Moto Legende 2012 - Day 5

Day Five: Sunday 27^th May

Dijon, France to Prenois, France & back

Distance: 18 miles / 30 km

Song for today: Breathe : The Prodigy

Back to the racetrack for more of the same as yesterday. Here are some more photos.

French-built Voxan 1000

Yamaha XS650 Flat Tracker

Interesting. I thought that all MV Augustas were sports bikes?

1930s Indian

A stable full of MV Augustas.

Getting ready to rip it up!

Matchless with lovely fishtail exhausts

Norrie is sad that his Honda CL350 isn't as pretty as this one

Another Indian

Italian Taurus (Tavrvs) 500 G27 Sport

Norton Commando

The Lone Riders (?????). Nice moustache, though

Right at home on a Douglas

Moto Legende 2012 - Day 4

Day Four: Saturday 26^th May

Dijon, France to Prenois, France & back

Distance: 18 miles / 30 km

Song for today: Acceleration : Bill Nelson

A short ride this morning to the Dijon-Prenois Racetrack saw us arrive about 08:30 just as they were opening up for the day. We managed to gain entrance to the racetrack and began by wandering around the club stands looking at the bikes. Now then, this was what we'd come for.

Honda Owners Club - France

BSA Rocket 3 between two Triumph Hurricane X-75s (owners from UK)

Indian Motocycle Club of France

It was quite staggering just how many different marques there were, both at the racetrack proper and in the parking area outside. It must also be noted that the more 'interesting' bikes (ie. the older and odder machines) were on the inside, while the more modern machinery on which most folk had arrived stayed outside, and I make no apologies for focussing more on the former than the latter.

I had thought that I had a good working knowledge of older bikes, but was soon confronted by a whole host of marques, a lot of them French for obvious reasons,  that I'd never heard of never mind seen in the light of day. My new favourite bike has to be the art-deco styled Majestic with its pressed steel bodywork and decidedly odd looks. 

Particularly fetching were the brass edged clocks on the dashboard of this fully restored model.

After the club stands, we had a brief look around the trader’s area before heading on to see the racetrack and the race bikes. It's all extremely informal, as you can see from some of the pictures. 

MZ RE125 race bike being prepped

Moto Parilla & Gnome Rhone race bikes. Note pad on tank of the Gnome Rhone.

Most of the bikes are being fettled out in the open and people can just wander amongst all of this taking pictures and asking stupid questions of the folk doing all the work. Quite remarkable, really. I can't see this happening at Mallory Park later on in the year.

a couple of Brough-Superiors

Kawasaki specials by Godier Genoud

It got even more interesting when we discovered that they had opened up the pit area for the day and you could wander right up to the serious race bikes. 

 

Gareth was much taken with the old MV Augustas, but then he has a thing for odd Italian race bikes currently running a Laverda himself.

Did I mention racing? Of course there was a lot of that going on in the background all day long. 

From the deadly serious to the more sedate demonstration type laps the day was punctuated by the roar of bikes whizzing around the circuit on open race pipes. We were even treated to the sight of old-timers like Giacomo Agostini, Phil Read, Jim Redman and others getting out on the track. Before we knew it it was five o'clock and we decided to call a halt to the day's proceedings. We must have walked for miles and it seemed even hotter today than yesterday. 

Do you remember where we parked?

By the time we decided to leave we were all extremely tired and burnt to a frazzle.

Moto Legende 2012 - Day 3

Day Three: Friday 25^th May

Dijon, France

Distance: N/A

Song for today: Before Tomorrow Comes : AlterBridge

Today was a rest day, spent mostly ambling around the town and playing the tourist.

main street with flags

one of the many ornate churches

The centre of Dijon is a smallish medieval town with narrow roads and a definite café-culture feel about it. We even came across a fruit market selling every sort of fruit and vegetable imaginable.

Have I mentioned that it was a bit on the warm side? One thermometer we saw displayed today's temperature as 29° Celsius (that's 84° Fahrenheit in old money). That’s far too hot for these Sons of Caledonia. Time for a cold drink and a seat in the shade.

No, that's not Roger

We bought some sandwiches from a boulangerie called Maison Roger, which Norrie found funny for some reason, and ate them in a park across from the hotel, Le Jardin Darcy. 

It had this rather ornate water feature and fountain (we came across a girl shampooing her dogs in the water the following day) and there was a statue of a polar bear near the gates as well. It is apparently Pompons Polar Bear, and the same sculpture can be seen at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.

a beer, with some nuts, carrot sticks and a dip on the side

Later that evening we went for a bit of stroll once the day's heat had cooled down a bit. There were lots of bikes turning up now, presumably all heading to the racetrack like us tomorrow.

yes, that is a Triumph Hurricane X75 in the middle

a Russian Ural made to look like a German WWII BMW

All too soon it was time to hit the sack. Tomorrow’s event was what we had come all this way for and it wouldn't do to oversleep. Time for bed, Zebedee!

