Finally got a decent ride in this year!
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:05 pm
Bank holiday Monday. I've actually had a little work in over the last few weeks, so I decided I was going to get one proper ride in this year before my tax runs out (which it does in an hour). Debz dusted the cobwebs off the Tuono as well and came with me as it was a nice day and actually had nothing critically urgent to do for the house or work or the thieving arseholes at the Inland Revenue for a change.
We set off an hour later that planned and followed some fun roads we know across the West Country over to Lynmouth, North Devon. There are some cracking B-roads over Exmore, very few cars on them and loads of up and down tight twisty bits and fast sweeping bends, just what big Aprilias are made for. And after some stiffling sections of never ending snail-pace traffic on the way down, it felt soooo good to finally stretch the bike's legs for more than a couple of miles at a time!
Lynmouth was clogged up with the usual double parked numpty car-bound fools, but there's always somewhere to park a bike, so we went right down to the main street and parked up with some other bikers by the harbour wall.
We spent maybe an hour and a bit bimbling around, eating icecream, watching the crows and seagulls competing to get to the dropped chips first, being astounded at the £60 a room price tags for a night's accommodation, then had a bag of scampi each and got ready to leave.
A pair of dumb-ass coach drivers had gone out of town the wrong way and had got stuck half way up a very twisty and very steep hill, mostly single track, with parked cars here and there, and tourist traffic trying to come down the other way. We managed to squeeze past eventually (just, it was tight even for a bike!) and got out onto the A39.
Never ones do take the easy way out, we rode down to South Devon and hit some more tight twisties and mental single track lanes to warm up for the main run home, then picked up the A30 and followed it back to Andover where I was forced to take a few liberties with the speed limits as I could only find my dark visor that morning and it was getting very dim out. I just got back to Newbury as it was too dark to see properly, but it's all 30 limits from the town boarder to the front door, so no probs with the visor up.
About 330 miles in all spread over nine hours, so a decent run out. I managed it on three tanks, even with some very exuberant right hand action in places, so not too bad on the pocket, and petrol down there was 2p a litre cheaper than it is here which also helped a bit.
I think that's probably the last of the Falco outings this year as the van is going to need some work doing to the brakes which will eat any spare company cash, Debz is treating us both to a few days in Milan for the bike show (trade tickets courtesy of Shiny Bike Syndrome
) so that will devour any personal cash and my weekends are actually starting to fill up with work to do which will take up all my time! So, It'll be an on-line SORN tomorrow, which won't be fun. But.... there's Milan in a few weeks and I've managed to acquire some 54mm velocity stacks (I owe the joint account £45), so there's still tinkering to be done, if not riding, and if I tinker well it'll be even more fun next year 
We set off an hour later that planned and followed some fun roads we know across the West Country over to Lynmouth, North Devon. There are some cracking B-roads over Exmore, very few cars on them and loads of up and down tight twisty bits and fast sweeping bends, just what big Aprilias are made for. And after some stiffling sections of never ending snail-pace traffic on the way down, it felt soooo good to finally stretch the bike's legs for more than a couple of miles at a time!
Lynmouth was clogged up with the usual double parked numpty car-bound fools, but there's always somewhere to park a bike, so we went right down to the main street and parked up with some other bikers by the harbour wall.
We spent maybe an hour and a bit bimbling around, eating icecream, watching the crows and seagulls competing to get to the dropped chips first, being astounded at the £60 a room price tags for a night's accommodation, then had a bag of scampi each and got ready to leave.
A pair of dumb-ass coach drivers had gone out of town the wrong way and had got stuck half way up a very twisty and very steep hill, mostly single track, with parked cars here and there, and tourist traffic trying to come down the other way. We managed to squeeze past eventually (just, it was tight even for a bike!) and got out onto the A39.
Never ones do take the easy way out, we rode down to South Devon and hit some more tight twisties and mental single track lanes to warm up for the main run home, then picked up the A30 and followed it back to Andover where I was forced to take a few liberties with the speed limits as I could only find my dark visor that morning and it was getting very dim out. I just got back to Newbury as it was too dark to see properly, but it's all 30 limits from the town boarder to the front door, so no probs with the visor up.
About 330 miles in all spread over nine hours, so a decent run out. I managed it on three tanks, even with some very exuberant right hand action in places, so not too bad on the pocket, and petrol down there was 2p a litre cheaper than it is here which also helped a bit.
I think that's probably the last of the Falco outings this year as the van is going to need some work doing to the brakes which will eat any spare company cash, Debz is treating us both to a few days in Milan for the bike show (trade tickets courtesy of Shiny Bike Syndrome
) so that will devour any personal cash and my weekends are actually starting to fill up with work to do which will take up all my time! So, It'll be an on-line SORN tomorrow, which won't be fun. But.... there's Milan in a few weeks and I've managed to acquire some 54mm velocity stacks (I owe the joint account £45), so there's still tinkering to be done, if not riding, and if I tinker well it'll be even more fun next year 
