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CVO Social => Ride Report => Topic started by: ice6900 on June 04, 2009, 03:03:42 PM
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it started here @ 7am on saturday 23rd may 2009
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it ended here on thursday 4june @ 4pm
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so what happened during the 6278.3km....................trip?
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yess??? :drink:
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set off from Zurich Switzerland @ 7am and headed to Germany via Basel Freiburg Mannheim Karlsruhe to Frankfurt am Main arrived at the The Factory by midday where i met ThomasK
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a few in the dealership pics
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Thomas^s suggested we go for a rideout into Bavaria using the back roads through the beautiful countryside and forest areas, so after eating my pizza at the HD dealership MV Augusta open-day we set off...........eventually i need fuel which i indicated to Thomas who showed me to a petrol station, which we entered from the exit of the highway oppps riding along the high kerb we both managed to scrape the underside of our bikes frames as we dropped down into the parking lot. Ouch.....more about that later
after more riding we arrived at his weekend retreat
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the view of the castle from the garden
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the following morning (sunday) we set off again about 10am for more scenic riding along the river Main and back to Frankfurt, at about midday i set off towards Venlo in Holland via Koln and Essen, where i was to met up with my friend Rob who was travelling from St Malo in north/western France. It was getting pretty hot at midday so i gave the 07fxstsse a bit of gas on the autobahn and arrived there just over 3hours later, hmmm a bit to much gas as the weep from the front cylinder base seal and from the air filter appeared again.
Monday morning Rob and I set off on our Km cruncher day, the weather forcast on Tuesday was not good so we decided to go for it and get ahead of it. Our First/farthest day was 960km in 11hours from start to finish from Venlo in Holland to Malmo in Sweden via Germany n Denmark inclusive of gas stops and lunch at burger king thats a days average 86km/h, we booked into a hotel and headed into town, eating in a backstreet local bar for which we were charged incorrectly i think, a very cheap 15€ for 2 large pizzas, fries and 2 local pear ciders.
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we then took a walk around some some of the old town of Malmo
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Tuesday morning we awoke to better weather than we expected, but knew the bad waether was following us north, as we started on our days ride we noticed many unmarked Police cars waiting on the lead roads, we headed towards Stockholm riding up the center on Sweden via the E4 to Jonkoping where we eventually found the dealership (tom tom had an out of date address) and bought the t-shirt, our original plan was to find a hotel there but the salesman told us the storm was expected later that afternoon, so we jumped back on our mopeds and rode up the lake on route 50, we came across many speed cameras along this route, the style of which i had never seen before, they resembled traffic lights in a way, tall slim units mounted on poles but luckily they take the pictures of approaching motorists, but they are well sign posted and stating they are directly connected to the Polisi.
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as we were riding i often saw a sign near a farm entrance which said RUM, i nearly stopped a few times to puchase some of the local rum, but was glad i didnt when i realised that rum meant "room"..........
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by 5pm we had checked into a hotel, getting the last available room, when it started to rain.......our bikes were pretty dirty now and covered in pollen from the trees.
the next morning we didnt buy another t.shirt at the Stockholm prices, its a nice dealership having only recently opened a few months ago having joined together two shops from other sites in Stockholm. Upstairs they have quite a large inventory of used bikes (alot of road kings)
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Hi Nigel,
Good to see that you've returned safely from Finland! Great report so far, can't wait to read the continuation of the story, but I am leaving for Sylt tomorrow at 7 am, so good night!
Ride safely,
Louis
PS: And it is MV Augusta, not Moto Guzzi .... ;-)))
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Hi Nigel,
Good to see that you've returned safely from Finland! Great report so far, can't wait to read the continuation of the story, but I am leaving for Sylt tomorrow at 7 am, so good night!
Ride safely,
Louis
PS: And it is MV Augusta, not Moto Guzzi .... ;-)))
thanks for correcting me Louis, i am always getting the two names mixed up.
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So because of the supposed bad weather we were 1day early in Stockholm for our overnite ferry to Turku Finland, A friend of Rob^s had told him if we had time in Stockholm then there was an old galleon that was being restored in a museum which was well worth the visit.
Vasa (or Wasa) was a warship that was built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden from 1626 to 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. Vasa fell into obscurity after initial attempts at recovering her valuable cannons in the 17th century but was located again in the late 1950s, in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. She was salvaged with a largely intact hull on 24 April 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Wasa Shipyard") until 1987, and was then moved to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and, as of 2007, has attracted more than 25 million visitors.
