Steve_M

A mate from Norfolk is heading to Scotland with a group of people in May, passing close by where I live. Some going who I probably know. So that’s another little trip added. Luckily he’s very organised and will have routes and stops all set up so it’s only a matter of joining up with them. 

I had one in blue. Lovely motor. Kept it for a couple of years and replaced it with a VFR800fi. It was a fine bike indeed. I never had the starting issues you mention despite commuting all year round,. 

On 05/12/2023 at 17:01, Essem said:

I’m not a fan of passes which are endless hairpins, nor of roads which get a must-do reputation. Give me the more open twisties with little traffic.

They can be worth the effort if you find the top gives you a view like this… 

53 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

 

Do I interpret right that's a 10 year estimated pay back time? 

My old man has fitted them to his property, and weirdly it was the addition of the batteries that cut the pay back time in half. Those things in theory should last about 15 years, before they need recycling. 

 

A back boiler might be a cheap solution to heat the home if you haven't got one already. I was going to fit one into my flat, but the previous tenant fully sealed off the access to the joint chimney. I was hoping to ship some of the surplus wood from my parents place home, and store it in my garage. Save on the gas bill as much as I can. Technically it's carbon neutral, so long as you grow a fresh tree.

It’s probably a 12 or 15 year payback if you take into account that the money otherwise could be sitting in a high interest account, plus solar panels get less efficient as they get older - probably balanced by the cost of electricity increasing over that time.  There are too many variables which would require making assumptions to establish a mildly accurate break even point. For us we hope that it makes the house more attractive to buyers when we have to sell - we know they don’t increase the value of the house but they should aid the EPC rating (this house needs all the help it can get to improve that figure! 
 

I don’t want to think about having a back boiler. In late 2019 we allocated a budget for renovations. The cost of materials have since rocketed and we have encountered many surprises during the work - few of them good, most of them a result of previous hastily completed building work. The situation not helped by the damage Liz Truss’ budget did to my good lady’s pension fund. Scope creep is being firmly managed.

52 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

 

Double bugger if you have solar panels on the roof. 

Triple bugger if they also have heat pumps, cold and nothing to offset that electric consumption. Although with it getting a tad warmer, heating their 3 bed will only be £400 a month now, rather than the £800 last week  

We have solar panels but given our geographic and topographical location, we knew we wouldn’t get the best performance out of the - we’re getting about a 10% return on investment.

We considered wind turbines ‘cos it’s quite breezy where we are, and we have space. We don’t have enough money, unfortunately. 
 

What we do have is three wood burners, and two trees worth of freshly felled wood - ash - that will become useable next year and should see us through a couple of winters. Not cheap, mind given how much it cost to have the trees taken down. 
 

This year we’re burning wood from trees that were felled by last year’s storms, supplemented by some we bought. 

34 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but last night might be the last frost for a little while as we've got double figures making a comeback this weekend. With plenty of rain. 

You must be out of sight from the road, as in Anglesey where my parents are, if a tree goes over a rusty 4x4 towing a trailer soon turns up and starts cutting it up. Fire wood sells well by the sack!

We are out of sight of the road. It does make it tricky for new delivery drivers… 

Weather… bugger!

4 hours ago, Fozzie said:

Good morning

 

A proper hard frost last night where I am. One of the 7 times a year my fords heated windshield is actually used, before going back to slightly distracting me the rest of the year  

We had a tree cut down a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been inaccessible ‘cos the ground has been a quagmire. The ground was frozen solid this morning so hitched my trailer to the mower and managed to get over to the woodpile to bring much of the wood back to be split. Hoping for another hard frost tonight so I can retrieve more wood to be split tomorrow.

16 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

 

Ive done that. Ive also done it as "every night a different place"

 

So one year we went to the Vercors, stopped for a night at Avallon to split the journey south and then stayed at a single place in the Vercors, and did much the same for the return, but stayed at the usual place in Eperney. That was over a 'long week' we did the travelling at the weekends and had 5 days 'there'. Arriving Sunday night and departing Saturday Morning.

 

The only thing that's really become set in stone, is - over a fortnight, the middle weekend. especially the Sunday. I always have that as a rest day. Mostly because at weekends these popular areas turn into tourist hell holes. You go from 'normal working weekday traffic' to hordes of cyclists. day trippers and weekenders descending on the place, usually accompanied by a higher than usual police presence - radar speed traps and spot checks. then Sunday night - they are all gone. back to work on Monday. So, I like to avoid all of that and have a day off.

