The 2009 Superbike Adventure.

We left for Scarborough on 9th August, with lapping the Olivers Mount circuit as a prime goal. It rained most of the way there as usual. 
After finding the Rosedene hotel we set off to find Olivers Mount and as I had seen the sign on the way in, found it quite easily. We rode all the way around the circuit before noticing the signs and deciding what to do about the 30mph speed limit.
So the Limit Lap Challenge was born.
Simply do a timed lap around the course at as close to 30mph as you can. The time was 5 minutes and 6 seconds, then each of us would do a lap and try to get as close to the time as possible. Sounds easy enough, but when you consider Olivers Mount is a steep hill and the race track starts at the bottom then goes over the top and back down, through 3 hairpins and 2 long straights, each of which poses its own challenge at 30mph. Up hills require a carefull throttle hand, downhills the brake and the straights are begging for a load of power to be thrown at them. Jon went first and quickly got to 30mph and what seamed to be ages later arrived back at the line. Then Col went on his lap, gently pulling away upto 30mph and I am sure it went from day to night then back to day again before he completed his lap. Unfortunately for me the weather turned from a glorius grey cloud coverd day to a miserable soaking wet one and it was my turn. My tactic was get to 30mph quick and brake late. I rode half the course problem free but my visor started to steam up and I was being pressured by a Nissan Micra, I started my decent through the trees and couldnt see how fast i was going, the Micra was trying to get past, oh the shame! I wiped the visor and checked my speed, Noooo! 37mph I didnt know how long I had been over 30 and as I was now just starting to go around the last hairpin I though I better take it slow. 20mph is painful to ride at on an R1 down a nice straight road, after 10 seconds I thought thats got to be long enough now so got back up to speed, all 30mph of it and crossed the line.
The results were quite entertaining especially the excuses for why we ended up at that time.



Just before the start of the EDSBK TT

Eds Cup From Olivers Mount :- Control time 5:06.0
1st Jon      Suzuki GSXR        5:07.1 difference of 1.1 second
2nd Phill    Yamaha R1          5:01.4 difference of 4.6 seconds
3rd Col      Honda Fireblade    5:16.1 Difference of 10.1 seconds
My excuse, the rain causing the visor to steam up I thought was an excuse worth its weight in gold as it had cost me -4.6 seconds, Col came up with his analogue speedo cant be reading right as he took an extra 10 seconds, and Jon said he would have been perfect if his bike hadn't of misfired on one corner costing him 1.1 seconds. Later over a drink or 2 in the Albert drinking establishment we discussed other theories on how we could better the times for next time.
Unfortunately after the challenge we decided to go for a coffee in the cafe by the Monument, and we all suffered a problem relating to the immobilisers. My R1 had flashing brake lights and the indicators stuck on, Jons wouldnt start, and Cols was doing all kinds of things and wouldnt start, but once away from the radio masts by the monument Jons and mine were fine but Cols was still playng up and by messing with it, it blew alot of fuses and the RAC was called to sort it out, which they did!
The following day we left in the sunshine heading North up to Scotland, using mostly the A1 up past the Angel of the North and along the east coast. It rained again. We found the Livingston Travelodge, where we had based our stay.
There was a few things I wanted to do while in Scotland, eat some Haggis was one of them so we found a nice restaurant just down the road and sampled Haggis, bashed neeps and tatties.



