Ride to Bala - Sunday 28th Sept

With my GS serviced by Clarks on Saturday (12k at 13.2k), I met the Brayf' at Cleobury Mortimer 9am Sunday with a quick last minute Tyre Itinery plot out to Lake Vrnwy to Bala in Gwynedd, Wales via Craven Arms and Church Stoke.

Route from Church Stoke to Bala (click to zoom)

Sun was shining, quite mild yee haa on we go. There's some amazing roads thru Shropshire into the Wales. We passed Powis Castle on the way, I must stop there one day looks great. We had a none stop ride to Lake Vyrnwy, a Victorian reservoir that supplies the City of Liverpool with drinking water.

Stopped for a chat and to take in the views, and then up and over the mountain road to Bala. The TomTom took us up some crazy single track roads with plenty of shale gravel in the middle getting the back wheel spinning on occasions, amazing remote countryside with stone wall cottages too, some of them looked quite derelict. Great fun!

Bandit Brayford

The mountain road.

So on we went around Bala Lake, finishing up in the town at a great little cafe in the main high st. Sat outside the sun shining and an all day breakfast for about a fiver including black pudding! Got chatting to a couple of chaps from Burnley on their Kawasaki's. Compared the merits of riding abroad, the Timmelsjoch, Stelvio and Spain. They had ridden Italy and told tales of a cramped auto-train from Den Bosh. Interested to learn how confined to the cabin you are for 24 hours as I've considered this journey myself - £700 return though .. Hmm. We also met a Greek lad on his KTM 1190 Adventure - nice looking machine, apparently working in London, and had ridden his bike from his home in Greece - I hope today was a separate journey for him, or he was way off course !!.

So after lunch we took a fantastic road from Meifod to Welshpool then on thru Montgomery, Church Stoke, bye to Mark at not far from his folks place north of Craven Arms and back to visit Dad in Droitwich hospital. Gotta do this run again, those Welsh Marches get my vote every time! 

200 miles+

Laverda-Jota

Local ride last Saturday (13th Sept) .... down thru Herefordshire then wound up back into Shropshire via Clee Hill and up to Bridgnorth via Quatt. On the way I stopped at the world famous Slater-Laverda garage near Bromyard for a chat. I was educated in the History of the Jota ... the famous model developed here in Herefordshire by the Slater Bothers. I met one of the Brothers (not sure which one) who explained how he was preparing for a Danish enthusiast who will be buying up a big stock of spares. At the time in the 70's the Jota 750 was the fastest production motorcycle. A historical place to visit, if you are passing, I urge you to drop in ..great to see  - someone who enjoys his job is a rare thing these days it seems ! Find out more about Slater Laverda here.

Also, interesting to see in the show-room had a classic Swiss made 'Universal' horizontal Boxer twin, we always associate these engines with BMW but if seems they were quite a common engine layout at one time. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo though.