InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

I have had the Tourances on since just before we went to the Isle of Man last year and as they were getting a bit low I had a check round to see what was really available for the GS. Essentially it came down to the Tourances I have had all the time since I have had the bike, and perhaps trying a set of road oriented tyres, and that led me down the Bridgestone BT020/BT021 route. A bit of checking round favoured FWR Tyres in Kennington as best for the ride-in/ride-out price over Watling at Catford. As I was going up to London on Saturday anyway for an Arsenal game, I set off a bit earlier and called in. Luckily I arrived during a spell of quiet and was almost straight in. Luckier than the guys that arrived sometime after me and got told they might have a two hours wait. Anyway, the combination of BT020 front (110/80ZR19) and BT021 rear (150/70ZR17) look good and first impression as favourable. With new tyres there is always that "shock" that the bike handles differently, more ...

Why do they do it? 1) You are in the outside lane of a two lane dual carriageway. You pass a sign to say that the outside lane will close in 800 yards. You are closing up on a single vehicle in the inside lane, at 600 yards you are almost level with their rear quarter, and then they accelerate to stop you passing. Why? 2) You are on a motorway. it could be the M20 near Maidstone but it could be anywhere. It's after 11pm at night. It's dark. There is only one car on your carriageway ahead of you. You have your dipped beam on. As you overtake the car it puts its full headlamps on and then speeds up to pace you for a mile or so before dropping back. Why?

Recently there have been a spate of reports about trucks getting stuck in narrow lanes, or people driving into rivers swollen with flood water; all of them blaming the sat-nav. Here's my version except we expected to have to stop along the route. There are two pics linked together. One the track disappearing into the lake (bottom of page) and the one above of the sat-nav screen. The route is was telling us to follow is to the right of the black triangle! The black triangle is the car's position and I am in mid-turn to go back the way I came..... The route that goes under the tadpole shaped lake doesn't exist.

Chateau de Val , originally uploaded by Invicta Moto . I first saw a picture like this back in the 60's when my grandfather was given a calendar on it as a bit of a laugh. After that we joined in the joke and said it was our old ancestral home. Of course it's not!

Lizard , originally uploaded by Invicta Moto . Here's a little bloke I found on the road in Eymoutiers. He stayed stock still even as people walked past and even as a few cars went by him.