So, where did you ride your F800 today? :)

[Rev Ken]

NC 500 around north coast of Scotland including Applecross. Last time I did that was 54 years ago on a Triumph Tiger Cub prototype for the Army. It failed!

[Runmyownlife]

Calgary to Canmore on Hwy 1A (that's the old Trans Canada highway, constructed when curves were preferred rather than paving straight roads. )

Canmore is a mountain town just a few minutes east of Banff.

[Andy Nick]

Rev Ken - We had the pleasure of doing the Applecross Peninsula last year, only on 4 wheels, not 2, unfortunately. Would love to do it on a bike sometime (and more of the Scottish Highlands), so here's an idea ...... anyone into a bike/house-swap with your Aussie cousins? One condition, though ..... it'd have to be in a Northern Hemisphere summer!

[steve n rose]

Therefore whoever took up the offer wouldn't notice much difference in the weather with it being a northern NSW winter.

[Rev Ken]

Rev Ken - We had the pleasure of doing the Applecross Peninsula last year, only on 4 wheels, not 2, unfortunately. Would love to do it on a bike sometime (and more of the Scottish Highlands), so here's an idea ...... anyone into a bike/house-swap with your Aussie cousins? One condition, though ..... it'd have to be in a Northern Hemisphere summer!

Sadly my boss can't travel long distances and no longer rides pillion, but it sounds a good idea for someone!

[Norfolk UK]

Hadn't been out lately due to recent in-laws extended visit (we get on ok - no, really, we do !). So, phoned around some M/C buddy's and organised a ride out yesterday. Phew, was it warm (well it was for us) ! Bike was parked in the shade before I left, even so the temp still read 25.5C.

4 of us met up at Fakenham where the temp. hadn't dropped any at all. We thought best to head for the coast but by the time we had ridden to Burnham Market it was 30.5C. Sticking to our biking back-roads plan we turned south and were able to keep a good speed on almost car free roads. The roads are a bit straighter in the west of the county and a bit flatter too but we were enjoying ourselves.

I had felt the heat off the bike through the left leg of my kevlar jeans but still didn't think it uncomfortable. Moving my left knee off the tank 1/2" meant the heat disappeared instantly, so it never became an issue even in these unusually (for the Uk) high temperatures.

By the time we got to Feltwell we decided to stop and get an ice cream as the temperature had still not lessened. Slightly cooler, we carried on to Newmarket where we stopped for fuel and a coffee - this time it was 'Slushes' all round. As we had driven past Lakenheath airbase the temp. had actually hit 32C.

Unfortunately, we now had to split up as two of the others had to get back due to prior commitments. Also, I promised to collect a truck from Palgrave and drive it back up to Coltishall. The truck had no-aircon and and even with all the windows down I really did wish I was riding my bike and not towing it on the trailer behind. After delivering the truck, I enjoyed the 1/2hr ride across more back-roads to home where before even thinking of the bike and my gear, I was straight in for a shower.

No pictures again as I always forget the camera but my route (except the last bit home) can be seen on the map below: -


190617.pdf

[Daboo]

I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall for five years. We lived for a time in Bury St. Edmonds, then moved on base at RAF Lakenheath. Eventually, we bought a home in Lakenheath village. That's a beautiful area. I have lots of fond memories from there.

Chris

[TheMeteor]

Last week I did a 5 State Summer Solstice Ride in which we hit NJ, PA, NY, MA and CT. Including the commute to the start/end point covered 424 miles for the day of nearly all farm roads and smaller local roads with twists and elevation. All great fun. I picked up a Sargent seat from a fellow F Troop member earlier in the week which served me well for the ride. With OEM seat I would always slide forward and crush the ambassador of love - and I would get hip pain too. The ambassador reported a comfortable ride and the hip was fine.

Here is a pic at the edge or NY and MA.

[Futterman]

Cool, Gerry! Glad you got a chance to take a decent ride.

"ambassador of love" ha ha! I will have to co-opt that one from you, lol!

[TheMeteor]

Lol... feel free to use that one, Hank. No trademarks here!

