Riding – Page 5 – Forza Åsa

Emigrating, again

I’m off to Spain, finally, sailing to Bilbao on Wednesday. It’s been a long autumn. I’ve been without a home since June, living out of my panniers, travelling all over Europe during summer and then studying and trying to maintain a daily schedule since September. Now I’m off to Spain, not Japan as we had prepared for; a sad event more commonly known as the UK referendum has changed the way we see our future possibilities, safer to return now while Christopher still is part of the European free movement.

Summer’s been long and filled with exciting travels, I’ve ridden my bike more than ever and from one corner of Europe to another. Firstly, we rode together in Wales, Christopher’s first adventure on his own motorbike. Although I feared that he would remain pillion forever he quite happily took up riding and enjoyed the small mountains roads in Wales immensely. He soon became a specialist on hill starts and single track country lanes. We had some terrible weather at times and he surely experienced what it is like to be completely soaked – while touring you make the best of what you get, the greatest difference between travelling and making daytrips I believe.

Rain in Elan Valley, breathtakingly beautiful nevertheless!

We're pretty much on our own up here, and we love it! — We’re pretty much on our own up here, and we love it!

After a few but thoroughly enjoyable weeks in Wales it was time for me to head towards Hungary and the WIMA rally. I picked up pace a bit, instead of riding tiny mountains roads and having continuous coffee breaks and photo opportunities I had to cover distance every day. The fact that I had some problems with the bike didn’t help, because of the struggle I swore that this would be my last solo trip, but yeah, I know – it isn’t very likely. After an action-packed WIMA rally I aimed for Sweden, with a slight detour to see a good friend in Slovakia. Now I could take it easy, enjoy the mountain roads and chill again. I spent a few weeks in Sweden before returning to the UK. We were to spend a few weeks up in Scotland because people continuously tell me that if I like Wales I will love Scotland. I actually love Wales. So, the expectations were high but as often is the case, I was disappointed – only by the sheer fact that Scotland is so huge, and with the little CG 125 in tow we just never covered any distance and we didn’t get to see the islands or very much at all. Having said that we had some fantastic days riding, up through the north of England and we did ride some very scenic roads at times. We also had some very foul weather with rain and gales which strongly challenged Christopher on his featherlight bike. A couple of nights we struggled to pin the tent down and had to use the panniers to weigh it down. Admittedly, I loved it – but Christopher less so. The riding was just a bit too hard for him and I suspect that he will never be anything else than a fair-weather camper. Although he did put up with muddy fields, cold showers, midges and mosquitos without complaining I did realise that it wasn’t something he enjoyed and it will probably be filed away as “things you do for love”.

We were very excited when we finally reached the border to Scotland.

Sometimes there just aren’t enough photo opportunities

The summer ended too soon and it got cold. In September, we were happy to be able to house sit for WIMA friends, little did Pat and Sheonagh expect that we would end up staying for the rest of the year… Well, partly I blame the unavailability of test dates for motorcycles. Christopher managed to bag it all just before Christmas, I was admittedly proud of him doing his riding training on some rather frosty days in December. Hopefully, and quite possibly, the weather in Spain will treat us better.

El Atazar north of Madrid - Christophers first ride as a pillion. Now he'll return to Spain as a biker — El Atazar north of Madrid – Christophers first ride as a pillion. Now he’ll return to Spain as a biker

We’ve had a great couple of years in England, and despite being disappointed of the current state of politics and the way it affects our freedom of movement I’m looking forward to returning to Spain and starting all over again, new city, new job, new house, well – pretty much new everything. We are all responsible for our own lives and for making our own happiness. Fuck Brexit – I’m European!

Hard Nuts Chunky Tread Winter Meet

After a successful ride up to Stoke, the next event in my riding agenda was a winter meet hosted by Pete Johnson and Chunky Tread Motorcycle Adventure Club. Despite only having a couple of hours to ride, I still didn’t manage to reach destination before nightfall and while bouncing along the last bit of road, a composition of mud and gravel, a thought struck me: I’m on my way to meet a bunch of complete strangers in the middle of nowhere outside Manchester. One of the amazing things with motorcycling.

