Steve_M

I’ve been told by the hospital to keep a splint on my hand, to immobilise my thumb, for four weeks . No riding the bike, so the already long overdue service and MoT have been rescheduled. The bike is now SORNed until December when I should be allowed back in the saddle.

1 hour ago, rennie said:

I've just cut the grass! In October! 

 

Doing nothing else today now! meant to be a day of rest  

We’re scything our wildflower area… when I say “we” I mean I’m supervising due to being incapacitated. I have been mowing, though (the joys of a ride on mower) 

1 hour ago, Mickly said:

Shame, I’ve got a side stand puck, a tyre pressure gauge, disc lock & lightweight waterproof(ish) jacket in mine with room for a tyre repair kit when I buy one.

The space it’s mounted in is due to Zippy having an aftermarket can which means one of the dual cans has been deleted.

There are these, of course. £200 new but even at This eBay price… I’ll struggle along without. 

I’ve just been poring over my bike to see if there’s a lace to fit something like this to hold all the stuff you need to take on tour but are a pain in the neck to have in panniers/topbox (Eg. Puncture repair kit). Nope, nothing. Shame, ‘cos it’s a fine idea.

8 hours ago, Grumpy Old Git said:

Good morning 

Only another two days to Monday…

6 hours ago, rennie said:

Good Evening 

Not so good. I managed to apply a tenon saw to my hand rather than the laminate flooring I was supposed to be cutting. Arrived at A&E at 2.40pm, left at 10.40pm. It seems I managed to slice into a ligament so had to wait for an orthopaedic doctor to become available to carry out running repairs. 
 

Now sitting with a rather sore hand … 

24 minutes ago, husoi said:

I would suggest a trip around Portugal. But I'm biased  

For the 2 weeks you would go to Porto in the North, travel down south to Lisbon and then back home.

Coincidental that I’m looking at Northern Spain at the moment, close to the border with Portugal, with a view to popping over the border for a day or so to see if it’s worth further investigation.

6 hours ago, Gerontious said:

Those photographers were everywhere this year, over on the route des grande alpes and really got on my nerves. final ascent and then the descent, seemed like virtually every corner. flash flash. bloody flash. distracting and extremely irritating.

 

Only using the flash to attract attention as it was in brilliant sunshine so it made zero difference to the actual photo.

There were several on the Stelvio and one on one of the Italian passes. We’ve bought a couple from the Stelvio to go with those we have from the Col Du Tourmelet and Col de la Bonnette.  I think we’ll stop now. 
 

None were using flash - or if they were I was too busy enjoying the road or dealing with traffic to notice. 

37 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

Combe Laval and Col de la Machine are essentially the same road. And well worth visiting, just include it as part of a longer route. It’s quite incredible especially when you consider how it was built. Men hanging from higher up the cliff and basically chipping away a groove and for what? All that effort to get at some trees.  A road that goes effectively from nowhere to nowhere, though as it’s linked at both ends that’s selling it short. The best part is probably not much more than a 1/4 mile long.

 

Grand Goulets sounds incredible but is so dangerous they eventually closed it completely. Dangerous mostly because if something goes wrong the chances of survival are small and the chances of a mishap are high. It’s constantly damp gets no sun at all and so is covered in algae and slime moulds, so very slippy. Narrow. Precipitous and impossible to be airlifted from. Great eh?

 

Balcony roads are as likely to be at the bottom of a cliff as near the top, built in the same way. Some of the longest run along the bottom of a cleft, these are just as incredible an experience.

 

 

if I do end up in the south of France next June then I’ll definitely be adding more to the itinerary.

The Route we took last year was mostly a function of seeking the best weather while finding interesting and scenic roads. I certainly wouldn’t have designed a tour to meander around how we did. We only had one instance of poor weather, on the Col de Rousett where we rode through thick cloud for a mile or two.  We did stumble on a few interesting roads that we wouldn’t have encountered had our original plan not been hampered by unseasonably cold weather on the Col de l’Iseran and eastwards from there.

