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Another owners site that I frequent has a continuous thread under this title for contributors to throw up a quick word or two and a picture of any short runs they have done on one of thier bikes rather than bigger trips that may be more deserving of thier own topic.

It would be nice to do something similar on here to keep up traffic and interest on the site; I'll post up a couple to get it started, it would be good to see others pitching in.

Pete.

Whilst many of us are probably attracted to Lonewolf's proposal for a 2019 meet up in Scotland, I'm guessing that with the short notice and distance involved a lot are going to find it difficult to take up on it. I think it is a great idea in principal though and I'm encouraging him to pitch for something similar in 2020 which hopefully we can all get behind.

I'd like to see though if there would be any interest in smaller less organised get together and short ride later next month. Perhaps by reply to this post members could express interest and we can see if it is worthwhile doing.

I'm suggesting the midlands simply because, well, it's sort of in the middle. Now I know what you are thinking, you have seen a couple of series of Peaky Blinders and don't much like the look of it. However, there are some good bits – I know this because I've been to them both.

My suggestion:
Sunday September 29th
11:00 meet at the Food Stop Café, Quatford, Bridgnorth WV15 6QJ (popular biker's café, 11:00 meet should give people plenty of time to arrive.
11:45 A run into the Shropshire hills with a break at the Georgian market town of Ludlow
Loop back round over Clee Hill with a quick photo stop at the summit
Route back through Bewdley, finishing at Frankley services Northbound (M5 J3-J2) for a last coffee and chat, from there the motorway can be used go get home in pretty much any direction for those travelling a distance.

Any takers?

(pictures: Ludlow Castle, Clee Hill Summit

Anyone attended this?

http://www.bmad.co.uk/bike-nights/

I'm going to be in the area for a week from 27/05 and was wondering if it was worth the short run from where I am staying.

I'm just settling back in after this year's foray into Europe, this time having done a half lap of Spain and Portugal.

The GTR did us proud again, never missed a beat. Not so many insects were harmed on this tour, it was just too damned hot for them to be flying!

A trip report as per the previous two will follow in instalments over the coming weeks after I have found time to pick out a few of about 800 photos and shuffled my memories back together. It may be past the end of the biking season before it's finished but looking at a bit of sunshine over the winter may cheer you up and keeps a bit of traffic on the forum during the quiet time.

Here's a first picture as a taster; our bike next to some 1st Century BC hilltop ruins....

[9091] Castro de Santa Trega

Anyone on here under a multi-bike policy and who are you getting a good deal with?

The letter from Carole Nash dropped through on Friday and I have put off looking at it until just now, I was already annoyed by how much it had gone up before I had even opened up the envelope.

It turns out I have been rather prejudiced, it's rolled in £90 cheaper than last year 

I wonder if I should still shop around though, I gave it a try last year and wasted a couple of evenings filling in on-line forms only to find out that they won't quote you after all and you have to ring them for more than one bike on a policy.

So, who is in the multi-bike market?

Just been flicking through my photos and came across the picture I took last year on the day out I shared with @brizzlebob, @snowy & @icefever.

It would be nice to do something similar again this year - 8th of July as a suggestion? I think that is far enough apart from the official meet in Cinderford.

Let me know if interested.

Pete.

It's naturally quiet on a bike forum at this time of year so I thought I would share my trip of a few years ago with you in case it is of interest.

OK, it's not on a GTR (I didn't have one then) but it is still about touring on a 1400cc bike. So, as originally posted on the GSX owners forum......




Stourbridge [UK] – St Quentin [F] 349 miles

07:00 on Saturday morning and we are loaded up and heading out toward the Chanel Tunnel. My wife Carole is riding pillion and I am hoping I can get her a drier few days than we had had during our week around the Picos De Europa a couple of years ago

On previous trips I have used the ferry to Dunkirk but as we are heading in a more southerly direction I have decided to give the tunnel a try as it claims to be quicker. The journey down to Folkestone is uneventful until we get to the slip road off the M20, where everything grinds to a halt and we eventually crawl up to display signs advising of 90 minute delays for check in. Once we are finally on board one of the shuttles the trip under the channel is quick enough, although there is nothing to amuse or entertain you after you have read all of the safety notices. First experience of the tunnel; slightly more expensive, no quicker overall.

The hotel I have chosen for our first night is in Saint Quentin; I wanted something no more than a couple of hours from Calais. We pick up the A26 and head on down. It is my first time on a foreign toll road and I had this fear of holding up great queues of traffic whilst I took gloves off to get wallet / tickets and sticking the glove back on etc. at the toll booths. We worked it so that Carole took care of all of that so I could ride straight on, but the reality is that the traffic is so light on the motorways that we could probably have taken five minutes to do the deal without anyone pulling up behind us.

A few kilometres before Saint Quentin we pull in to one of the frequent lay-bys so that I can take a look at a map and try and memorise where I am going. A usual I have no Sat-Nav, just a (misplaced?) confidence in my own sense of direction and a few A4 pages printed from Google Maps.

