A Beauty! Fancy a trail bike next but i think I would miss the road capabilities of the SV.

May have a go at the baby BMW GS800?

A Beauty! Fancy a trail bike next but i think I would miss the road capabilities of the SV.

May have a go at the baby BMW GS800?

A friend has been looking for a GS800 for a few months and I had not really looked at them much before but they seem to be a fantastic bike the MPG shocked me! The Versys 650 is a lot of bike for the money and they are one of the best all rounders, its actually top of my list for replacement now that I think about it Unless I find another MINT ZZR1200. I nearly bought one on Ebay without seeing it at weekend it looked that good and went so cheap but I held off!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kawasaki-ZZR-1200-C1H-Sports-Tourer-with-Givi-Panniers-Top-Box-/181054682936?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&nma=true&si=hXGJI6XdvWK8rl4OBPXyaZ4qP3k%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

Well, not long become a Skoda owner, but have had bikes a little longer!!

Currently have sat in the garage a Suzuki SV1000S which i've had for 6 years or so........prior to that my first bike was a Kawasaki ZX-6R......which I had for about 6 years. Sadly, I'm a fair weather biker.......so both bikes were fairly low mileage.....in fact when I take the Suzuki to get MOT'd, he asks me every year if the mileage is genuine ,when I confirm it is he suggest I could have paid less in taxis for that mileage!!!

Well, not long become a Skoda owner, but have had bikes a little longer!!

Currently have sat in the garage a Suzuki SV1000S which i've had for 6 years or so........prior to that my first bike was a Kawasaki ZX-6R......which I had for about 6 years. Sadly, I'm a fair weather biker.......so both bikes were fairly low mileage.....in fact when I take the Suzuki to get MOT'd, he asks me every year if the mileage is genuine ,when I confirm it is he suggest I could have paid less in taxis for that mileage!!!

Any pic's for us? I did laugh at taxi comment I have never thought about it like that. With depreciation etc my bike will be in same boat this year no doubt.

Any pic's for us? I did laugh at taxi comment I have never thought about it like that. With depreciation etc my bike will be in same boat this year no doubt.

Work blocks things like that....but will dig up some stuff over the weekend and post.....

My xmas pressie this year was to recover one of my bikes and some more tools off the xxxxxxxxx. Only been 11 years, needless to say, it hasn't faired that well.

Been spending damp winter evenings sorting out some of last years GoPro footage. Need to start on the the Alps trip yet.

Been spending damp winter evenings sorting out some of last years GoPro footage. Need to start on the the Alps trip yet.

Trying to watch it but it isn't playing ball for me keeps stopping so have paused it for a bit about a minute in looks awesome (being watched on 46" of LED gloriousness) very reminiscent of my aborted 2011 tour around coast of Ireland, Dublin to Dublin........ You more than likely passed where the big ZZR passed away. Did you pre-plan your camp sites? If you have a list of places handy it would be great to see(can't remember if I already asked you), I just was doing the map in tank bag and once it was time to stop somewhere sat nav out and nearest camp site please Mr Garmin. Got some great ones but only pot luck €9 - €11 a night for pitch and 2 bikes was a bargain (brought a blue hook up cable and got free electricity too to charge up the cameras etc).

**Edit** Just finished it and even treated myself to the Torr Head one. I have been on so many of those roads it made me want to throw my leg over and his the trail right now bahhhhhhhh. Roads in Torr Head vid at night can be dodgy on 2 wheels pitch black!!!!! I really would love to be able to make vids like that, I have about 1.5TB of cam footage but not any use at stitching stuff like that. The more I see your work the more I think I want another ZZR1200 as the Z1000SX is a great wee bike but I can't see me keeping it forever and touring on it for years..... Might have another look at Versys 1000 and the 650 in mean time perhaps. Damn you and your TDM!

My ideal trip for this year, since I got the new Z1000SX tourer this summer and have not had chance to do any big miles I intend to put that right in the coming summer but am waiting for further operations on my fecking leg so hopefully all done in time to roll. This is roughly what I want to do

Netherlands

Belgium

Luxembourg

France

Switzerland

Italy

Greece

Albania

Montenegro

Bosnia

Croatia

Slovenia

Czech Republic

Austria

(maybe Poland)

Germany

Back to the Netherlands

3500 miles ish big circuit of the Adriatic Sea. Need to get a definite person to come with me on it too long a tour to do on your tod I think not safe either on your own at times. My insurance covers me for all the above countries fully comp with recovery in every one. Additional day to that trip would be into Poland to visit Auschwitz but I intend to do that in the car some 4 day weekend and stop off in Colditz castle its only €20 a night in the place

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr...mra=ls&t=m&z=5

Rose xeon full ultegra and 3T black series finishing kit, weight app 7kg

Well t is a bike

Rose xeon full ultegra and 3T black series finishing kit, weight app 7kg

Well t is a bike

Title says "Bikers" not 'cyclists' you have your own lycra fetish thread elsewhere on the forum :p

If you've never done it the spanish motoGP at Herez is a good laugh. Ferry to santander leaves Plymouth tuesday gets there wednesday. Ride to Port de santa maria, enjoy the festival, see the GP, catch ferry back on the tuesday morning.