Since leaving Spain, I have always regretted never making it to Los Pinguinios, the winter meet outside Valladolid. It always seemed too cold for me. Therefore, it felt like quite a victory to make it to this event, although admittedly the weather was quite mild.

This was a small and intimate meet where the focus was on having a good time, exchanging experiences and having a few drinks together. Being a foreigner, I was treated to a local specialty as welcome dinner: chips, gravy and mushy peas – something that I had not yet tried after a shade over 2 years in the UK. Some things are worth waiting for! The weekend continued in the same spirit, at a small meet I find it easier to get talking to people and I learned a lot from talking to Ren, who is an experienced 125 rider. He and his girlfriend Sharon run Bikes and Travels and, with its vast information on this topic, it gives a good insight into the small cc world.

Manchester specialty, chips, mushy pies and gravy - yummy scrummy! — Manchester specialty, chips, mushy peas and gravy – yummy scrummy!

During Saturday we did a short ride out to see the surroundings and check out a few shops which catered for all needs involved with motorbiking and camping. Thanks to Ren for leading our group of mall and large bikes. It was great fun to push the CG to its limits over the moors outside Manchester while the big bikes patiently stayed put behind. Always nice to ride with civilized people!

As mentioned plenty of times previously, I come from a “big bike” culture where a small bike is considered to be a 650 or 750 (often seen as beginners bikes in Sweden) and I have frequently been told that my Monster 600’s were too small to travel on and that my 650 Versys was to weak to take a pillion – yet I managed very well to do these things. I can only conclude that bikers in Sweden have a lot to learn and that money can be spent in more productive ways than on purchase and insurance of a massive cc bike – for example on petrol 🙂 and travelling.

On the topic of travelling, there were plenty of tales to be told during the weekend. One very unusual story was that of Pete himself and his Road to Manchester: being from Manchester England he set out on a quest to visit 33 places called Manchester in the USA, all being former settlements and named after the first Manchester – some no more than a couple of houses along the road and others full grown cities. I found it an amusing idea, although it wouldn’t work for me – my home town Karlstad has only one namesake in the USA. So, fortunately for me, I have another working concept: the WIMA rallies always point my direction of travel. Pete won the Bennetts’ biker’s dream and got his journey funded, but only after working hard researching and preparing the adventure so no credit should be taken from his effort. It is all documented on United States of A Manchester – an interesting read I must say.

The musical xmas challenge - it was even sillier than it looks like — The musical Xmas challenge – it was even sillier than it looks like

I was also delighted to meet Bernard and his famous Bertha – the bike that took him and his late wife Cathy around the world. The astonishing detail of this tale being the fact that she was blind. Upon my return yesterday, I started reading their book “Touching the World” – an amazing and inspiring story, first chapter describing their climb of Machu Picchu, something many would think impossible for a blind person. In addition, her ways of describing the world amazed me, being so vivid and colourful. To find out more, please visit World Tour or get the book.

I’ll stop here, concluding that I had a fabulous weekend! Now Koneko needs a good clean before being stored away for winter and if we cannot bring her to Spain we would sadly have to sell her. She has really proved her potentials this weekend but import rules are rather complicated and that is the reality we will be dealing with while relocating.

