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Had a lovely ride on Bagheera yesterday. So nice to be warm again. Explored some new roads and just enjoyed being on the bike.

I'm off out to participate in a spot of Namby-Pamby motorcycling!

Got out before sunset. A nice lady wanted to take my picture, i declined, said its all about the bike. Late in the day meant the sun was on this barns good side.

For the first time this year I was able to leave the province of Granada! So I headed east and crossed into Murcia province and then north into Albacete province. The endpoint was an abandoned country estate in Albacete! Very remote location and the roads there were pretty rough most of the time.....but I don't let shit like that stop me! So here you go......this is Dark Motorcycling!

I'm back......and today it was Dark Motorcycling!

As the title suggests this is the same stuff I've posted over and over but today i was showing a couple of new guys to trail riding around not many photos i'm afraid. Started off by meeting in a layby near Barry which turned out to be notorious for dogging so much so they cut all the hedge rows and trees down so it was less concealed. what a fucking great place to meet 3 blokes I've never met before So when i arrived two are waiting i checks my phone and sees one has canceled due to the weather forecast being bad. I Introduces myself and has a chat to find out a bit about them, one bloke is about my age with some off road experience years ago but new to this bike and the other about 34 year old and only past his test 3 months ago but very keen, both on T7's their getting as common as the muck we'll be riding through today. I starts them off on a couple of lanes i know are tricky to see what i'm dealing with, first lane was a bit slow but ok, the second lane there's no sign of the youngster at the end so had to go back where i found him picking up the bike which turned out to be the second time. Third lane i decided to be a true general and lead from the rear and watch the carnage unfold. Fuck me the young lad clocked more time on his fairings then his tyres on this lane and dopey here buried his phone too deep to get any photos of it. Took these after what was about the fourth time he dropped the bike in the same lane I thought i'd get some video on this next lane which was easy at the start and finish but tricky in the middle. That's an old railway bridge in the photo and vid First off is the older bloke followed by the youngster you can see the difference in experience here Stops for a breather and a chat How can i describe this photo, two springer spaniels and a pug comes to mind lol From here it was up onto my local lanes on Eglwysilan mountain, that T7 sounds sweet And a rare vid with me in it Found something people don't usually dump there was about 14 plants in all After this the youngster bailed and headed home as he ditched the bike in a large puddle no damage but got a bit wet. the other lad was happy to carry on the next lanes were all gated which is a pain but gives me time to take a photo I shoots on ahead on the next lane to take some more video, heading into the Rhondda valleys here Stops for a chat on this one which is the golf course lane, where you ride right through the middle of it and end up with what should be familiar view on here now looking at the new bridge in Porth Last lane i have no photos of and no incidents other than the T7 rolling off the side stand when he was opening a gate, still amazed at how many don't put the bike in gear when pointing down hill no damage though. I'm impressed how much abuse the t7 took today with no damage other than scratches. The two lads were great company and will ride out with them again whether they want to ride with me is a different matter though

That's Dippers happy face.

no dont think so , he has invited me and my severely retarded family to go stay for a couple of weeks. thats if five of em get back from @Slowlycatchymonkey gaff in time ... she,s got a big conservatory.

Went to buy oldschool flour at a classic windmill today, weather was shit, bike’s all muddy now

I think we can eliminate "teeth" from the possibilities!

That was James in Brum complaining about the use of the word "gay"? He'd have a field day complaining about the words here then! The interaction between him and @Tym would be priceless!

What Tym and Little Guy said!

There's not the bike theft thing going on here like there is in Britain Fred. The Guardia Civil don't fuck about......there's no softly-softly approach from them. And thieves won't walk away from court with just a slap on the wrist either.

Some things are best kept to yourself, you should just stick to saying you have no mates.

Careful around the puddles

You cruel bugger , those bikes can't be more than a few months old The youngster will learn eventually , it's not all about using more and more throttle when the going gets sticky

Preferably with video but pics will do

So what your suggesting is he buy some and then try to cut his leg off to see how they perform because that's the only way you will know they work for sure

Forgot to say when i got home the police were in the middle of emptying a shit load of cannabis plants from a house up the road from me. Seen a lot of materials from cannabis growing dumped on the mountains this last month

BBC NEWS: People in Wales asked not to travel abroad in 2021......... The request came from every country on Earth and all known planets in the solar system.

Someone's got to be Bob!

A three county ride eh !! you da man

some wants a screen for a naked bike.... i said screens are gay, this triggered him ... told me i dont think you meant to use the word gay... then comes the homophobic accusations etc... typical lefty snowflake , blowing something completely out of proportion .... told him to go dry his eyes and get offended somewhere else ...then stuff got deleted. not seen the human spellchecker for a while , are you missing him ?

Nice we have that shit Spanish weather here today so haven't done much. There's loads of abandoned shit around here but its either locked up good or if you did get in for a look around your bike would be missing when you came back out

Looking good there dudette! Little Guy™ agrees!

not got any mates .... except Tym .

Twat

Pleased to report it was dry as a bone Bob!

Any puddle dodging ?

Being a peaceable person with a different point of view can be a dodgy place to be but changing yourself to please the lowest common denominator is no wise move. Not everyone’s born to lick windows. Speaking of which my window cleaners not been since covid kicked off so if youre down this way...

Well whatever Ren is showing him he's certainly not impressed

Everywhere i took them is fine on those bikes with some experience but to get that experience you have to just get out and ride. My 650 is about 30kg lighter than the T7 so no light weight either. If the younger guy had a more aggressive front tyre i bet he wouldn't have hit the deck half as much as he did.

