Is there any Italian wine?

Is a question posed, whilst in a French supermarket, in France! Le Mans 23 has us travelling to Portsmouth in the worst weather I have had in all of the trips south for the 24 hour race. Although it seems we fare better travelling later from Yorkshire, leaving at 1.30pm with Les and others travelling …

Old Haunts.

I pretty much grew up on this beach, Grandma had a caravan on the site behind the beach, I spent weeks here as a kid, with gran and my parents. The old man taught us about tides and rips, how not to get cut off, and on occasion how to get cut off, safely, we …

Its Pleuting down….

It comes from the French, to pleut. A week in Scotland, boating, in October, sounds good and it was! I’ve not been boating much in recent times so I book myself onto a week with Andy Holt of Escape to Adventure. Kayak courses & guided trips. The forecast is great for our week, rain, rain …

When I’m 64

When I’m 64, I hope I am paddling rivers like this, the Kiachnish, just outside Fort William. It’s Simon’s birthday today, and this is how he spent it. The write up in the guide doesn’t really do the river justice, this is an adventure, at 7k it’s a fair stretch of water for the UK, …

1100K

Browsing through Ebay, as you do, a few years back, I spied a 7//11 for sale in Harrogate, just round the corner from the office, bought it, rode it up the road briefly, then stripped it, at the time I just wanted it for spares. Just as well really cos the steerer stem was this …

1127s go to France

Mr Suzuki probably didn’t envisage their oil boiler GSXRs still being ridden around 30 years after production, we’ve got two here, a near stock N model with some period upgrades, Ohlins, Akropovic… and a bitsa, M frame, ZX7 front end, JMC swinger, Nitron, Akro, etc, and then there’s this…….. Where do I start? GSXR frame, …

Spa 24

With world endurance going back to Spa for a 24 hour race, the first since 2003 we book the ferry and head to the Ardennes for the weekend. WIth the Zeebrugge boat now gone we are on the Rotterdam crossing, giving us a slightly longer journey. We make good time to the circuit, both of …

Where’s Jim – who cares?

Northern Ireland, North West 200, its good to be going back. The coast road from Larne up to Bushmills doesn’t disappoint, stunning scenery as we wind up the coast to the cottage. Thursday is another practice day with 3 races in the evening. Watch some practice down at Ballysally roundabout before moving on to Metropol, …

Riding the Twins

Twin cylinders, rather than sisters! By way of a change we decide to take our winter hacks to the 24 hour race at Le Mans, mine a GS500, Penso’s a GPZ500, costing £600 each they are different to our usual mode of transport in price and number of cylinders. We arrive at Portsmouth no slower …

Control, Alt, Del……

The recent trip to Scotland turned out to be a bit of a break through trip, if only in the mind, I hope it continues. The madness of the last 18 months or so has affected us all, to a greater or lesser extent. Our wings were clipped, our boundaries reduced, suddenly everything has changed. …