At this point a couple of fellow Brits pull up on a Ducati Multistrada. We get chatting and it turns out that they are not only staying in the same town but in the same Hotel as us. We are invited to follow them in and so we arrive at our first lodgings of the trip (Thanks Andy and Wendy).

A quick change out of the bike gear and we wander into town in search of a beer for the evening. Saint Quentin is pleasant enough and has a good few Art Deco style buildings for which it is famed but we found it very quiet for a Saturday night, it did not have the "buzz" I was expecting. A last bottle of "Leffe" from the hotel bar sees us done for the night.

2.1 Waiting for "Le Shuttle"
2.2 Saint Quentin centre
2.3 Art Deco style in Saint Quentin

I honestly can't remember if I have shared this before, if so please excuse me - it could be an age thing.

The GTR's stablemates:

1983 Z1300
2003 GSX1400
2009 Z1000

I'm not sure that this is really "dark side", perhaps I just have more faces than the town hall clock.

If only there were more weekends.....

Pete.

We have made it back from this year's big trip on the bike.

This one did not go as well as I hoped, I'll do a bit of a write up in installments over the coming weeks but please bear with me as I seem to have a bit too much going on at the moment.....

Pete.

The GTR has just been for its first week on foreign tarmac, I'll post up a trip report over the next week or so in instalments as I find time.

If you don't want to bother reading this stuff and pictures are more your thing they are already on my Flickr photostream, so if you don't like spoilers save them till last....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rynglieder/albums/72157681652634454

The planning

For a combination of reasons we could not do the usual two week trip over the last week of May and the first week of June this year, our "big" tour was to be deferred until August but it did mean that I had a week spare to squeeze in an extra one week trip which was a bit of a bonus. My good lady consented to this without much resistance; Do you know, after thirty-five years I'm still quite fond of her really.....

At Carole's suggestion we decided to return to the Mosel valley again, a place that we had had a good week in 2012 and I had had a couple of enjoyable long weekends with some friends previous to that. As I hadn't had the luxury of six moths advance planning that I usually have, our preferred overnight stop in each direction (the Hotel Bauregard in Namur, Belgium) was not available, so our outward trip was to be broken in the Ardennes and the return trip at another hotel north of Namur. The apartment that we had previously rented in the Mosel town of Bernkastel-Kues was also booked up but the owners were able to offer us a bigger (and inevitably slightly more expensive) apartment on the floors above.

One of the first things I miss from the GSX1400 that we had used for our trips previously was the stowage space under the seat, this was great for all those items you have to carry but hope never to use; warning triangle, alcohol testers, spare bulbs etc – these would all have to go into the GTR's luggage, although to be fair it swallowed them up reasonably well without being at the expense of something else.

On previous journeys abroad I had been stung for "non sterling transaction fees" on both my debit and credit cards – not mega-bucks but it all adds up over the total of your spending - so this year I had arranged a FairFX pre-paid MasterCard in a Euros denomination and pre-loaded this with our spending money. The exchange rate when you load it up looked reasonable and there are no further charges on top each time you use it (except at cash machines) and I reckon that it probably netted an extra £20-25 of beer money.

We were also accompanied by my Garmin Zumo 390 (which is a device that I hate with a passion as will no doubt become clear), although I pre-loaded it with routes generated at my computer I also took the precaution of taking paper maps based previous experiences with the malevolent little gadget.
 

...... for mounting a DVR camera on the bike?

For the GSX1400 I fitted a bracket to the fuel filler ring and got some adequate images over the top of the clocks

I think if I did the same with the GTR all I would get is a picture of the cockpit and maybe a bit of a distorted view through the bottom of the screen.

The camera I am using is a bit of a cheap Chinese affair and mounts with a tripod type screw.

Any ideas please?

As I had hoped, yesterday turned out to be my first chance to get a proper run out on my new GTR, so I thought I would share with you my first impressions.

Big isn't it?

First job when I opened the garage door was to remount the top case which I had had to take off to allow the garage door to shut when I first brought it home. Although taking it off was easy enough I could not get it to re-engage until the wife came out of the kitchen and applied a bit of downward pressure from the inside of the case whilst I operated the button on the catch. Perhaps it is the newness of it all, but if it requires a pit crew following me round to put it on I will be looking to avoid taking it off regularly.

The weather forecast suggested that there would be rain over Wales and to the East of England so it was a choice between north and south. In the end I decided I would have a run up to the Raven Café at Prees Heath near Whitchurch. Out from home toward Bridgnorth I had a play with the screen height to try and find the optimum position and once the onrushing air was pushed above my visor I was a little surprised that there was a bit more wind noise around me than I expected. A glance down at the speedo showed that the problem was that I was doing 70 and not 50 as I had imagined; the bike was definitely more smooth and sprightly that I had given it credit for.

Brignorth led to Telford, then Newport and on to the A41 and north Shropshire. These out of season rides can be among the best as there are not too many Sunday Drivers clogging up the roads, there are some nice clear stretches ahead of you and even keeping the revs below 5K whilst running the bike in there is loads of power to hand for some overtaking. With bright sunshine throughout I reached the Raven Café and contemplated my next move over a cup of tea.