[Hiswitsend]

First big run with the replacement engine, a wee hop up to the Outer Hebrides: Bike has redeemed itself after inauspicious start. It ran like a dream even two-up with luggage [emoji2]

Had already dropped the forks by another 10mm, that has sharpened up the steering nicely, but just needed to up the preload and rebound damping a bit and away we went. It took everything in its stride and proved itself the bike I thought/hoped it could be.

[IanA]

So glad to hear your faith restored. Dave!

[Daboo]

I took off Friday morning to Beckler River to go fly fishing with a friend. Stayed the night. The campground was full, so we parked our bikes on the side of the road and walked a short ways to the river and a camp site there.



This wierd guy was about 3 inches long! No Hank (Futterman), that is not food porn... (Unless you're a trout! If anyone recognizes it, I'd love to know what it is.)






Smoke from the fires in British Columbia made these two pictures look pretty blah.





Chris

[Daboo]

I did some errand riding today. Walmart, REI, Costco, Lowe's and Home Depot. This was a nice perk at Home Depot.




I came into the military back when the Vietnam war was wrapping up. The attitude was so different back then. This was a nice thought on their part.

Chris

[Runmyownlife]

Highway 3 in British Columbia. Called the Crows Nest pass. This is looking down on the town of Osoyoos. The road is a beautifully scenic, winding, relatively quiet, single lane highway running East and West, with a good dose of passing lanes.

The F800ST ran like a champion, travelling at an average of 100 km/h for 11 hours in 32c to 37c temperatures.

[SteveT]

After a prolonged and still ongoing battle with medical issues, eldest son got "back on the horse" yesterday for the 1st time in over 4 months . . . . .



Of course we did some dirt

Great to have you riding along side me again Neil

SteveT

[Will]

Thanks for sharing Donnie, it cheered me up on a morning when I'm missing riding my bikes.

Hi all,
Quite a long time has passed since my post above this one.
After a long lay-off since December 2016 due to double pneumonia and other problems, I felt the time had come to attempt a couple of days away with the R65LS. (The F800S/ST has been sold as now too tall and heavy for this 83 year old rider.)

I headed off to Scotland on a Club event and eventually my perseverance paid off with a cracking couple of days with my mates and fellow club members in the late autumn sun, covering around 500 miles on quiet roads.

[Richard230]

Bill, that LS looks just like the one my daughter rides, except hers doesn't have the luggage rack, has black mufflers instead of chrome, chrome crash bars, instead of black and has the old-style BMW saddle bags (the ones that need a strap to keep them closed when riding on a rough road). Her's also has silver wheels and a kick starter. He bike currently has about 150,000 km on the clock. It is showing a little more wear than yours does, but it just keeps on ticking.

[Will]

Bill, that LS looks just like the one my daughter rides, except hers doesn't have the luggage rack...........

Hi Richard,
The rack is a one off I designed and made using some bits of steel I had in the shed. I could have fitted a rack to bolt on to the seat cowl but that would have spoiled the original looks of the bike.
The rack hinges up and to the rear to allow the seat to be opened for access. I could also have made a fixed carrier to sit further back away from the seat but again there would have been a large overhang over the rear of of the bike.
This is the second R65LS I've owned. I sold the first one after my quadruple heart bypass operation in 2000 and then regretted selling.
Then after searching the UK and Germany for 3 years I found this one by sheer coincidence only 70 miles from home.
As soon as I fit the period Craven top box I bought, I'll post another photo.
Thanks for watching.

[WildWilly]

Beautiful pic. Thanks for sharing. BMW needs to build another mid-size boxer.

[Runmyownlife]

Where does the rider sit?

That's a really beautiful example. (And nice location for the picture.) Thanks for sharing and letting us know that not everything bigger is always better.

[TelemarkTumalo]

Gorgeous fall day and perfect for a run NW through Tumalo, Sisters and Suttle Lake. Nice colors, great light and a Thermos of french roast in the tail pack.


Mt. Washington viewed from Sisters





L-->R Broken Top, and the South, Middle and North Sister. Shot just north of Bend on Hwy. 20

[Daboo]

Monday, the temps were fine and the rain hadn't started. So I headed out towards the Old High Bridge Road. The leaves are turning and made for a wonderful ride.

A great part about the Old High Bridge Road is there are no shoulders for LEOs to sit in wait for you. The traffic flows pretty freely. A bad part about the Old High Bridge Road is that there are no shoulders to park at and take pictures with the bike in it. So all the pictures are taken with the Sena 10C Bluetooth headset as I was riding.















