Motorbiking
"Biker" for me usually means motorbiking, though I also have a couple of mountain-bikes... see Trail Bike
My current motorbikes are a Honda CBR600RR ABS 2017 and a Kawasaki Ninja Z250SL.
Previously I have owned: Kawasaki ZX4-RR (Ninja anniversary edition), Honda CRF300 Rally, Honda CBR600RR 2005, Honda CBR600FW, Honda VF750F, Yamaha FJ600, Suzuki GSX750EX, Yamaha FJ750, Yamaha XJ900, Kawasaki Z750 and I passed my riding test on my Kawasaki KH250.
See also my Motorbiking web links
Back in Marseille after quite the best day’s motorbike riding I’ve had for eighteen months. Nice to enjoy the ride rather than be doing it as rehab. Clear roads, warm hazy sunshine, not a lot of wind and no rain. 195 km for the day and less than half a tank of petrol so it was a moderate day’s riding.
I started very cautiously, my previous rides this year have been very much rehab and try-outs, not entertainment or play. That said, I was in good condition at my first pause, just outside the Marseille urban area. It was reassuring that nothing physical was complaining. I ventured off the big roads for some “real” riding though initially I was riding very much in the car driving style. Apexes started to present themselves and I found them and did the necessary. Then some “point and shoot” when some long straights presented themselves.
We left Rasteau and the vineyards of the Villages des Côtes du Rhône beneath Mont Ventoux and the Denterelles de Montmirail after an early breakfast and crossed the Rhône on the medieval ecclesiastical bridge at Pont St Esprit. Next the famous road along the belvederes and corniches of the Ardèche gorge and a stop for coffee and croissants at Vallon Pont d'Arc.
Eastbourne this last weekend was as pleasant as always, in many ways it's the ideal south coast seaside resort, favourable climate and bucket and spade-fulls of Edwardian nostalgia and architecture.
The night out with the GBMCC bike club boyz was fun but the change to summer time made it a short sleep. I went for a hike up Beachy Head (162m altitude) to enjoy the views back over Eastbourne and to Boulogne in France far away in the murky haze over the Channel.
Since then, the pier was damaged by a fire but it looks as though it may be rebuilt.
Postcard from the Auvergne, the volcanic mountains in the middle of the hexagon that is France. The last area of ancient Gaul to fall to the Romans.
Extinct volcanic plugs, deep valleys and many ancient churches in the Romanesque architecture.
Cheeses: St Nectaire, Salers, Cantal, Fourme d'Ambert, Bleu d'Auvergne and many others.
Brilliant autumn light and colours but winter arrives early here and stays late.
An all-too-brief visit to be present for the annual general meeting of AMA, the French bike club.
Fish Hill near Broadway is one of the finest road hill challenges in Southern England. Multiple curves as it rises from the Vale of Evesham to the Cotswold Hills. But biker beware: several of the picturesque villages in the Cotswolds maintain their medieval stocks!
Cotswolds roads are about straight lines and then right-angle bends so a different challenge to the very technical style that works for the roads of Provence and the Alps.
Met with some of the bikers from GBMCC London and Cardiff at The Rose and Crown in touristy Stratford-on-Avon. No stocks in that town but you have to pay up front for just about everything.
A ride through five of the counties whose names my French friends find most difficult to pronounce: Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; useful to remember for encouragement when you are tripped up by Espigoulier, Carpentras, itinéraire, Marignane or Forcalquier!
Subcategories
Alps Biker 2016
I'm riding light for a week on the mountain roads of the Alps. No laptop, although I do have my SLR camera but photos will have to wait till I'm back in Marseille..
I left Marseille for a long ride north via the Col de la Croix Haute (1179 m.) to Saint-Gervais under Mont Blanc. A bit of rain towards the end of the day which cleaned the Provence dust off my white leathers and boots but didn't soak me through.
