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As I sit in the frozen wastelands of northern Europe, surrounded by snow, I get frequent reminders of warmer climes.

Carlos, Seville Gav, Estepona Harry, Jean Marie, Caroline and Richard are still in my ‘phonebook’ and report on life across Europe.

I was particularly pleased to get a message this morning from Carlos in Galicia, he has just won his age group in a recent off road motorcycle event! It must have been that extra practice he did when he led me around that dusty track in northwest Spain 😆

Seville Gav is still flitting back and forth between Guildford and the Spanish costas and using his experience to help other would be sun seekers by posting helpful YouTube clips.

Jean Marie is still waiting for the arrival of his new bike, Harry and James still enjoying a more comfortable motorcycling environment, although Caroline and Richard from Amsterdam have been down to the Alps in their campervan 😱 🥶

Back home, I was a little surprised to to find that the editor of the Triumph Owners Motorcycle Club magazine thought that my brief account of the trip was worthy of inclusion in this month’s edition!

As there are no grand tours on the horizon, I thought I’d keep the blog ‘ticking over’ with an entry about yesterday’s ride.

A day riding the motorbike seems to ‘kickstart’ my brain, to put into words my appreciation for my life. Maybe it’s my yoga, my meditation, my nirvana? Whatever it is, here is a sample:

Continue reading “Life Fulfilment”

It was yet another gloriously warm sunny day as the bronzed skinny 17 year old lad wandered around the immaculately clean streets of the new housing development. The wide roads and low-rise white-washed houses were all fronted by pristine enclosed green gardens, adding to the overall impression that this was more ‘uptown’ rather than ‘downtown’. The owners of such properties were maybe not particularly affluent, but certainly ‘comfortably off’. 

The teenager wasn’t on a mission, no errands to run and not going anywhere in particular, he just aimlessly took a random route, to do nothing more than check out the neighbourhood.

As he turned the corner to walk up a slight incline he was suddenly taken aback to see, glistening in the bright sunshine, an immaculate red 750cc Honda motorcycle. He stood transfixed in amazement, gawping at such an iconic and impressive machine. He wondered what it would be like to ride such a huge motorcycle in such a perfect place, and dreamt of a day he might do such a thing. For him this was one of those ‘OMG’ moments. But this was long before the English language had descended into such phrases, a time when three letter abbreviations were not so common and text speak didn’t exist, this was January 1974. The reason for the beautiful weather? It was the Canary Islands.

You will have guessed by now that over the passing 48 years the bronzed, skinny 17 year old has morphed into a white, not so skinny 65 year old, but that long held dream is finally about to be realised.

In four weeks time Reg the Rocket and the old wrinkly, head south again for a leisurely ride to Portsmouth, the 30 hour ferry crossing has us arriving in Santander early on 5th March. We then have three days to bumble along 600 miles of Spain’s finest backroads until we arrive in Huelva. From here we jump aboard again, destination Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Watch this space………

As the darkness of January hangs over us northern souls like an endless black and purple cloud, we sit in our comfy homes with the lights on and radiators oozing out heat, and we long for brighter and warmer days. The kamikaze hailstones bouncing off the conservatory windows finally convinced me that I needed to search for a comfortable climate to ride the motorbike.

On such a wintery day I surfed YouTube (again) for anything that could give a glimmer of hope that there were still places out there that were not wrapped in cold and darkness.

It will come as no surprise to you that ‘travel’ and ‘motorcycles’ feature highly within my filters on the infamous red and white app, but YouTubers will always struggle to keep me as one of their trusted followers due to my inability to remain interested in anything for long periods.

However, a young motorcycle chap popped up on the channel with a golden nugget of inspiration:

‘Road Trip from England to Tenerife’.

That was all it took to get me fired up, and so the seed was sown.

Continue reading “Intro to Tenerife and Beyond?”

As Andy D and I rode south together down a very wet M5, I was mystified why he would go to all the effort of leaving Carlisle on Tuesday morning to spend two days accompanying me on the English sector of my trip? Most of the riding was on motorways in weather which was typically English, it seemed the lure of visiting The Cotswolds and Exmouth, combined with a few pints out with me, was reason enough to get his bike out of the garage. In any event, it was good to be together for a couple of days even if I questioned it ‘the morning after the night before’!

Continue reading “There’s nowt so queer as folk!”