bonio

A Pan?

That's a nice looking bike, mate.

Too stiff in the joints to get a knee down. I can lean the bike as much as I like, but the pelvis and hips just won't flex like that no more

I think you just need to keep on practising. The problem I find is that it's hard to find the right road conditions that allow you to practise consistently. On the road, you have to take whatever opportunities the traffic and the road surface offer you, and so it's hard to build up confidence. The best you can do is to try hooning round a large roundabout at night. What about going on a day's course that includes some cornering work? Something like i2i perhaps or HRT or a knee down day? As for cornering in the wet, I'm cautious too, and I'm not about to change. It's true that tyres are very grippy in the wet, and I could probably do a lot of corners with more lean than I do. But, in winter at least, the chance of coming across some mud or some diesel, or leaves or just the general oily grime that comes off cars is too high - and you often can't see it when the roads are wet until it's too late.

Pics needed as proof Enjoy the ride home!

Sounds the same, only I was I getting a fever too, and my brain went to mush (figuratively, I mean). 3 LFTs and 1 PCR all negative.

I had the mother of all colds a couple of weeks ago - thanks again to the grandchildren. Off work for a week . Nearly had to cancel the trip to Scotland. Still got a cough, four weeks on.

May be it's because I'm a Londoner, but I like London Pride

How can you insure it if you don't know what model it is?

I had the same feeling when I gave the bike a test ride. But I just don't understand parallel twins; they're a mystery to me. I guess there's a way of riding them that I've not discovered.

To be honest, it wasn't quite the same without the Umleitungen and the furious finger-stabbings of the sat nav that follow. And Tennants is no match for Grimburger. Blinding roads up there though.

If you can afford it, this is why Goretex gear is worth the money: no more anxious glances at the clouds (or the weather app, for you millennials )

@goat You got further than I did

Sunday. 9am. Time to go riding and we’re off to Dunnottar Castle, which gives us an excuse for retracing yesterday’s route over the mountains. Bikes Dunottar Castle Monday. A wet wet wet ride to Fraserburgh, a granite town eking out a grey existence between a granite sky and a granite sea. Aside from the Asda café, the day’s highlight is the nicely fast-flowing, curvy A98. Back at Grantown Tuesday. Destination Loch Ness. Route uncertain, but it involves a U turn in a muddy farmyard, while the farmer’s dog makes us throw stones for her by balancing them on our engine cases. Then a nadgery road over a misty moor, past the still waters of a mystical lochan wreathed in glowing golds and ochres of autumn, and then, down, down, down to the monstrous Loch at Fort Augustus. Mystical lochan The Caledonian Canal and Loch Ness at Fort Augustus Back in Grantown in the evening, we’re outside talking about bikes and I say how I fitted crash bungs on the bike the first day I had it, “here they are,” I say, pointing to the place where the bung had been previously and now no longer was. The real problem is that bung is mounted on the engine bolt, but the engine seems firm enough, best option seem to be to carry on as is. Wednesday. 9am. Our last time to cross the mountains; two last hours of astonishing bends and exhilarating landscapes at the start of the long ride home. The bridge at Gairnshiel Lodge Thursday. 5:30pm. I’m just 10 minutes from home, close to the middle of nowhere, and here’s a lad with a moped stopped by the side of the road. The power cut out as he was going round the bend and now it won’t start. In the end he leaves the scoot at a nearby farm and I whack up the preload and give him a lift into town. Then home. Italian bike with Scottish mud Saturday. Wash the bike. Notice that the other crash bung has now gone missing.

Larches on the road to the Lecht

Saturday. 9am. Grey skies. We take the crazy rollercoaster A68, with a junction behind every blind summit. Over Carter Bar and it's then bends bends bends to Jedburgh, then rain and miserable, crowded roads. At Jedburgh. Scone for lunch. I mean, I have soup and sandwiches, but at Scone. And by a miracle the rain stops and the roads dry up and the magic begins. The A93 through Spittal of Glenshee to Braemar, on to the B976 and the A939 to Grantown: 80 interrupted miles of rider’s delight: sweepers, tight bends, straights, hairpins, dizzy summits, green pines, golden larches, auburn bracken, and bare, bare moorland. And all on Freakin’ Dry Roads. “Nice roads”, I say to Chris when we arrive. Leaving Spittal of Glenshee Panniers off and preload set lower, because we’re here for a few days.

Unable to go to Ireland this year, I signed up for a short trip to Scotland organised by a local group of riders. There were to be 10 of us in all, only one I’d met before, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Friday. 9am. Thetford. Pair up with Chris on his rubber-band powered F800ST. Two 800s mean the bikes were well matched for power, if not for beauty. 11 am. South Holland. Coffee at The Mooring Caff. As the review on Google puts it, “Don’t…”. Soon we’re in the Wolds and out comes the sun and shines on the magical B1225. I make the happy discovery that Chris is a spirited rider. 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm Yorkshire. How did God create such an enormous county? Night at the Premier Inn in Bishop Auckland. I’ve brought an alarmed disc lock.

I've finally read the article. Like @manxie49 says in the title, it applies only to the City, in other words to just 1 of the 607 square miles that London covers.

@TimR It's just sloppy journalism. Someone googled 15 mph on images, and nabbed the first one that came up. Either they didn't bother to notice that it was a US sign, or they didn't care.

Off to bonnie Scotland!

Yeah, you need to complete the claim and buy the bike back. Ask them about it when they call.

@Throttled Looks awesome.

Me too. I don't zip and I don't get drafts.

@Mississippi Bullfrog That's so frustrating! Similar thing here with the brickie who's coming to mend our garden wall. But he's been set about by all kinds of difficulties - his workmate's been injured and can't work, then he got covid and had to isolate and so on, so it's been a tough year for him. He's already given us two dates, and now were waiting for him to give us a third. But I've got off lightly with it all, as I don't need to book time off to have him do the work.

You're the first person I've ever come across to do this (for road riding, that is). I found it to be such a hassle I never bothered again.