Knockhill



Loch Taye


The next day we went to Ingliston hall, which is where the Touring Cars used to race back in the 80s and 90s, I decided I was going in, but Jon and Col sat outside the gate. I made it onto the hairpin which was now a caravan site, I was stopped by a man from one of the caravans who asked what I was looking for, I told him the track, and he told me all about his racing career as a support race car driver back in the 90s actually on Ingliston track, he told me to go and see the security guard around the other side of the estate as he used to be a Marshall for the races, so I did and it was a pleasure to talk to him and hear about what he did.
From there we rode over the Forth Bridge up to Knockhill and had a look around at the circuit, before heading off to Loch Taye.
When we left Knockhill we asked the sat nav to take us to a petrol station, it took us to 2 that were now closed down so eventually came across one by asking a postman, 60 miles later and in the village of Alderfery I suggested getting more fuel as it was getting quite remote out there and saw 2 motorbikers outside a police station in the town so asked if they knew where a petrol station was? Yes about a mile down there a girl on the one bike said, the sat nav said it was about 500 metres the otherway so Jon said follow me, its down here and we all followed him, we went over a famous little bridge and started leaving the village when Jon stopped and said its here. Nothing like a petrol station was anywhere to be seen. The girl said to me wheres he taking us, I said probably back to Edinburgh. We turned back to the town and I decided to look on the main road to find the petrol station and there it was. It rained very hard for about 40 minutes so we had something to eat and chatted to the other riders under the garage forecourt for a while.
We said goodbye to our new mates as they had already seen the Loch.
Loch Taye is about 12 miles long and a very nice place to see, unfortunately Jon was going very quickly past all of it and when we caught him up he told us his bike was running on 3 cylinders so he wanted to get back to the hotel to fix it. So we left all the nice scenery and rode some great biking roads with long sweeping bends up and down mountains before joining the motorway back to Livingston. It reminded me of the roads through and around the Blackforest area of Germany.

The following day was a bike free day to be spent in Edinburgh, to see the British Touring Cars do a demonstration, go around the castle and see the city. We had a great day in the city and the Sun was out and I even appeared on TV talking to James Thompson one of the racing car drivers.
We were all pleased to give the bikes a miss for 24 hours, before the 330 mile journey back to the midlands. It rained!
Summary
Date:- 10th - 14th Aug 2009
Weather:- 3 dull days, 2 sunny.
Hotels:- Rosedene Hotel Scarborough / Travelodge Livingston
Miles:- 1000.
Fuel cost per litre:- 102p
Aim:- Lap the Olivers Mount Course and Visit Edinburgh.
Phill.

The 2008 Road Trip

The best bits



Ready to go on the track

We left just after dinner on a rainy Saturday afternoon heading for the travel lodge in Ashford as we had a 7.30am crossing on the Eurostar. The Hotel was one we had used before and has rooms that sleep up to 4 people. The following morning we were up at 5.30 and on the way by 6.30 to get to the train. The weather had changed to a sunny day. We arrived in Calais and filled up with petrol as its cheaper than in England and went on away to Belgium stopping every 100 miles for fuel. This time Jon had his sat nav with him so he was leading, I reminded the others how last time we went I took a wrong turn after these services and it had cost us about 30 minutes in Brussels, we pulled off the services and Jon and the Sat nav took the same road as I had 2 years earlier, I thought this is the way I went, its wrong, Luckily the sat nav found a route back to the E40 that only cost us a few minutes. We seemed to have been riding for hours when I noticed a sign that said Malmedy and Spa to my thinking it was only about 50 miles to Adenau so thought oh dear Malmedy is not as close to France as we had hoped. We stopped at the services just by the German border to have 15 minutes for something to eat and then to refuel, Col pointed out a woman who worked on the garage forecourt she was smoking a cigarette right by the petrol pumps, we got out of there as quick as we could. Eventually we got off the Autobahn and rode through the Black forest and a few villages until we arrived at Eddies at around 3pm.
The weather as usual rained for an hour or two on all the days we were away but never stopped us doing what we wanted too. I learned a new word in German" Brotchen" which is bread roll, something the local cafe woman said with a big smile each time I ordered my meal from her "mit brotchen?" My phrase book didnt have the word for glue in it, try explaining, I want something to stick rubber to leather, to someone when they dont know what your talking about, I was offered tooth paste, electicians tape and corn flakes before someone else said try the DIY shop in the village. Luckily UHU glue in German is still called UHU so my boots that had come apart were re glued every night.


