We started the day meeting up with Ray and Bonzo at Fromes Hill Cafe for our usual get together and fry up. This was also the first time we had seen Bonzo's new blackbird so we spent the next 10 minutes looking over his bike trying to find faults, unfortunately we couldn't find much wrong with the bike so had to settle on find faults with the owner instead…
Many hours later we settled on having a ride over to Elan Valley as the scenery is great this time of year and the cake in the visitors centre is also very nice.
We headed into Leominster and then out onto the excellent A44 all the way to Crossgates where we stopped for petrol, after filling up we headed into Elan Valley and stopped at the visitors centre for the promised tea and cake, unfortunately the centre was closed so we decided to have a wander around the dams via the mountain road that would eventually take us back to Rhayader and more opportunity for cake.
It must be said that the scenery around the Elan valley is outstanding, even more so after the heavy snow that had come down the previous week as this helped fill the dams up and they were overflowing with water.
After our gentle ride around the mountain road we headed back to Rhayader and then onto Crossgates where we stopped for our tea and cake at last. Here we said our goodbyes to Ray and Bonzo and me and Bob started 100 mile trip home.
More pictures can be found here
In September 2006 Bonzo had his Blackbird stolen, he would have replaced the bike straight away if it wasn’t for the insurance company being a PITA and dragging their heels, but at the end of December 2006 they eventually paid up so Bonzo was on the lookout for another blackbird.
In February 2007 he eventually found a second-hand 2005 Blackbird for sale at motorbiking.co.uk in Bournemouth so off he and Ray went and picked it up and now Bonzo’s a happy man.
Bonzo's new Blackbird is a second-hand 2005 model with less that 5K miles, it's in excellent condition and came with a rear hugger and a very nice silver colours double bubble screen and a P&P Seating Viper seat.
More pictures of Bonzo's bike can be found here
Saturday morning was cold, blooming cold in fact but that didn’t stop me and Bob leaving the warmth and comfort of chateau-la-bob for the mostly dry roads of Oxfordshire.
The plan was to have a ride around the Cotswolds and end of at Fox’s Diner for lunch and surprisingly that’s what almost happened.
We planned to head down the A429 into Stow on the Wold and then to A424 into Burford and a quick blast along the A40 then turn off onto more local roads like the B4044, A4074 and end up at Dorchester On Thames for lunch at Fox’s Diner.
Well I did say that we almost stayed on plan except that I was in front and totally forgot about turning off at Stow and kept on going all the way past Bourton on the Water and only remembered when we hit the junction with the A40. No worries I thought so we just headed along the A40 into Burford and then keep going. And keep going is what I did until we reached Oxford. Opps I forgot again to turn off the A40 near Eynsham.
Due to my poor navigation ability we decided to resort to the old favourite - GPS. Bob entered the details into his trusty (or should that be rusty) Garmin GPS and off we went, pass the turning for the A34 and into Oxford city centre!
The GPS was set for shortest route, not fastest so in it’s wisdom it took us straight through the centre of Oxford where we had great fun battling with loads and loads of bloody pushbikes.
We eventually survived Oxford and made it to Fox’s Diner just in the nick of time as we were both starving!
Fox’s Diner is obviously a very popular biker’s cafe, it was packed with bikers with everything from Trikes, Sports bikes, a very dirty Honda Blackbird, and a very nice and clean Triumph! Outside there’s loads of easy bike parking, no gravel covered hills here and there’s loads of outside tables, inside it’s also very nice and according to Bob the breakfast was good as well.
After we had eaten we went outside for a chat and to look at the bikes in the car park, also next to Fox’s Diner is MPS Express which is useful to nip in and have a wander around.
More pictures of the trip can be found here