We were quite taken with Gorges de Dalius, Col de la Croix de Fer (for the views) and Mont Ventoux. Col de Madeleine deserves a mention, too. 

2 hours ago, Gerontious said:

I’ve got two distinct plans in the works. Germany and the South of France. With the final decision  not being made until the last minute based solely on the weather. If it turns out to be France then I’m going to be starting in the Auvergne.

 

as for Balcony roads I’ve used 4 or 5 of them and they were all worthwhile as an experience. That’s what they are about really - the experience as they are effectively unique to France. I looked at the dangerous roads list and was amused to see that they listed the same road twice under different names and another that’s been closed for years - the reason it’s closed is hysterical when you think about it. I was there last year.

 

 

The daddy of them is Machine. Which runs above Combe Laval. They are both the same road. Combe Laval is the valley below but for some reason Machine gets named that too. It’s a blink and you miss it so worth stopping and walking. To take in the views. Photos do it no justice whatsoever.

 

 

 

I would suggest you pin these roads down on a map and link them up with other interesting roads. Some are quite short. Balcony road is mostly about how they were built. They can be high up or low down. But worth seeing as they’re so different.

 

if you do return to the Verdon. Do ride the route de cretes that is there it’s stunning. If a little nerve racking at times. Vertiginous in the extreme.  And definitely a place I want to return to. Though next time better prepared. Last time the heat was brutal and I wasn’t really dressed for it. This winter I’m mostly looking for sale vented gear with the past few tours in mind this has become an imperative. I was lucky to escape heat stroke in the Eifel though my brain was definitely addled.

 

Thanks. Interesting about Machine being only short. Probably not worth heading over that way - we covered a lot of ground last year, including day or so around Vercors region but I failed miserably to remember Combe Laval while we were there.

We rode the Route Des Cretes - I mis-referred to it as Gorge du Verdon. I thought that was great fun and not as scary as I anticipated. My good lady pillion, who is scared of heights, thoroughly enjoyed it. Though she wasn’t so keen on the viewing platform …

We also rode the road on the southern side of the gorge which gives great views of the gorge and sections of the Route Des Cretes. 
 

43 minutes ago, husoi said:

If you don't like superb tarmac on twisted roads, warm weather, excellent food and friendly people then stay away from Croatia. 

We chatted to a couple in a service station in Holland who were returning from Croatia and were full of praise for it. They did seem to have had an itinerary that included cities, which isn’t what we look for, hence my good lady’s response.

19 minutes ago, Fiddlesticks said:

Which is what I thought of the Verdon Gorge before I did it (do it if you’re down that way. The views are to die for… an unfortunate choice of words, I know ). Hence the question.

4 minutes ago, husoi said:

I would strongly advise Croatia.

Make sure you do this road from Austria to Slovenia

 

 

Go acroos country to Hull for the overnight ferry to Rotterdam and then south.

You want to allow 2 weeks min for this one.

 

A must road is this one along the coast

 

We’ve been debating Croatia as a destination. She’s not keen, I’m ambivalent. Our tours are generally two weeks, as you say, Hull to Rotterdam (or, if we pop in and see the grandson on route, Harwich to Hook of Holland) is our usual approach. Perhaps more reading is needed. 

Where to go?

We’re probably returning to the French Alps in 2024, taking in some roads we’ve done before (eg. the Coll de la Croix de Fer has already been earmarked) and some new to us. Last year we took in both sides of the Verdon Gorge, which was a revelation, and wondered about including other balcony roads into next year’s trip. Much of the North side of the Verdon Gorge is one-way so any concerns about meeting oncoming traffic on a narrow road with a big drop were allayed. 
 

Now wondering if anyone’s ridden other balcony roads and what their experiences were.

eg.Balcony roads

22 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

I can’t remember how long it took. I just started it updating and left it alone. Next time I looked at it, it had finished. Might be different because I had it plugged into the Mac and used Garmin Express, rather than doing it wirelessly.

