A mixed week with a poor finish

We fixed the bike on Tuesday afternoon after super service from the guys at RGM, Norton parts delivered by lunchtime on the Tuesday and bike fixed (in the rain) by 5PM. Funny story is that there was shelter at the rear of the hotel which the owner encouraged us to use, full of buckets some of which had food waste in, after being physically sick three times I pulled the bike out and worked in the rain, when it got heavier Fi & John held a tarp over my head so I could work.
We set off for an uneventful and quite boring trip to the Eiffel region to camp for the night. En route we met a Polish guy on a BMW similar to ours heading to Scotland for a holiday, his chain was slack and he didn't know how to adjust it so hoping for good Karma I gave him a lesson whilst adjusting it for him.
We got the tents up and then it started torrential rain, there was a wee hut next to us with a porch so we sheltered and cooked in there and spent the night looking at the rain and bizarrely a laser show from a one man rave tent at the far end of the field. We also met Jed from Essex who asked if I knew his landlord Mick who had a Norton, of course I do matter of fact we'll be drinking beer with him again this weekend in Belgium, small world this Norton world.
We set off in the sunshine the following day and tried to stick to the small roads, it was torture, traffic light after traffic light and small towns everywhere, my brothers Yamaha started to drag its clutch, turned out the clutch fluid had started to evaporate so we were back on the highway, around Liege and Brussels then towards Gent, another fuel stop and we met up with Tam Bradley again.
We stopped for the night in Ypres in a hotel and went to the Mennen gate to pay our respects to the war dead, a very moving last post brought a tear to my eye. It also started to make me angry, all those mostly young men dead so that society can move on yet we still have our ruling classes abusing power on all levels and worst of all our politicians and the people who benefit from there old pals power in government, not just the UK but worldwide, depressing thoughts.
We arrived at the Begonia on Friday to a warm welcome (and heavy rain) from Guy, Marc and Micke, tents up, we gave them a hand to set up the bar and then a weekend of drinking and talking nonsense with some good music and dancing thrown in. The run on Saturday was a battlefield tour with a local historian, once again as I stood in packed graveyards I felt depressed at how little we learnt from history.
A great weekend with great friends spanning several countries, great to see everybody again and great to feel the camaraderie amongst the group. We finished off with a nice dinner before we got the boat on Sunday with Geert Callens who guided us along some nice roads.
As always the loading on the ship was a joke, they split Fi & I up and tried to get me to park in a space which didn't exist! After a bit of arguing I got moved up a deck with the others. After a good experience on PO on the road out we had a crap experience on the way in!
The bike was running well today as we passed the Angel of the North and as we pulled clear of Newcastle I felt the bike go off and lose power, Fi said smoke was coming out of the silencers, game over, bike seized (I think) so after a wait I came home in a breakdown truck, I'm glad to say the others got home without incident, Fi's Norton ran faultlessly the whole trip so I guess its me that's the problem.....every journey is an adventure, especially on a Norton !

Our home for 3 nights

The pretty but slightly boring town of Bockenhem

Interesting Buildings

Church's again

A memorial to German soldiers from this town lost in a war against the French in 1870-71

Interesting Overland truck

Taking the lunchtime sun

Beginning the rebuild just before the rain and sick started!

Bike maintenance lesson

Rainbow between showers

Hobo's in the rain

Mr Bradley in a good mood

Coffee stop on the Saturday run

Shocking waste of human life, over 10,000 graves

Another stop at the site of a former field hospital

12,000 graves here of the people who died in the hospital

Our little (wet) corner of Flanders for the weekend

Friends catching up

Mike and Karin all dreesed up for the night

Band were excellent

Rockabilly rock!

Pamela, Fi and Savi all Norton riding girls

Mike and Fi dancing on the tables!

Saying goodbye to Geert at Zeebrugge

And saying goodbye to my hope of riding home!

Every day is an Adventure

First stop at Berwick, still dry and bikes still clean

Mechanical Mayhem

The ride to catch the ferry from Hull was uneventful except for the rain which flooded the roads around Newcastle. The PO ferry from Hull to Rotterdam is much better than the DFDS Newcastle ferry and the alcohol is more reasonably priced so we took full advantage of that!
The run to Bremen was ok weather wise, some rain but uneventful, thank god for GPS as we would never have found the site otherwise. Once again great to meet old friends from all over Europe it really is an International gathering and really just an International drinking club.
Good laughs over the weekend and some sad news that Chris Norton died on Friday, Chris was the membership secretary for years and a nice chap, we raised several glasses to him on Friday night!
We left the rally today (Sunday) and were heading to se Tomas & Andrea in Frankfurt but about
120 miles South of Bremen my bike made a horrible grinding noise and lost its drive, not good when you're overtaking on the Autobahn! I got it into the side of the road and realised it was serious so pushed it to the nearest junction, we spotted a Service station so  pushed it to there, we tried towing but a combination of Alex's hangover and my thought of certain death saw that idea quashed. we took it in turn to push the bike (fully loaded) the just under 2 miles. This isn't a great hobby, bike pushing and I don't think it'll catch on.
We called Andrea to tell her we had broken down and found out Tomas's dad had just died so we said we'd visit again at a better time. I stripped the primary side and found the primary chain had snapped, its also wrecked the alternator and bent one of the chain tensioners. Tomorrow's task will be to order spares in the hope they arrive quickly and allow us to continue. With the Norton every journey is indeed an adventure! It could be worse, we have found a small hotel with a bar so life isn't all bad.

