2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Get on yer bike and lets rumble!!

Moderators: AMCQ46, geodude

User avatar
cheekykev
Posts: 1127
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:12 pm
Location: Cheshire

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by cheekykev »

Well I know we've only just got back, but who will be up for doing it again next year ?????????????
It will most likely be on or before the 21st July.
Due to the area, and the fantastic roads we found this year, it is very likely to be based in Enniskillen area, or Sligo. If you're up for it, then please let me know, there will be very limited places available.
Like what you do
Do what you like
He who wonders isn't always lost
User avatar
KermitLeFrog
Posts: 1634
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2015 6:44 pm
Location: Hexham

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by KermitLeFrog »

Hi Kev, the Gentlemen of Tynedale will probably be there but we'll sort our own accommodation. Just let me know where you will be staying.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered" (George Best, RIP)
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

Jamoi wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:08 pm Must have been a good time. He's still not recovered enough for pics and a write up! Image
Within 12 hrs of getting home from Ireland, I was off to a music festival, so as soon as I have recovered from 10 days of burning the candle at both ends, I will update!
AMcQ
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

late I know, and I will already have forgotten half of what happened 8O . I will also add the pictures on a separate post as its easier to do photos with my phone, but easier to type war & peace with a computer!!

This year, it was only PeteL and I making the Friday early morning trip up to Holyhead for the 11am ferry to Dublin. Our usual 3rd man, Tony.mon was already there, having taken his wife as part of her birthday treat !
Pete came up to my house on the Thursday night and explained that had already had a soaking, which was pretty strange as it hadn't been raining! Turns out his route had included a river fording, but as the concrete was covered in green Algae it was slippery as feck, so one min he was upright and next thing he was lying on his side in the river. Then as if that wasn't enough humiliation he couldn't pick the bike up because it was so slippery under foot 8O.

As is normal with these sprints to the ferry, we got rained on, but this time is was the first half of the trip that was going to be (very) wet, so we broke the normal rules and jumped on the motorway to keep the average speed up, but by the time the Welsh roads got interesting it had dried out and we had a good run for the last 70 miles to the port and on the other side from Dublin up over the border.

The rest of the U.K. Lads,.... Cheekykev and Adam in the van, Budd on his KTM GT and 3 of his mates (lil Chris on BMW S1000R, Sukey Chris BMW S1000XR, Jake KTM superduke 1290 and Mick Curley BMW GS) and Kermetlefrog on his Tuono plus 4 of his tynedale mates (wellgroomed now on a KTM 790 duke, Edward on his BMW s1000r, a new lad Kev on a KTM 790adventure and one who's name has escaped me on a big BMW GS) they were traveling to Belfast via the Cairnryan ferry, so we would eventually all congregate in Newcastle (County Down, not Tyneside). we were joined at the cottage by one of the locals, little kenny on his KTM 690 Duke, and Dave O'Donal KTM 1090 Adv and Ashley On his firestorm were up from the south and staying in a B&B in town. James, Fabiostar (riding Dori as his new MT wasn't running) and Chris on a Honda 500 were going to turn up in Saturday morning just for the ride..

A few beers at the cottage for our team on the Friday night with Kev producing a big pot of chilli out of the van to feed the 5000 :D , although there was a few that walked into town and had hangovers come Saturday morning :lol:

The plan was to have a 200 mile figure of 8 shaped ride on the Saturday, but in between beers I had a look at the forecast and it was going to be biblical rain for most of the morning, so after conferring with James (Fabio was also on that group chat, as one of the 3 route planners, but more on that later) we agreed to delay the start from 9 till 11, and use a shorter 150 mile route I had plotted for those that were also going to go out for a ride on the Sunday.

message put out on the bigger WhatsApp group early Friday evening to advise of change of plans, but as you can imagine there is always somebody who didn't spot it ...... in this case it was Fabiostar who was spotted on his way through Newcastle about 8.30am. he eventually answered his phone and after a lot of swearing, I tried to tell him how to find his way to our warm dry cottage, but he couldn't make sense of it, so we sent Kev down in the van to escort the little drowned leprichorn to safety..... He was still cursing when he got to the house :lol:

rain eased off a bit by 11, but it was still wet when we set off to the meet-up point, when we got there Edward had decided it was his turn to have the traditional Irish puncture and there was a small team working to fix it.