Marks Burg



Infront of the fire in the great hall

Laacher sea
   Marksburg castle is by the city of Koblenz, we visited the castle and had a guided tour. I didnt pick up my ticket from the lady behind the counter and nearly missed it, luckily a German man told the guide he saw me pay and I was let in.
    Its great at nurburgring talking to europeans in the hotel especially the night Col was asleep and two 19 year old lads from Austria who like Top Gear had a chat, they can easliy be convinced that as we are from the UK we know the Stig... Some say he get tired when he rides a motorbike and some say he comes riding with us....
We went to see Laacher sea which is a lake in the crater of a volcanoe, apparently the only one of this type in Europe, It was nice ride to get there and the scenery was beautiful. We stopped at the cafe and stared at the water. Gas bubbles can still be seen escaping from under the lake, which means it could erupt again one day!
We returned to the Nordschliefe to get some lap time, I did 3 laps and Jon and Col both did 6, laps ( They took loads of money). As the track was quite busy, and the weather made the track damp in places, care was needed on the corners and under the trees on most of the laps.




The track was very damp

On day 5 we went to Malmedy, Jon had the Sat nav already to get us there. It took us along some amazing roads and through some great scenery and nice villages that looked like they hadnt changed in years. Germany is very clean. We crossed the boarder into Belgium and through a village called Udenbreth which looked like Uderbreath on the name post, which made me laugh. We arrived at Malmedy which is a nice town in Belgium right by the motor racing circuit of Spa, and they speak French there, we raised a bit of interest from some old locals as the 3 bikes came to town with UK plates, while Jon and Col were away looking for the hotel and I was left on bike watch, an old man decided to try a conversation. It was a bit like 'Give us a Clue' with both of us gesturing and pointing at things as his English was worse than my French, but between us we talked for 4 or 5 minutes. I remember it started with him saying "le grande velo" which from my school boy French I understood as big bike, he went on to ask by pointing and saying things like vitese (speed) persumably how fast it went and then pointed to the after market clock stuck on the handle bar, I told him in a mixture of English and my best French "it can do over trois hundred kph, and thats a clock, it says douze heure et vingt-trois" 12:23 as it was the time, he raised his eyebrows waved both hands and he walked off then walked back and mutterd something about velos and douze heure and went on his way. We stayed at a very nice appartment attached to a cafe and a blacksmiths shop where we stored the bikes. After dinner we went for a look at the Spa-Francorchamp circuit which to our suprise had a practice session for the motorbike race that was being held the following weekend and then for a ride along the old roads that were the longer 1960s /70s circuit, which was very straight. That evening we had a walk around town looking at the cathederal and local bars and pizza shop. The pizza shop man had the air of sophistication and the smell of onions, but the pizza was good.



Me at Spa



We got up to start the long journey home, about 425 miles worth, to a flat tyre on the Suzuki, our hearts sank as Jon made the call and was told they couldnt help until 9.30am. I suggested we find a garage and get an aerosol puncture repair kit which we did and it fixed the tyre and got us home without a problem. It was a nice sunny day all through Belgium and France, as soon as we got off the train back in England it rained and rained for the next few hours. Col signalled he needed to stop so at Warwick we pulled into the services as his bike was crippling him.
I enjoyed this trip as we didnt go just to the same places as the first time we went to Germany. I would like to visit the Nurburgring again, but tag it onto another place like we did this time.


Practice day for 8hrs du Spa
Summary
Date:- 9th Aug 2008
Weather:- Mostly sunny spells and some rain
Hotel:- Ashford Travelodge/Hotel an der Nordschleife/The Blacksmiths Malmedy.
Miles:- 1350 approx.
Fuel cost per litre:- 97p
Aim:- Lap the Nordsleife, Lap Spa 1960s GP Circuit, Marksburg Castle.

