MooN

26 minutes ago, XTreme said:

I haven't got a clue what foie gras is! I'm from Swansea not fucking Kensington! 

sorry, didn't realise you don't have google where you are... 

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras

23 minutes ago, XTreme said:

 

chicken gizzards,  even you know what foie gras is and Poulet de Bresse is rather special chicken, local to the area. https://www.parisperfect.com/blog/2015/07/poulet-de-bresse/

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

Yeh....sounds like they're looking for an amiable idiot to freeload off!

well, let's just say that they're not in the habit of being generous ( or just, or moral come to that...)

55 minutes ago, XTreme said:

 

 

And that's some weird shit on your plate! 

In fact it looks even more weird than the shit @Pedro eats!

 

Salade de gesiers, fois gras et poulet de Bresse. bloody good it was too, though a little pricey in my opinion. 

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

Now that's a gig!

But @MooN has to go back to work so he's out of the picture!

naah, good on the surface only,  I've looked into it when it came up on the french sites weeks ago. As far as I can make out from michelin it is effectively 3 months, so not exactly a career more a holiday job, you provide and pay for everything and are paid by michelin.... oh, wait a minuite, you will be paid by michelin ( futur tense) the authors rights to whatever of your writings does eventually get published.  now I might be pissed off with my job sometimes but it does have certain benefits that i'm not able to forgo for some promise of possible futur payment if they use my material and if they publish and if the book sells etc etc.   if their motorcycle guide bears any resemblance to their touring /food/ hotel guide then it will be overpriced, overhyped, self serving elitist drivel.

I will freely admit that I heartily dislike ans despise the michelin food guide and their entire approach to the food and hotel industry.

However, if someone is free for 3 months and can do a bit of travel prose then more power to their elbow if they want to try their hand It could start a vocation for someone.but from what i've read to  Michelin wanting to throw money at riders" I would suggest that there is a liberal use of " creative jonalism"

48 minutes ago, Buckster said:

What a cunt.

Oi!    it's MONSIEUR le cunt to you... 

 the boat in that pic came back this year, for sale if anybody fancies it...

I thought I'd do something useful yesterday ( yes, me! Useful! ) adn reckons I could tie it in with some riding. Since mother in Law was hospitalised at short notice a couple of weeks ago there were some loose ends needing tying up at her place, car to put in the garage, house to shut up properly and not least her Tax declaration to figure out and send in ( it seems that the French tax office does not recognise " being rushed to hospital with terminal illness" as a valid reason for late submission of declaration and will incurr a 10% penalty... wankers!)  I also needed to make sure her home help was paid and that all declared for last month too. So, off at 09h00 ish and had planned a back road route that i'd never done before taking me via Pouilly en Auxois, Beaune, Verdun sur le Doubs to Louhans. 

I had to stop in the centre of Beaune for some luxury goods from https://www.mulotpetitjean.com/en/  the best pain d'epice EVER! but with shops only in Dijon or Beaune we don't get it very often ( it's also bloody expensive!) 

parked illegally infornt of a posh cheese shop, can't not get some smelly cheese now can I? 

I didn't stop much after that cos I needed to get on and get food before a telephone meeting I had scheduled for 14h00. 

Lunch 

 i did what I needed to do in Louhans and set off home, lateer than planned and riding into fast deteriorating weather.

Louhans - Chalon - mercurey- Couches - Autun - Brazey en Morvan - Saulieu - Avallon and home. I had planned on a more roundabout route but with time getting on and a number of storm cells moving eastwards in front of me I simply aimed for a gap and managed to pass between to cells riding some drenched roads but not actually getting actively rained on, the strom cell coming up from the west which I needed to stay in front off was quite impressive but moving fast so I didn't stop for any photos on the way home, just snapping this one specially for @XTreme once I got in and just before the heavens opened...

430 kilometers, beautiful scenery and roads and acheived something useful to boot all in all a successful day, AND i got to stuff myself silly with Pain d'epice at the end of it 

yeah, i'm due back to work again on the 22nd so the bosses are taking a gamble on the uk borders re opening to the EU cos it'd be pointless otherwise. It does unfortunately mean that a couple of serious multi day rides I sort of planned for this summer now wont happen. 

On 09/06/2020 at 10:44, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I am always available to be a bad influence, however may be considered geographically undesirable at the present time

well i'vr got " the same so I could always send you one of them...  

better get me another axe or two then, seeing as were not alloed to play with guns

1 hour ago, Pedro said:

Good stuff, Moon. 

Bet those are great roads if you find with little traffic, but they're getting a little too strict with the speed limits now, aren't they?

The swiss have always been strict on speed limits, nothing new. To be honest, off the motorway it's not easy to speed anyway. All the secondary roads are in the bottom of the valleys, and so are the villages ( cos the valleys are too steep to build on) so you're almost constantly in a village or small town limits and plenty of trafic, and the local traffic simply obeys the speed limits so if you want to enjoy yourself you have to make the mind shift and just go with the flow. When you find some open twisties, gas it but don't get stupid. I've never been bothered by the police there despite having ridden there numerous times. I know however that they are NOT to be trifled with and have only slightly less sense of humour than the german Polizei...

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

Must have been strange to sell it after all those years?

it was very odd, i'd had it 17 years and done over 100000km on it. i do sometimes wish I'd kept it but not realistically. 

On 06/06/2020 at 14:04, Tym said:

....when you cant make more HP toss some weight 

you could always carry less armement...

 hello 

12 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Brilliant shots Chris!

