ferguzzi

It'd be good if it had the guzzi eagle on it somewhere. bigger the better. ciao!

Jeez, Pete, I too am travelling down your way in March! And I too am of the emerald Isle, and will have a wife who is also far better looking then me, and also ride a Guzzi. What are the chances..... However havind had one guzzi riding paddy already as a guest, maybe you'd need a break. I've seen how the aussies and kiwis have difficulty trying ot keep up with us on the beer front. Mind you I don't wear socks at all. Smelly things.

No, I haven't come across that.......not yet anyway! Ciao!

Yeah, I'd be interested, but as there's only 170 of us, I'm not sure you'll get much of a response. But then, Van might buy 50 just for himself.

Pedrosa was an idiot, I don't think immaturity is a good enough excuse, these guys are top class proffesionals who have been racing in one form or another for years. Twit. On the other hand, the yamaha boys looked serious, cohesive and worked to a plan. Honda looked like fools. Shame for Nicky, but the season's far from over. Mind you, if Nicky had been racing as balls out as Vale has been doing from race one, I think we'd be in a different situation. And because of that ,I'm rooting for the doctor. When is the tornado going to win a race, though?

Tex, verily,you are a very strange man. We don't have any shrinks in Ireland. St. Patrick got rid of them all, with the the snakes. Shame he missed the lawyers. We use copious amounts of Guinness instead. Anf if you'really in a bad way, Try some tiquilla chasers.

Yes Turpin, I got the 20 back.(only after asking one of the now sheepish security guys). Hmmm... I've just erased a good paragraph with regard to roguish states, and "terrorists". But to be honest ,I'm not a good enough typist to keep the conversation going, and anyway I'd only be doing it to raise a few heckles. A suprisingly easy thing to do here, I've noticed.

No, I have no problem with the new security measures, after all it's my industry that has been affected most, and I'm probably in one of the most "checked" occupations on th planet. Understandably I suppose, given the amount of damage I could wreak from the flight deck. What I didn't understand was the amount of rules with regard to everyday life, far and away from any perceived security threat. It just seemed there was a rule for everything, and damned if there wasn't someone there to insist on it everytime, and god forbid you might have a difficulty with this. Because Big Brother would be watching. Even if it might only be a spotty 17 year old in a parking lot, or whatever. Anyway, speaking of lack of freedom, I'm off to Shanghai. Great place.

Right, I've been putting this off for a while, mostly because I'm lazy, partly because i've been busy, and slightly because this might piss off a few people. Actually , I don't really care about that last bit, if you get insulted, I don't want to talk to you anyway! I'm a long haul pilot and spend a lot of my time in weird and wonderful places, and about once a month I'm in one of various parts of the States. So, I'm standing at a bar in Miami...trying to counter the jet lag, having landed about 3 hours previous after a 9 hour flight from the other side of the pond. Sipping a bottle of insipid mexican lager and trying to have a coherent conversation with my skipper, who's in his late fifties, deaf after years of flying fighters, and can't hear me anyway because the salsa music is too loud, and besides I'm not not really listening to myself because the cuban dancers are getting 90% of my brain capacity, which is only operating at 20% at this stage anyway. (what day is it now?) I hand a $20 bill to the reeeeally slow barman to buy a round. He looks at it, and pulls it tight to check(I presume) if it's fake. Only , he pulls a little hard, and tears it in two. We laugh, he sort of laughs, Then he tries to hand it back to me. I say" no no," as he tore it , it's his problem. So he runs off to get the boss. So far, so mundanely complicated, but not a big deal. Next thing I have a security man in my face, insisting I go outside to have a "chat". Now, it's quite loud as I said, so faces are quite close, and voices are raised, but there's absolutely no aggression on my part. And I'm sober. I say"no problem", but as a guest of the hotel in which the bar is situated I'd rather go out the other exit, into the hotel, for the chat. Long story short, within 30 seconds I'm surrounded by 6 biiig guys, all looking like they're on patrol in Baghdad, expecting a sniper shot at any moment. At this stage I happen to mention who I am(ie there's 18 of my crew staying in the hotel that night, and every night, and the contract is worth a lot of money). Suddenly it's all handshakes and apologies. Only then do I notice 2 uniformed(and obviosly armed)police officers have been called to the scene too. Boy did I feel important. In June we spent 2 weeks tootling around Arizona/Utah/Nevada on a horrible harley. The trip was great, but for one thing. Sorry sir you can't park there, Sorry Sir you can't go here, Sorry Sir you're not allowed use you're phone, Sorry sir don't sit there...or else? I had less rules in the army! I lived in the states for a year, in 1988. I don't remember it being like this. A girl in a bar in Arizona told me it had only gotten like this since 9/11. Is this true? Where did the totalitarian state come from? What happened to land of the free? Or am I imagining it all?

