met some fantastic characters, saw some spectacular views and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I have some excellant memories of this little trip and it has well and truely built the desire to do more and longer trips.  Hopefully next time the Old Dragon will come along with us.  However, the first order of business is to find a more suitable steed for touring.  I have a fancy for a Yamaha TDM900 which should prove a better choice than Jessica.  The next trip is now under investigation and it looks like we have 3 possible destinations: Scotland, the Lake District or Yorkshire.  Watch this space, I don’t think it’ll be long before we head off again.

Monday 21st an early start in the fog and a great day in prospect.  I haven’t been to the bike show before and am really quite excited about this trip.  The fact that it’s getting towards the back end of the year, we’ve just got through a ridiculously busy period and the prospect of a day off work helps too.  There were some cracking bikes on show.  Favourites being the Victory Cross Country Tour, Triumph 1200 Explorer and the Moto Guzzi Stelvio.  I was, as you would expect, just like a kid in a candy shop.  I feel there is a need for more than one bike these days.  I like to ride decent distances so comfort and weather protection is pretty important these days.  Hence the Victory and the Moto Guzzi have such great appeal.  I suppose they are variations on a theme really but both offer very different experiences.  If only the bank account would stand it…we live in hope.

Today thousands of bikers took to the major roads around the UK to register their objections to proposed EU legislation.  This is supposedly in the interests of motorcycle safety but addressing the cause of 0.07% of accidents whilst destroying the jobs of thousands at huge cost to motorcyclists seems to be missing the point in my opinion.  If you then take into account that the cause of 70% of motorcycle accidents, i.e. poor car drivers, haven’t been taken into account in any point of the legislation and I can’t help but feel that this is legislation for legislation’s sake.

It was heartening to see so many bikers turn out to support MAG (Motorcycle Action Group) in their fight against this nonsense.  The gang pictured consisted of myself, the Old Dragon, David my little brother and my niece.  We met at H Café just outside of Oxford and proceeded to join the ride South down the A34 from the Didcot services.  We were quite near the front of the group but looking back in my mirrors there were bikes filling the inside lane at 40mph for as far as I could see.  Let’s hope those in Westminster take notice.  Fluorescent jackets, restrictions on modifications and restrictions on the age of vehicles allowed in urban areas are not wanted here.  Instead go away and teach car drivers to keep a proper lookout for other road users.

Wandering around the web recently looking at various motorcycling related bits & pieces I came across the UlyssesThe aims of the club are: Club.  Being the curious chap I am I looked into this a bit further and found a little treasure.  The club was started many years ago by a brit, Stephen Dearnley,  living in Australia and is aimed at the more ‘mature’ biker.  The club is now a global organisation with branches in Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, the UK, Germany and beyond.   The bit that really appealed was the club moto ‘Grow Old Disgracefully’ which is a line I have used on many occasions for many years.  I took this to be a good omen.

Curiosity got the best of me today.  I’ve seen links to the Loomies on the Weyhill Riders website along with pictures in the gallery and, as it isn’t that far away from home, decided I just had to go there.  Loomies is a family run Café frequented by many many bikers and car drivers on the cross-roads of the A272 and A32 at West Meon in Hampshire and a oft used destination for club bike runs.  The A272 is a cracking bike road but be careful, especially on Bank Holidays, the Police patrol it with great diligence.  In fact it was along this road on a Bank Holiday that I picked up the only points on my licence in 30 years of motoring.  On arrival I had a chat with a lovely lady biker who told me, despite the100-150 bikes in the car park, that today was a quiet day!  The previous week the wasn’t room at all in the car park. The staff were very welcoming and, as usual, the biking community made all welcome and I had a great chat over coffee.  If you’re ever in the are, drop by.  It’s well worth it.