The 2007 Road Trip

We set off early on the Friday morning, the bikes were loaded with the most stuff we have ever taken, as we needed to take our tents and sleeping bags on top of the usual stuff we take. My clutch seemed to be playing up as we pulled away, We made it to the ferry at Haversham and there was hundreds of bikes all loaded up like ours.
The crossing was good, and we arrived as the track was closed for testing by the racers which ment we had to wait an hour before we could get to the Rugby club to set up the tents. We all had 2 man tents which cost about a tenner each, these will be good enough and if there rubbish we can throw them away when weve finished with them Col said.
We pitched our tents which took a while as we tried to work out what went where and then put our stuff inside. We had had enough of the bikes for the day so went to explore our surroundings. The Rugby club had got a porta loo with 4 cubicals and the Club house toilets had got 4 cubicals, there was about 400 blokes staying on the site, so you can imagine, there was always a cue for the toilet and when you eventually got in the smell was horrible. Luckily Mac Donalds was opposite and closer to where we had pitched our tents. Oh and the showers were communal! The club house had layed on a big screen TV which showed TT highlites and Rock videos so we liked it in there. Suprisingly we saw a real life pair of breasts in there as this woman decided to do a flash!
Day 2 we decided to do a lap of the course so we could find best place to watch the race from, unfortunately we all got split up and ended up watching from different parts, well we would have if the weather wasnt raining so after an hour they called it off. We went to Castletown Castle and had a look around and a beer in the castle pub next door and later walked into Douglas to watch the seafront entertainment and have a few more beers. It rained most of the night and our tents leaked. So in the morning made a few adjustments.
Day 3. Mad Sunday.. It rained we did a full lap but the mountain section was covered in clouds so visability was about 20 feet in places. Still it was quite mad though!
There was lots of things going on around the pit area so we went and looked around there. It chucked it down all day and the tents leaked, we were soaked from the rain all day our stuff was soaked, with nowhere to dry anything we stayed in the club house ate a pizza and waited for the rain to stop. It didnt and it all was becoming a let down. It drizzled all night and when we got up in the morning the Sun was out. We had socks drying and the atmosphere on the site was better.
My clutch had got worse as the days past and was now in a bad way, I had bought some clutch fluid so decided to top it up, I found the problem was caused by the mechanic I had used a few weeks earlier. Id asked him to change the fluid while he was putting a new chain and sprocket on the Thunderace. He had put the rubber seal back on but not lined it up properly and the clutch fluid had slowly seeped into the bit where the air was supposed to be. I re fitted it and it worked a treat.
We decided to watch the race from Creg ne Ba, the sun beat down and the races took place, John Macguiness won and broke the 130 mph lap record.
Another night in Douglas had to be cut short as we had to be up at 5am the following morning to catch the ferry back home.

Summary
Date:- May / June 2007
Weather:- 3 dull day, 2 sunny.
Hotel:- Our own tents pitched on Douglas Rugby Club
Miles:- 500 approx.
Fuel cost per litre:- 96p
Aim:- Lap the TT curcuit, watch the TT races.

2006 Road Trip - Nurburgring

On 5th August 2006 we set off at 5.30am to go to a village in Germany called Adenau, where our Hotel was. We decided to use the Euro star as it would be a new experience for us all. We made our booking time with 10 minutes to spare, and the bikes were checked for explosives, before entering the shuttle.
The ride over there was quick lasting about 25 minutes. The shuttle came to a halt and we peered out the little windows for our first view of France and Calais, hmmm!, It looked like a right rat hole! A few beeping sounds later and we were told the shuttle had a problem and the ramp for the top deck was stuck shut, so we waited for about 10 minutes until it was fixed before being allowed off.
We went to the petrol station, and decided to test our French language skills to speak to the locals. Basic stuff like Bonjour, the petrol pump number and Merci. We could have asked our way to the butchers, told some one to open the window or asked the time, but not really understood their reply. Petrol was about 80p a litre.
Back at the bikes we checked the minature map we had the whole of the european side of the journey condenced into 5 lines of text and a 6 inch long squiggly line showing the towns we were going to pass.There was still a long way to go, about 300 miles.That when our first piece of bad luck arrived. Cols headlights had stopped working and it wasnt a fuse blown, it was more serious,it was the switch on the handlebar. Its the law in europe that motorbikes have dip beam on during the day, Col was now understandably not in the best of moods, as we decided we would fix it when we got to the hotel. I could tell Col was not happy about travelling upto 300 miles breaking the law, and had an idea, so next time we needed petrol I said lets rewire the headlight so it has no main beam, but dip works. The 'bodge' worked and lasted all 5 days :) It got his bike the nick name Cyclopse as we only did the one light. We got talking to a German lad with a honda 750 who said ''the Nurburgring is very dangerous, be very careful''