 

But, who can say? sometimes a particular region might have a lot to offer and so its good to stay there for a few nights - especially if the weather is good. A chance to ride without any luggage, leave that behind and head out.

 

It's always best to take each day as it comes, stop for a night and think about what or where next. or should we stay here for 2 or 3 nights and explore this region. have a goal in mind, but dont really obsess about achieving it. if it happens then fine. if it doesn't and I end up somewhere else entirely, then that's fine too.

 

That's why for next year I have two plans. either Germany or the South of France. Both circular routes that can be done clockwise or anti. no fixed day by day itinerary - just a number of set piece routes, wandering from the end of one to the start of the next. If I  end up going to the Harz - I might just wander through, or stay there a few nights and take more of it in. see what the weather is like. I can't be doing with fixed day by day itineraries.

Nice approach. Having the mid-tour Sunday off is a bloody good idea. This year I’d made the error of setting a couple of goals for the second week which resulted in us being on the Stelvio on a Sunday. Awful… though we did get a relatively clear run for much of it.

6 hours ago, geofferz said:

Just wrote my first ever programme! In python. Probably look somewhat inelegant

 

Might make it into a handy Web app for often asked questions. 

 

age = int(input("How old are you? "))
if age >= 24:
    print ("Direct access") 
elif age >= 21 <24:
    length = int(input("How many years have you been riding? "))
    if length >=2:
        print ("After 2 years riding on an A2 licence you can take an unrestricted DAS test")
    else:
        print ("Once you've been riding on an A2 licence for 2 years then you can do your DAS on an unresitricted bike")
elif age >=19 <21:
    print ("A2 licence")
elif age >=17 <19:
    print ("CBT")
else:
    print ("When you're 17 you can do your CBT")
 

 

It’s been *cough* 34 years since I last did by proper coding - though some will argue that COBOL wasn’t proper coding - excluding some Lotus Notes development) but that looks remarkably Basic like (which I only did briefly in 1983). 

6 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

As and when I return to the Italian Alps. Dolomites area more than likely. I'll be staying just over the border in Austria. Italy is staggeringly expensive for everything. Though, oddly. in June, just gone, the petrol wasn't that much more expensive than in Germany. Previous years it's been significantly more expensive.

 

We stay at a little place called Tassenbach. which I find super convenient for a lot of attractions in that part of the southern Tyrol. Incidentally. There is a Pension there which is very popular with Bikers. https://tinyurl.com/ymm5yyyd

We had an overnight just two minutes up the road in Strassen, at the Hotel Strasserwirt. It was “very nice” to quote my good lady. 
 

Do you usually stay based in a single location and ride out from there? 

44 minutes ago, Mawsley said:

Bought flights to Italy for Easter. Then looked for accommodation and activities - boy was that a mistake! Still, locked in now so I’m going to have to suck it up.

I will caveat my point about it. The hotels we stayed in while in Italy were really rather good, amongst the best we’ve stayed at on any of our tours. 

47 minutes ago, Bender said:

Ahh I can see the cuts on that one

 

Looks good

That was our first attempt, the right bend turned out to be too tight.

We’re using 18mm thick kiln dried white oak - it really does need to be steamed to form a bend.

16 minutes ago, Bender said:

Did you have a peg board and a big steam boiler

 

Thin kerf cuts not good enough ?

Looks ok from here.

I made a form fixture to clamp it to,  and used a Heath Robinson steam box out of scrap ply, with a wallpaper steam stripper to supply the steam. I made a few shallow cuts across the back of the skirting to help it bend.

