Pedro

No, but he's also a brit and a motorsport success

I have, I wasn't prepared for tales of Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina scents OK, @XTreme, here you go, who is this working as a motorcycle messenger?

@XTreme, your dream motorcycle trip would be to East Germany?

Having never ridden an R18 or a big Harley, I would go for the Harley every time, provided it's not one of these modern ones with the "already custom" rear end with the chopped fender and weird side placed rear light and plate. Same as I wouldn't go for Harley if choosing between one and a GS or KTM or Tenere, horses for courses.

I was thinking that you wouldn't like to play football on your leg, @boboneleg, but to each his own

It's George Clooney, I know because I saw a picture of him on a scooter a while ago with his hot wife in the back, and he had a Harley helmet, and there you go, there must not be two guys on scooters with harley helmets

Two that don't really translate into english: "Teso que nem um carapau" Translated "Hard like a mackerel", fish, specially smaller fish get stiff after a few hours from being dead. Somehow being hard or stiff like a dead mackerel is what you are when you're broke and have no money. So you would say something like "I would invite you for a beer but I'm stiff like a mackerel" My favourite: "armado em carapau de corrida" Translated into "acting like (or pretending to be) a racing mackerel", obviously a racing mackerel is not a thing. When you're acting like you're the man, the best there is, playing yourself up, when in fact you are shit, you are acting like a racing mackerel.

George Lazenby One of my least favourite Bonds

I know, I know!

I loved that. Thanks for sharing.

Sadly that is a tendency on even the most moderate of parties in the most moderate of countries. Power corrupts, and giving it back is a bitch regardless of how it is obtained.

I had a kidney stone once, it was hell for a couple of hours until pain killers arrived. Good luck with it, @yen_powell I love seeing that, English villages always look so quaint

That's some big sky, good stuff!

That's some scenery, I know the road has been posted before but you can always repeat it. That waving rolling tarmac is road porn.

For cars, we have an equivalent, for bikes not yet.

How fast do trucks drive there? Trucks, I mean big cargo trailers, not pickups

I am sure you are a real Evel Knievel of the modern world when you start your engine, I'll be sure to warn everyone in the Eifel to be aware that you are coming. They'll all try and make way.

A difficult track is exactly what one needs to calm down on the road. That kind of emotion gives you nothing if you want to go fast, there will be a hundred people driving faster than you with less "need for speed" and bring you down a notch. Spend a decade on the Nurburgring and you'll still be chasing that edge

On track, knowledge and control is fast, "problem with speed" is slow, you can have all the problem you want but it's not going to get you going any faster.

One can be noisy, but one cannot be noisy and complain to startle the gazelles

No chance for the other bikes in the next few months? If you start eating and feeling stronger, that's got to be good?

Maybe you talk too loud?

Some assorted pictures:

One of my laps, on a weekend with traffic following my mate Uwe on his 318is, my car also a 318 with 140hp, his slightly more horsepower but mine heavier, better suspension and a passenger. My brother filming with his hand held phone, quality camera work Get's busier from 5:30 on: One of my favourite clips, this nice man driving a 200hp Clio RS on a nice clear lap, I pass him at around the 1:00 at the Hatzenbach, love to see my car from the outside: Or, a short clip in the wet: Nor do I plan to! They ARE bumpy, there's a reason German cars are always so stable at high speed, Germany's concrete slabs with cuts between them do not make for a nice motorway surface. If you plan on going for a proper top speed run just keep your eyes open an go for it, an autobahn just because of the name is nonsense, man up and face the fine, or run.... Give me the Portuguese A2 or any of the big French motorways and you can properly stretch the legs of anything on them. Bugatti's Andy Wallace drove on the Portuguese A13 on my suggestion, and they weren't displeased, they wouldn't have managed the same result anywhere on a public road in Germany! There is no words that describe what that place is to me on this thread, I can close my eyes and see every corner like it's a high deff slide show, do a whole lap in my mind and remembering the bumps that have since then been fixed, the smell of the end of the last lap of the day cooling off with the windows open. The intensity of a mid afternoon fast lap, or drifting on a cold october morning. If I am at the Nurburgring on my car, I never want to leave. If I talk to the "wrong" friend there I come back home intent on buying a leather suit and an 600cc sports bike, I might take the GS there and see what it's like on a big fat traillie, eventually... Unless it's a very slow day, no there is not.