Euro Tour Part 1

departure........

And so the day finally arrived, months of planning and saving had gone by and here we all were,
K.G, Grifter, HBos, Zippy and me sat in Squires for our pre trip dinner (it was shite, to be honest, but there you go). We scoffed up, done a last few checks and headed off down a very windy M62 toward our rendezvous with the ferry at Hull. We pulled up at the check-in hut and K.G's poor bike must have been a little tired because it took the opportunity to have a quick lay down while K.G was handing over the passports (this tired bike mullarky would turn out to be a bit of a theme for poor K.G). Onto the ship and our first taste of strapping down bikes, we seemed to wait ages while Grifter wrestled with the perfect combination to fasten his pride and joy down, (basically you couldn't see his bike for bloody rope by time he was satisfied) we got our room keys, had a quick change and a shower then it was down to the bar, we got the first drinks in, "I'm gonna go easy tonight lads" said I "I don't want to ride in a foreign country with a thick head tomorrow." Famous last words, after 5 rounds of pints of Grolsch i was a little bit worse for wear, oh well we were effectively on holiday.
K.G and HBos then decided to have a crack at the casino, well well i never knew K.G was the cosmopolitan type, he was completely at ease on the roulette and the pontoon tables and made sure HBos walked away with a few chips in his sky rocket.
Anyway, off to bed and the morning would bring HOLLAND Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Bungle

Soooooooooooooo Excited

Hey Jungs, Jus in der Woche zu gehen, bevor wir auf den Weg auf unsere epische Reise, um die geringe grundstucke, ich freue mich sehr auf unsere Nürburgring auf Hochtouren, nicht zu vergessen, letzte aus kauft die Biere. Also, wir sehen uns alle auf dem Boot.

Bungle

INTRODUCTIONS 10

PATHFINDER

Bike - Honda VFR800 ('00)

Mods - Seat Cowl, SatNav embedded into brain.

Previous Bike - Honda Hornet

Age - 48

Years Riding - 4

Fascinating Facts - Yet another member of the knee down gang with an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the cool roads in our area, cool to ride with.

INTRODUCTIONS 9

Fruit 'n' Barley

Bike - Kawasaki ZX6R

Mods - Double bubble, Undertray,Hugger, half a ton of tarmac and gravel.

Previous Bike - non

Age - 24

Years Riding - 1

Fascinating Facts - F'n'B is the first member of our group to get his knee down :)

SuperSports - VS - SportsTourers 

Since this was the first time the Kawasaki had joined us and i took a camera and got some lovely pics thought it would be the perfect time for my first post.

we set of to Hartside Cafe after fueling up. shortly before we reach Hartside Cafe we stopped roadside where i snapped these lovely photos.

                                          We carried along until 

we reached Hartside Cafe where we stopped for a quick brew and a cheese scone, compliments of T2000. We left to oogle some bikes only to find a group of middle aged snobs in flashy ferraris, porches and TVR's. 

We left to follow the blissful roads to Olston and admired some lovely views then it was back on return leg of the journey...

...when disaster almost struck just outside of Darlo as my reserve gauge flicked on so I had to follow T2000 to the nearest petrol station, not realising that Zippy and (as yet un-nicknamed) Adam Kawasaki

 were nowhere to be seen. Having refuelled and waited for what seemed like an hour we doubled back on ourselves for about a mile only to find them pushing the ninja along the roadside. Poor lamb had had an equally low fuel reserve but hadn't realised and had concked out. Ooops. Kawasaki Adam leaped onto the back of the VFR and "zoomed" or whatever it is the VFR does to get some petrol unluckily for him in a £6 jerry can tha

t cost more than the fuel! Not wanting to be left out of pocket due to the credit crunch we cunningly strapped the jerry can to the blackcurrant and I switched bikes with Bungle to bring the cargo home. That stroke of genius turned out not to be quite as genius as we'd hoped when the jerry can decided to make a bid for freedom along the a66 at oooh roughly 100mph and was witnessed later than day still causing mayhem on the road. 

All in all a good ride out was had by us...but we still need a nickname for Kawasaki Adam.

GET WELL SOON

A good friend to all on this blog, Steve J, was knocked off his bike this week.
Fortunately he is ok but did suffer a badly broken foot and a couple of cracked vertebrae.

We all wish you a full and speedy recovery.

bungle and k.g

Ouch my piles bike tests

Long awaited VFR test 2

After being inspired by K.G's fair and honest review of the red VFR, i thought it was time to give the blue one a bit of a test ride, after all the VFR and the Blackcurrant share a garage so should be easy enough then.

I wheeled the bike out, prodded the starter, mmmmm sounds nice, snicked it into first and the bike fairly bloody flew, wow, into second and no let up, this is a very fast bike and no mistake a couple of B roads are despatched with ease so i stop in a layby to catch my breath, another biker is there, "hey nice Blackbird mate" Shit!!!! i'd jumped on the wrong bike, oh well try again.

This time i have the VFR in front me, i push it out of the garage, push it onto the road, push it a bit further, then a bit further. In case you are wondering what i'm doing, Zippy says the VFR likes to be pushed, he pushes his quite a lot. I start up the engine, mmmmm sounds like a washing machine on spin cycle. Jump on the bike and knock it into first, the bike moves off, into second then third, oh wait someone is flashing me and wants to overtake, tut those bloody disabled shopping carts are a nuisance. I get into a bit of a duel, this time with a road roller, its tight but the roller wins. all in all i've been out 25 mins and i've got to the bottom of Zippy's road, time to head back.

i enjoyed my ride on the VFR very relaxing, it felt like wating for a beard to grow or a custodial sentence. I hope to repeat the experience some time in the future, if i can get a week off work.


bungle