MooN

Things hotting up at work as the workshops prepare for a round of the electric motocross world cup this weekend. Its on our test track which has been completely remodeled for the occasion. Ill try and get a pic or two at the weekend but heres a coupe of our workshops today

yeah but the brits arent cold or unfriendly, its just that their food is shit so they dont spend any time on it

believe me Pete, there's nothing "posh" about this lot, thats just their culture. nobody's asking you tounderstand it

If you'd ever tasted wine from the other side of the channel Pedro, you'd understand why they don't want wine. Same reason Pete can't understand why you'd spend hours eating a meal... because in the UK eating is a simple refuelling excercise, to be done as expediently and efficiently as possible. Mostly cos they dont have or make anything worth spending any time appreciating.

same same. riding over a longer period means you have to eat elswhere than at home, when I'm on my own I can just as hapilly take a sandwich or buy one as eat at a restaurant, but this lot are burgundians and they take food seriously, it is part of their culture. I would no more expect them to eat a chip butty with a mug of tea at a trailer in a layby than I would expect any of you lot ( with the possible exception of Pedro) to choose the wine with a meal in a pukka restaurant. horses for courses mate and each to his own. When in rome etc...etc...

there's a whole world out there thet you'll never understand Pete.

Monday morning came and we were up with bikes loaded before breakfast at 8, one of the "panzerdivision" ( BMW RT 1300 which a really want to baptise Hideous Barge but I think that would be plagierising Jeff (?) who called his bike that?) so as there are twwo of these horrendous machines + an R 1100 in the group I have given them the collective noun of "Panzerdivision" ) was not joining us for the ride home as they were continuing south and east for a weeks holiday. So 5 bikes set off back north with a plan to stop and feed at Thiers ( where the knives come from) twisties to start with, opening up through some fast winding N roads as far as Ambert, then a dash across the plain to Thiers. baking hot again in the sun and I, for one was happy to have an awning over the table even if it was only a buffalo grill with their usual slipshod service and factory manufactured food, it was quick and cheap refuelling excercise... well it would have been quick if they hadn't somehow managed to "lose" the order between waitress and kitchen, due to a " computor error".... it was pretty clear that the waitress had a max IQ of 4 and had not been sufficiently trained in the use of her fisher price "Me Pad" to the extent that she had omitted to push the send button once we'd all explained exactly what we wanted whilst desperately resisting the urge to grab her nose ring and shake her with it.... but I digress... Whilst waiting for the driveling morons to concoct some more excuses, all less believable than the last as they weren't even capable of getting it straight amongst themselves, we decided that rather then face the long slog back up the route express the way we had come down, which would be heaving with road lice ( camping cars) and caravans trying to get home from the long weekend and causing chaos in the process, we'd run up to Vichy and then cut north along the D roads via Decize ( where we stopped for beer / coffee/ pisser etc.) a bit like this: Got home shattered. With the firm opinion that that was too far for me to do comfortably and the premonition that I was going to suffer all the following week> I wasn't wrong. STATS : 1127km over the 3 days. 18 h in the saddle avereged 5,1 litres /100km average speed 61km/h

that's because you're a phucking filistine!

Sunday turned out glorious, 8 am breakfast scary picture. I wasn't navigating the rest of this so the route is a bit vague but something like this on sunday morning Lunch was at Les Vans " Pintade facon Tadjine et legumes de saison" followed by a proper "Créme Brulée" that hadn't been fucked about with by adding chutneyed marmalade of bean shoots or whatever the pansy fucking parisien parisites thnik is fashionable now... it was 31degC acording to the sign in the square and I could rally have done with a wee siesta, but there were many more hairpin bends and tight twisty valleys to do before the end of the day so we set off again for this bit the river to the east is the Rhone and top right is Valence, to give you an idea of where we were. there were still some nasty storm cells in the area but we managed to avoid most of them, running just under the trailing edge of one and the leading edge of another during the afternoon. We were Lucky because the storms were dropping hail and a couple of times, around a bend the temps would rop 20deg in 100m, you'd ride into a wall of fog lifting off a rapidly cooled road surface and see piles of hailstones along the roadside, suggesting a storm had gone through only a few minutes before us. One of the girls managed to get a couple of pics we got back to the hotel without problem and pretty much repeated the previous nights debauchery, starting with Pastis and finishing with Liqeur de Verveine... The hotel chef said he'd made a special effort for us and his "two wheeled trout" was excellent:

Mostly, yes. there's also the fact that the only tie I could take photos was when we stopped, so eating and drinking mostly.