Moto Legende 2012 - Day 2

Day Two: Thursday 24^th May

Zeebrugge, Belgium to Dijon, France

Distance: 365 miles / 588 km

Song for today: Darshan (The Road To Graceland): David Sylvian & Robert Fripp

We were up bright and early this morning. The ship is now on European time and we've managed to mislay an hour overnight. Despite our misgivings of yesterday, all the bikes survived the trip in one piece.

The plan for today is to cover the whole distance to Dijon in stages of about 100 miles or so to allow for sufficient fuel and rest stops along the way. All being well we should make our hotel in Dijon in about five or six hours.

The Three Amigos

The first thing worth a mention is that the weather is unexpectedly pleasant and it's time to dig out the sunglasses while packing the waterproofs away for the time being.

Gareth is master of minimilism. See how little luggage is on the middle bike.

The trip passed without incident, although the last hour or so was a bit of a strain as our old joints complained about the forced inactivity.  

The Hotel Kyriad, which Norrie had booked over the interweb, was conveniently located right in the heart of Dijon and had an underground car park where the bikes should be safe for the duration of our stay. A lot better than parking on the streets.

The only real problem that we encountered was right at the death. When we reached the town centre we encountered a lot of roadworks. This caused merry hell for our sat-navs which were frantically trying to find alternatives routes through the disruption and the new one-way system. The good folk of Dijon are having a tram network installed in their town, and the best of luck to them. I work in Edinburgh and the Council’s disastrous attempt to install a tram system there is well documented. At least we saw some trams actually running, if only to test the tracks.

Anyway, we settled in and, as the long day had taken a lot out of us, did nothing more exciting that night than have a couple of drinks and something to eat before turning in for the night.

Moto Legende 2012 - Day 1

Day One: Wednesday 23^rd May

Musselburgh, Scotland to Hull, England

Distance: 256 miles / 412 km

Song for today: Teardrop : Massive Attack

Having loaded up the panniers the night before, all I had to do was drag the Triumph Sprint out of the shed, fire it up and ride down to Hull to meet up with the others so that we could all arrive at the ferry together. At least that was the plan.

All loaded and ready to roll

On arriving in Hull at a local supermarket (fuel and food in one convenient place), I met up with Norrie (MZ Skorpion Traveller) who had been there for some time having been up with the larks and away before most folk had even rolled out of their beds. Next to appear was Gareth (Derbi Mulhacén Café 659). He'd earlier stopped for Terry at the side of the road who'd been having electrical problems with fuses blowing all over the place. When Terry (MZ Skorpion Tour) finally did arrive he was unsure if he should proceed. His bike was now working, sort of, but any recurrence of its earlier behaviour didn’t bode well for a 1000 mile return trip across Europe. Eventually, the decision was made for him when he ground to a halt about 500 yards from the supermarket as we were making our way to the ferry port. His holiday was over before it really begun and he ended the day on the back of a recovery wagon. So, it was just the three of us who made the boat in the end. 

The first round

What can I say about a ferry crossing? Well, there's a big boat, you go on board and strap down your bike in the hold, climb about a zillion stairs to the passenger accommodation in all your bike gear, drop everything off in your tiny cabin and then shower and change before heading for a well-deserved beer or two. That's about it, really.

Trying to remember how to tie knots

One thing of note, and not a good thing, was that for this route P&O ferries consider it adequate to throw some lengths of greasy rope at you and leave you to try and tie your bike down yourself. The crossing was calm, so no harm done, but that's not the point. Motorcyclists are paying customers too. Considering that most motorcycles cost as much as a family car these days, and that the older British bikes on board were probably worth considerably more, if only to their owners, I find this sort of treatment hard to fathom. Would it kill them to be a bit better prepared? It’s not as if they never carry bikes and don’t know the score here. Oh, well, I'll just have to start travelling with proper tie-downs again, which is a bit of a pain as they take up valuable room in your luggage.

Coupes Moto Legende 2012

Unlike Norrie on his blog I was rather remiss in keeping my trip diary updated on here while I was away recently. Partly down to available time, I didn't really want to spend my evenings typing up the day's events, and partly down to the failure of the software I had to edit the photos that I had taken. This was my own fault as I had been planning on taking my laptop away with me, but changed my mind at the last moment and ended up taking an iPad instead without really checking that it would do the same job. 

So, what I'm going to do is what I did after my trip to Norway last year. Now that I'm back, I'll post a daily trip diary using my notes and upload some appropriate photos of the day's adventures.

Talking of which, I have been going through the hundreds of photographs that I took while away. There are far too many to post here all at once so I'm going to upload most of them to Flickr once I've finished the trip diary and I'll probably use a good few of them in posts in the coming weeks.

For the trip diary I wasn't going to bother with a 'song for the day' this time around, but see that Norrie has been doing it over on his site. So, I'll have a stab at it again as well, but be aware that I have somewhat eclectic musical tastes.