On a differant note i have been watching a guy Ed March and his girlfriend Rachel ? doing a ride from Alaska to Argentina on Honda C90 bikes. His Videos are entertaining with some great visuals Heres part one of the trip.


His Youtube is

https://www.youtube.com/user/c90adventures/videos

Edds website is

http://c90adventures.co.uk/

Rachels Blog is

http://wanderonahonda.co.uk/

Been a long time.

Well hello world its been a while since my last post regarding the VFR.  2016 was a bad year for riding infact only managed 2 short trips to Chelmsford City Motorcycles for a MOT and returning for a retest. She only failed on tight front brakes which was quickly repaired. We then took a trip to my brothers place in Hereford for a short break. This being the first time properly riding in about a year my skills were a bit rusty, i got back into the rythem after an hour or so while taking the backroad route from Essex to Hereford. With about 30 miles to go i managed to mess up a right hand corner and ran off the road into the soft dirt and fell on my left side. My first crash was fortunatly a very soft landing and only a few extra scratches to the side panels to add to the collection. Happly the trip home was made with no mistakes and Viffer was put way again and not used as while falling off i managed to twist my back and riding was painful.

Now to 2017

Well Viffer has been taxed and insured and is ready to be used, im just waiting for the mornings to be warmer so i can use her for my trip to/from work each day and other trips will be made im sure.

Take care out there .

Caterham 485 on Sustenpass //pure roads (Porsche Turbo, Cayman S and Ni...

A rant regarding Vodafone!

My 2 year deal was at a end on the 25th Dec 15 so i decided i would keep my old phone and downgrade my tariff to a sim only deal. Why keep paying extra to pay for a phone that i've already paid for. I choose the unlimited Minutes and Texts with 4Gb of 4g data, i calls the call centre on the 26th and was told sorry cant do it now your account is being moved to the new system please call back in a few days. Called back on the 31st agreed a plan listened to the T & C speech and off i goes. A few weeks have past and i checked the My Vodafone app to make sure i was on my new tariff and i wasn't. So i call the call centre on the Tues 12th Jan 16, normal stuff very sorry blah blah its all fine now your new plan will start at Midnight, Thanks. Checks app late on Wednesday, Guess what tariff not changed! Called call centre Thursday 14th while at work and gets an agent, ow i see yes my manager has allowed the change all will be good in no longer than 24Hrs . Friday 15th still no upgrade call them, sorry blah blah new system failure, all done have a couple of quid a month discount for your troubles. Saturday NO CHANGE now cant login to app or website, and there's a sudden Extra £20 charge on my account. I decide i will call on Sunday when i have plenty of time and im not so pissed off i might call them all a load of untrained monkeys and get charged with insulting monkeys, 30 mins on hold give up try later after lunch, 30 mins on hold gives up try later again, later 50 mins on hold i get someone who cant help next person cant help. On the 6th person now, all done will be working no longer than 24hrs well we will see about that soon enough. I ask to get to the web team to fix my access to the app and website he tries but cant help needs a member of the website team they don't work Sundays. So lets see that's 3hr 47mins about plus about an hour at work so about 5 hours so far to save £12 a month and get a bit more data. NEVER again, i think i am changing provider every year now just to keep them on there game. I have been a faithful Vodafone customer for 23 years this will be the last year for some time. That's assuming the tariff change does actually happen or it could be bye bye sooner VodaFone.

Fun times with Viffer

We went to Blake end craft center in Gt Bardfield today to watch a round of the BLMRA that's the British lawn mower racing association. There was only 2 types of machines racing which were a powered drive roller mower with a trailer for the driver and ride on machines that used to be like a little tractor. They were what I wanted to see and I was quite impressed with the speed and handling of these machines. As for Viffer she worked perfectly as you would expect from a 105k mile honda. Have a look at the pics and video here.

Alaska / Yukon Series

Easter Weekend Trip

On Good Friday i went to Derbyshire area to visit a friend and biker buddy i've know for years. I made the trip on Viffer, we were only going for a couple of nights so just a topbox with a few items was all that was needed. I spent a while the evening before trying to learn the new Garmin Base camp software so i could make a custom route to Jamie's house but gave up and just wrote a note to put in my tank bag top with just basic info of where i wanted to go. As is often the case i was eager to go come Friday morning but there was no race as i didn't need to be there till 5pm ish as Jamie was working. So i left home around 10 and stopped for breakfast in Chelmsford and carried on with my trip with a full belly of Jumbo sausage bacon and fried eggs in a french stick. My basic route was lots of the good local roads we use all the time until i got to less familiar territory where i stayed with the main A roads. As i was travelling along the A6 i say a small brown sign for Santa Pod Raceway and decided i would detour and visit there as i've never been there before. After following a very bad small road i found another brown sign sending me left and what seemed further into the no-wheres. I made it to Santa pod to find they had a weekend festival on and decided i didn't want to pay to go in just for a short visit so i just took a few pics of Viffer at the entrance with the flags behind her. It was still only around 2pm and i only had about a hour and a half of trip left so looking on the sat nav found that Donnigton Park Circuit was not to far and was kind of on route so i navigated there to find that Touring Cars were there that weekend. So again just a few pics of Viffer by the sign and we were of again. The rest of the trip to my friends was uneventful apart from a stop at about 4.30 for a McD's milkshake. That breakfast lasted well. I arrived at Jamie's around 5pm and awaited his return from work. We went for a ride on Saturday with Jamie and Dave both on there KTM Duke 690's i cant tell where we travelled but it was a good ride with a stop for a late breakfast in a Weatherspoons pub and then back to Dave's so he could collect his wife and swap to his VFR800 for an afternoon ride. More great roads unfortunately there were plenty of cars around to spoil some of the fun but we finished up at CMC Motorcycles. We parted ways with Dave and Jo there and made the trip back to Jamie's which was only maybe 30-40 mins. Sunday was leaving day for me and Jamie decided he would wash Viffer on Sat evening in the dark in his garage so what greeted me in the morning was a much cleaner VFR ready for my trip home in the miserable rain that had started when i decided to put my riding gear on. We had aranged to go get Dave and go for lunch at Rutland waters as that was about half way down for them to ride. I was wet to the skin by then so decided i would push on  for home and not stop and the rain did stop and i dried out pretty well until i got to Chelmsford area where it was raining very hard and carry on till i got home wet through for the second time that day. Despite the rain i really enjoyed the short time away and am looking forward to a longer trip later in the year hopefully. Well until next time have fun and be safe.  Stuart