Germany

Taking a break in 30 degree heat

Crossing the Rhine

 

  

My good looking gear boy

And back again. Check out the grape vines in the background. 

Morning Nijmegen and ride gathering

 

Afternoon in Nijmegen

 

Day 25- off to Italy

We headed for TLM (Teo's old shop) for a morning catch up. It was an impressive sight with 250 guzzi's all parked in the car park. 

Here is Teo with his nephew Michael chatting and you can see Lisa and grace cackling in the background. We headed off at 9.30 for a big day. We traveled with Teo and Grace as well as a lovely young girl (youie) and her boyfriend on a T3. As I had the only functioning gps we led all day. The others were staying at a different hotel to us, so a followed the course made for them. Along the way we picked up Jan who had gotten herself lost and bamboozled by the gps and the intricate course. She tagged along with us for the rest of the day. It was a long and difficult hot day. The highlight was crossing the Rhine river on a barge to get to the hotel. The hotel was up on the hill and we had to navigate a maze is tiny streets to get there. On arrival I plotted a course to get back to our hotel. To our horror it was another 60km away. Which included crossing the Rhine again. Lisa and I headed off on our own through the Rhine valley. It was beautiful. We arrived at our hotel in the mountains at s little after 7pm. A huge day. 500km of switch back goat track roads. We had a lovely dinner put on by the hotel. We sat with some dutchies who as always are great company. 

The dutchies 

Daytona's. Gotta love them. 

Day 24- Belgium to holland

We have only 1 day to get back for the start of the group ride. After a lovely night in Bruges we headed north on A roads to make it in time to clean up and get organised. 3 hours riding got us to Nijmegen. We checked into a hotel and while I checked gerti over and did a few bits and pieces to her, Lisa caught the train into town and retrieved our spare gear bag from storage. We went through all our gear and cleaned house. We managed to shed a fair bit of weight. We ditched the camp stove as well as extra clothing that we haven't used. Also quite a few T shirts from IOM and MotoGP. The bike should be a fair bit easier to handle. 

I'm a bit worried as the bike didn't start this morning. Not sure why. In the evening we had a lovely 8km boot camp walk along to river. My personal trainer is always on the job. 

Morning coffee

Very cool hiab 

Happy Birthday to our darling little girl Alix

WE LOVE YOU

Morning in Bruges

MotoGP Celebration

This was the scene in the stand after the GP. You can see Vale stopped on the side of the track thanking his fans.

Day 23- off to Belgium

Today was always going to be shit. It didn't disappoint. We loaded Gertie into the van and drove to the hire car place. 

We unloaded her and packed everything in the rain. Then we ride across Britain in the rain and cold. We made the eurotunnel train by 1.30 and rode into the carriage. It was a spin out. 

When we got out at Calais there was s huge protest going on with roads closed and police everywhere. We got the hell out of dodge. We smashed up the coast into Belgium and arrived in our hotel in Bruges what a joint. We walked to the piazza and had dinner. I ordered a beer. Just asked for a local brew. The beer came in a 1/2 yard glass. When I finished it I was half cut. I asked the guy the alcohol content. 7%. 

Mmm where are the Belgian waffles in this bloody menu. 

Day 22- MotoGP time

We decided to catch the bus to the track. Big mistake as traffic was atrocious. Anyway we made it for the warmup and settled into our seats. Ianoni fell off in front of us for the second time. 

The crowds were just huge and the atmosphere was electric. Moto3 was great as always. Moto2 was OK as always. The main race was a cracker. We were sitting in the Suzuki stand so when Maverick won, cruchlow second and vale third it just went off. I'll post a short video of the crowd reaction. 

IOM TT Close up

Here is how close you can get at The TT

Motogp Silverstone video clips

Day 21- Qualifying

Weather turned foul. Riding is hairy. 

We in turn 1 grandstand 

Collected Gertie and ride home in pissing rain. Qualifying was treacherous. Marc fell off right in front of us 

Got plent of ribbing on his way back to the pits

Day 20- MotoGP

The day started early after a sleepless night. We drove to the next village to meet the GP bus. It was an hour or more late. We finally arrived to the beautiful noise of MotoGP practice. Silverstone is a great track and our seats are excellent. It was a cracker day out. We went to the bike shop and gave Gertie a cuddle. We can pick her up tomorrow. 

Vale's motor home truck

Ducati vs Honda best pit hangout 

Home away from home for the riders

Toy

Will post some clips 

The woes of Gertie

I spent a sleepless night as the news from the bike shop was that the parts had arrived for Gertie but they didnt have the code needed to recode the bike to accept the new key. At midnight I send an email to Australia (9am) asking if the new the code. By 2.30am I still hadn't heard so I fired an email to every address I had for the business. That got a result and shortly after I had a response from the service guy saying the code might be 00001. So I laid awake the rest of the night wondering if they were right. I emailed the code to the bike shop. By the time we got to silverstone they had the bike running. Huge relief. We are in business again. 

The Banbury loch

Day 19- Catch your breath

Today we spent our time catching up. We went to Banbury and did our washing. We also scoped out the bus stop for the GP bus. It was great watching the boats move through the lock in town. 

Will post a video

We also had a lovely summer afternoon walk in the abbey grounds near our house. 

I'm in English summer heaven 

Hanging out at our Wroxton cottage

Ours is the one on the left

Our local pub

Lisa now drinking shandy's

Day 18- off to silverstone

After our night at Downton Abbey we headed for the bike shop at silverstone who are going to repair Gertie. On the way we stopped for a break at a roadside joint and a guy approached me and commented on my Guzzi V8 T shirt. He said my uncle rode one for the factory but you wouldn't know who he was. His name was dickie dale. I said of course I know who he was. I made his day. We chatted for a while about the V8's. Later in the arvo we made it to drop off Gertie 

I'm sure she will be well looked after by Tracey at Forza Italia. We then found a good bike shop and purchased new helmets and Comms. £800 later we are set again. 

We travelled to our new home for 5 days during MotoGP. What a find

After dinner we walked through the village. It's a post card everywhere you look.