This last one is pretty dark, but the sky is what I wanted to capture. Gorgeous.



And now we have typical Pacific Northwet weather coming through. There's three weather systems sitting off the coast to give us rain, rain and more rain. Oh...and high winds.

Chris

[Richard230]

It is nice to see green vegetation. I went for a hike in one of our local redwood forest parks on Monday and all of the vegetation leaves were covered with dust and grayish. Things are really dry around here. The following night a portion of the forest caught on fire, east of Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains and it is still burning this morning. Four homes have been destroyed and 150 are threatened and have been evacuated around the area of Bear Creek Road. Hopefully, the cool moist air that arrived this morning will help the fire fighters to get the fire under control. It was only 5% contained as of this morning.

[Daboo]

It's green here, but I wonder how bad it'll be throughout the west this winter when the rains come. British Columbia was hit hard by forest fires. The smoke was really bad for weeks here...and then the wind shifted and we got the smoke from the fires to the east of us in the Cascade mountains. All those fire damaged areas will be potential landslides this winter. Hopefully California will get enough rain to help with the fires, but not so much to trigger the landslides.

Chris

[SteveT]

Took a much needed run out into the hills just south of home, via Grantown on Spey and Tomintoul . . . . .





100 and a few more miles on quiet roads that weren't too slippy = happy, well refreshed bunny

SteveT

[UKRider]

So this little thread is almost at 68k views...

Slight adventure last week— 375 mile roundtrip to Exeter and back to see daughter at Uni. 0 degrees C when I started, ice on the driveway. Very cold for first 2 hours— used four handwarmers, Rukka underlayer, heated grips on high and Keis heated waistcoat. Still chilly. Might be pushing amp limit of bike with heated vest, TomTom, and grips on high, but no issues yet. Warmer in Exeter, but then it rained. Still, a good ride, and now over 8k miles for the year.

Chilled for a few days after the ride— not that the gear was bad, but it was just a lot of hours in the cold. Rain, sleet and snow outside today, so I am inside planning a week in Scotland for June, and week in France for July.

[Runmyownlife]

You are an inspiration! Sounds like a ride for a hardy person.

[SteveT]

Took a run over one of the higher roads today on my last ride of the year . . . . . .



Happy New Year F800 riders

SteveT

[UKRider]

Got in a last ride of 68 miles yesterday to a BMW dealership I haven’t visited before in Guildford. Terrible traffic going down, but an excellent ride on the way back— 14 degrees C both ways, which seemed silly warm. They have a used 2013 1200gs with low miles I am curious about and may return to test ride— I am tempted but would not trade in the F700. Happy new year!

UKRider

[Roadpizza]

I had to go out in the garage and check to see if it was still there....

[Daboo]

I did my usual and rode the GT to church this morning. Parked next to a friend who is in the Worship Team. Plays bass. He had a R1150GS and traded it on a previously loved R1200GS. He's a happy camper.

Temp was a nice comfortable 37F on the way in. Got up to 39F on the way home. On the way home, I realized this was my last ride for 2017.

Chris

[Daboo]

I went to prison last night. I turned myself in voluntarily. Unfortunately for you, they wouldn't let me stay overnight.

I hadn't realized till I left how foggy it was. In fact, many of the roads were damp as if it had rained. Combined with the sand still on some of the roads, I wondered at times if I wasn't a fool for not taking the Subaru.

The way I take is on a back road. Thick forest for much of the way. As I made this one turn heading towards the highway, you could see through the trees a bit. The fog was thick and just at the tree top level. For some reason, I thought of the book The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was an interesting feeling.



Chris

[Dave May]

Just a short trip out today down to the Devon coast. I can't remember the last time I crossed a river via a ford.

[nad7961]

Nowhere special today just the usual commuting along the lovely rural roads of Cambridgeshire. All well apart from the return journey after sunset where an inconsiderate cager run over my left foot twice while I'm stopped waiting to turn into a side road on the right hand side. (The guy must have been well on the road verge on my left hand due to my road positioning.)

To add insult to injury, assuming that I was a learner due to my habit of wearing orange HiViz, he became a little aggressive and accused me of causing the incident and damaging his pride and joy.

