Petrol Prices - You Pay How Much ???

I read a posting on Bobskoot's Blog a few days ago about petrol prices. Bob said that fuel in Vancouver had risen to $1.311 /ltr = $4.96 /US gallon.

Bob would probably cry if he had to buy fuel in the UK. Are you sitting down Bob?

My local petrol station was selling regular fuel today at £1.337 per litre. That is £6.082 per UK gallon or £5.053 per US gallon. (UK gallons and US gallons are different).

In US dollars, that is $8.203 per US gallon!!!

With the various conflicts happening in north Africa and the Middle East, these prices are forecast by some to rise by 50% by the end of the year.

Anybody want to buy a Range Rover?

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Dream Rangers

Some of my readers may have seen this video. It was sent to me by Greg who has followed my blog for a while and it is so good, I wanted to share it.

My hope is that everyone who rides feels like this one day....

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London Custom Bike Show Video

For the second year running, the London International Custom Motorcycle Show was held at the famous Alexandra Palace on the north side of London. I went with Ian Solley of 7Ages Custom Motorcycles who posted some good pictures of the show on his blog.

From looking at the Harley-Davidson Road King UK blog, I could see Axel also went, but sadly we didn’t bump into each other. I much prefer this smaller custom show to the main London Motorcycle Show. The people are more interesting and so are the bikes. There is more innovation on display and while the bikes are highly polished, the organisation, the stands and some of the people are not. That somehow makes it better for me.

Instead of taking regular pictures, which I found quite difficult last year due to the low light levels in the halls, I decided to take a small video camera and see what I could achieve with that....

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The Leading Ladies are back!

I had a message earlier this week that my bike, the Leading ladies, after spending 5 or 6 weeks at sea, was about to arrive back in the UK.

It had been raining all week and I wasn’t looking forward to collecting the bike in the rain. However, the weather played ball and I awoke on Thursday morning to a gloriously sunny day – one of the few so far this year.

I was dropped off at the shipping agents yard near Heathrow and a few minutes later my bike was bought outside, still in its crate. I had told the shippers that I wanted to take some pictures of the bike being un-crated and they had duly obliged, with Jim and Steve being ready to take the crate apart. Evidently, the office had told the guys I was going to take some pictures, as they were adorned in some silly hats, ready to be photographed. I did have to laugh!

The crate was very substantial and was bespoke made to fit the bike. The top came off first, having been held by many screws.... There was my bike.....

Next, the sides came off and Jim and Steve posed by the partially dismantled crate....

Finally the structure of the crate was dismantled and after re-fixing the windshield and putting the mirrors back the right way around, I hit the starter button and the bike fired into life, as reliable as ever...

The paperwork was swiftly dealt with and just a short time later I climbed on the bike and rode of down the road. The great feeling of riding that bike came back to me in an instant and it felt really good to lean the bike into corners once more and to use the full power range. I forgot I had left the bike with almost no fuel in the tank, so I hastily had to find a petrol station to refill her.

As I neared my house, Jackie had heard me approach and threw open the front door to snap a picture of the Leading Ladies returning....

Can you tell I was pleased to have the bike back?.......

The Leading Ladies are now in for some special attention. First, the bike is going to have a deep clean to remove the inevitable grime that builds up during a 21,000 mile ride and then it’s off to Warrs, the London based Harley-Davidson dealer for a full check over.

What a great bike! Welcome Home!!!!

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I Want One Of These!

Last night on the TV programme 'The Gadget Show', they featured a one wheel, electric, self-balancing scooter. This is called the Ryno. It has gyroscopes to make it self-balancing and the TV presenter was riding it relatively comfortably within just a few minutes. This looks very cool indeed and I want one. It will have a 30 mile range, top speed of 20mph. It looks like a lot of fun.

I found a video on the web that shows what it can do....



I have a nagging doubt though that these would be allowed in the UK. For all sorts of bureaucratic nonsense, Segways are not allowed here and I fear the same fate would happen with the Ryno.

