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!

A Brecon Beacon Adventure (part 1)

Over the last few years I've become quite a fan of Iola Williams the 'Springwatch' presenter on the BBC who through his enthusiasm for nature and his recent series on the Brecon Beacons formed a desire in me to get back to the Brecons and take a ride around and explore this amazing place some more, visiting at least some of Iola's recommended locations. I haven't been out this way properly since I took part in the GS Challenge a few years ago, and remember saying back then I must come back and visit.

The amended ABR Route - ridden from left to right in a figure of eight.

Recently, I found a great looking ride published in an issue of Adventure Bike Rider capturing some of the highlights by traversing across the mountains via narrow lanes (not green lanes) to get to the highlighted stops. Unfortunately, I had to edit the ABR route and reduce the ride time but did keep some of the best bits in e.g. Gospel Pass - the highest road in Wales across the Black Mountains made famous for the opening scenes of the film 'American Werewolf in London'. I do like that film, and as I continued up to level out at the top I could almost hear that werewolf howl and moan as if not too far behind me. Funny how your imagination runs riot in these situations.

Black Mountain on the Gospel Pass.

The views on top of the Gospel Pass were amazing and I did feel envious of the people climbing further along the ridge of Black Mountain. Today was a bit blustery and cool up there but of no real issue ideal on a Motorcycle. After a quick sip of my hot tea in the flask I continued. The road the other side of the pass was a bit gnarly, with some standing water where the recent rains had washed a few bits of gravel and muck onto the road, but nothing worth moaning about or too arduous for your average motorcyclist with a good sense of adventure I thought. Anyway, as it turned out it wasn't too bad since there were quite a few cyclists tackling the road on 'road' tyres - not on mountain bikes either so really just a mere 'pootle' on my GS with imaginary yet very realistic moans, groans and howls coming from behind. I did feel like speeding up a bit to try and lose any assailant, it was very tempting but then I thought maybe I could take shelter at the LLanthony Priory instead? Unfortunately, I had to abandon the ride down to the Priory due to a huge flock of sheep blocking the access road. Also I felt the description in ABR of the access road might mean a longish unacceptable walk to the priory with helmet and other 'baggage' in tow, so I will have to visit there on another day with more time allowing.

A 20 minute stop by the Glasfynydd Forest entrance for a cuppa

After a lunch stop at Llangorse Lake - stopping for a Sausage 'Sarni' at a Horse riding centre continued on to to Brecon town then out to ride the old Roman Road along 'Sarn Helen' the Brecon to Neath section to include the 'Devil's Elbow' as it winds it's way up the other side of the mountain toward Ystradfellte then on to Ystradgynlais. Fantastic road, not too challenging I thought, maybe for some but good fun rounding the tight bends to get another viewpoint. My amended route intended to stop at the Touratech headquarters but unfortunately they were shut (open second Saturday of the month) so turning off at Brynamen on the other side of Black Mountain I tackled the sublime A4069 as far as LLandeusant before turning off onto a mildly rough road cut-through to bring me on to the road to Trecastle passing the Glasfynydd forest entrance and the Usk Reservoir. My imagination still getting the better of me, sure I could still hear the moans and howls somewhere behind. A fun little road that avoids that boring run along the A40 from LLandovery, very scenic with some good views on top I managed to shake off the spooks with a twist of the throttle in the end, I suspect any werewolves with any sense would head for the densely populated town instead and not consider heading up this way. I did notice a few forest trails up here worth taking a look at in the future but I shudder to think what might have happened if I took that trail today since I really wasn't all that sure I was alone. 

Another 20 minute stop in Brecon and a fuel up, I continued on with the familiar 'slog' back home sat behind a string of traffic in front all the way to Leominster and beyond.Now it was me growling and moaning, but at least I had one of my favourite roads down to Tenbury Wells to enjoy, passing through St Michaels and on to home. I must note I did ride the speed limit the other side of Clows Top for the first time ever in my life, such a joy to discover what have I been missing all these years. Why ride a roller coaster so fast eh? Just wish I'd had some candy floss and a toffee apple in my mouth to help me enjoy the view even more.   

