Pedro

My submission, the GS overlooking a sunny Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, in a famous surfing spot called Praia dos Coxos

It's come to that time of the month again, submit your pictures for the now infamous Bike Of The Month vote. - One bike per member - It must be a motorized vehicle with two wheels, belonging to the member - It must have been ridden somewhere with the corresponding picture!

That's pretty much it, except here in Portugal finance for buying a BMW is usually way easier than other brands, that's why there are so many GSs on the streets here. People pay 220€ a month for a big GSA while for the same amount over at Honda they walk out with an NC500 or 750. Who cares how many payments, or if the final finance amount is huge, but they will either trade up for another one and carry on paying the same or just refinance the final payment. They end up spending 8 or 10 years paying for a bike that they use on some weekends just because you just have to have a BMW GS with cookie boxes for luggage. I know of a guy that just trades bikes before they get to 2 years old, he spends 1500 to 2000 every two years making the trade, and just keeps paying the same monthly payment. Somewhere there is a fool bigger than him buying a two year old bike, but only paying 1500 or 2000 less than full 25000 ticket price on a new bike. Even though this is how things are, it just doesn't make sense how they can unload all those used bikes on the market for such expensive prices, or why people wish to commit to so many payments on a bike. Unless it's a work vehicle, you buy it and you ride it.

I was talking to a guy the other day, who is a little involved with a Honda / BMW dealership, and he says people don't even care much about the spec of the bike they're buying as long as it's there and ready for the next day as long as finance is available. We're talking all price ranges, which to me is insane.

I can pretty much guess where they got it from:

I'm not saying your bike wasn't super clean, but bikes have been selling like hotcakes since the first time cities started going out of confinement.

That's one ugly bike, KTM and Kawasaki must be going for the same target market

You clean them with a long boot lace, so I'm told

I quit reading while he was complaining about the time it took Honda to get him a bike fitted with the tires he wanted and protections he wanted and big tank he wanted, so that he then could destroy it. Spoiled much, journalist?

I do hope Fred's family is doing ok. Tomorrow I'll be visiting two clients, one of them at 08:30 trying to push my way through this current work problem, trouble is these clients (almost all of mine) are in an area with 1000 new covid cases in the last couple of days. Not fun.

You can hit quote, which starts your new post editing, and instead of hitting "submit reply" you just carry on viewing the thread with your reply in cache ready to post. As you finish going through that thread you hit reply and your previously edited reply is right there waiting for you.

Never get a big GS again, Pete, never seen a bike get so dirty so easily as mine. Those are the kind of dirt roads I enjoy the most, nice and easy.

Glad to see you enjoying the new bike.

All the jokes about me eating fish, and I see anchovies and sardines in there!

Is it running rich?

It would always be a Multistrada, though

If there ever was a gentlemanly reply to that fuckwad phrase, you pulled it off.

That's a clean bike! Every time I start fantasizing with a different bike to take off the miles out of the GS so it can last forever I think of a Ducati, and then I look at your clean T7!

I was supposed to go back north today, and tomorrow going on a little ride in the morning. But, after finishing up the gardening I'm about to go for lunch with my neighbors so I am not going to lie to myself and will just admit that I'll be napping in the afternoon, enjoying a sunny cool day watching plats grow. No biking this weekend, the GS has earned a rest.

Just finished a stint of gardening starting at 8AM, and the sun is just now coming out from over the fog It was getting painful to see the garden looking like it was abandoned, so hopefully some of these plants will spread and prevent most of the nasty weeds appearing so strongly. Antonio, the gardener, works at an amazing pace, we planted 60 new plants today and I could hardly keep up with gently watering new holes, and new plants, and basically being his helper. Overall, I think there are about 120 or so new things in this garden now since three weeks ago, I'm curious to see if things will pick up, rain would be a bonus over the next few days.

Yes, surely starting a fan club along with Bud Ekins and Paul Newman

So today my tree was brought home. Maria picked a handful of Argan nuts off the floor in Morocco, and about 3 years ago I one of them started growing with a little help from myself: Yesterday, aproximately 3 years since it started growing, I wanted to give it a chance to grow and this home is where it belongs. So, using a friend's van I drove it 250km home And it was put on the ground with the help of a stake to help it cope with the high wind here for the first few weeks, and also to help straighten her a little bit. I finished watering when it was already dark and freezing. Also brought 60 new plants to help turn this garden around, so tomorrow is going to be busy gardening.

My washing machine plays a tune, it's like christmas arrives every time the laundry is done

That’s so true, easy and no steepness! Great stuff. There’s nothing wrong with having your usual roads or lanes that you do hundreds of times.

what now?