What happened to the Transalp in the end......did you sell it?

I did mate, I guess it had about 135000km in these pics, I sold it in december 2017 with a little over 140000km on the clock for 600€.

I was looking through some pics for a froggy farceburke page and thought you migt like to see thm here, though some of you saw them back in 2015 on Maximumbikes, so you may pass your way.

 The pics are from a ride I did in september 2015, I rode with a group from Auxerre up to Sixte Fer A Cheval on the Saturday and when they turned around to ride home on the Sunday, I headed off on my own. The plan was to ride the Grimsel, Furka and susten passes in the day, finishing at Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland overnight and riding home from there, via Belforet and the Autoroute on the Monday. 

the day got off to a bad start with a flat rear tyre. I think a pinched tube when having the rear tyre replaced a day before leaving so I lost a lot of time furking about with that and then riding gingerly as far as Chamonix before making a decision as to whether to continue on alone into the swiss alpes, or turn for home and ride the autoroute where I had garanteed air pumps at regular intervals and easy assistance if required.

The tyre seemed to be pretty much holding pressure when I checked it at Chamonix so I said "Furkit" and kept going.

up towards Martigny looking back to Chamonix and Mont Blanc

I had lost so much time in the morning that when I got to the junction of the furka and Grimsel, it was clear that I no longer had time to do all 3 passes in the day and get to Lauterbrunnen before dark  ( september, swiss alpes, 1500m plus altitude, in the above pic I had stopped to put on winter gloves already and it wasn't midday yet, so I really didn4t want to have to ride at night with the temperatures involved) After much soul searching I decided that I should skip the up and back trip up the Grimsel pass and push on to the furka and sustenPass and complete the loop round the Jungfrau to Lauterbrunnen as planned.  so I turned my back on the grimsel pass that had been on my bucket list for years  ( i'll obviously have to come back) and headed east up the Furka

Interlaken 

The Jungfrau, from Lauterbrunnen.

The Campsite handyman lent me his compressor the next morning as my back end was flat again. It had survived all day previous  with no problem...

Riding in Switzerland on the secondary roads rather then the autoroutes is a slooow business and I averaged only 50 odd km/h all the way from lauterbrunnen to the border, but once back in France I hit the autoroute at Belfort and it was a long booring run home checking the rear pressure at every fuel stop.  

20 hours ago, Grasshopper's Ride said:

Some lovely photos, the French countryside is so beautiful.  With no cycling to watch this July I would love to see more of your ride pics.  

I will se what I can do. though with going back to work the multiday rides I had planned are compromised.

1 minute ago, XTreme said:

I thought you were restricted to 100km radius Chris?

That was lifted on 2nd June and in any case this is a neccessary visit to a family member " at risk" and unable to deconfine for health reasons. which would entittle one of us to go visit and do what needs doing, as it is I can take Madame with me. 

I just paid 1€34 per litre for 95 octane, cheapest station in the immediate area ( it was up at 1€56 pre covid)

Lyon and back tomorrow to go see brother in law, autoroute all the way crap weather so a nearly 6 hour round trip in the car... yippee..! ( I actually quite like driving my car so it could be worse. 

 maybe get out sunday for an hour or so of saddle time. 

I actually developed a game at this guy's expense; 

it's called in French " Poser, Déposer, Tourner autour"  literally  "Put down, Un put down, gone around"

in a series of bends the game consists of overtaking a rider round the outside  = "Poser",  letting him come back past you = "De poser" , and then overtaking him again  so you have gone all the way round him = "tourner autour"

the pefect score is acheived if the complete manouvre can be achieved in 3 consecutive bends...

Anyone still wondering why he won't ride with us anymore? 

32 minutes ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

One i remember i was riding behind a sports bike in a country lane, i'm on my XR400, every bend we go into he's getting his knee down i'm poodling along bolt upright, not going fast enough even to get any bad feelings from the full on knobbly tyres i'm running thinking WTF is he like 

used to thouroughly enjoy the summer sunday runs in the morvan parc here, full of parisiens who embody the " all the gear and no idea" brigade  who would look somewhat askance as I sailed by in a bend on my 25year old 600 transalp... ( to be fair I know that particular portion of road between Chateau Chinon and Planchez like the proverbial back of my hand, but even so, it was still fun 

we had a uy used to ride with us regularly ( not anymore but that's a whole 'nother story) 

Roda some huge 1800cc suzuki factory custom drag thing with a rear tyre stolen from a combine harvester and 0 ground clearence ( Intruder?) .  He was always the last to arrive at the top of a twisty section, even behind me and the tralp excepet that he always positioned himself 2nd in line on any ride so every body had to get past him, my problem getting past him was that he would slam the anchors on going into a bend on the inside line, run wide cos he couldn't get enough angle to hold his line and as soon as he saw the exit open the throttle and shut the door back onto the inside line, with no regard whatsoever for enyone else who might be going round him inside or outside ( or, for that matter, coming the other way...) once he opened the throttle there was no way i could keep up with the tralps poor little ponies giving their best. I came sooo close to being pushed into oncoming traffic trying to get round the outside of him or into the ditch up his inside that I developed I number of very specific un often unorthodox,  techniques to get past him. If there were a radpid series of opposite bends or asingle switch back long enough I could just out manouvre him either round the inside or outside, but i had to leave the braking retty late and get back on the gas a bit early. Obviouly once I got the tiger I could just slide by on the inside as he ran wide and be gone before he could react. He doesn't ride with our group any more, having flounced. 

Hi