Due to the change in the route and my imposed time constraints I've decided this will be a two part visit to the Brecons and really looking forward to returning again either this Autumn or in the Spring to spend a bit more time exploring and pick up some of the locations I missed. Hopefully by then any Werewolves (imaginary or real) will have moved on to spend their time in the Cotswolds stalking grandma in 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe' on a much more suitable terrain instead. Not a bad day at all with really great mix of roads to ride and still back in time for my tea covering almost the exact mileage as I planned. 

Scottish Highland Tour

  

Recent tour of the Scottish Highlands

Click here to read the 2020 - Scottish Highlands Blog or click the tab at the top

 

Bwlch y Groes Mountain Pass and Tywyn bay

Having collected my new bike earlier in the week and covered a couple of hundred miles riding around local roads in the evenings, it was time for a longer ride out somewhere more interesting. Ron and Lindsay were up for a ride too, the weather looking good for Sunday so all that was required was for us to decide where. Out West in to Wales was the obvious choice, so many great roads to ride and I started thinking I hadn't been out to Lake Vyrnwy or Bala in a while. Looking at the map I fancied a run out to the two lakes (reservoirs) that are joined together by this wonderful mountain road known as Bwlch y Groes that roughly translates to 'Pass of the Cross'. Its one of the highest mountain roads in Wales linking Dinas Mawddwy, Llanuwchllyn and Lake Vyrnwy with views across the Dyfi valley and Cadair Idris.   

Years ago British Motorcycle and Car manufacturers like BSA, Austin and Triumph used the pass as a formidable test road, and in 1926 BSA won the ACU Maudes Trophy for 60 ascents of the pass - a kind of endurance test award to prove machine handling and reliability. So where better for me to ride my new GS I thought, I soon plotted out a route on the Basecamp software to take us through some nice country roads in Shropshire, across the border near Welshpool and around Lake Vrnwy toward Bala then along the pass. The ride out was fun, and some great roads but I must confess I was spending too much time playing with my new bike and made a right 'pigs ear' of leading us along and kept missing turnings or leaving Ron and Lindsay behind in the distance where they didn't have the route loaded to follow... oops sorry gents!

Ron on his Versys

As we came closer to Vyrnwy the roads became more and more congested and the narrow road around the lake was full of cyclists, walkers and other vehicles. Not the best ride around there this time, but we soon picked our way out into the valleys and found the Mountain Pass road.

By now we were getting hungry and ready to get tucked in to our packed lunches. I pulled up in the middle of the pass near the gate and soon after sure enough a British car club consisting of mostly Austin Mini's came along, obviously re-creating one of the test runs like a scene from the Italian Job.

 

Picnic lunch

Later, we all took a look at the map and decided to head off to the coast. Ron tempted us with a visit to  Tywyn where apparently there is a shop that sells honeycomb ice-cream. Sadly and much to Lindsay's disappointment the shop was closed here's a link to Holgates Ice Cream Shop .

Tywyn Bay

Lindsay and his very tidy looking V-Strom. 

At Tywyn sea front here's Lindsay a little downbeat asking: 

 

"Awww.. won't someone buy me an Ice-Cream?" 

"Oh no, they are shut !" 

Ron had us so tempted I guess we will have to go back and try again another day.

I have to say I was well impressed with the condition of Lindsay's V-Strom he bought in 2015 just before our epic Spain/Portugal tour. Over 30 thousand miles now and still going strong. I always admired his highway pegs straight out of the accessory catalogue and new for that year. Touratech - please take note !

 

Very good fuel economy on the 1250 - 64.2 mpg

Great ride out today, and as a footnote would like to say a big thank-you to Lindsay and Ron for putting up with my poor navigation skills and being so preoccupied and such a 'show off' on my new bike. Always good to ride with you guys at last, the first time this year for the three of us together. Cheers 👍