twowheeler
two wheels are best
To graduate from New Marshal status to a plain ordinary Marshal at the IOM TT & ManxGP, besides attending mandatory training courses, you need to earn 10 points on your Marshal Association account (IOMTTMA - google it, anyone can be a marshal). 1 point is allocated for every practice session attended, and 2 points for a race. I’d only accrued 3 points in 2017 due to a short stay and a couple of bad-weather cancellations, so this year I booked 10 days on the island which would be more than enough to be able to swap my L-plate yellow ID card for a white one. Or so I thought .....
With only a 2 week ride window on this trip I rented a bike instead of buying/selling one like in 2017 – http://www.austouring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6285.
In the questionable spirit of going the whole hog and getting a fully-dipped immersion, I booked a Ducati Multistrada 1260S from a rental firm in Woking, London.
A summary of my renting experience is on page 6 & 7 in this thread – http://www.austouring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6391&page=6 .
First though, a short family holiday, starting in Polruan, Cornwall –
where we breathed-in along the main road into town -
and did some beautiful walks -
before choofing off to Portsmouth to catch an overnight ferry –
to Brittany, staying in Rennes. -
Ned Flanders' ancestors clearly come from around here -
After a few days, champing at the bit , I left the family to it at 5am one Friday morning, caught a train, walked across Paris –
then caught more trains and did more walking to get to Woking. My planning for connections didn’t anticipate UK holiday-weekend crowds, which rippled back to Paris, so the magnificent plan on paper soon fell apart . By the time the rental paperwork and bike familiarisation was done, it was 4:30pm before I set off for Wales into full-blown Friday arvo London traffic on a new-to-me, fire-breathing-until-warm, almost-zero-rear-brake (they’re all like that sir), vlarge-insurance-excess 1260cc Ducati.
Melbourne peakhour has nothing on London, but not in the way I was expecting. Melbourne is all aggro with stressed drivers owning their piece of road while staring at their phone or checking they’re not doing 1kph over the speed limit lest they die or get fined a squillion $. London (& the UK in general) was all courtesy. WAY more cars and trucks jammed onto their roads, but most actually moved over to let me split or overtake, some gave little waves or head nods, it was really quite enjoyable .
5 hours of heavy holiday traffic later, I arrived in Dolgellau ("dol-geth-loo") in deepest darkest Wales -
More to come ...
With only a 2 week ride window on this trip I rented a bike instead of buying/selling one like in 2017 – http://www.austouring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6285.
In the questionable spirit of going the whole hog and getting a fully-dipped immersion, I booked a Ducati Multistrada 1260S from a rental firm in Woking, London.
A summary of my renting experience is on page 6 & 7 in this thread – http://www.austouring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6391&page=6 .
First though, a short family holiday, starting in Polruan, Cornwall –
where we breathed-in along the main road into town -
and did some beautiful walks -
before choofing off to Portsmouth to catch an overnight ferry –
to Brittany, staying in Rennes. -
Ned Flanders' ancestors clearly come from around here -
After a few days, champing at the bit , I left the family to it at 5am one Friday morning, caught a train, walked across Paris –
then caught more trains and did more walking to get to Woking. My planning for connections didn’t anticipate UK holiday-weekend crowds, which rippled back to Paris, so the magnificent plan on paper soon fell apart . By the time the rental paperwork and bike familiarisation was done, it was 4:30pm before I set off for Wales into full-blown Friday arvo London traffic on a new-to-me, fire-breathing-until-warm, almost-zero-rear-brake (they’re all like that sir), vlarge-insurance-excess 1260cc Ducati.
Melbourne peakhour has nothing on London, but not in the way I was expecting. Melbourne is all aggro with stressed drivers owning their piece of road while staring at their phone or checking they’re not doing 1kph over the speed limit lest they die or get fined a squillion $. London (& the UK in general) was all courtesy. WAY more cars and trucks jammed onto their roads, but most actually moved over to let me split or overtake, some gave little waves or head nods, it was really quite enjoyable .
5 hours of heavy holiday traffic later, I arrived in Dolgellau ("dol-geth-loo") in deepest darkest Wales -
More to come ...
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