Checking out an easier way to Blog

JPN

Sunset

So this week we're off to Germany and then to the Begonia Rally in Belgium the following weekend, in an effort to keep up the blog without carrying my laptop I'm trying an alternative method, stay tuned! This is a test really but I'll add a couple of gratuitous pics to see how it looks

Scottish Classic Motorcycle Show

Saturday was nice weather, a day finalising preparations for our trip to Germany later this week for the International Norton Rally. A pleasant run down to South Queensferry just to make sure the Nortons are good to go in quite warm weather so that's it now until we leave on Thursday.
Sunday it rained so luckily the Classic show was on at Ingliston just along from the house, glad it wasn't far, compact is probably the best way to describe it. Some nice bikes and the guests of Honour were Giacomo Agostini and Alex George. Funny thing is I cant get excited about "famous" people really so that wasn't the draw for me. The purple helmets were on outside going through their routine in the pouring rain, once again when you've seen it once then it loses its appeal.
I think the plan is to build the show up to equal Stafford but they do have a lot of building to do! Great to get out and meet everybody though, paying money to get into a hall to talk bikes seems normal these days.
Looking forward to our short (just under 2 weeks) Euro tour on Thursday, stay tuned to see our exploits.

The Purple helmets own brand of mayhem

Some of the mayhem not suitable for those of a nervous disposition

Dave Stewart as usual won top prizes for his New Hudson

And his Victoria, come on the Perth boys!

Rab Grant's nice Norton, also a prizewinner

I wish I could have afforded one of those back in my old racing days....

Nice to see an older MV, Ago signed most of them on the MV stand instantly making them all worth £500 more

And finally, really, not sure what this is all about

Gravel Roads

Since we got back from the All Roads lead to the Moon tour we've tried to find some gravel roads to keep up our "off road" skills. In Scotland though its almost impossible, the hand full of people who own Scotland want to keep it to themselves which is in one way understandable but morally wrong when I think its less than 400 people own most of the land and as always usually for the benefit of their rich friends. Anyway rant over, we had a great day yesterday with a stunning (and very hot) ride through the borders and a ride across the Kielder forest in the North of England managing about 12 miles on gravel before heading to Jedburgh camping for the night where we were joined by Bert and Laurenne for the evening which was great crack. Plenty drink taken and stories told. Entertainment came from the locals, a group were out on what I assume was a stag do, it was very bizarre, some aufy sichts as my maw would have said!
The weather has been stunning this past week so the rain today on the run home was small price to pay for the South American style heat we've had, only downside is it seems to make the car drivers even more erratic than normal!

Filling up, the great thing about these bikes is they use hardly any petrol, I reckon this weekend saw us getting 75+ MPG

Great scenery, quiet roads

A short border raid

Fi quickly back into the groove

I eat her dirt for a change

Back to Bonnie Scotland

The old Jail in Jedburgh

Jedburgh Abbey, founded in 1154 by Augustine monks though to have come from France, Its pretty impressive for such an old building

Adding the alcoholic feel to the Abbey, Laurenne, Bert & Fi

The locals providing entertainment! Very bizarre

Cant remember what this was about but I do remeber some of the ladies seemed to have forgotten most of their clothes!

Rain then Sun

A weekend spent doing bike stuff which was great, a very damp Saturday down at East Fortune in the car. Derek Allan had offered us some ER6 bit which may be handy in the future so we took the opportunity to have a day out at East Fortune at the motorcycle races where he was helping a couple of guys. A great day out despite the dampness and good to catch up with some of the guys from a previous life where I actually went faster than the speed limit!
Sunday we had a Norton meeting at Loch Katrine, Fi, Alex David and myself made up the early crowd with a grand total of 2 Nortons between us, then joined by Sandy & Rab so another Norton, finally Hector appeared making it four Nortons, we had a quorum! great crack and great weather, we stopped for dinner at South Queensferry just to stay out in the sun for a while.

Getting it well over despite the wet!

Derek "Now where did I put that screwdriver"

I'll hold it, you nod. then he can hit it!

Our young friend impressed in only his third race

A pre race pep talk

Nortons in the sun

More Nortons

Hector's Norton, not seen for a while

Alex and I posing in front of the iconic Forth rail bridge