That is a sweet looking motorsickle. Mind you, you do have some of the best roads on the planet over there, so I'd imagine a spin on a raleigh chopper would probably be fun too. Next year is definetly a year for track days, I got a bit sidetracked this year.

Good to know. Yet another landmine to avoid. Dear God will it ever stop....

surely the biggest quirk is that the riders are a bunch of weirdos!

It's TENNI- not TENNIS.... Oh for Gawd's sake.....!

s'pose you could always chuck it in and buy a renault clio.... somehow I don't see that. Seriously 'though, not being much of a techie, I'm not looking forward to that level of grief. I'll have to start learning something sometime.

say hello to my leedle friend.......! @#!#$# me. wait a fucking minute. I can't actually post the @#!#$# word?? That's fucking discriminatory. Fucking hell. oops. obviously you can. sorry if I offended anyone..... bugger.

hmmm haggis, yes. Looks likes shit, sounds like shit, tastes...kinda yummy, actually. Any chance those idiots with the gun fetish would pipe down? Come on Jaap, they're boring the sh1t out of me.

I brought my Tenni down to croatia in september 2002, and the pawl spring broke, in slovenia. long story, but when I found someone who could fix it , in Austria, the guy was going nuts about the bike because he knew all about some nut who had averaged over 100 mph around the island- and lo and behold here was one of those weird green bikes in his shop!

now that really gets my attention. Yummy....

umm, ......northern antipodeans?? Anyway, since I got back, it's been blue skies and 25 degrees c ( thats 77deg f to the colonials) every day. Hooray for global warming!

The press over here are making a big deal about the fact pedrosa weighs about 4 kilos, and it being a big advantage. It certainly seemed a fair point, but there was a sharp right hand turn one the sachsenring last week with some vicious bumps, and he always suferred on it, and I guess there are plenty of other spots on the circuits I've missed where he feels it more then others. It can't simply be smaller = faster, otherwise we would have had 15 year old female gymnasts competing for the last few years. Not that there wouldn't be a market for that.... On a different note, I feel the pain of the boys who said it was a little warm. I'm just back from a trip around the sunny southwest Of the US on an electra glide( now there's a piece of shit), and we hit 146degrees f at one stage. Thats reeeely hot in celcius. I'll provide some photos and thoughts as soon as I get some energy back.

I'd love to join you all but in-law pressure seems to dictate I'll be going to a car/hot rod show in Qualicum on the day in my corvair. I know what I.d rather be doing, but I think the Mrs. get seniority over here. I just seem to be missing everything this year!

I'll be there, but driving a 65 corvair. Hey ,at least I'll be there! Is it indoors or in a car park, or what?

Hello from a hot and sweaty Hong Kong! Thanks for all that info, God some of those shots have really whetted my appetite.I've seen about 40 of the states on two wheels but obviously there'salways more to discover. Truly parts of the US really are God's own country. It's a shame about Oklahoma as I've never been there, but I really apreciate the offer, it's just another trip I'll do some other time. I still haven't been to montana, or the Dakotas either, so a lot to look forward to. Yeah Martin I'me going to miss the erin rally, and the scottish trip too, and a whole bunch of other thing too, because Angela has inbeen inconsiderate enough to have her 40 birthday in early June. I'm desperate to get over to The uk somtime this year( I'd love to do a track day), but nthing concrete planned yet. I sure you'll manage Erin without me, though! We're actually going to be away for about a month, apart from the bike trip, We're also getting remarried by Elvis in vegas (Which ought to be good for a laugh!) and then up to Vancouver to hang out with the in laws. Bring it on!

For my sins, I've rented an electraglide in las vegas for a week in june, and me and the mrs. are going to tootle up to monument valley, over to kanab, and then back to vegas. It seems there are lots of canyons and national parks around the southwestern part of utah, near kanab, and I've never been to that part of the US. Any recomendations? And will it be hot? I can't tell what the elevation is in those parts, and my experience of riding thruogh a lot of that part of the world, is that eventhough it should be warm in june, it won't be at 10'000 feet!

One other thing. It was far more comfortable on the crappy rough roads round these parts.