His signature says "Please troll me"?

I hear the Scotts wanna flounce whats up with that? Should start calling them Scotchland i think they have had to much to drink.

I've cleared two local ones this month already

I have a job for you on a lane near Monmouth

I have the Husky 61 and a neat little battery one for stealth cutting

I suppose that bike makes sense in USA but to me it looks like an expensive waste of time.

Yes, stay in your own feckin country, I invaded yesterday to check on our English castles but I managed to sneak back over to the mainland

So I had a late pass out for today so I plotted a route last night at 10.30 pm to do some lanes that I haven't ridden for probably 15 years. Made my way on the less travelled roads around Bristol and then across the Severn Bridge......... Once I passed Chepstow I found that the A466 Tintern road is closed so a diversion was made via Trellech where I did a short lane and discovered that it was very wet. On over Cwmcarvan Hill where the roads are narrow and have high hedges/banks.............. Trust me to meet the Milk tanker coming towards me, I had no option but to dismount and make a 27-point turn to ride back up to a point where he could pass. Here's the bugger, I met him later on in another lane but thank god we were travelling in the same direction............ Anyway, as I said earlier there was a lot of water today as it has been raining continuously for the past two days. A lot of the lanes looked like this.......... It also had the effect a leaving a 2-inch layer of red slime on some of the lanes as the rain had settled on the clay dust, it made it hard work at times and there certainly wasn't any 'styling and profiling' going on , just a lot of paddling to remain upright........... It was about 11.00am now so time for a coffee stop, this old oak tree made a good place to stop.........

So there's a saying amongst trail-riders which goes something like 'one more lane, what could possibly go wrong? ' Today was that 'one more lane' It's a lane that I haven't ridden for over 20 years, I know that because when I last rode it I had two legs , and I rode it 'down' , and it was dry, and , and So I turned into it , opend the gate and thought , that doesn't look too bad........... and then it got steeper, and then I came to this............... Well I got under that one with a bit of manouvering and then I took off on some rock steps and landed here............ It may only be a 250 but when it's on its side and it's wet and muddy it's bloody hard to lift up on your own and why is it that in a photo it never looks as steep as it really is, I swear it was about 1 in 4 here.......... Just a bit further on the trail is crossed at right angles by a forestry track and I did think to bail out along there and hope that there wasn't a barrier at the end, but I thought 'it can't get any worse' . Oh yes it can............ This was a fecker as I could get under it if I dismounted and leaned the bike over to the right but what you can't see is the berm on the ground preventing me from getting any traction. In the end I inched it through by killing the engine , leaving it in gear and used the starter to inch it bit by bit until I was free... The fun still wasn't over as round the corner was big feck-off rock step, I couldn't face going back and there really wasn't anywhere to turn around so I took a deep breath and launched myself at it . This little bike bloody amazes me, the nay-sayers say 'its got no power' but what it does have is traction and you can have all the power in the world but if you can't put that power down then it's pointless. So after finishing off my coffee and phoning my wife to tell her I might be a bit late it was back down to Chepstow and onto the M48/M4 where I ran at 70mph on knobblies

Further down the road is this, I'd never see it before it seems there was a hunting lodge here in past times, all that remains now is the moat........... Apparently this lane is known locally as 'Knicker Lane' as a lot of courting took place there in the 60's/70's . You'd have a hell of a job to get your Ford Cortina up there now

I'd gone as far north as I was going today so started heading back south and onto the next lane.............. There were a few obstacles in this one as well............ The next lane drops down over a hill and ends at a ford but there's a twist as you have to ride in the ford for a couple of hundred yards to get out...... and then we were close to White Castle so popped up there to get a photo for the castle lovers...........

So into Abergavenny to get some petrol and then onto the next lane, this was a good point to stop for my sandwiches.......... At the other end of the lane there's a farm on the right, nothing unusual about that but what was strange were the Peacocks on top of the horse box At first I thought they were 'ornaments' but then the ornaments started moving and showing off their backsides, it was quite comical............ Once I was back on the road I saw a sign for Llandewi Skirrid church, I'm not at all religious but I love the architechture......

The only problem with this lane is the amount of gates you have to open and close, when you're on your own it can be a real chore...... Further on it gets a bit narrow, the rut in this part is so deep that my bike is wedged in it here.......... The 'wedging' resulted in a bent brake lever, must be made from a re-cycled Thai wok Once I got back down to the main road I stopped to repair the lever and sorted out my leg. It was well sweaty by now with all the exersion so to save another 'incident' I sorted it out

So onto another lane where I came across this.................... I have never seen lying water so black, I have no idea what caused it , pesticides draining off the fields ? cow piss ? all I know is I fulled intended NOT to fall off in it. Of course had Pete been there he would have phoned for Taxi immediately And then back across the old Abergavenny road and onto some lovely green lanes, I took some photos of the wild flowers for Michelle............ Then onto a cracker of a lane, it's hard to believe that this would have once been a main route for carriages back in the day..........

Bear with the language, they're well funny! They're made from an old german cartoon similar to the Joe Bar Team ones Who hasn't done it? Oh, here's in English:

Holy f*ck how dont I know about this item till now?!?! Is it a boy thing that girls don’t need to know about? Or has it only just been invented? Or have I just fallen into an alternate universe where there’s equipment to do the job you want to do?!

My best guess is those chains will outlast the first few riders, transfer power better to the rear wheel then a shaft, consume less power and if you like you can change the rear ends ratio's with ease compared to a shaft or belt. Other than that chains suck cause you have to clean the back wheel more often.