Will Kemp writing for the Scottish Classic Motorcycle Club

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Roberts Harley

Robert is a more or less regular attender at the Tour and Track Club Second Sunday Ride Outs. This is his new Harley Davidson FLSTCI Heritage Softail Clasic. 72 and still going strong. Look out Italy as he's comming to visit you on the bike next week!

Alcala del Jucar Ride Out

The May Second Sunday Ride Out has got to go down as a classic. It was our first all day Ride Out and we chose to visit Alcalá del Júcar, the spectacularly beautiful town carved in to the valley walls of the Júcar River.

Is that Bruce on the road in the background?

12 bikes of varying power, ridden by 12 riders of varying skills, with 4 pillions, set of from the Meson El Jardin, in Castalla, led by me, Lol, in the direction of Biar, Villena, Yecla, Almansa and finally Alcalá del Júcar – or at least so I thought. Ray was to bring up the rear. Oh, I shouldn’t forget to mention Bruce who set of a short time before us on his 500 cc quad, map in hand – well not literally but you know what I mean.

On the autovia from Castalla, heading towards the Biar turn off, we came across another group of riders. Our group was mainly sports/tourers, theirs were mainly Harley style cruisers. I waited behind the other group to see if they would turn towards Biar which they did – uh-oh. As the other group was going relatively slowly and they were moving over to let us pass I took the opportunity to lead our group past them. What do you think happened next?

Well I came out the other side of Biar, heading towards Villena, with five bikes following behind. The other group of cruisers left Biar, heading towards Bocairente, the opposite direction, with 5 more bikes than they set off with! I won’t mention names but Ray was still bringing up the tail but this time for another group of bikers.

Suffice to say that we all eventually met up, after lot’s of phone calls, at Almansa where we added Will, from the Ayora Valley, to our group. The weather was great, fantastic roads, beautiful views and great food taken at a restaurant overlooking the town.

And Bruce on his quad? Apart from catching a glimpse of him leaving Yecla for Almansa we never saw him for the rest of the day. On Monday he told us that he had arrived in Alcalá about 20 minutes after us but never found the restaurant and spent most of his time looking in the bars for us. Good excuse Bruce.

The next Second Sunday Ride Out is on the 10th of June, 9:30 am, from the Meson El Jardin in Castalla. Come along and join us – you never know where you’ll end up.

Rally Organised by Penya Motera de Fontanars dels Alforins

Join the Alforins Motorcycle Club at their Rally on Saturday 23rd of June.

-Regalo de la Peña - Gift from the Club
-Almuerzo - Breakfast
-Ruta por las bodegas del pueblo - Ride out to local Bodegas
-Exposición y pruebas motos BMW - Exhibition and try outs of BMW bikes
-Paella gigante - Giant Paella
-Actividades varias y divertidas - Lots of entertaining activities
-Sorteo de los esponsors - Draw for sponsors gifts
-Feria gastronomica - Gastronomic Fair (food)
-Verbena - Evening village Fiesta

Penya Motera de Fontanars dels Alforins

View map

ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki Ready For ‘Unique’ 100th TT Challenge

ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki Ready For ‘Unique’ 100th TT Challenge

Tour and Track Club Classics Rally - 8th to 14th October 2007

The dates of the Tour and Track Club Classics Spanish Rally have now been confirmed as Monday 8th October 2007 until Sunday 14th October 2007. The format will be rides out every day in the quiet mountain roads to places with beautiful scenery and places of interest.

Each event will start and finish in the village of Castalla 15 miles from Alicante on the Costa Blanca. All the rides are very relaxed with no pressure the idea is you come and enjoy the sunshine in real Spain.

There are provisions for camping / caravanning/ flat rental/ hotels, the choice is yours.

For further details please contact Peter Dawson......Phone 0034 607434802 mobile. Or better still peter@vintage-motorcycle.co.uk.

Las Vegas Ride Out - 06 March 2007 (2)

So we eventually got to the Hoover Dam and as spectacular a feat of engineering as it is, and it is very impressive, at the moment it looks like a giant building site as a very impressive bridge is being erected stretching across the valley high above the dam.

We had travelled through Nevada and we now parked up in Arizona to view the dam and the lake, Lake Mead. The view of the lake from the dam is impressive enough but later on in the journey we got to see the enormity of this resevoir and to think about the people who built the dam.

This is from Fortune Magazine, September 1933:

"ARTHUR POWELL DAVIS is the chief unsung hero of Boulder Dam. The others are the men who sweat out their days, and many of their nights, in Black Canyon. The Boulder Dam worker of 1933 is a national type of some importance. He is a tough itinerant American--the "construction stiff." His average age is thirty-three. His average wage is sixty-eight cents an hour. He is taller and heavier than the average U. S. soldier, runs a greater risk of losing his life, and has passed a more drastic physical examination. He has been in most of the states of the Union and can find his Way in a dozen different kinds of unskilled and semi-skilled labor--a hoist in a Pennsylvania coal mine, a saw in Oregon, a shovel on a dozen road jobs. He has boiled a string of mules in Bluejacket, Oklahoma - followed a pipe line as it crept across a prairie, a few yards a day, toward a town invisible behind a hill range. He is inured to ceaseless, frightful heat--and fearful cold, too, for that matter. Four or five of him in an old car can always get to a row of lights on Saturday night and if some four-flusher cops his roll or his girl it may be a fight or a laugh-what's the difference? He has earned $10 a day roughnecking on top of 110-foot oil rigs, driven a steam shovel, been slashed in a dance-hall fight, thought a lot about getting married. He is sentimental, moody, and literate; he does not believe he will ever be anything better than what he is, and isn't trying, regardless of the schoolbooks, the adage to "make your spare time pay," and the example of Abe Lincoln. He leaves some money every week or so in Block Sixteen, Las Vegas (legalized prostitution), but has enough left to send a money order to somebody somewhere once a month. He shares the universal superstition of miners that if a woman ever walks into a tunnel where you are working you'd better get out quick because there's going to be a cave-in. He keeps washed. He smokes a pack of cigarettes a shift. When he travels, he rides freights. He knows how to live in jungles, but has never begged. The most he ever had in his life was $5,000 after the pipe-line job but he hung it on a wrong deal and lost it. He likes hunting better than baseball, horse racing better than either. He'll pick a grudge, or smell bad luck, mosey out and hit the road or the rails, but while he works he is inspired with a devil of loyalty, shrewdness, and skill. He wears Friendly Five shoes, and sleeps seven hours a day. He is the man, as much as General Superintendent Crowe and U. S. Engineer-in-Charge Young, who is putting up this dam faster than anyone thought it could possibly be done."

To be continued ....

Feria de San Isidro - Castalla, Alicante, Spain

If you fancy a ride up to Castalla for the Medievil Fair then the weekend of 18, 19 and 20th of May is the time to do it.

If you do decide to come up on your bike then let me know and you can meet up with some of the Tour and Track Club.

lol@tourandtrack.com

BRP Can-Am Spyder

Well take a look at that for a trike. The spyder is designed to give a sort of motorcycling experience to those who chose not to ride a motorbike?

It should be available in Spain/Europe in 2008 but check their web for details.

http://www.rotax.com/