As is traditional, James takes the lead on the single cylinder Husky 701 Supermoto ( and we all take turns to try and keep up with him) and we set off in a south westerly direction, and bit by bit the roads get drier :D :D :D .... now the chase is on :thumbup:

cracking roads and only 1 failure in the 2nd man drop off, when 3 guys were overtaking a truck down a straight and as a result were not able to spot the rider who was marking the right turn down a side road .... so we had a coffee as we waited for them to work it out and contact us (or see if they had worked out how to share location on WhatsApp!!).

other than that there was no mishaps and only fun chasing James on some serious firepower bikes (Jake on his 1290 SuperDuke R & my 1190 megamoto pulling all kinds of shapes and Pete joining on his semi submersible Suzuki :twisted: :twisted: ), and I even found out I had added some new roads to James list that he never knew about.

all I can say is that James had so much fun on Saturday that I managed to convince him to get permission from his wife AND the day of work on Monday to come and join us for the "after party" trip out to the west coast near SLIGO.... but again that is a later part of the story :D

Saturday night about 15 of us headed into town for a few beers and a meal, the wise people went home after that .... the less wise, and I am included in this!, staled out till gone 3am, and we were well rough when we got up for breakfast!
As part of my self punishment I refused to delay the 9.30 planned start for the Sunday ride (that I was leading), as the rain was coming about 3pm, and I didn't want to slip back into that.

perhaps an indication of how bad I was was when I realised the reason my 2nd earplug wasn't going in to my left ear was because I had already put one in there!!! but I was the ride leader so I had to get my sh1t intogear :wtf:

about 10 of us lined up for day 2, and I had taken the Saturday route and cut the top off it to get it back to about 150 miles to make sure we got back before the rain, so we hit the slightly damp roads and sure enough the coordination comes right back on some fun twistys.

I made the route shortcut to go back east just as the weather was turning (although Budd and kermetlefrog had headed back slightly before that, one with after-effects of the night before and one with dodgy steering head bearings) and we looked to be getting well clear of the rain for our return.

at this point I felt relaxed enough about the weather to stop and have a relaxed lunch stop at a diner and still make it home..... but you know what's coming next!!! yup, within 30 mins of leaving the lunch stop it starts spitting, but its a bit on and off and I think we can still out run it ... if we speed up :lol:

its not too bad as we head into Newry (about 25 miles to get home), and then it gets heavier, but I am thinking it is very localised and press on not stopping to put on my overtrousers (or remembering that I also have Petes overtrousers, so he has no option either).... bad move as my leather trousers are now waterlogged and I am sitting in a puddle! (and so is Pete :( )

but then to make things worse, my bike starts flashing a low tyre pressure warning (its posh and has TPMS!), so I stop and check it not flat and even though its soft I can't see anything in it so press on to a small town with a petrol station and we all shelter there in the covered carwash and the rain passes.

I can now see a small object in the tyre, but is a slow leak so I pump its up to 60psi so I can do the repairs when I get back to base, and we set off home in the sunshine.

the last 20 miles were all dry and the tyre stayed up :thumbup: . I spent the whole time stood up on the pegs with my zip down trying to get some wind drying effect into the sodden leathers that I was going to have to wear the next day ... not very successful, but it would have confused the oncoming traffic to see a biker riding stood up with his flys down :lol:

back at base and with a beer in hand we extracted the small piece of flint that was causing my puncture and tried to plug repair .... but after using 2 plugs and all my CO2 canisters, it was still leaking :( ... the tyre only had 500 miles of tread left on it and the centre carcase was too thin, so I was now looking at options to get a new back tyre first thing Monday morning.

Thankfully Kev had his support van, so it was just a case of taking the back wheel out and chucking it in the van .... well it would be if some boy racer hadn't decided that he would take the centerstand off his adventure bike as it was grounding out under spirited riding!
A bit of heath Robinson bodging later, the KTM is balanced on its side stand, with a small log sitting ontop of a brezeblock, wedged under the swingarm paddock stand bobbin on the other side holding the rear off the ground, and the wheel is out.

back to the beers!

the local guys have made some recommendations of good bike tyre places, so next morning at 7.30, Kev and I are off to the shop to be there when they open. new Mich PR6 fitted at a great price and we are home just as Budd, Jake, lil Chris and Sukey are leaving to get their ferry. out of interest, checked the milage when I had originally fitted the PR5 that was in, and it had done 4500 miles, I would have had to change it when I got home so would have meant 5000 miles out of the rear.

wheel back in, packing done and the remaining few (PeteL, MickCurley, and I on bikes, Kev & Ads in the van) are ready to set off for the after party and meet up with James for some more roads I hoped he would like.

but I will do that story later
AMcQ
User avatar
Pete.L
Forum Health And Safety Officer
Posts: 7208
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2003 5:09 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by Pete.L »

Spot on Ali :thumbup:
Thank god I was following when you were stood up with your fly's down. No wonder the oncoming traffic was moving out of the way!
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Pete.l
My new ride is a bit of a Howler and I love to make her Squeal
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

The non Japanese bikes resting on Friday

Image
A few photos of the group at the meeting point

Image
The only 2 storms!

Image
Edward’s puncture pit crew

Image

Image

Image

the wait for the 3 that went straight on .... fortunately there was a coffee shop on the side of the playing field
Image

Image

And the heath Robinson rear paddock stand
Image


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
AMcQ
User avatar
alanfjones1411
Posts: 2787
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 3:33 pm
Location: watford

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by alanfjones1411 »

Great write and pictures Al.I would have loved to see a photo of Pete in the ford :lol: :lol:
SO WHEN DOES THIS OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER KICK IN
User avatar
KermitLeFrog
Posts: 1634
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2015 6:44 pm
Location: Hexham

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by KermitLeFrog »

Me and Budd had a rather nice ride back that day. We missed the rain and the dry roads perked up Budd and helped me forget my shoddy steering.