8 minutes ago, Essem said:

We did Plym-Santander return last week of Sept/first week of Oct this year, was £550 each for three of us sharing a 4 birth cabin.  Managed to upgrade to a posh cabin on way out - another £50 each. My fag packet calculations made it pretty much cost equivalent to the alternatives, and I concluded it was only worth the short ferry crossing to northern France if the ride through France was part of the holiday. I’ve done the blast down autoroute several times and don’t enjoy it much. We did 12 days zig-zagging between Spain and France in Pyrenees, then looped south through northern Spain on way back to Santander. Not one day of rain, blue skies throughout and too hot (for my preference) on many days. We pre-booked the first two nights after ferry, but left it such that we could head north or south of Pyrenees on day 3, depending on weather. We booked ahead a day at a time, combination of hotels and airbnb. This was the biggest ‘error’, as it meant buggering around finding decent places within budget, and it caused us to have two days on roads I would have rather not been on - northern Spain has some stunning twisty roads, but there are some heavily industrial areas worth avoiding. Next time I would have the alternative routes and potential stopovers all pre-researched.

You’ve pretty well described our touring… booking hotels day by day. We had some issues finding accommodation within budget in Italy. We were amazed how expensive it was, on par or more with Switzerland. We resolved the issue by revising the budget upwards. 

14 hours ago, Gerontious said:

south of France. East of Grenoble. It’s at the side of an amazing valley that’s not hugely popular, probably because it has a motorway running down the middle of it it’s very popular with cyclists as it was part of the Tour one year.

 

Lacets de Montvernier

 

it’s quite tricky. 17 hairpins over a mile and a half. Quite narrow with very nasty cambers on the turns. 8% - 12%. I was lucky and had it to myself. The really scary bit (that I don’t like to think about - much) came when I stopped by the chapel. There is a bench quite close to a precipitous drop with a little lay-by next to it. The lay-by is quite narrow, slopes away from the road and then drops away to nothing and is just loose stones and gravel. I pulled into it and immediately regretted it. I got the side stand down and it was so dicey getting off the bike I had to fall off!!  Then getting back on was even worse. But hey ho. Nobody died.

 

A road I’ve always wanted to try is Gavia. South of the Stelvio.

 

sounds great.

 

 

Thanks for the info’ . We weren’t too far from the Lacets de Montvernier in 2022 … we passed by St-Jean-de-Maurienne at one point, so less than five miles away. It looks like we need to return at some point… 

2 hours ago, Pie man said:

Not a road to get target fixation

 

Personally, I don't like roads such as the Col de la Morte and the Stelvio, too many tornante, makes for a tiring and tedious ride. 

I’m glad we did the Stelvio as it’s the last of the three highest paved through roads in Europe for us*. I will never return to it. Too busy, particularly at the top which was horrendously busy. However, looking at the photos tonight - we’re creating a photo album as we do for each tour - it’s reminded me that the scenery is generally rather good. 

*There’s a bit of hypocrisy for you, by the way - we walk in the Lake District and use Wainwright’s books as guides but are deliberately not “doing all the Wainwright’s “ on the basis that we don’t set leisure targets or have tick lists of “must do” things.

15 minutes ago, husoi said:

I hate you... 

A phrase often used by my kids as teenagers.

1 hour ago, Gerontious said:

Most of them become tedious very quickly. but I know a dangerous road when I see it. usually the number of little shrines is a giveaway.

The danger doesn't always come from the road, but the plonkers riding or driving on it. too busy oohing and aahing at the scenery to pay attention to what's coming up ahead. One memorable time I watched a bike too long to easily get round the hairpin go over and then slide back down the road and wedge itself in the barrier. 3 of us failed to shift it.

Of course there was the time when "sideways" lived up to his screen name and went sideways and ended up in a ravine. his shiny spotless VFR wasn't so pretty after being dragged out.. and I never got to the bottom of what exactly happened. Wasn't even a particularly dangerous road. been past the spot a lot of times since as its so close to Neuerburg on the L10

Personally I'm not too fond of rockfalls. And roads with no barrier and a >45 degree slope that goes a long way down. Sheer drops less so, there's usually (but not always) some kind of a barrier. interesting when it's a low wall. a foot high. And oddly it's easier to ignore nothing than a slope that's visible and horribly steep.

 

This is why I always go away out of season and NEVER ride on at the middle Sunday. mostly due to the hordes of cyclists who also love these sorts of roads. Cyclists. Tourists.  inexperienced or over-confident bikers. (especially Italians)

 

French mountain passes that have been repaired.. with mile after mile of gravel. it's not a road, it's a river of gravel.  Never has a pass been so aptly named. Col de la Morte. (Death Pass) You enjoyed that didn't you @bonio

 

I did enjoy this one.. but have only done it alone. There might be complaints!!  I did have to have a little rest at the chapel that can be glimpsed at the top of the photo.

