Throttled

Russian Circles, heavy post rock https://youtu.be/JtpFOBJA7O8

You could also consider a waterproof over jacket, I use a Spada Aqua for £40. Again ridden through hours of rain and I stayed dry.

I just had a look and did not realise how expensive goretex trousers are. IME anything else will eventually leak. So, unless you are going to tour and could face riding in the rain for hours at a time, I would go jeans and over trousers. That is what I did until I could afford the goretex option after giving up on so called water proof textiles that were not goretex.

You can get Held waterproof over trousers for £35, mine have been tested in hours of rain and I have stayed dry. But, if it is warm, wearing jeans means you will get sweaty. Textile trousers with vents and a gortex lining are the best for one solution for all weathers.

I joined in 1989 and remember all the work that was going on as the firearms law changed, so the maximum any weapon could have was one bullet loaded and two in the magazine. Then, after Dunblane, I remember all the work to seize and destroy most handguns. Not that, that stopped Cumbria. Shotguns have remained untouched, despite being used in the mass shooting few have heard of at Monkseaton in 1989 where 15 were shot in 30 minutes, but only one person died.

As you say, some people......

Another band I saw live and was blown away https://youtu.be/Z38EuVhXzZ8

Looks brilliant. How have you mapped the route?

I relax to that kind of music, this is the seriously heavy stuff and live, it is quite an intense experience https://youtu.be/zg2076b5Lqc

I got one of the original invites to Spotify when it first started. With the higher bit rate for premium customers, the sound quality is superb and blind testing shows it is indistinguishable from CD and other decent resolution digital formats. Swedish prog rock and post metal instrumentals are just some of the joys Spotify contains. Here is some French prog metal https://youtu.be/7j03lu6SBR8

It is now really good you are there, so Spain knows us Brits will not be put off visiting after the terrorist attacks.

More post metal, from Sweden's "The Moth Gatherer" https://youtu.be/Sh6ePQIlEpM

Yours and Bonnie's bikes always look very shiny. I also find cleaning therapeutic and the Versys had been restored to shiny within a few hours of returning home from the rally.

Back in time, when my father was first going out with my mother and they would ride out on his motorbike, she would wear his sheepskin jacket, but she was happy not to bother with a helmet.

Bossk. Post metal instrumental.

I like to find and ride in safety bubbles, areas where there is as little traffic as possible. When I come to a group of vehicles I try and get passed as quickly as possible and then relax, in the inside lane in that gap between the traffic.

How is the bike doing? Scotoiler still working?

The two times I have come off my bike at any sort of speed (20 mph or so), I did the natural thing of putting my arms up to protect my head, so my arms hit the road and my helmet came down on my arms. My preference is open faced as I find many full faced helmets restrict the view too much. I compromised with a Shark Evoline which I would ride open faced to 30 mph (relying on my experience with using my arms to protect my head) and then the chin bar would come down. I used it so much it got too grotty to wear any more, so I am mainly using an AGV K3, which had the biggest visor for a full faced helmet of all the ones I tried on at J&S (who have a good range). That is a reasonable compromise. I also have a Shark Skwal, which I used at night and in the rain as the breath guard and pinlock makes it impossible to steam up. But I only use it occasionally because I have to move my head to see the bikes instruments, the visor is so small.

The slip road from the end of Gt Western Rd (as it goes over the motorway) onto the M8 west also enters onto the 3rd lane. I am so used to it I did not think it is very odd to have that.

Remember to stop at the border, salute and sing the Scottish National Anthem before entering. Wipe yer feet as well.

Happy birthday

Here, we offer moral support as Gog is helped out of his waterproofs for lunch during the ride out. For some weird reason, that is the only photo I took this year

The petrol at the Esso in Buxton was 114.9 ppl. At the Moto services Lancaster it was 131.9 ppl.

After an interesting chat about possible future ways of doing the rally, the final bill for this years rally was; Camping (including Thursday night, so three nights) £24. Fuel bill (which covers around 600 miles plus the ride out) £60.11 Food and drink (everything from snacks on the way down and back to coffees, lunch on the ride out and the bar bill. I did not eat in the hotel) £94.54 I also spend £17.00 on Trekmates heat packs to cook my food and a broken tent pole has cost £29 to replace. The total of all that is £224.65.

Attending this years rally meant riding 450 motorway miles in total, there and back on the M74, M6, M60 and M61. A few observations. - I sat at 80ish and was regularly overtaken by other bikes. I hardly over took any bikers, so why so fast? Is it because most looked uncomfortable and they just wanted to get the trip over and done with asap? - a big tank and a comfy seat helps. I stopped twice on each motorway part, so the longest I did in the saddle was 112 miles and about 1 hour 45 mins from the Southwaite services at Carlisle to the M8 where I leave for home. I could do the 225 miles of motorway riding on one refill with enough to spare for the ends of the trip home and to the rally. I definitely went quicker than others doing the same route, but who had to stop more often, even though my top speed was lower. - middle lane hoggers mean most motorways are more like dual carriageways and the queues of cars overtaking could be very long and dangerous as tail gating is common. More needs to be done to deter hogging. - filtering, my bike is wide and I could not get through some gaps. I would pull over for other bikes which filtered up behind me, but at one point I was stuck and had to stop. The bikes behind me then turned, went through gaps between cars and filtered between another lane. Some filtering speeds I saw left no room for error at all.