MooN

The "Ex"

1 minute ago, XTreme said:

Superb shots Chris!

Completely different type of environment to mine.

yep, hilly, woody and green Pete. it'll be hilly, woody and brown if it doesn't rais soon. reservoirs and rivers are all full but we'be just had the hottest and dryest spring on record. 

I met Catee a loooong time ago when he gave me some transalp bits, & Bob stopped by at work for a coffee on his way back from Italy a few years back. How much you are prepared to trust them as references is up to you 

8 hours ago, Buckster said:

A quiet one I imagine, he has a wife and two daughters and he cannot speak to women.

3 daughters...

Despite other sh!t going on I abandoned the children to their own devices for a couple of hours this afternoon and headed out to do something useful... and clear the mind at the same time. 

I used "Kurviger" to plan a route as I had 3 fixed waypoints I needed to visit to verify the availability of water and electric hook ups for our boats in  the event of us actually being able to run this season. We have a guide on each boat for the clients which I update at the beginnin of each season and I have found that the most reliable way of getting valid information is to go and look ofr myself... so waypoints were Surgy, Villiers sur Yonne and Monceau le compte. add start and finish and kurviger sorts out a route based on various other criteria ( fastest, shortest, main roads, curvey or downright winding) I added a couple of other waypoints to take in one or two portions I wanted to ride, export to " Scenic" on the "mefone" and jobs done. 

screen capture for those who like, those who don't like can do the other thing...

First stop Surgy,

Neither water or power available here which came as no surprise but a nice picnic area and ahade to hide in

Temps in the upper 20's so shade is always welcome when disguised in bike gear

Back over the river, not in the shade...

and on through Clamecy to Villiers sur Yonne to see if there's still a standpipe at the little port there

Villiers Sur Yonne

it looked like a snowstorm had just gone through, look at all the white fluffon the ground

The stand pipe is still there and even has a pair of fonctionning taps... no water in it though but I found the stop cock under a steel plate so I know it can be nade to work as and when needed.  I also say this, as important a peice of leisure equipement as any if ever Boboneleg comes this way again...

a pleasant spot to sit and contemplate

I moved on from here heading towards Bazoches, across country on the minor roads, I wanted a closer look at this hilltop building which i'd never seen before

the road up was narrow and steep but gave some good views of the surrounding countryside

From afar I thought it might just be a grain silo or something but a bit odd perched up there on the hill. Turns out it's a very nicely maintained chapel 

Time was getting on and I need to get home, the roads from here were all well known to me and fairly rapid, here to Bazoches was again smaller back roads but then it was then quick and straightforward.  got home around 6, just in time for aperitifs...   cheers!

On 27/05/2020 at 20:18, XTreme said:

I said inane Chris! 

please tell me you don't think I actually bother to read what you write Pete...

10 hours ago, Buckster said:

So @MooN have you dragged yourself into the 21st century yet or do you still think female riders are such an anomaly that they need special mention?

you too have ;isconstrued my original point, but I can't see who to explain myself better.

more sucinctly perhaps would be : some people prefer to avoid any interaction, for fear of giving offence or being accused of giving offence. Am i the only one who percieves this?  

Welcome in. 

Ok. Ill try to explain myself better. 
 

my original point was that To avoid the risk of giving a percieved offence we say nothing.  A sad state of affairs that suits mo ones purpose. 
 

and if you think that sexual stereotyping is dead in the workplace im Europe you are very wrong my friend. I am currently helping 3 teenage daughters with their career choices.... believe you me sexism is alive and well in the career world. 
 

I also had to get rid of my best mechanic last year, fired for sexual harrassement in the workplace. Hes 10 yrs younger than me so its not just the “old guard” either. 

1 hour ago, Pedro said:

. You play it cool so that they perceive you as if you didn't even notice them, because you want to get laid or at least not be ruled out of the game early on.

 

erm... nope... but that's exactly my point. Tht is what everybody automatically assumes. 