I wa navigating the 1st day of our 3 day trip to the Ardeche and the first stage of day one went something like this https://goo.gl/maps/QQrWRDJd9jMbtFFJA Boring roads that we'd all ridden many times as its our main route south from here avoiding autoroutes but on roads majour enough for actualy " making progress"> The idea being to get far enough south by lunchtime so as to be straight into the fun bits after lunch. I'd planned a decent first stop at 1.5h out cos we're all either so old as to need to stop and piss regularly or so fucked up physically that an hour and a half is about the limit of saddle time before necrosis sets in. ( the excuse I use is that one of the guys is riding a fireblade 1000RR with a fuel range of about 6 miles ( I exaggerate, but only a little...) as 4 of the bikes were carrying pillions, I'd planned the stop at Magny Cours ( race track) where there is an autoroute style fuel station with clean toilets, decent coffee and fuel all in the same place. One of the group ( whom I shall call Jean-Michel, cos that's his name) was dissapointed at the stop os there wasn't any beer available... at 09h30 with 6 or more hours of riding ahead...! I was forced to admit that the need for draught beer at the morning fuel stop hadn't even occurred to me. The 2nd stage went without a hitch, though I had failed to take into account the bank holiday weekend traffic a St Pourcain sur Sioule ( cos untill now I've never been anywhere on a summer bank holiday weekend) which is a majur bottle neck as you have to cross the river there or add miles to any southbound route not on the autoroute> tis lost us about 15 minutes on planned timing but I wasn't overly worried as, or once, we had reserved a restaurant for the lunch stop so 15 minutes either way wasn't going to cause a problem. I nearly caused an accident as we rode through the industrial suburbs of ClermonFerrand and for some reason I had a brain freeze at a red light, with us turning left across the main drag I stopped at a green light ( convinced it was red) which tokk the following bikes somewhat by surprise Lunch was good, as always but I can't remember what we ate. It was hot when we moved out for the afternoon stint and all liners were removed from jackets, summer gloves came out etc etc. We refeulled and headed off for this route for the afternoon. I hadn't planned a stop bt counted on finding a bar in one of the villages we were passing through. https://goo.gl/maps/heRHB7Qu2iVE7Auc8 There wer some fairly majour strom cells moving up from the south and I had to alter the route a couple of times on the fly in order to avoid them. At one point, I stopped the group and put my rain liner back in my jacket, suggesting the others do likewise, despite the clear blue skies overhead. I told them we were heading straight into a big storm front in the next 15 minutes. some did, some didn't and boy did they regret that decision. Withinh 5 minutes of moving on again it came down so hard that there was standing water on the road that couldn't drain off quick enough and visibility was down to less that 100m. I pulled off into the first available place to stop and the rain stopprd as instantly as it had arrived, but not before those who hadn't prepared for it were drenched through to the skin. it had found it's way through my rain gear in a couple of places too, all in the space of less than 5 minutes! The good thing is that they now all think I have some super rain forcast app on my phone that they don't have access to... At one point I was very glad that my sena intercom was not linked through to the others cos the GPS took us down a couple of VERY minor roads with grass down the middle and, at one point, a huge pudle right across the road that I was worried some of them might refuse at. Being out in fron I had just seen a renault Clio in front of us drive through it without flinching so I was able to put on a show of confidence and ride straight through ( to be fair, if I hadn't just seen the car go through I would have hesitated as there ws no indication as to depth or bottom) We got to the hotel with enough time to shower and change before Apéritif time with thunder banging of the valley walls and lightening flashes looking like heavenly speed cameras et every straight bit of road, but just had time to get the bikes under cover befor it started raining again. Aperatif: purchqsed from the village butcher out of focus due to the large amounts of pastis consumed... food was good too: salade de chevre chaud followed by a large lump of red beef ( can't remeber the cut cos everything was a little blurred at this point) with a Cépes sauce. The dish to the right was what we would call a "Treuffade" here but had another local name. Potatoes, sliced and cooked in a cream sauce with "lardons" ( bacon bits). Having destroyed any and all of the good work done over the last few weeks to reduce cholesterol count, I proceeded to kill myself with a desert containing more sugar than my annual allowance in one serving. There is no photographic evedince of this as I threatened to kill anybody who informed my wife or doctor...

you wasted your money, the only professional service that would make that poorly designed boat anchor worth voting for involes a gallon of petol and a match