The Small Challenge

As you might recall Christopher and I have spent large parts of the summer touring in Wales, England and Scotland, he on his Honda CG 125 and I on my Kawasaki 650 Versys. While the Versys was originally bought to enable me to take Christopher pillion around Madrid, where we lived at the time, and bring all and everything I could possibly want to take while touring to a WIMA rally somewhere in Europe, the CG was purchased with one sole purpose – to be a learner bike. Christopher has now started his direct access training and is on to a big bike at the traffic school so the CG needed to be brought back up to Stoke from Weymouth. Christopher, who has had a hard time travelling around on the under-powered little bike in wind and storm, thought there was a lesson to learn for me and challenged me to take the bike up. I’m not known from backing down to a challenge and I gladly accepted. The journey measured approximately 340km on small roads and I would have to carry a large packroll on the back. For the record, I must add that I am taller than Christopher and I have neverending problems finding a bike with a good leg position due to my nerve problems. In addition, he never carried more than a small light roll on the bike during our holidays, while I carried the rest of our camping gear and luggage, and we never clocked more than 200km in a full day. Also, as Sweden does the rider’s training differently, I have never been on a bike this small apart from short rides to the shop and back on his CG. I started off on a Kawasaki Z550 then moved on to various Ducati Monsters (600, 620, 695) before my Versys.

Therefore, this WAS indeed a challenge and it was with excitement I set out from Weymouth. It was a drizzly day and it felt like I never saw any daylight to speak of during the entire day, but I had an amazing time pushing Koneko (yes, that is the name of the CG) all I could, thinking that I have never gone flat out on a bike before (ha ha, true story!). Although, overtaking was admittedly a challenge and I had to plan for it to build up speed and then put my chin down on the tank bag… bit since the bike is so weak I only had to overtake twice during the whole day 🙂 This not including the traffic jam where it ran like a weasel between the cars, so there are pros and cons.

As for carrying luggage I’m surprised to conclude that I never noticed the packroll while riding, and that it actually takes luggage better than what my Ducati Monsters did – on the Monster the roll always tugged on my bum, while here there was plenty of room on the saddle to move around. The only slight problem was that the roll made it harder to put the bike on the central stand since it was difficult to grip the handle on the side with the straps. Adding to this, that during the whole journey I had no problems whatsoever with my legs, not from vibrations or the leg angle – I was surprised how comfortable overall the bike is and very well an option for travelling (it is cheap as chips to run as well). As the kilometres passed by, I was getting more and more fond of this little kitten (for those who don’t know Japanese – koneko means kitten).

The problems started when the light went, with the waning daylight it became obvious how bad the headlight beam is, although on full beam it is no more than a parking light really. This meant not only that I sometimes had problems seeing where I was going but also that it took longer for other vehicles to see me. I had a few cars pulling out in front of me early in the evening which nearly made me pull over and stay in a hotel for the night. However, I decided to press on but acting like I was invisible. As it got darker, I think others could spot me better but I got constantly dazzled by cars before they flicked their lights, and I had to pull over on a regular basis to let cars pass since I had no chance keeping up the speed of rush hour traffic in the dark. The salty grease on my visor made it difficult to see and I realized that I’ve actually never ridden in salty conditions before, don’t think they use road salt in Spain… Continuous visor wiping was necessary and I am really pleased I wore my rain trousers, they are normally flourescent – but now they are black up to the knee from road grease.

To conclude my reflections, I must say that the Honda CG 125 is a surprisingly comfortable bike, good seat and overall good comfort for a small old bike. Although, it is a bit on the weak side, I managed to push it up to nearly the national speed limit at times and the overall it handles well. The lack of front suspension gives a lot of feedback (a possible way of describing bumpy rattling 🙂 ) and since the bike is small and has no windscreen you do get a lot of thrill from the modest speed. I could definitely consider travelling on it again, I did 7.5 hours yesterday, which is a long day in the saddle and I was fine afterwards – although happy to receive a glass of chilled wine in a warm house.

There is a lot to be said about small bikes and their advantages and I’ll post more about this later, including my review of the Motorcycle Live in Birmingham, but now I have to get ready – I’m taking Koneko to a Winter meet outside Manchester, and I want to get there before it gets dark!

And please, if YOU have any thoughts and comments of the choice of bike, large or small – you’re welcome to post them below!

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