Have now got an ice bag on foot and contemplating first injury while riding since the 70’s and why some outwardly respectable people do some pretty antisocial things.

Happy daze.



Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[Rev Ken]

Nowhere special today just the usual commuting along the lovely rural roads of Cambridgeshire. All well apart from the return journey after sunset where an inconsiderate cager run over my left foot twice while I'm stopped waiting to turn into a side road on the right hand side. (The guy must have been well on the road verge on my left hand due to my road positioning.)

To add insult to injury, assuming that I was a learner due to my habit of wearing orange HiViz, he became a little aggressive and accused me of causing the incident and damaging his pride and joy.

Have now got an ice bag on foot and contemplating first injury while riding since the 70’s and why some outwardly respectable people do some pretty antisocial things.

Happy daze.



Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Hope your foot is Ok! I presume you have a note of his registration in case you need to make a claim.

[Norfolk UK]

Ouch !

Hope your foot is ok and you can put away the ice pack soon. Respectable people can become monsters when they get behind the wheel of their car. The rule seems to be - The more expensive/bigger the car, the worse the attitude of the driver !

Ian

[IanA]

Bloody hell, Nige! He must have come awful close to taking you out altogether! SMIDSY (sorry mate i didn't see ya) strikes again, although it sounds more like careless deliberate cutting close to me. Stuff of nightmares.

[Runmyownlife]

Nigel,

You are stopped, the driver runs over your foot with front and rear wheels and passes the responsibility to you?!

I had to read your post three times! That's a shocking situation and behavior.

Recover well.

[Daboo]

The normal temperature for today is 47F. Yesterday and today though, the temperature hit mid-60s. In fact, today's was a record! It isn't permanent though. The rain comes in tomorrow with a couple more systems right behind it.

But today, the sun shined. I got out of the house later than I expected. That's what happens when you're retired. A clock doesn't mean much anymore.

I thought about heading north to a further destination, but the roads around here are beautiful in their own way and actually more twisty than my other choice. So I filled up at Costco in Everett then headed north to pick up the beginning of the Lowell Larimer Road. From there, I followed it south over to Broadway, Elliott and the High Bridge Road. As you can see in the Google Maps screen capture below, the road just follows the hillside along a scenic farming valley off to the east.



The rest of the ride was one twist, followed by a turn. One after the other with some short straights mixed in to give you a chance to sit back and just admire the sun, the blue sky and the mountains in the background.






At one point, I felt like I needed to trade in my GT for a GS! There was water running across the road! I went over the first time sitting on the seat and I told myself that wasn't the proper way to do it. I needed to stand up in true GS fashion if I was going to do this right. But I forgot...



A quick stop on a bridge near Duvall.





Chris

[Daboo]

Raining today, and it was raining really hard yesterday when I was out for a few hours.

These pics were taken earlier in the week. I took the scenic route to and from the Prisoners for Christ (PFC) headquarters in Woodinville.










It's hard to believe it was only a few months ago when I was wearing my mesh gear...

Chris

[TheMeteor]

After holiday prep and travels, a serious Northeast cold spell, and really bad cold that lasted weeks (worst cold I had in at least 15-20 years) - a 54 degree, sunny January Saturday presented itself yesterday. Took the opportunity to get out with my son and the guys and hit a Pennsylvania covered bridge route. There was an expected amount of gravel but little salt. Turned back at one creekside road covered in a layer of runoff ice. We rode according to conditions and it was an enjoyable day of riding. Any time you can get a January ride in in the NJ area, that is a bonus.

One note, with 40 degree temps at the time, I unleashed the full raging 85 ponies of the F8 whilst accelerating into a long uphill sweeper. Got her a bit squirrely as the rear slid out to the view of the riders following me and felt like Rossi for a brief moment as I smoothly rode it out. In my fantasy, I left a thick black patch of rubber throughout the sweeper (not) and am sure the story will reflect that over time.

[SteveT]

Popped out on the bike today as due to various medical excuses I've not put many miles on the petrol donkey in the last month or so.

Destination set, in my own mind, as the Lecht ski runs for a photo opportunity. Taking the small road to Grantown on Spey, I had to stop in the town to re-heat my hands via a nice cuppa tea and a nibble .

Onwards towards Tomintoul and the Lecht . . . . .