Does an ex biker count?

Lambretta TV 175

Honda ss125

Vellocette LE

'58 BSA B31

'61 BSA A10 (swinger)

'54 BSA A10 (Plunger)

Honda C50!

Honda CB750F1

Honda VRF750FL

Honda CBR900RRs

BMW R1150R

I would be more inclined to take a couple of days and ride down, if I was going from UK. I suppose it depends also how far your travelling in UK to get to Plymouth as well.

I've done the 3500-4000 miles in 14 days quite a few times. Poll out of work on friday, straight to the port, ride day after day, never stay two nights in the same place. I loved it, generally it would involve a trip to mountains or twisties or both. Never really had a destination, rather "it might be nice to go to..." then see if we made it or got side tracked. One time, the only place of note for the entire trip was Roquefort to see where the cheese came from, but saw loads of other great places I'd never heard of. On the bike I avoided the motorways like the plague apart from getting to the channel ports.

The guzzi would do 180 to 200 miles per tank, but then every village in France had service station, these diminished drastically over the years, but new little supermarkets are opening up and often have 24/7 fuel. Having to go to cities to find fuel was a bummer. In hundreds of trips abroad, the bike was only messed with twice, both in cities, then finding where you have to go or in some countries where not to go, accommodation, food and drink. Everywhere else everyone was pretty much fabulous.

While I've no doubt you could visit all those countries, it would be harder work, and without spending days on motorways I think you'll be struggling. As far as seeing much, well its like someone said about the interstates in US, drive further, see less.

Sorry F, didn't make myself clear as usual....

When I went we got off the ferry mid day on the wedneday, rode the rest of the day, stopped overnight then travelled on to PDSM on the Thursday, though you could take longer if you wanted to. The only bind is that after the GP you've got a long ride on the Sunday afternoon/evening to get some miles under your belt. From memeory we stopped at caceres both on the way there and back. we rode all day monday to get back to santander as the ferry left on the tuesday morning back to the uk, so wanted to stay in santander overnight on the monday, but again that would be personal choice. My mate had a yam FZR600 and I had the blade so with something less sporty anyone doing the same trip could ride for longer and have a bit more flexibility with a more comfy/more powerful bike than my mates FZR I guess.

From guys who've done both it's 'sort of' like the IOM TT, but better in their opinion. There was 125000 when we went so with Dani and Jorge doing so well this year it should be a hoot, plus it's back to the beginning of May this year so the weather should be brill. some of the spanish loons didn't even bother with a tent, though it's best to book your accomodation before you go. we camped at Port de santa maria the 1st year, but didn't take the camping stuff the 2nd and blagged a space on a spanish dining rom floor for a couple of nights to boost a local ladies pension fund!

Oh and the ride back up the A38 and M5 is the pits after being in spain for a week!

Did you pre-plan your camp sites? If you have a list of places handy it would be great to see(can't remember if I already asked you), I just was doing the map in tank bag and once it was time to stop somewhere sat nav out and nearest camp site please Mr Garmin. Got some great ones but only pot luck €9 - €11 a night for pitch and 2 bikes was a bargain (brought a blue hook up cable and got free electricity too to charge up the cameras etc).

The site at 1:10 was Eagle Point camp site near Bantry and was preplanned because a mate was lookingup a few campsite and that one looked to have great views, it lived up to its expectations. The site at 3:45 was pure chance. We stopped at Lidl for some supplies and as we were sheltering from the ****ing rain looking at the maps to work out where to camp some bloke passing stopped and said there was a good site just up the road.

For our Eurotour this year I installed Archies on my Tomtom,

http://www.archiescampings.eu/eng1/

It was fantastic, in a 2 week trip it only let us down twice, one site turned out to be closed but some locals pointed us in the direction of a better one (which was also on Archies), and one site turned out to be a Gite not a camp site, be it turned out to be 25 euros each including breakfast so we stayed anyway.

