So, Friday night I spent packing the bike for a full days hoonage around mid wales and an over night camp near Glyn Neath.
I was particulary pleased as I found a use for the old bracket from my OEM horn, as it fitted perfectly on the side of the bike and alowed me to fit a cam corder - perfect for some biker spielberg'ing!
Alarm goes off at 07:00 on Sat morning, I open a bleary eye and almost wet myself - full blue sky and big hot sun - wahoo!!
Off I trotted to Terrys and met Jason at about 10:15, whilst sampling the bacon roll of the day, I bumped in to the lesser spotted Hamster and had a quick natter.
On the stroke of 11,I flipped the camera to record and Jas and I set off on to Elan via Brecon and Upper Chaple / Epynt Ranges road. I always liked that road on the blade, but the Tiger just makes it ten times more fun
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We stopped mid way for a quick break, howver the amount of poxy flies made this a very quick stop!! Also looked at the film I'd taken and was disapointed to see 'Hard Drive Error' where 30 mins of hoonage should of been showing.
Moved on to Beulah and and then to Elan Valley, where we stopped for a lamb oggie, lemon meringue pie and cup of fine tea! The roads around the reservouiers were empty considering the decent weather and made for some superb bike time. We took the old mountain road towards Aberwystwyth past the old quary before taking a left turn that in a roundabout way headed towards Lampeter in a very twisty and narrow way
Stopped at the Coop in in Lampeter for more tea at a burger van and also took this oppotunity to fill the paniers with food goodies for the nights camping...
From Lampeter it was towards Llandovery and across the Black Mountain - this was were I had a
moment as the corner I was approaching all of a sudden got much closer and alot tighter... lots of back break and I just kept on getting lower and lower untill touch down - peg, side stand AND exhaust heat shield
Back down to Brynaman and then Pontadawe - 160 miles since we started and only 3 miles from the campsite and ....SNAP - shit... the clutch cable gave way as I pulled off from a set of trafic lights. Luckily for me, I was about 150 yards from Jason XT's front door, and after a quick call Jas was on the scene with his van, complete with foot in plaster and crutches
So we stripped the screen and mirrors off the bike and it fitted in the van lovely, again luckily we were only a couple of miles from my place so we dropped the bike back in my garage. I was still dead keen to get my night under canvas so I popped the paniers in the back of the car and headed straight back to where we'd Jason and we made it the last mile or so to the campsite. Great spot, and owned by a fellow biker and personal friend of Jason XT, who was more than happy to show a pitch.
So, wer're now on site, 1 bike, 1 car and 2 tents! Time for a ging gang goolie camp fire proving that my Ray Mears TV time was not wasted as between us we got a good blaze going and got a few tins of beand and sausages in the embers.
It was at this point that Jason's mobi picked up a weak signal and he got bombarded with texts about my welfare ? ~WTF? Big OOOPS moment on my part... in my haste to go camping, I'd left a bike in bits in my garage, and gone off without leaving a note for the wife, who came home and asumed the worst - I'm now eating a large slice of Humble pie ..
A decent night under canvas, although I suffered a bad case of indigestion..
So all in all a superb day and night out - Star of the day award goes to our own Jason XT for saving my bacon and dick of day goes to ME for upsetting the wife.
We did get some good pics - I'll leave Jason upload those when he's next on line!!