 

i hardly do anything with the XT wirelessly.

I’ve always used Garmin Express for updates, even the new XT,  out of a habit really.

As we tend to create each day’s route as we go along when touring I have had to carry a laptop, which is somewhat inconvenient and just one more thing to carry. Now I know how to load routes from my iPad via Bluetooth I’ll be doing that. 

4 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

I think you should take wifey on holiday  somewhere lovely hilly and bendy fall in love with the place, (check there’s a Waitrose - obviously) and relocate on a whim.

 

you know.. like what you did last time.

It worked for me (though we’re shacked up rather than married).

Checking a nearby Waitrose was a failure on our part but we have found that they   deliver from Hexham, a stroke of luck.

12 hours ago, bonio said:

Sunny day, some (rare) time on my hands so I head off up towards Cromer, then down the coast and back home. Some nice views from the coast road, but apart from that what a sad ride. Endless streams of traffic. 50s and 40s everywhere. More traffic. And bumpy old roads (ok, everywhere has bumpy old roads). 

I still nurse a dream of going to Norfolk and finding open roads with smooth bends in different sizes and the space to enjoy them, but every time I head out over the Waveney my hopes suffer one more death blow*. It is just my bad luck? Are there any decent routes for riding in Norfolk?

 

*Ok, not 100% true. I've found nice roads between Harleston and Attleborough. 

The North Norfolk coast road has been awful for as long as I can remember. It has a few high spots, but is generally to be avoided when on a bike. There are some decent routes but none use the coast road.

I used to ride down to Suffolk to find decent roads when I lived in Norwich…

9 hours ago, curlylegend said:

Talking about Garmin, has anybody had the frustrating experience of trying to update a set of maps from garmin and being told it will take about 10 hours to download ?

Have any TomTom users had experiences like this ?

It’s managing expectations…

I used to just let my old Zumo 350LM update overnight so never knew exactly how long it too. My new Zumo XT said 5hrs 45Minutes for its 1st update… it took an hour and a half. 
 

Much better that way than the interminable MS Windows updates that claim an hour and keeps increasing the estimate for the next hour…

5 minutes ago, Fiddlesticks said:

Just why?

Because they’re ar*eholes of the first order.

I really hope they find out who did this.

Sycamore gap vandalism

12 hours ago, goat said:

It's just for work unfortunately so not too fussed about the weather, will only get to see an office and if I'm lucky a small bit of glentress. Driving back Friday. 

Thanks for mentioning Glentress. The cafe there looks a nice destination for a ride. 

Garmin Zumo XT and bike mount ordered from Sportsbikeshop, There’s an adaptor, made in and sold from Italy, to allow me to mount it on the standard BMW Navigator docking station with no messing about with wiring or ram mounts. A bit pricey but cheaper than asking the local dealer to rewire and mount the new satnav.

4 hours ago, goat said:

In the Scottish Borders again. Long day of boring driving. Staying in a self catering pod thing. Really quite nice.

Best of luck with the weather. We’re just a few miles south of the Scottish Borders and it’s been hissing down for the last hour or two.

You have my sympathy with the drive up this way from Narfolk (we moved from Norwich 4years ago). 

Good morning.

Today I’m looking forward* to a morning of scything part the garden.

*that might not be strictly true.

2 hours ago, nigel said:

If my old bike is a leisurely soft sports tourer at best these days, maybe I'd be happy with a 390 Duke, who knows? It would help me to put all of this in context if I knew which of you have ridden a pre electronic aids Superbike.

No 150bhp (or 140, for that matter) bike weighing under 200kg could be defined as a leisurely sports tourer. Sure, some modern bikes have ludicrous power outputs but for everyday road riding … it’s pretty pointless. 
 

I agree with the previous comments that you should go test ride a few bikes. Park your prejudices about the various rider aids - the chances are they’re unlikely to intrude on your ride.