For those who've not done long trips do it, it's an awesome way to have a holiday. the most important thing though is pick the correct travelling companions. Iv'e been to the last the llst 2 years and both times we've split in to 2 groups (planned i that way the second time) because we wanted to do slightly different things. I've got some mates who see a trip as a set of destinations that they ride the bike between, whereas for me it's a lot more about the journey. Ended up having great trips with just 2 of us and a vague route planned (a list of Alpine passes we wanted to to this time), and we'd ride until we decided to stop, and then look for a campsite roughly on our proposed route. In general I try and avoid main roads completely, and would rather spend 2 days getting somewhere on interesting roads than a day spent on the motorway to get to somewhere interesting, which usually means around 250 miles in day.

The Mrs gave me this at Christmas so guess what my plan is this summer

Edited 11 January, 201313 yr by RizzoTheRat

I've done the 3500-4000 miles in 14 days quite a few times. Poll out of work on friday, straight to the port, ride day after day, never stay two nights in the same place. I loved it, generally it would involve a trip to mountains or twisties or both. Never really had a destination, rather "it might be nice to go to..." then see if we made it or got side tracked. One time, the only place of note for the entire trip was Roquefort to see where the cheese came from, but saw loads of other great places I'd never heard of. On the bike I avoided the motorways like the plague apart from getting to the channel ports.

The guzzi would do 180 to 200 miles per tank, but then every village in France had service station, these diminished drastically over the years, but new little supermarkets are opening up and often have 24/7 fuel. Having to go to cities to find fuel was a bummer. In hundreds of trips abroad, the bike was only messed with twice, both in cities, then finding where you have to go or in some countries where not to go, accommodation, food and drink. Everywhere else everyone was pretty much fabulous.

While I've no doubt you could visit all those countries, it would be harder work, and without spending days on motorways I think you'll be struggling. As far as seeing much, well its like someone said about the interstates in US, drive further, see less.

Yea google route above is not the actual route to be ridden lol, just showing the loop. Its a 3 week ride allowing 4 weeks I have done France, Belgium, Netherlands Italy etc to death so intention is to hit Italian border day 1 and stop after about 50-100km the other side thats all motorway and horridly boring, Italy the same as the real bit for exploration is once on the other side which is all coastal to keep the sea on your left as much as possible all the way (I love coastal routes the roads have to twist and can get some stunning views and cliffs). All real tour stuff is on the returning leg so to speak. I want to stop off at some places along the way and would spend 2 or 3 days depending how smoothly it has gone in Slovenia as I have never been and it looks spectacular! My tour to do a lap of Ireland was over 4000 miles as it started in the Netherlands still fuming to have not been able to complete it but will be just finishing that off if I can't get operations on my leg done in time for this summer. No long distance until that's sorted.

Yes well, Ireland is quite a small island and you didn't get to complete that? For about 8-10 years I went with the ex, a weeks each time, in October. It was fantastic, especially crossing the various gaps, Wicklow, Sally, Connor or Dunloe. The latter is not a road, all very broken on slimy rock, but managed it two up with all the luggage, but you don't make much progress do you?

Its sort of the point I was trying to make. Riding along the coast of Italy will take several times longer. But likely drier.

I'm definitely not trying to rain on your parade, but I have been on roads and after riding all day, am less than 100 miles closer to my destination, sore maybe, satisfied definitely!

The Mrs gave me this at Christmas so guess what my plan is this summer

Cracking book that, I based the last Briskoda Hairpin tour around the 17 (iirc) Dolomite passes in two days found in it.

Yes well, Ireland is quite a small island and you didn't get to complete that? For about 8-10 years I went with the ex, a weeks each time, in October. It was fantastic, especially crossing the various gaps, Wicklow, Sally, Connor or Dunloe. The latter is not a road, all very broken on slimy rock, but managed it two up with all the luggage, but you don't make much progress do you?

Its sort of the point I was trying to make. Riding along the coast of Italy will take several times longer. But likely drier.

I'm definitely not trying to rain on your parade, but I have been on roads and after riding all day, am less than 100 miles closer to my destination, sore maybe, satisfied definitely!

Coast of Ireland is 4600 odd miles and route by road was about 1750 miles, once in Northern Ireland 3 day stop on north coast before the causeway coast route and about 450 miles within NI to do seeing places, return to point on coast we stopped and continue. Then the 1800 miles return ride just to get to it all in first place so 4000 odd miles (excluding breaking off inland for places to visit and returning to last point on route). That's not small to me just depends how much is skipped out along the way, if a true coastal ride is done 3 weeks just for the coast with the stops along way day trips etc. Have done it more or less same route in 4 days not fun! Never completed as bike died and I was FUBARed earlier in thread. As per my last post I have done a lot of Italian coast and the tour im planning at moment does not include it its simply to burn down to south Italy and the actual enjoyable touring on other side of the Adriatic. I can do here to bottom of Italy in 2 days if really wanted to or 2.5 to take more time, then the rest of the 3-4 weeks allowed is ample as the coastal section before going up from Slovenia is only 1000 ish miles but of course this doesn't include detours inland for things to see along the way. It's no different to any open route tour you can see how your going for time and alter as you go, there are a million things that could delay you and just have to take it as it comes. Need to look at new saddle possibly on bike though.

