Roman around the Cotswolds

So today I took off into the Cotswolds at last. I haven't been in the area on a good run for quite some time, the last time being a quick breakfast meet with Steve in July 2019, and a longer run  three years ago. The Cotswolds is usually 'rammed' with cars and tourists on hot sunny days so I've been waiting for a quieter time to ride the wonderful countryside through picturesque villages and visit some sites I had in mind too. 

I left home around 8.30 am on this cool but sunny Autumn Sunday hoping for quiet roads at least for the early part of the ride, and thankfully very little traffic even through Pershore and around Evesham. My pre-plotted route includes a ride up and over Fish Hill, then a quick left at the top down to Chipping Campden for my first stop. A nice little section and Fish Hill is always fun with that sharp up-hill left-hander to tackle at speed while getting past a few cars keeping the group of sports bike riders in my mirrors too. 

As I 'bimbled' along through the town admiring all of the pretty Cotswold stone buildings I couldn't resist stopping near the magnificent St James' church with it's bell tower dating back to around 1500. A really pleasant place to stop, stretch my legs and savour the calmness of the morning air with the sound of birds singing around the church grounds. I didn't go in to the church though, I sensed they would be preparing for Sunday worship at this time.  

 

 

Back on the bike I continued down to Chipping Norton via the A3400 out of Shipston-On-Stour. Hardly any traffic so far, but as you'd expect with plenty of other kindred spirited bikers out too taking advantage of the sunshine I wasn't alone for long. While riding the B4026 to Charlbury I flipped the switch for my heated grips and occasionally dropped down my sun visor while listening to the 'Doobie Brothers' on the headset as I 'pinged off' over the river to take the B4437. I did consider stopping at Blenheim Palace but so looking forward to the ride down to Burford I continued on having more fun riding the faster sections while looking across open fields at the spectacular autumn countryside views replete with typical runs of Cotswold dry stone walls stretching out in all directions - sublime!  

Before I knew it I was now crossing the Windrush River at Bibury. Quite a few cars parked up viewing those famous cottages, so on I went toward Cirencester and along the narrow Coln river valley road to my planned visit stop at Chedworth Roman Villa site. I parked my bike near the entrance and due to Covid restrictions had a 30 minute wait to gain access. This gave me chance to grab a drink of hot tea from the café and wander around admiring the glorious view across the valley and to do some reading up on the Villa history. It seems the whole site was discovered by accident in the 19th Century by a gamekeeper digging down to rescue his ferret!

What a find, dated around the 2nd to 4th Century there are the remains of a summer house and spa baths with underground heating. Many of the floors have some amazing tiled mosaic patterns that must have taken an age to lay. The geometric patterned designs almost 2000 years old were preserved in relatively good condition but sadly, some sections of the mosaic had been lost over time and maybe the colours had faded a little too, but we can clearly see the skill, craftsmanship and attention to detail.  

 

 

 

The remains of the old courtyard could still be seen, and the small Victorian built museum displays a few of the smaller artefacts including cooking utensils and other everyday items. What a great place to spend an hour or so before returning to my bike and riding off along the rest of the valley. Well worth the slight diversion just off the old Fosse Way leading to the Roman governing seat of Cirencester.

 

Later in the afternoon I skirted around Cheltenham past Sudeley Castle down the big hill revealing a clear view of the Malvern Hills between the trees. I then picked a good route through to Winchcombe with a short break stop at the GWR (Gloucestershire, Warwickshire Railway) station before riding on through Kineton, Bredon and Ashchurch before riding up and over the Malverns and through the now ripening apple orchard Herefordshire countryside onto Bromyard and Great Witley arriving home just in time to prepare our evening meal. A very pleasant day out, and so glad I have removed the top box now. Given the chance of quieter roads the Cotswolds are perfect for spending a good day ambling along taking in its unique sights and scenery.