58 minutes ago, Pedro said:

First time I was on a bike as an adult was at 16 or 17, on the back of a DT125 ridden by my girlfriend. So I'm plenty modern 

You don't admire a man riding a bike, so the only reason you admire a woman doing the same is because there is this thing about a woman doing something you like doing that does something for you. That's ok, I think.

Girls, holding their own and making their way in a male dominated milieu on equal terms on is admirable, be it on bikes or whatever else. It has nothing to do with their sex, or looks or whatever but because they are bucking the trend and breaking down barriers that have been  imposed by society for decades. 

for exactly the same reason I admire a blind person travelling alone, a physically disabled person carrying on as normal and doing stuff society doesn't expect. 

1 hour ago, BusBoy said:

Oh christ. Get over yourself. It's a girl you blushing wallflower. They ride. It's not some alien specie out to conquer and subjugate you. I'm just surprised there are not more female riders. As a example I suspect horse riding has a far higher percentage of female riders so obviously there is a passion for that sort of thing inherent and it's the blustering male ego that wants to define the hobby as a male domain.

You missed the point, I have no problem talking to the girls, the problem is the potential consequences of that being misinterpreted. like I said you can't even reply to a girl riders post in some places without people calling you out as a lecher or a perv cos she's half your age and better looking than you are. This may be done originally as a jibe but are the sort of accusations that, even jokingly intended, can have serious consequences. 

A reflexion generated by posts in the " your off road photos" section where, in replying to a post by one of the girls I found my self in a potential minefield.

With today's need for "political correctness" and the current trend for the public lynching of anybody accused of sexism or mysoginy ( I use the word accused advisedly as the lynching tends to take place based on accusation alone and the lives of the accused are often destroyed even if subsequently proved innocent) I found my self rewriting again and again what I wanted to say, desperately searching for any way in which my post could be misconstrued and provide offence, albeit perfectly unintentionally. I probably need, to avoid a lynching, to say here that I in no way shape or form, condone or accept any form of sexual harassement. I just find it a shame that being obliged to avoid any and all possibility of such accusation, it is easier to simply avoid any and all interaction. 

example: last week out by bike with friends we stopped for lunch and over the hour we spent at the lake a LOT of other groups turned up and picknicked, much as we were doing. Most of them younger than us and a group that came and sat near us had, surprisingly to me, a large proportion of girls obviously not passengers. There was an exchange of banter between us and sme of the lads as they walked past ( " oh god not more nasty hairy bikers!"... "no tables left I'm afraid but I can rent you this one..."  "there's been a release of prisoners at the kindergarten"... are some that I recall but I noticed that the girls were clearly not included in this exchange. and nobody, but nobody mentioned the fucking Elephant in the room ( ie that in a group of maybe 155 riders, more than half were girls which is just massively inhabituel here.)

I think that actually during at least 15 minutes there was not one single remark adressed to any of the girls present by our group. I also noticed that when we stopped for coffee a little later, there was much mention of that perticular group ( not in any sort of negative way at all), about the number of girls riding, their age ( much younger than us) and how much it was positive for biking in general and for girls on the whole. There was nothing mysogenistic about any of it so why had no one said anything to the girls? or to the group as a whole? 

In the same way, on websites or bike related pages, I have noticed that blokes liking comments from girl riders, or replying to girl riders will rapidly get some comment about how theyreply faster to grls than blokes, or more to girls than blokes or whatever. This is obviously counter productive as for fear of being misconstrued, I actively avoid, on certain sites, responding to posts from female riders. This is neither encouraging for the girls nor constructive for anybody else. 

re reading this, can I say "girls" as a collective noun without appearing derogatory? 

Is this just me being too cerebral and overthinking, and nobody else has a problem with this?

If this thread gets too stupid I wll ask admin to pull it. ( been there, done that elsewhere...) but I'm interested what you SOG's think and what the girls think ( but i can't ask them directly cos I'd be suspected of tring to chat them up or something...)

