Touring questions ?

of touring suggestions...

<boggle>

 

I think the season of goodwill must have addled their brains, someone
will be along to call you a **** shortly.

 

Hey, guys: fresh meat!

 

Magazine is quite good, Website is dire, there is a forum on there but the
main site hasn't been updated for ages.

 

No, it's not.

 

Oh I don't know. I admit Magic, Murder and the Weather was a bit fag end
though.

 

I didn't like anything after The Correct Use of Soap

 

Maybe from your esteemed journalistic POV it is , from my POV it is good
because it doesn't just focus on knee down, top speed 'my balls are bigger
than yours' 'This years fashion accessory' type crap that Bike, Ride, TWO
seem to do. It is the first mag that has actually made me feel like I want
to get out and ride for the ride rather than for how fast(or not) my bike
is. It also makes me want to go further than these shores and gives a
decent idea of the sort of places that are feasible within short breaks
etc. Also I get to see places that I probably will never get to ride but
would like to.

 

This is fair comment, but it's (IMEJPOV) badly written and badly
photographed.

Bike magazines for "real riders" (whoever they are) generally seem to
be. Ultimately, the ones that sell are the ones whose content you've
described. Sad but true.

Bike isn't a particularly bad offender, IMHO. FB and Superbike are.....

 

Don't think I did, actually.

 

Lady Nina secured a place in history by writing:

Last time I went to the Bol at Paul Ricard, with several "visits" on the
trip too. Lashing my girlfriend at the time to the swingarm is an
exaggeration, although she was knackered. The dead bloke over the hilly
bits outside Lyon is absolutely true, quite a sobering moment.....makes you
question the sense in caning it up mountains on two wheels when people were
losing it on four, so bad was the rain.....

 

In 97 (or 98?) leaving the Bol by the back road down the mountain I
waited in the traffic and watched a police helicopter with a man on a
winch line try to get a dead biker out of a tree. The biker was about 30
feet up the tree but the tree was 40 feet from the road growing from 40
feet down.
It does make you slow down a tad.

 

Mick Whittingham secured a place in history by writing:

It was my only Bol trip, fantastic laugh, but some of those guys down the
back road from Paul Ricard had a death wish. I don't think I'm quick, but
I don't think I'm slow either - about what you'd expect in a sensible,
ageing rider with 100k odd miles under his belt. But some of those guys
just couldn't have valued their lives (or wanted to live them too much). I
wimped out and kept out of their way.

My neighbour, mind, with 500k miles behind him, on a K1200RS - he chased
every fucker that passed him. So perhaps I'm just a newbie wimp.

 

That road to Le Beausset is the one that put Frank Williams in a
wheelchair. And it's one of the greatest roads I've ever ridden.

Three memories stick out. One is riding an old SOHC Honda CB750 *up* it,
way back when, and having my pillion get off and say: "Cor, I thought
we'd had it on that left-hander...."

The other is utterly fucking nailing it on the way *down*, and having
nothing overtake me[1]. I was riding a restricted Honda NS125R. On the
way back up, every bugger and his dog came past, of course.

And the third is the way the Frogs stuck marshals and first aid posts on
every other bend, all the way down the hill.

[1] Possibly because traffic was a bit heavy that day, but still.

 

The Older Gentleman secured a place in history by writing:

AOL

 

Try it on a Wing - it's a hoot.

--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..73066../..17485.../..3184./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4
'^'

 

Champ secured a place in history by writing:

I'll happily accept being one in exchange for my current state of being
alive. I thought I was doing OK until some local (as you describe) came
hooning around the outside of me in shorts and vest. Then I decided I
needed to discard the desire to WFO down the hill as a small and sensible,
approaching middle-age voice at the back of my head was screaming 'Don't be
a stupid **** FFS...he rides down here every fucking day.....'

 

I just bet he was riding a Yamaha XT dirt bike as well. On worn-out
knobblies.

And he was wearing a pudding-basin open face helmet and had a
quarter-inch gauloise singeing his upper lip.

It used to be like some sort of uniform.

 

Interesting. IIRC there are three roads leading to/from Paul Ricard.

1. The one up, past the OK Corral. 2. The continuation of that one as it
goes past the circuit on your left - no idea where that goes to. Ridden
down it a few times in search of firewood. It's not twisty. 3. And then
there's the Le Beausset road.

Nice is bleeding miles away to the east, anyway.

If it's not 3 and can't really be 2, then it must be 1. But then if I
was heading for Nice from Paul Ricard, I'd head down to le Beausset and
pick up the autoroute......

Hee-hee. Lots of fun if the pillion is cradling the last 24-pack of beer
in his/her arms (because you ran out of bungees and the rack is already
bending under the weight of three other packs).

God, I miss the Bol. The real Bol. Oh well, there's always Chimay.

 

I didn't think Simes had got the XT yet.