If you go back to try the Antrim causway coast route again you really need to visit the cake shop at Ballintoy Harbour

Must say I quite fancy the Adriatic coast at some point too, a couple of mates went down through Croatia a few years back and loved it, Montenegro is supposed to be stunning too. Not sure if you need Carnet's to get in though, they're in the process of trying to join the EU but not there yet I believe.

If you go back to try the Antrim causway coast route again you really need to visit the cake shop at Ballintoy Harbour

Must say I quite fancy the Adriatic coast at some point too, a couple of mates went down through Croatia a few years back and loved it, Montenegro is supposed to be stunning too. Not sure if you need Carnet's to get in though, they're in the process of trying to join the EU but not there yet I believe.

I have done that route hundreds of times, used it for advanced driving courses etc. I am from that neck of the woods. For the best cafe Ulster fry that's extremely popular with local bikers go to the cafe at the quay in Ballycastle not even expensive. In fact its the cafe right beside where you would have got ferry to Rathlin just before the little terminal on right. Did you get the driving into the sea feeling for road to Ballintoy? It's one of those roads with nothing but the sea in front of you at times. There is so much on that coast line that people don't see or know about its unreal even lots of things the locals don't even realise is there, I know of 3 other locations where there are the same rock formations as the Giants Causeway but no roads directly to them. I have secure parking at various locations on the coast road relatives garages etc that I can get out and hike all day too. I did Donegal coast this year and around NI too end of Causeway coast but in the Skoda..... You know the roads involved WOW the Skoda was not at home tbh.

Top of Fairhead looking down on Rathlin

Kinbane Head with Rathlin beyond, one of my favourite places but there are lots of steps if in gear its a ball ache coming back up!

Fairhead from the back of the terminal building you get the ferry to Rathlin from, just behind that it looks like a continuation of the coast line but its actually Scotland (Mull of Kintyre) some days it looks closer than Rathlin.

Pictures for Sarah as promised, a day late though. Not my pics a friend and I went for the race day. They were taken through gaps in the crowd, my happy snappy on the day did not compare.

These are brilliant - such crisp images, which knowing the speed the bikes were probably moving at is no mean feat - seriously impressed :yes: Tried to take some at WSBK, but just didn't have the skills nor Lens :no: to get many decent ones. In truth half the time the bikes had passed before my shutter went off Think I posted one ( in the rain) . Will have a look to see if there were any others worth posting - though I fear not and certainly not anywhere near comparable to these.

What was the race? - looks a great event. Have utmost admiration for road racers - nerves of steel required for sure !!!

Thanks for posting - enjoyed looking through them.

It was at the North Wast 200 in 2011, was short lived Ryan blew his engine up as he passed me and spread oil over a fair distance then it rained heavy non stop they couldn't get it cleared 6 hours later they abandoned :( the shot looking down just catching bike going past was very fast he followed bikes with camera and took shots as they went past at about 1.5-2 meters from them. Here is a vid off my mighty old mobile at time same spot he was standing next to me. Ironically this was just when Farquhar's engine went pop and oil trail started right where I was, you can see the flag going out. :(

Just uploaded it, it's 2 little clips joined together the marshal was hopeless to be polite the spectators had to roar at him to get flag out as he hadn't noticed....... Then he stood more or less hidden but they did slow right down so must have some eyes on them.

If you have never been its fantastic no tickets etc just pitch up somewhere along the course which runs in a triangle through 3 towns 12-28th May this year. http://www.northwest200.org/

Also the Ulster Grand Prix fastest road race in the world(ticketed) on 12-17th Aug http://www.ulstergrandprix.net/

There are many more tbh Armoy is one of the best smaller ones 26&27th July http://www.amrrc.com/ To be a spectator as close to the bikes as possible Armoy prob wins

Unlike the IOM TT you will not see bikes setting off racing a stop watch all alone but a grid launching and in the UGP a massive pack elbow to elbow into first corner!

The THUNDER! of bikes passing you inches away is powerful!

might have posted this vid before but its well worth watching again the start is how close you can get yourself. 1:36 ish shows the full effect.

Watch it in HD or else!!!