For todays route I chose to load the GPX file onto my Navigator and the Connected Phone app too combined with the TFT on screen instructions side by side simultaneously as a comparison. For most of the ride the app was very good at matching the Navigator like for like with only one or two minor differences and I did find myself taking more notice of the on screen instructions popping up on the TFT rather than the Navigator since I'm already looking at my speedo reading at the same time. The route was plotted using the very good on-line 'My-Route-App' followed by finer refinement in Garmin Basecamp before transferring to both the Navigator and to my phone the night before.

 

Time to shed a few pounds

My GS fitted with the Vario expandable Top-Box (unexpanded)

While heading out on my last few local rides I made the decision to unclip the top box from my GS. I have had little to complain about over the last eight years with one fitted to my bike and the convenience is useful on long tours but the additional weight even when empty high up at the rear made me wonder if this weight was at the detriment of the bikes handling and tyre wear. The BMW GS Vario top-box complements the panniers well and provides padded support for a pillion passenger I never ride with. It seemed pointless to keep it fitted all of the time though. I've never really understood why some people consider it essential to use a top box as helmet storage while at a destination either, is it really worth turning a bike into a car for the sake of a hands-free walk to the cafe when you can simply cable lock the helmet to the bike or take it with you? The GS Vario is aesthetically pleasing when fitted unlike some of the nasty looking top boxes I see fitted to other bikes but I do think any top box spoils the lines of a bike somewhat. After a few trial runs to discover with such a revelation how lighter better handling the bike is around some 'twisties' without it, I decided to research soft luggage options for taking the essential stuff I need on a day ride to include:

• Puncture repair kit (Stopngo) with Compressor or CO2 cartridges.
• Disc lock/s
• Spare gloves
• Visor clean
• Chillys drinks bottle (0.5L)
• Face Masks and Hand Sanitiser (Covid required)
• Food/Snack
• Possible Camera
• Multi-Tool

At first I was convinced I needed the official BMW tailpack bag similar to a tank bag that straps onto the passenger seat. Oddly though this doesn't fit on the rear rack of the GS and being square in shape the dimensions suggest it doesn't quite fit my (wonderful) chillys drink bottle length ways either. SW-Motech do some great looking tail packs, some ready to fit to a tail rack but in the end I went for a Universal (US) dry pack from the British company Kriega. 

I'm really impressed with the quality of the Kriega the ability to connect them to other Kriega bags and the washable removable liner is a useful feature. Most of the above listed I can fit into the bag and very useful for items I need quick access to. I managed to fit the Multi-Tool and Disc lock under the passenger seat in the end so I don't need to repeatedly pack those and have the Wunderlich GS under rack bag on order to keep the puncture repair kit permanently attached to the bike for the same reason. 

The tailpack comes with straps to mount to the bike frame or rack and lightweight aluminium hooks to attach to the strap loops with additional clips to tie off the excess strap. The bag is a roll-top design with an additional waterproof zipper pocket on top, useful for my visor clean, spare ear plugs, face mask and hand santiser and perhaps even a few notes/coins for a toll bridge crossing too.  

 

 

Looking forward for a ride out this weekend into the Cotwolds to try it out now we have both shed a few pounds at last 😉 👍

An injection of life and freedom

"I love what the bike gives me,”.... “The injection of life, freedom, engagement with the world, and it’s still something that I love: the anonymity I have on the motorcycle. I stop at a diner or at a gas station, I have wonderful encounters with people at rest areas at the side of the road… these moments that are just person to person. Those are the moments, that is how I live best.”

A great quote I read this week from Neil Peart on the 'Louder' website titled 'Neil Peart remembered' and written by Rock Journo', writer and Rush fan Philip Wilding as part of a tribute after Neil's passing. It sums up Motorcycling for me these days, although I don't go out of my way to crave anonymity as Neil did, I do find it such a great stress reliever as a solitary pursuit finding the 'refuge of the roads' (to coin a Joni Mitchell song) after a long few weeks at work. For some reason I hadn't been 'feeling the vibe' since mine and Mark's wonderful Scottish Highland trip last month so with the sun shining I had the opportunity to get out on a solitary ride to find new roads and re-ride some old ones out in to the heart of mid-Wales. It's always fun to meet like-minded people along the way too.

