MooN

Transalp. another one that refused to die...

yeah, i didn't explore it far enough so I'm going to have to go back, I'm not sure what the rules are for it as it's usually got a barrier across the entrance but it was open so I went along it for a handful of k's and then came back cos I needed to get home ( celebrating N01's driving licence and BAC results) it has some nasty bitumen speed bumps but avery single one of them has a packed earth earth "go around" an the grass at both sides...( typical french reaction to authority that? ) you can see the entrance to one just above the right edge of my wind screen in the pic. i'm going to google earth it and see where it goes, then go back and explore it further.

I thought huawei was taiwanese or korean, so that shows how much I know... I don't knowingly buy anything chinese but break off the outer wrappings and most electronic goods are built there. To be fair, the bubonic plague thing is a media hype I think, it reemerges regularly in various parts of the world and is now fairly easily treated and dealt with as I understand it. I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theories about covid or other deseases, but then I don't subscribe to any of the myriad conspiracy theories that circulate so readily on social media so maybe i'm just too naive and trusting. nothing I can do about any of it anyway so wether it's natural or done "a purpose" the result is the same.

hi jeff

the XJ 900 was a superbe machine Lone, I could ride it all day in comfort and did a fair bit of 2 up touring with Mme Moon too ( alsace, Italy, switzerland, UK etc) I had the 650 first and then got my hands on the 900. in 5 years from '96 to 2001 i wound it up from 22000km when I bought it to 96000km when I sold it..never have I done so many km's anually as in that period and it never, never let me down, not once. ?

gotta keep the colons amused ain't ya ?

when i was first over here and bought a Yam xj900 i organised, twice, a run to the uk for a bike rally. once to the Suffolk Coasters Coypu rally and once to the Icini mcc 's "arse in the grass" rally. both obviously on the east coast. In those days you could still ride at silly speeds on the French autoroutes and get away with it. the first trip I organised, i gave the instructions that we'd ride the 30 k to Chalon sur saone, pick up the A6 nothbound and ride together at around 140km/h. Well we rode together as far as Chalon but once on the autoroute they all "poured the sauce" as no one says, ever... and despite keeping up a steady 170km/h I didn't see the front of the group again untill we got on the ferry at calais... that would have been in '95 or '96 I guess Won't happen again, those speeds today will see you in prison, no licence and no bike.

Allo Allo... welcome in

welcome from Moon, also known as...erm... Moon... yes it's a nickname but that's what i'm known as in real life too, and was before the internet ever existed. Adventure is, much like life itself, what you make of it depending on abilities bith physical and mental, circumstances and budget. For some people nuying the latest gear and bike and riding down the highway to starbucks, is in itself an adventure, others will need to ride the world in extreme conditions to fell thay've lived an adventure. I do my thing and try not to judgemental. most o the peeps on here "do their own thing" and their own way but we all ride.

National holiday here. Just happens to fall on my day off too so I didn4t actually have to work it and managed to get out for a ride in the afternoon. it went something like this I have been wanting for some time to go and look at a castle / fort pair that I noticed from the autoroute a while back. Having no real reference point it took me a while to locate themusing google maps and google earth and sort of triangulating from the autoroute, guessing distances. I found them on the "Butte de Thill", about 70km south east of here as the crow flies. I managed to turn that into a 200k round trip though... round a bend... the centre section: translation: " Here, 25th nay 1944, Hitlers babarians tortured and massacred 25 young resistants of the group "Henri de Bourgogne". They gave their lives that France might live" the stone wings to right and left of the centre lists their names and nicknames ( or possibly codenames) much time was spent dodging these, they are all flat out at the moment I had to stop and watch the lemmings for 5 minutes... all heading back to their parisien kennels after the long weekend...

don't even go there Bob, doing the handover involves a whole rituel of protocols that will make the handover take about 2 hours I reckon, this saturday we have 8 to do. punters arrive from 2pm, there are 2 of us ablr to do complete handovers... I have suggested to the directors that they need to organise some extra hours in the day cos 4 handovers each, at 2 hours a peice starting at 2 means we'll finish at around 10pm... except that the locks shut at 7...

picked up a load of frog and belgian bookings out of nowhere and plenty brits too now they're allowed out of their cage. if there's a significant "2nd wave" and re-lockdown then we're fucked, but otherwise should survive, with a bit of hard graft, blood sweat and tears...( not to mention wailing and gnashing of teeth! )

bloody nightmare Pete. this zeekend is going to be complete anarchy, I hope it will settle down a bit after that, but i'm not going to get much time off till october now.

Sorry, running around like a headless chicken at the moment trying to do 3 months work in 8 days, so working 6 1/2 days a week the last 2 weeks so no riding other than to work and back, and even then i finished at gone 9 last night. I had to get out, at least for an afternoon or I was going to kill someone... A couple of pics from the afternoon

I have to agree with you there Pete, though the dutch are probably a close second.... I never admit to being english unless I have to.

Welcome Phil, looks like you know some of the locals already ( possibly not the most recommendable though...??)

plenty places like that all over the world I reckon. I also firmly believe that the way people treat you and react to you mirrors the way you interact to them, at least to an extent. Most people who are accepted and integrated into a community are people who are non judgemental, and accepting of different ways of thinking and living, not neccessarily better, or worse, just different.

nope, we just have to look better than singleparenthood...?

yeah but, they also like cheese with maggots in it and organised crime... @XTreme I reckon you fell on your feet Pete, though temperament wise france has as large a range of temperaments as it does wine or cheese, you just need to find the one that suits.

Fathers day also happens to be my Goddaughters Birthday, she's 6 and we had cake an' a BBQ an'cake an' presents an'cake an' stuff ! ??

a holiday cottage somewhere in Burgundy

yup, in theory. the only thing that will fuck it up will be Boris and his bloody stupid 14day quarantine clusterfuck. Actually, no, fuck it, keep 'em, we're picking up french bookings hand ove fist apparently. Still lost 40% of annual turnover though so this winter is going to be tough and we're going to be short staffed and underfunded for this season so it remains to be seen if I can hack it. I'm prepared to work hard and muck in and do extra, but not if I am forced to do shoddy work due to no parts and no staff, i'm not up for that, i'd rather go do something else. we'll see.

My presemce has been equested and required at work tomorrow, but I had to pick N01 up from the physio at 16h00 so the afternoon was pretty screwed by the time I could get out with the bike, but I squoze in a last ride before real life restarts. having not planned anything and not wanting to waste time doing so I just did one of my "box the compass" rides ie ride north for half an hour ( west of north in this case) then turn left and ride west for half an hour, then turn laft again to ride south for half an hour and left again for a half an hour... not being too particular about the time and only roughly the direction, I just take the next promising looking road the looks like it goes the right way, found some crackers today. I said the other day that I often come across these, this one was again in the middle of nowhere, down a dirt track somewhere out towards Aillant sur Tholon. " eternel souvenir of the resistant CHAPOTIN Henry of AUGY, chief warrant officer, shot by the gestapo *th August 1944 at the age of 19." up across the tops, dodging the rain clouds I really should have thrown that bloody orange sign in the ditch before taking this photo! Back in the sunshine and into the woods found a nice country retreat for my retirement it was starting to get late , gone 19h30 already so I headed for home with no more photo stops. did about 130k in all, just bimbling around.

never measured how big my bum is in those panniers, no wider than the tralp was though with 2 x 52L givi's on and stuck out each side the width of the exhaust, about 1m10 if I remember right