 

 

We did Col de la Morte last year. It was fine.

As you pointed out, many of the dangerous roads are only dangerous because of the way they’re ridden. We were fascinated, and a little unnerved, this year by other’s  riding decisions on a few of the passes. Particularly the Stelvio where riders were diving down the outside of a line of traffic, late braking for a hairpin with full expectation that others will make room for them. Then there were those who were riding into a blind bend on the wrong side of the road (that, or they had X-ray vision).

Photo taken by my pillion as we ascended the Nufenen pass. 

On 28/11/2023 at 10:23, Grumpy Old Git said:

Morninininininininining all.

 

2 more days till SORN. 

 

I don’t usually take mine off the road over winter but it went on SORN when its MoT went out of date at the end of October. Having injured my hand I wasn’t able to ride it to the MoT until late November and there was no point losing a month’s RFL for the sake of waiting a few days.
 

I’ll tax it in December, I thought. But then the snow came and riding on snow and ice isn’t that much fun… 

So it’s sitting indoors, Optimate on, waiting for the weather to improve.
 

In the mean while it seems I still have much DIY needing to be done on the house.

PS. The steam bending of the skirting board experiment went reasonably well… 

I have referred to the Dangerous Roads website as part of my research ahead of our tours. Not all roads on there are suitable for the touring we do - many of off-road, for example - but it’s a great starting point when heading somewhere new.

I popped into my garage / workshop / materials store with the thought that I need to rearrange the one racking unit which I keep some of my tools on. A quick one hour job to set the shelves to new, better positions. Oh bugger. I hadn’t taken into account the knock-on effect on the organisation of the rest of the tools etc. Nigh on three hours later I’ve stopped. Not finished - I’ve merely reached a point where, if I don’t stop, I’ll be there for several days.

I have in mind that I need to make wholesale changes to the layout but I’ll need a long weekend, or week, with dry weather so I can take everything outside, build new storage and then put everything back in its new place. 

1 minute ago, S-Westerly said:

I'm with you on this. I hardly ever see anyone going at the posted speed limit, let alone faster than. Find it really frustrating particularly if I'm in the car as I've virtually no chance of getting past. At least on the bike I have the option usually. 

They’ve just installed average speed camera on the A689 past Carlisle airport. I’m going to hazard a guess that there will be few fines ‘cos most days the traffic is driving at 50mph along there. Good news is I get to practice overtaking when on the bike.

1 hour ago, RideWithStyles said:

Agree, id have one in a heartbeat beat if i could .
Mechanically better and has visually improved with age, just too far ahead of its time!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder… the biking world is relatively conservative (little c) and isn’t always open to change. The jaw-dropping utterly gorgeous 916 set a high bar for Ducati aesthetically so any subsequent design replacement was unlikely to be well received. I thought Ducati did an excellent job.

It’s too late for me now but I still desire a 916, mind. 

20 minutes ago, KiwiBob said:

Honda CB500X Maybe?

Beat me to it. However, I also considered the CRF. 

The CRF300 seems to be an update to the CRF250 - a bike I’ve ridden and found to be great fun on the trails and back roads of Wales around Cader Idris. If the MCN review of the CRF300 is anything to go by then, as long as you’re not spending a lot of time on the mainland, it seems a sensible option as it’s capable of maintaining NSL speeds, and has some off road ability for the trails and tracks. 
 

A couple of things to consider with regard to the trails and tracks.
You probably ought to consider fitting tyres that are 50/50 road/trail - I assume there are tyres that do that for that size of bike as there are options for mine. Road tyres are rubbish off-road and knobbly off road tyres are not confidence inspiring on tarmac. The 50/50 compromise, I’m told, works well enough on each surface.

 I would also look for someone to give you training in trail riding initially. It’s a slightly different skill to road riding. 

50 minutes ago, Fiddlesticks said:

I switched from Lebara to Smarty after a ruinously expensive jaunt to the Isle of Man.

I’ve never been to the IoM but were a little concerned after receiving a text warning of roaming charges ‘cos we were connected to an IoM mast. We were in the Wasdale valley at the time. Something to be aware of next year as we’re taking our annual walking holiday based there.