Next we stopped just before reaching Brussels, we had talked about visiting Brussels for one of the days but decided against it. Our second bit of bad luck came at this point, after pulling out from the petrol station where you join the motorway is past the sign that tells you which way the Brussels ring road (R0/E40) goes, so I guessed. It was a 50 50 chance of being right and it was wrong, now we are on the inner ring road of the capital of Europe, it has tunnel after tunnel some of them seemed to go on for miles, all these tunnels had names, none had any mention of the direction of the E40 which is where we should have been! I guessed again, and we ended up in the wrong part of town, it was worse than that last rat hole, Calais. There was people sleeping in doorways, or on the grass verges. Then a piece of luck, Col spotted a sign with the word Ring on it so we follewed it back till it met with the E40.
Mile after mile went by and I was thinking we were doing well with the weather, as we had only seen about 30 minutes of drizzel when we had first set off, this changed just as we approached the Netherlands. It hammered it down, we couldnt stop anywhere to put on the water proofs, we were on a motorway and there was no services to be seen, luckily it stopped about 15 minutes later and we dried out in the 100mph wind we were creating.
We stopped for fuel at the first services in Germany, we needed it. We got chatting to a German who told us the speed limit on the Autobahn was whatever you wanted it to be! and he said Nurburgring was very dangerous.
I decided the speed should be about 120mph, you would think that would be blisteringly faster than everything else, but its not. Cars do 120, 130, 140 and more, cars pulling trailers do 100 and more, even a fiat uno was seen doing nearly 100mph. We came to some roadworks, there was a shop dummy in an orange boiler suit waving a yellow flag and a sign saying 120kmh, even that is over 70mph.
I spotted the sign we all had been waiting to see, Nurburgring. So I turned onto the new road, 40 miles later I hadnt seen another sign that even mentioned Nurburg. It was dusk and we needed to stop and change the tinted visors so we could see better. It had been 13 hours. We wanted a comfy chair and a beer.I checked the not very good printout of the map I had and felt lost. We continued along the autobahn for a further 10 minutes and then It was there, the sign for Nurburgring. We took the turning. The speedlimit on the single track roads was a mystery to me, the signs didnt have any consistency to them, for example one would say 50 another would say 70 and another 110 all with a few yards of each other, so I just rode at a speed that felt right. Flash! went the speed camera. Ooops it must have been 50kmh. I pulled in for petrol just as the fuel light came on! Oh no its the oil light, wheres all that oil gone? I thought.The Thunderace didnt use alot of oil normally, I hoped the engine was ok, but was to tired to look. The garage attendant said the hotel was only 5 minutes away, I pulled out and heard beeping from Jon and Col. I checked the mirrors, oh yeah! we drive on the right over here.

Some 13 hours later we arrived at Adenau. Eddy the hotel owner seemed a freindly chap,his english was not that clear but I understood what he was trying to say.
I understood why his email replies only ever said the words ''the rooms are booked''.
He did us well though as we ended up with a room with a balcony over looking the Nurburgring Nordschleife track.
It had reached the time to try one of the more useful phrases I had researched, I placed my order ''drei beer bitte'', he understood perfectly and 3 much deserved beers, went down nicely.


The following day we decided to go to the track, the hotel overlooks the track so we figured it cant be hard to find the start/finish of the lap, however we ended up at the entrance to the new Nurburgring track and there was a race on. The marshal on the gate would not let us in, and kept pointing to another road, and speaking German. We decided to look at this other road and found what we were looking for. The Car park was full. We had never seen so many expensive cars in one place. Eventually we figured out we needed to buy a ticket to do a lap which was not quite what I was expecting. I put my ticket in the machine and twisted the throttle, thrashing the bike down the long start straight passing a boy racer in a ford focus and BMW suddenly it got twisty and I wasnt sure where the next bend was going and the two cars passed me, followed by 2 more. I caught back to the BMW so thought he obviously knows where his going , i ll follow him, which I did for a while but he couldnt go as fast as me so I kept passing him only to be passed back in the next few bends. He couldnt keep up on the last straight as I left him in the distance at 140mph. There was fully kitted out racing cars, vans cars and motorbikes all over the place. I got passed by the ring taxi it was driven by Sabine Schmit the woman who drove the transit van around the track on Top Gear, she is fast.