On 07/05/2020 at 11:42, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to harangue all your small-daughter-having friends into getting their little girls motorbikes and encouraging them give it a red hot go! 
 

ehem... I have 3 teenage daughters, looking for someone to persuade them...N0 1 has kinda lost interest and is off to uni this year, N0's 2a and 2b  being twins, haven't done so much pillion as N01 did cos once they were to big to fit in the panniers, they just fought about who's turn it was so I kinda gave up...

I am slowly weaning Madame back onto the passenger seat now that the girls are big enough to not kill each other if we leave them alone for an afternoon. 

I was impressed to see the number of girls riding the other day when we went out though, it looks like the next generation will have more female riders.

yeah, but that was like, 100 years ago Bruce! they do it all with satellites and computor modelling now... 

Bizarrely I lost a little early on in confinement but I'm still 10 kiloa more than I ought to be

1 minute ago, Pedro said:

I fear the time when all this crisis subsidized pay debs comes back to bite us in the ass in the form of taxes, but tomorrow's another day. Not a dig at you, it's more or less (righly so!) europe wide, but I would hate to be stuck with the bill.

I think you are probably very right my friend, the welfare state is a wonderful thing but it has to be paid for, this is also why the different govt are pushing schools to open and people back to work too early for safety, because the cost of staying locked down now outweighs the cost of dealing with a potential "nd wave of Covid. 

12 minutes ago, XTreme said:

You still on full pay though?

currently yes. If we don't go back till end september I image that it will drop to around 70% of Brut ( +/- 85% of net) I imagine. I hope it won't drop below that cos with N01 starting Uni in Dijon this year we're going to struggle if it does.

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

Superb Chris!

You off all Summer?

Dunno yet Pete, according to bossman 1st client not yet cancelled is 10th July. 

we'll go back to work end June :

IF the canal opens

IF the clients still want to come

IF the uk lifts the 14day quarantine by then ( our clients aren't going to come if they have to do 14 days quarantine each way!)

IF the french authorities lift the 100km travel limit

IF the French govt make it more economical to return to work than not

That's a lot of IF's and any one of them not happening will preclude our opening. In which case we will start back in october...  so I'm waiting...

18 hours ago, Buckster said:

Don’t forget that cunt from France.

Oi! I resemble that remark...

On 25/05/2020 at 17:14, XTreme said:

Anything that generates traffic is good business Chris!

What inane shit you got planned for next week?

don't do insane Pete,  mildly idiotic or vaguely stupid is about as rad as I get these days...

Out again today, bloody lovely weather again and being as I can't go to work and the kids pretty much look after themselves now I dissappeared off out of it just after lunch. Did about 130 odd km around the Foret D'Othe which is an area north and east of us here. No map today cos of the whingers... but I dug the camera out for you.

After fifteen minutes or so I had to stop in the shade and open the vents on my Jacket, efficacious but fastidious is how I would describe them... ( cos "pain in the arse to do right" would be crude...)

Most of this afternoon was spent in simlar country, the area being mostly wooded and me searching out the more sketchy back roads. I did fond some open country along the northern edge of the Forest

came across this pretty place at the north eastern limit of my loop

 I did manage to find some short sections of trail across some of the more open farmland before plunging back into the forest and heading for home. I canged settings on the camera between these two pics and the colour looks a bit off ( too red?)  in the 2nd one. 

I found some more lovely single lane roads back through the forest towards Joigny and home  and had to stop for a photo shoot with tigrou ( tigger in French) 

pretty machine!

6 hours ago, XTreme said:

The Spanish don't much like you lot either.

Seems to stem from thousands of them going there many years ago to do low skilled agricultural labour and then getting treated like shit by the French!

Grievances continue through the generations here!

They’ve  been replaced here by the portugese in the building trade. Vendettas always get worse the further south you go. Same with corruption and wife beating if we’re talking stereotypes...

On 03/05/2020 at 21:15, Tym said:

I miss 919ster

I don’t