Weekend at Sidney's

Roberto

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Well, here we are again after a lengthy absence. Must do better.

Now where are we? Ah yes. Well, not much has gone on in the world of all things two wheels. My GS has basically been stored and off the road since September 3rd 2018, following a return from from Dave and Val’s fine Princetown do, where I discovered two things:

1) I do not sufficiently fit in bunkhouse beds
2) JohnnyBoxer has a wallet. I know, because not only did I see it, someone took a picture.

A very early digress there.

I’d only got on to a bike once since then, hiring a F800GS in Gran Canaria in January which was delightful. Otherwise my fine and now ageing bike had been cleaned up and laid up, making a brief appearance to the sunlight during last summer to have an appointment with a hosepipe and covering a sum total of 0.0 miles for the year.

But I do put myself in probably quite an odd category. I live in ‘that London’, which doesn’t lend itself to nipping out for a quick ride, and so all of my riding is trips, which there haven’t been much of. My good intention to do a little more on the bike been kicked into the long grass what with also having a relatively new business to run.
As much as I like riding, and I when I do it is simply the best thing, I am happy and content to put the bike away in the garage, tuck it up and go and do something different, for a period of clearly some time.

This little jolly was a jolly late decision. Given all that is going on with the planet right now it isn’t exactly a time for trip planning - well it was only with a couple of posts and WhatsApp messages around a week or so in advance that saw a late escape plan being hatched…
 
Ah yes - there was a third thing to mention that I learned, born of Princetown, and also the last Dent event, where I attended - like the ruftiest and tuftiest of bikers - in an estate car:

3) You really need to watch yourself when you go out on the piss with Rich, AKA Nutty. Strange things might happen, and there always seems to be time for just one more tipple (it’d be rude not to).
 
ROFL

if you dont ride it properly for some time - you forget - you also miss it - 3 times id rode mine since easter

i did - apart from the arse ache of 1000 miles in two days to ireland last week and wanting an airhawk

details of your gran canaria would be nice - tried to do the winter thing in sunny a few years ago and ended up doing thailand then nz :D

looking as the long haul might not happen this winter then a sneaky to southern europe sunny could be an option

:)


im looking at going to near sunny morecambe tomorrow for a night away (maybe)
 
Ah yes - there was a third thing to mention that I learned, born of Princetown, and also the last Dent event, where I attended - like the ruftiest and tuftiest of bikers - in an estate car:

3) You really need to watch yourself when you go out on the piss with Rich, AKA Nutty. Strange things might happen, and there always seems to be time for just one more tipple (it’d be rude not to).

I don’t know what you mean! :D
 
ROFL

if you dont ride it properly for some time - you forget - you also miss it - 3 times id rode mine since easter

i did - apart from the arse ache of 1000 miles in two days to ireland last week and wanting an airhawk

details of your gran canaria would be nice - tried to do the winter thing in sunny a few years ago and ended up doing thailand then nz :D

looking as the long haul might not happen this winter then a sneaky to southern europe sunny could be an option

:)


im looking at going to near sunny morecambe tomorrow for a night away (maybe)

:thumb Good luck with Morcambe!
I will stick up something about Gran Canaria as it happens. An interesting place to ride!

There is a twist to this ride reportage....

Indeed there is. It was a twist of Rum old chap :D

I don’t know what you mean! :D

:D
 
Preparation, preparation, preparation..

So with not a great deal of notice the mission was to get the bike ready to go. Previously, I’d used Steve at Motoscot for all services spanner related, and with his departure to the valleys, a trip there was out of the question. Following consultation on here, I was recommended Mark Holden Motorcycles over the bridge down there in Kent, so I set off with my passport early on the Wetdnesday morning to have him sprinkle a little magic over the bike.

‘Big Red’ as christened by Chad. She’s an old girl now. 2009. Where did the time go? :rob

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MH Motorcycles. Hanging around in the alleyways, where the men dress as ladies.

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Mark is an interesting guy, and dare I say it a ted eccentric, but in the most pleasant of senses. The chap he worked with, Darren moaned at him and they generally squabbled with each other as though they’d been married for several years.

I was to wait for the bike to be serviced, so at 8.30 prompt the bike was wheeled onto the ramp, and I wheeled myself to the very nice Twins Café around the corner to establish a groove in the chair, sit in the window, unpack my laptop have full English breakfast and drink latte until it swilled around my eyeballs.

In the café, supposedly working.

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Mark came and sought me for a progress report and gave me notice the bike would be sorted at about 11.30,so with another latte we were out and settled up and heading back to the Dartford bridge. I then got an MOT back in Brentwood, safe on the Essex side of the bridge where I am once again familiar with the language and customs.
The very large chap was amusingly MOTing a monkey bike when I got there, and when he got to the GS he giggled that this is a bit more of my size.

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With a new ticket, I slapped six months tax on the beastie using my phone… and behold.. the bike was ready for the highway. Good times.

I needed to work on Thursday which I wasn’t strictly supposed to but the firm was short of labour and I found myself scaffolding (which I don’t mind doing as given there isn’t any gym at the moment and it is a bloody good work out).
I needed to be home in the afternoon in order to pack and get things sorted, which worked out fine.

I wasn’t quite sure how things at Sid’s were going to be, so I needed to drag my camping gear out of storage.
I seem to have got to an age where I need to write down where I put things. I have a handy spreadsheet, entitled ‘Where did I put that.xls’ which points me in the direction of all things lost. The important thing is of course that you keep it up to date, which of course I did not.

My camping stuff is usually up on a rack in a storage room at the back of my office at home. The great Covid lockdown had given me an opportunity to reorganise, so everything was there except for my tent, which meant I had to dismantle a whole plethora of stacked stuff only to find it at the bottom of the pile for some specific reason. The whole process took about an hour to do and I was in a crap mood, punting things around and feeling daft.

I carefully packed everything into the panniers on the bike and after packing my other stuff I was set. It was at that point I found out I didn’t actually need my camping gear as I would have a room to stay in down at Sid’s. Balls. But hey ho, it was onboard anyway, and as I wasn’t sure of exactly what I was going to be doing after Sid’s, I decided to just leave it be.

Oh, I’m never moving house, I’ll tell you that :p
 
Oops. Now I've sorted out photo hosting I suppose I'd better do this! :)
 
2 years and no photo's or update ..

Time to call out CSIGSER.

Mines a Red Leicester, on White please :)
Well I dunno!
Busy bee and all that.

It might run into a write up this year if we pop by!
 


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