We have all lapped the Circuit












The Castle called Burg Eltz is probably the best example of a castles in Germany. It was rated as the 4th best castle in the world at the time. It looks like the kind of place Count Dracula would live. They have a sausage filled menu in the restaurant, which I enjoyed a Curry verst. The weather was very hot, and as normal we are wearing leathers, so for 3 euros the OAP bus driver can be bribed to run you back up the steep hill back to the carpark.











Summary
Date:- 5th August 2006
Weather:- 1 dull day, 4 sunny.
Hotel:- Hotel an der Nordschliefe
Miles:- 1250 approx.
Fuel cost per litre:- 80p
Aim:- Lap the Norschleife and visit Burg Eltz.
                                                                                                                      

2005 Lake Vynwy and Bala

Lake Vynwy and Lake Bala
I was a delivery driver and had often seen the road sign to lake Vynwy but never actually seen the Lake so thought we could have a look. We headed off and about an hour later the roads as always start to get better just to the West of Shrewsbury. We followed the road to Welshpool and then out towards Dollgelau until we picked up the signs eventually arriving at the lake for dinner. Once refueled we did a lap of the lake and headed home.


Lake Bala
After returning home from lake Vynwy I looked for another lake to visit and Bala was next closest. Afew weeks later we headed to Shrewsbury then Oswestry and turned off to Knockin. After crossing the A49 the roads start getting good but then you arrive at Llangynog, a good place for a rest before going on one our all time favourite routes, up over the mountain on the B4391, with some great views and a few hairpins and twisties thrown in for good measure. Well worth the journey and a great accidental find.


Harlech
We set off early on a wednesday morning, heading into a new area.
It had been an expensive year for us with one thing or another, myself and Jon were paying for new bikes, and I had been to Daytona to watch the NASCAR race earlier in the year so the wife didnt want me to go away again the same year. We had plans to go to Germany in 2006, and had bought some Oxford hump back luggage carriers so thought we could test them out on the bikes. 
We headed off and visited a cafe just our side of Oswestry called Grandads, an excellent choice for an all day breakfast. 
Next we went through Llangollen and down to Bala turning towards Harlech and past one of the lakes. This road goes down through the valley and snakes a little as it follows the stream eventually bringing you out not far from Portmadog. We turned onto a long downhill and past a power station, and left towards Harlech. The road had just been resurfaced with those horrible stone chippings which left stones stuck to places all over the bikes.
After about 15 miles you can see Harlech castle standing above the town of the same name. We parked up and had a walk round. The castle is in some lovelly scenery with views of the sea and behind it are the Welsh mountains. Unfortunately the castle has seen alot of fighting so is a ruin, its not much more than some old walls with a some towers you can climb. We still enjoyed our visit and its well worth the £3 pounds entry fee. Jon had had a brain wave, he went and bought a pair of shorts and some flip flops before going into Harlech castle and changed into them behind a wall,(see picture below) to test them out.





We headed to Barmouth which lies about 20 minutes away, and spent an hour on the sea front sun bathing in our leathers, except Jon who had kept his shorts on under his leathers.
We stayed until about 4 o'clock before filling up and heading back. We decided to come back over Dinas which is the steepest main road in Wales, and following the road to Welshpool and then headed home.


Summary


Date:- April 2005, May 2005 and Sept 2005
Weather:-both hot and sunny.
Hotel:- N/R
Miles:- 200, 220.
Fuel cost per litre:- 81p
Aim:- Visit Lake Vynwy ,Harlech Castle and Barmouth.