Back home with the front wheel in the air there was a horrid notch straight ahead on the steering stem so with load on the wheel it would have been even worse. And, before you go on about bad Italian reliability I checked and I had replaced my Firestorm steering head bearings at the same 24k mileage. So, Aprilia = Honda reliability!
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered" (George Best, RIP)
User avatar
sirch345
Site Admin
Posts: 21658
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2003 10:35 pm
Location: The West Country.

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by sirch345 »

What a great write-up Al 8) :clap: :clap:
Really interesting and entertaining to read :lol:

Many thanks Al for taking the time to write all of that, and for posting up the photo's :thumbup:

Pete, I hope you and your bike were okay after the Flooded Ford drenching :eh:
That must have been quite a shock.

Photo of the day has to be Al's bike propped up with the back wheel out on that makeshift stand :lol: :clap: genius.

Image


Chris.
tony.mon
Posts: 15928
Joined: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:46 pm
Location: Norf Kent

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by tony.mon »

Well done that man, a fairly accurate account.

The Saturday night was an epic Newcastle night out, honed to perfection by several previous efforts- I was going to say dry runs but the would be misleading. One of the previous versions with a bottle of Merlot in hand in the dodgems comes to mind- what there is left of it.

A starter in Quinn's, on to the pub with a band, then back to the karioke in the sports bar to finish the night sums up the Newcastle night life pretty well, I think.

Alastair made shapes that I didn't know existed that night....
It's not falling off, it's an upgrade opportunity.
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

Tony, I Hope your wife enjoyed her birthday week and the night out in Newcastle must have been her highlight :lol: :lol:
AMcQ
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

KermitLeFrog wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:58 pm Me and Budd had a rather nice ride back that day. We missed the rain and the dry roads perked up Budd and helped me forget my shoddy steering.

Back home with the front wheel in the air there was a horrid notch straight ahead on the steering stem so with load on the wheel it would have been even worse. And, before you go on about bad Italian reliability I checked and I had replaced my Firestorm steering head bearings at the same 24k mileage. So, Aprilia = Honda reliability!
Ian, I love the subtle way you made sure people knew it wasn't you who had overdone the partying :lol: :lol:


Leaving the Walk of shame for Budd 8O
AMcQ
User avatar
AMCQ46
Posts: 16533
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 4:54 pm
Location: Worcestershire / Warwickshire border

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by AMCQ46 »

sirch345 wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:00 pm
Many thanks Al for taking the time to write all of that, and for posting up the photo's :thumbup:


Chris.
No problem Chris, I like to do a write up for a few reasons, the main one is to keep the forum active and encourage new members to come join any of our operation Storm weekends, but it's also a great way to help manage the comedown from such a fun week by allowing me to relive all the memories.

For any new member reading this, it may sound daunting to come and join in, as it could be read like everybody knows each other and we are all racing hooligans. But there are riders of all levels in the group, and the 2nd man drop off marking system means everybody can ride their own pace and not get lost or left behind, and more importantly, none of us knew each other till we took the plunge to come along to our first weekend..... And now we are addicted to the laughs.

When James, MickCurley and I were sat in our B&B in Sligo drinking Jameson's, I was trying to explain to our host Mary how the Englishman, Scotsman & Irishman knew each other, and it's so random it made her laugh. when I said I had only known them because they were each a friend of separate person who happened to be an owner of a particular motorbike (both of which I only knew through the Internet) , who had come along to an owners weekend and out stayed the original friend. She also couldn't work out how the 3 of us had only been in each other's company for a total of about 10 days over the space of 5yrs, yet seamed to be such great friends.
The easy answer is we found out through riding a motorbike together that we have similar values and character, and even though none of us know much else about each others history, the way you are on a motorbike says a lot about a person, and based on that we have a high level of trust in our short relationship....

You can tell we had been drinking :lol: :lol:
AMcQ
User avatar
KermitLeFrog
Posts: 1634
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2015 6:44 pm
Location: Hexham

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by KermitLeFrog »

AMCQ46 wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:09 am
You can tell we had been drinking :lol: :lol:
That always helps!

Anyway, well said Alastair. It's fantastic how this thing has evolved over the last 20 years. Take a look at when Pete made his first post. Mine was 8 ish years ago so I'm a new-comer but having, at the time a Firestorm, was probably the luckiest thing that ever happened in my biking experience.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered" (George Best, RIP)
User avatar
JSt
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:28 pm

Re: 2022 Irish meeting 22nd July

Post by JSt »

Well said indeed! Thanks for writing up all those memories Al. What a great few days on and off the bikes that was. Super company to share (new) roads and a few drinks with. Thanks to Kev for legwork too. Looking forward to Scotland now. Firestorm owners rock! Must get one some day :wink: :D
Post Reply