There seemed to be loads of A49 ahead of me and I did not want to turn home yet, I was enjoying myself too much. I pointed the front wheel toward Warrington (at least, I think I did; not ever having had a bike with a fairing in front of me before I am still not used to the cockpit staying ahead of me and the front tyre doing mysterious things on its own, never the less it seemed to go where I expected it to at traffic islands).

Toward Warrington I began to see signs for Runcorn. I had never been to Runcorn and it seemed perfectly sensible to go and have a look – I still did not want to go home. Heading in to the town I saw a sign for the Promenade; that sounded too good to miss so down I went to the banks of the banks of the Mersey and took in the sight of the bridge from below. Having got through the customary cigarette I thought that now was probably the time for a souvenir photo of the bike with the bridge behind it. I have a LowPro rucksack that is designed to carry my DSLR camera, alternative lens and accessories and I am used to being encumbered with this on my back whilst riding, it was great just to be able to pluck it out of the top case of the GTR. There was blue sky to the east of me and blue sky to the west but overhead was cloud, I lit up again and waited for the sun to strike the bridge and bike – it never happened. In the end I took a quick snap and got back on the bike. There was a bridge up there that was begging to be ridden over, even if it was in the wrong direction for home and it looked like it was threatening a shower at the very least ....

The other side of the bridge is a major civil engineering site with underpasses and flyovers under construction to link with a new bridge across the Mersey. There are also lots of incomprehensible signs that can hopelessly confuse the novice GTR rider and I spent fifteen minutes or so circling the various earthworks and unintentionally viewing them from various different directions. Time was now no longer on my side, as usual I had got carried away with riding for no other reason than the pleasure of it and I decided that this desolate landscape around Widnes would have to go down as the climax to my trip and I turned the bike southwards and back over Runcorn Bridge.

Picking up my route back southwards my backside began to comment on the chaise lounge that Kawasaki have fitted to the GTR as a seat. It' OK, but perhaps not quite as comfortable as my Suzuki GSX1400 or the old Z1300. It is certainly better than the Z1000 though, my nether regions would have been screaming by now. Perhaps I am being a little unfair as I had by now done about 120 miles without many significant breaks.

Inevitably the dry day that the BBC had promised me petered out and there were one or two showers on the remainder of the ride back. Another tinker with the screen height showed that I could keep the wet stuff off me completely but at the expense of the top edge of the screen cutting across my vision. It is a bit like I would imagine wearing bifocal glasses would be, a little disconcerting but something that I will no doubt get used to and certainly better than being cold and wet.

Speaking of cold; as befits an early March day when the sun is going down I was beginning to feel it. The heated grips came into their own now and I was grateful for this new little luxury. The last 20 miles or so began to show slightly in my back. The riding position on the GTR seems a little more forward than my other bikes but I don't want to be unfair to it; I had been riding for several hours and I think the last one or two I had tensed up a little knowing I was on an unfamiliar bike on damp roads. Equally it was the first ride of this distance since last autumn and I also have to consider the fact my constituent body parts seem to work less well each year I get older.

Having said to my best beloved at around 10:30 in the morning that I was "going out for a couple of hours to put a few miles on the bike" I sneaked home under cover of darkness at about 18:00 and put my new charger to bed. I got The Look from the wife, but I don't think she was really surprised, having been married for over thirty years she is used to me disappearing on a bike from her life for indeterminate periods.

A hot bath and some proper clothes saw me right; I'd had a really good day with the bike and I'm looking forward to more to come. The thing is going to need a damned good clean today though.........

Hello to all....

I've just watched the money disappear from my bank account in the direction of a dealer for the purchase of a new but pre-registered 2016 Grand Tourer, so I thought I had better gatecrash your forum as there will doubtless be many idiot questions to ask of you.

The bike is not actually in my hands yet, hopefully I will be able to pick it up over the next week or two but it was important to get the money out of our joint account before wifey spent it all on cushions again.

In 1983 I purchased a brand new Z1300A5, I was told "you may as well have the best one you can get as it will be the last new bike you ever have". She was right for 20 years – with the kids then grown up and the mortgage under control I wanted something newer and purchased a Suzuki GSX1400 as in 2003 it looked the best Old School bike around. There have been no regrets with the big Zook; it has now taken me through no less than 14 European countries in recent years. In 2009 I was starting to take the odd run out with a group of friends on their little Plastic Bullets and I fancied something a bit more agile so I bought a Z1000. The Zed is a great little bike but very uncomfortable on the backside after anything over 80 miles.

Most of the big mileage I do these days is touring and I have been eying up the GTR for some time. Decent fixed luggage and a fairing will be most welcome although the fact that it only has an exhaust pipe on one side has been off-putting – I know, it's a personal thing.......

I suppose that I should confess that I have never quite grasped the concept of Part Exchange and I still have all the above bikes in the garage. This is what will hold up the collection of my new steed, a grand chucking out session is currently underway in a desperate attempt to find some space for her.

Looking forward to the first ride and if there are any Midland riders who are happy to run at a sensible pace it would be good to hook up.

Stay safe.

Pete.