Tag: motorcycles

Starting in Stone: Chapter 3 of my European motorcycle adventure

Back in England

Start of my next motorcycle adventure

Canals a starting theme.

Stone in Staffordshire the starting point for this 3 month tour of the UK and Europe

The shakedown trip north to Skipton in North Yorkshire

An old mill town

A canal town

With Skipton Castle playing a special part in the English Civil war.

But my main reason to travel north was the Moto Guzzi Club Pennines rally.

Meeting new friends and experiencing the welcoming biker culture.

And of course riding through the beautiful Yorkshire countryside.

The Phoenix – South Garage Guzzi Bellagio — Chasing Motorcycles

This story first appeared in Spanish magazine ‘Revival of the Machine’ When Mandello del Lario set out to build a muscle bike in 2010 they got the dynamics right, but the styling failed to follow suit. As such the Moto Guzzi Bellagio passed through the market without making so much as a ripple. Recognising the…

via The Phoenix – South Garage Guzzi Bellagio — Chasing Motorcycles

 

Cant Help it Im a Guzzi tragic

Ch Ch Changes (with apologies to David Bowie)

Changes are afoot

ch ch changes

Turn and face the strange

ch ch changes

Don’t want to be a richer man

Just gonna be a different man

Time may change me

But I cant trace time  (lyrics from David Bowie – Changes )

So changes are the theme of my life at the moment

I have 12 working days left till retirement from full time work.

By mid June I will be back in the UK on the Mighty Breva for chapter 3 of my Moto Guzzi European Adventure

This time

Tracing my Celtic heritage and Celtic history in Wales, Cornwall, Galicia, Brittany and Ireland.

Riding the Haute Pyrenees/Altos Pireneos

becoming more adventurer and less piecemeal

more spontaneous and less planned

more in the moment.

There is a strange mixture of excitement and trepidation coursing through me

from the anticipation

of the

ch ch changes

in front of me

 

 

For the long riders

This one of for the long riders

The 1,000k in a day riders

The numb in the bum still going riders

For the north south riders

The east west riders

This is an unapologetic piece about long distance motorcycle riding.

Australia is a country for the long riders

Curly twisty roads

Straight roads stretching to the horizon

traffic sparse on the secondary highways and byways

With the beating heart of the Mighty Breva eating up the distance

On the Black Stump Way mid west NSW

One of my favourites long rides in from Melbourne to the Northern NSW Coast

Its just on 1500 km from Melbourne Victoria to Coffs Harbour in NSW.

It combines open agricultural land

Cotton fields on the Black Stump Way

Fields of cotton, wheat and other broad acre crops.

Past cattle grazing

 

Cattle grazing roadside

Little towns with quirky sculpture

Horse Sculpture at the old trough in Urana NSW

 

Scooting along the gentle curves on the mountain foothills

Bylong way midwest NSW

And then over the mountains

with their deep gorges

and along the Waterfall Way

so aptly named

Ebor Falls
Dangar Falls

Running right beside the road

Till the mountains meet the sea

At Coffs Harbour.

A special treat of a long ride in spring is seeing a new born calf being encouraged by its mother to take the first tentative steps

 

Addendum:

I need to add 1500 km in a day is beyond this piecemeal adventurer these days.  But Australia is a good place for eating up long miles.  On my most recent trip north I covered around 950km in the first day from Melbourne to Coolah at the start of the Black Stump Way.  That allowed a more leisurely 500 ks the second day – and stopping for photos and sightseeing which I can share.  I try to keep to the back roads which makes disctance eating harder but travelling for more enjoyable.

In the more closely settled countries of Western Europe off the highways 5-600k is a big day on the road