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Progress of my Book

Towards the end of my tour of the USA, I decided to write a book about the trip. After I got back to the England and life returned to something approaching reality, I spent the time until Christmas writing one test chapter and investigating alternative publishing routes, book sizes, layouts, fonts, printing costs, book distribution methods and many other things I didn’t know writing and publishing a book.

Each of the 27 states that I visited will have a chapter of its own, plus about another 5 about planning of the tour / other introductory chapters – about 32 in total.

So far, I have written 5 out of that 32 - Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and South Dakota, plus a chapter giving tips about riding in the USA for visitors that Derek Polhill and Chris Luhman kindly helped with. With the help of a guy I used to work with, Brian Bascle, I have the cover and book title all sorted.

My cousins partner, Helen, is editing the book, my brother is doing the laying out of the words and pictures and my son Jeremy is going to draw the maps, so I am sort of keeping it in the family!

However, at this rate, I will take too long to finish writing the book, so I need to speed up somehow.

Having never written a book before, I am finding it quite difficult. To be fair, it is a book of photos supported by words, rather than a book of words that contains just a few pictures, but it is still very hard for me to do. I have always found it hard to concentrate on one thing for a long time, so I keep getting distracted and I find myself doing lots of other things when I should be writing. I am determined however to complete it and I want to finish it all and get it printed and available before the end of the year.

I will post an update in a few weeks time about how I am getting on. For now though, I must get back to writing.....

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My Last London Motorcycle Show?

I went to the London Motorcycle Show at the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands a few days ago.

As I walked around I found myself wondering why I went. Sure, I looked at and sat on some of the new bikes like the Yamaha’s Super Tenere, Harley-Davidsons Blackline and the Triumph Tiger. But, I looked at helmets I have seen at every bike show I’ve been to, clothing I don't want, tools I already have and paddock stands I don’t need. I walked past insurance stands that wouldn’t insure one of my bikes and pictures of Motor GP racing I’m not interested in. I only glanced at the dolly birds, who seemed much more tarty than usual. Most shows are essentially the same and although I hate to admit it, after you’ve been to a few, they start to look the same. This one was the like that and even though I took my camera, there were so many people, I didn’t feel like struggling to take pictures of bikes without too many people in the shot. I should imagine if you are thinking of buying a new bike, the chance to sit on a number of your possible alternatives is good. I’m not in that sort of new bike market though.

As I walked around, I was bored of mainly seeing the same old things.

Deciding to try to find something different, I walked around the outside of the show and looked at some of the smaller stands and I noticed a large number of people that specialise in motorbike tours. Either I hadn’t noticed there being so many of these in previous years or their numbers had risen dramatically. I stopped and chatted with a few and they confirmed the number of such companies had gone up a lot in the past few years. Motorcycle touring it seems, is growing.

I have been a some organised tours on European roads in the past and I enjoyed them. Travelling around on such tours bikes with like-minded people is nearly always going to be fun. Of course, the people you do it with can make or break the tour and the riding is generally very good as the tour organisers have normally already planned to be on great roads. What I did notice at the bike show however was the large number of adventure tours to places like Peru, India, Africa and even New Zealand. A few of the guys I spoke to put to put this down to one simple thing – the “Long Way Round/ Down” tv programmes that featured Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman which I guess really introduced us to what is possible in adventure touring. Sure, such tours have been around for a while, but that tv series has really made them popular.

This is the list of touring companies I saw.... quite a few really!.....

Adventure Riding Academy
Adventure Peru Motorcycling
Blazin Bikes
Compass Expeditions
Dust Devils SL
EagleRider
GlobeBusters
HC Travel
Hidden Ireland Motorcycle Tours
Hispania Tours
Kudu Expeditions
M C I Tours
MSL Tours
Nurburg Ring Tours
Paradise Motorcycle Tours NZ Ltd
Pole Position Travel
Toursareus Ltd
Two Wheel Trekkers
VFR - New Zealand

I have decided to give such shows a miss in future and this will be my last London Motorcycle Show. I will go to the smaller and much more fun custom bike shows, where you really see something different in both the bikes and the people, but big general motorbike shows? – probably not. Would I consider going on another organised tour? – to a country where I don’t speak the language – probably yes. Only problem, where.....?

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