Since owning my GS with the TFT I hadn't really tried using the BMW Connected phone app as a navigation tool instead of my Navigator 6 so decided to give it a go today and see if I could get on with it and get used to using this new tech' addition I have for free from the IOS App store. The first thing I did after installing on my phone was to download the appropriate off-line maps on to my phone as they come in regions and save the phone from using a data connection (3G/4G) and roaming charges relying on the phones built in GPS for navigation to find your location and position you on the off-line maps similar to Google maps.

After connecting the phone up to my bike it's possible to either enter destinations or simply load a predefined GPX file. I chose the former to keep it simple and went for a familiar single destination 'Crossgates' - the small village in Powys and bikers cafe stop. Since I already know the destination, the intention was to ride anywhere in the general direction making it up and see how well the phone app performs at re-calculating every time I moved away from the fastest route.

This strategy was a lot of fun as I enjoy exploring different B roads and anything that takes my fancy en-route and the re-calculating performed flawlessly as I headed out toward Knighton then on in the direction of Llandrindod Wells, my phone in my pocket with on-screen instructions on the TFT and voice instructions being fed to my headset. There isn't a map overview unless you mount the phone to the handlebars as an addition, but I really wanted to see if I could just follow the on-screen navigation instructions instead. I turned the voice prompts off and quickly realised you can leave the instructions on the screen permanently , but even if you flip back to the main TFT screen you can quickly go back and ask for the next instruction to flash up at any time. Another great feature is the speed limit box that suddenly appears when the navigation app is connected too.

Example navigation instructions on the TFT (not mine but you get the idea)

Riding out near Llandrindod Wells I came across a Midlands Riders club ride-out and had a bit of fun riding with this bunch for a while I reckon there were over 20 bikes in a convoy, so decided to ride with them, stopping a bit later for a chat. Great bunch of lads and ladies on a right mixture of bikes all taking it steady and enjoying the day. Eventually I took the road down to Rhayader and had a cracking little run down to the town before fuelling up and heading onto the Cafe at Crossgates.

Crossgates Cafe

The car park as ever on a Sunny Sunday was packed with bikes and I got chatting to a couple who had ridden down from Malvern, then later sat and ate lunch with another crowd with one guy on a Royal Enfield who had a few tales to tell, most notably since they were originally from London how they used to use the Ace Cafe back in the day of the 'ton up' boys. They put me on to a great little road down to Presteigne convinced I knew it already but after looking at my phone realised I didn't, so after our lengthy lunch and laugh I said farewell and headed off to join the B4356 at Llanbister and had a fantastic run over the hills down past the Battle of Pilleth site continuing onto Presteigne and then Mortimers Cross. I'm still really impressed with how versatile this Boxer 1250 engine is and throw in some 'nadgery' B roads the bike soaks up any bumps when in the 'Road 'pre-load setting too.

Not content with heading straight home now, still having fun, I took the road down to Kington and onto Pembridge stopping at the Cafe there for a cool milkshake in the sun next to a 'cycling couple' who were counting their energy bars and gel packs. Nice couple who had quite a few miles to do - rather them I thought (couldn't think of anything worse) before drinking up and heading off on to that wonderful road up to Ludlow.

On my return route home near Button Oak I had a bike loom up behind me in my mirrors and let him pass (I did yes) I realised it was Nick a fellow GS rider out on his Triumph Speed Twin for the afternoon. He looked like he was having a lot of fun down into and through Bewdley and really didn't hang about so I followed along for a bit lifting my helmet up as I announced my identity with a grin at the pedestrian crossing much to his surprise before heading off somewhere down towards Crundalls Lane.

I guess I need to work on my lean angle !

A few ABS activations!

At home I took a look at the BMW Navigation App and some of the additional features were interesting but sadly some of the numbers fell off the speed / altitude chart. I do need to do something about the lean angle - that can't be right either! All in all the App was good. Not sure I could substitute it for the Navigator, but it's a great tool and addition, and free at that, so I will be using it again soon.

Great fun today, definitely put a big grin back on my face at last, a real injection of life and freedom with a few person to person moments thrown in too!