Ski slopes were very busy, but still plenty of space in the car parks, as can be seen from the photo's.

Headed back towards Tomintoul and turned onto the Dufftown road only to find the road blocked by a "wanna-be" rally driving teenager . . . .



Driver was OK, but as can be seen from the photo, those dents most definatly will NOT buff out. All 3 front air bags had gone off as well

He claimed the sun was in his eyes! Fair enough, the angles were all correct for that to be the case, but all the signage for that location tells you whats coming, so not really a good excuse. Plus the lad was wearing rally driving style boots - you know, the really thin ones that let you get a good feel of the pedals as you heel & toe the pedals. Like I said before, wanna-be rally driver

I took a note of his reg number, just so I can pass it onto the local councils insurer, to allow then to re-claim the bridge repair costs from the lads insurance company

Bike now washed and re-lubed ready for the next "warm" winter days ride

SteveT

[Daboo]

Nothing exciting today. I went over to the Prisoner's for Christ office in Woodinville for a prayer breakfast. Nice homemade quiche. Temps were down to 30.9F on the way down. Hooray for heated gear!

Chris

[UKRider]

Took off to St. Ives and Lands End for a two-day trip on Monday and Tuesday this week. First day was hard-two hours of dense fog instead of great views, but I enjoyed my first ride up Porlock Hill (25% gradient in places, video below). Visited North Cornwall Motorcycles enroute. Stayed over at "The Nook" B&B in St. Ives, had fish on the waterfront, and then took off Tuesday morning for the B3306 road to Land's End, where I found sun and ferocious winds. Also tried an "American Diner" on Route 303. 640 miles round trip, 1200 for year so far. Bike is a real mess-serious cleaning this weekend. Next trip: back to Snowdonia in April.

Video of trip made with TomTom Bandit, iMovie, and music from Facebook Sound Collection:



Some pics from the trip:

[IanA]

Great vid, Jim! Beautifully shot and edited. Puts my pathetic GoPro efforts to shame

[UKRider]

Thanks! It’s tough to make a decent video, and it has a real learning curve. I hope to do another report after my next two day trip back for an overnight in Snowdonia in April. Gotta love Wales!

Other small note— scored used and affordable BMW Atlantic 3 leather trousers with goretex liners for the Lands End trip. They were excellent— more comfortable than my regular textile trousers. Now to find a matching Atlantic jacket used...

[SteveT]

Been a bit "off-colour" of late, so haven't been able to get out and about on anything, let alone two wheels. So, as part of my convalescence I reckoned that a ride or two would help build me up

Snow covered fields and hills, but at least the roads are mainly clear of the white stuff. Silly me for heading off road then and slippy-sliddying on some snow covered ice . . . . . no pictures of recumbent bike, just one of the track I was on, once I'd got the bike up-right


A few miles further on . . . . Ben Rinnes has a slight covering of the white stuff . . . .


And today I pushed on a bit further and did a favourite route to Dufftown then over the Cabrach, up Strathdon, over the Lecht to Tomintoul then the main drag back home.
A couple of shots from the Corgarff side of the Lecht . . .




Tried stopping to take a photo on the Tomintoul side of the Lecht, but the wind was that strong I feared I'd have to pick the bike up again, so trundled on howewards on dry roads and the odd bit of sunshine.

Some of you might have noticed that the bike has changed colour, from Lava Orange to Trophy Blue & white. Eldest son has now got a 1200 tractor, so I've taken ownership of his Trophy F8GS and have found a buyer for my luverly Lava Orange F8GS. Change is as good as a rest, allegedly

SteveT

[SteveT]

Ullapool was my planned destination for todays 2 wheeled wanderings, but as it always does when I get to Inverness, it started to rain. So being very scared of shrinking even more than I already have, I went and hide under a local bridge till the skies cleared a bit . . . .



The downpour was being followed by very dark grey skies - "More rains a-coming" me thinks, so I head into the hills south of Inverness, dodging the rain showers as I went along







Loverly little ride out on mainly dry roads - my direction of travel was guided by where it didn't look like it was raining.

Looking forward to all the salt and grit being washed off of the roads, just so I don't have to hose the bike down after every little ride

SteveT

[Expron44]

Beautiful photos SteveT!