27 here this afternoon and set fair for the next week or so. It's allegedly due to a high pressure system that entered the UK illegally and is now stuck there until such time as it can be sent to rawanda, which is fine by me cos the outer edges of it are blocking the shocking bad weather from the south from coming this way.

in order to be eligible you have to have owned at least 47 different bikes in the last 3 years and any photo has to be of yourself on the bike on a thursday at no less that 874metres altitude. Only photographs of 811.4kb will be accepted and must be posted in an east -west direction on a tuesday and contain an equal number of green and red pixels along the median axis.

nope, you were a fucktard beck then and you're a medicated fucktard now.

there's only 7 entries cos there's so many rules a regs that most people can't be arsed.

the problem with riding in a group is that I can't stop for pics whenever I want so there aren't many pics. I'll see if I can cobble something together over the next few days.

Just got in from a 3 day trip to the ardeche. 1130km 18 hrs saddle time im fooked.

Dunno if this is allowed cos i inow you wnt have bikes in vans, but heres a pic of my bike in a town called “Vans”

Left home at 08:00 this morning, 10 hours and 450km later ( including proper lunch, coffee and beer stops) arrived in Saint Cirgues en Montagne, about to attack the apperitfs… tomorrow, The Ardeche.

daughter signed up for amazon prime so I've hacked her account and am watching "The Good Doctor" but I imagine I will get bored with it before series 3

Hi Russel, Ignore the peanut gallery... you'll learn to sift throught he dross and find some pearls ( you'll need to look hard, but they are there). Bobo neleg's question is the good one, cos a 650 sports bike might be a bit of a handfull for starting out, and yet a 650 cruiser or traily type would be better adapted, so don't stick at cc but horsepower and size. Remember this mantra f your looking for a budget 2nd hand machine; Cheap and fast won't be reliable Cheap and reliable won't be fast Fast and reliable won't be cheap on top of that, remember that if the deal looks to good to be true, it probably is... I would advise getting something you can get both feet flat on the ground with, its reassuring for a first bike. add to that something the will retain some resale value so that when you get bored and want something bigger and faster, you can sell it on ( so not italian or chinese). let us know how you get on and we eill take the piss accordingly

Nope, i was busy doing “me”.

Brother in law is going on a temporary transfer to a specialist centre in Hyeres tomorrow and needed some stuff dripping of for him in Lyon before he leaves. Wed planned to go and spend the afternoon with him sunday to take him his stuff. But, the cat escaped from the colditz courtyard on Thursday night, reappeared on friday in a bad way. Vet says she got bitten by a dog so 4 stitches and convalescent. Didnt want to leave her alone all day Saturday so Mrs Moon stayed home & i decided to run down to Lyon and back by bike. 4.5h run south ( no motorway) getting there at 14:00. Sit around in the warm and dry taking the piss out of brother in law whilst a storm front goumes through from sw to ne and then a 3 h night blast up the autoroute home for 22hoo ish. Boy did i get that plan wrong! left here 09:00 having checked the weather radar and realised the storm front was moving faster then forcast and starting to rotate north. i stopped about an hour out to zdd a layer under my jacket cos the temps dropped 5°. Again an hour later for a quick slurp of coffee from my flask and a 2nd thermal layer. I was already on the northern edge of the storm fron and the rain was coming down steadily. I got a bit further south before finding a bus shelter to eat me sarnies in whilst watching alternately the rain and the weather radar. It become very clear over half an hour that i was going to have to bail on the brother in law and rely on that age old tried and tested military strategy of” running away”. The storm front was moving much faster than id thought and the main body was now right between me and Lyon. The weather radar shows the storm had reached the Rhone valley and stalled, curling north in an anticlockwise rotation, generating wind and lightning strikes along with heavy rainfall. i misread that completely! And rode home with my tail between my legs ( metaphorically. Though the rain eased as i got further north i definitely found the limits of ALL my rain gear well before i got home. I dont remember being so thoroughly soaked in years. i am decidedly too old for that shit. i’ pit brither in laws stuff in a box and sent it “chronoposte”. 400 odd km round trip, 300of which in steady rain. on the plus side im not aching all over this morning, and the bike didnt miss a beat.

I got some saddle time on monday, Rode down to St Pourcain sur Sioule ( between Moulins and Clermont ferrand). 435km round trip in 7 hours ( 5 hrs riding) bike running great after a half days fettling sunday, greasing the brake discs, tensioning the handlebars, topping up the blinker fluid and all that...