A link if your interested in reading more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship))
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after our Swedish history/culture trip we walked a little around a harbour area
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later we found our way to the ferry terminal, to join the many other riders
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checked in, our ferry just docking
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all aboard, i was surprised that we just had to park our bikes and they were not strapped down as in all ferry crossings i had experienced previously, but this was a much bigger ship, a cruise liner silja line MS Galaxy
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On board i was surprised to see so many beers being consumed as the Sweden and Finland are relatively strict on drink driving, i had discussed this with my riding colleague as we agreed max 2beers per day, this is a riding/exploring holiday!
We had forgotten to put our clocks forward 1hour and were awoken by the ships tannoy and a knock on our cabin door. "The ship will be arriving shortly vehicle owners please return to the car deck!"
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sunsetting over the many islands the ship travels past
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As i suspected the local police were meeting some of the ferry crossings and breathalising riders as they came off the boat, unfortunalely for some they failed the test and were told to get back on the ferry to return to Sweden. There were more controls just outside the city and on some routes up to the rally site, we passed several unmarked police cars hiding behind bushes on the entry ramps to the roads waiting for speeding motorists. I was about to overtake a dark blue car with blacked out windows when i noticed a STOP light in the rear of the car, hmmm that was close!
Rob and I decided to travel up the west coast of Finland on route8, via Pori towards Vaasa, we had thought this would be scenic but most of it was cut through tall pine trees which was very disapointing and boring straight roads, after a while the only thing keeping us awake was looking out for elk and deer, traveling through Sweden we had only seen 1deer running across the road so far. The deer usually run away but the elk we were told woultd stand its ground.
About 100km before Vaasa we turned inland towards Kauhajoki and the rally area in Seinajoki. This last part was much more interesting with some bends in the road and passing though farm land and civilisation. We arrived at the entrance in perfect timing 10mins before the gates opened, with a relatively short queue (a few hundred) of bikes infront of us.
3060.3km from home to rally entrance, the gates soon opened, there was a long queue for the admission of payment with cash, only half as long was the queue for payment with credit card, we we both jumped forward into the smaller queues, on the left was another seperate entrance for the full patch club members who were subjected to more stringent control, Rob being a super rally virgin though he would jump into there queue as there was virtually no queueing, he realised just at the point of no return his mistake lol.......and returned to the credit card queue.
we had experienced no problems with the bikes and neither of us had experienced any major discomfort or saddle sores.
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set up camp along the main drag,along side the river bank, not to far to the event area and the same distance to the toilet and shower containers, was this a good idea?
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a nice lil sandy beach area near our tents. Mosquitos were to become more problematic as the days progressed.
The first nite it seemed like most people were hitting hard on the expensive beer in the rally area 5€/rally dollar/pint, 2€deposit on the plastic glass, many could no longer walk straight or unaided. Even the english guys were surprised at the way the Fins were downing the beer, thats the result of to much control we think.
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a few pics of the rally event area before the crowds arrived, the wall of death in the back ground.
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a nice servicar with an evo motor
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this was the beer keg truck in the main stage tent
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Players dance show, these girls were also walking around the site selling Jaegemeister
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a corvette v8 trike, for sale
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staging the rally has some benifit to the local community as the old bridge was replaced, this bridge linked the party zone to the shopping and camping areas.
Actually the number of vendor stalls was greatly reduced from previous years, mostly were local, thats probably because of import taxes and sales licenses!
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two Finish sauna were constructed and also 3 hot tubs, heating of course fuelled by logs, there was also a container shop nearby selling a variety of beers drinks snacks and a few necessities. the camping area extended 2 or 3km and as more and more guests arrived other areas were opened up. Over 9000 people attended the rally.
The nice toilets and shower cubicles constructed in containers were soon a muddy mess with nobody cleaning the changing area floor infront and no mops to do it ourselves, this didnt bother us to much as were has decided our body odour might repell the Mosquitos! The lil devils certainly took a liking to my bald head.
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we took the opportunity every day to explore rural areas of finland, being subject to breathaliser tests most days, the usual 0.5% reduced to zero% for bikers this weekend
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much like holland here
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one of the thousands of bridges crossing the rivers and water ways
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a typical rural homestead, many are also single story buildings, these can be found in both Sweden and Finland
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outbuildings
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lunch break by the marina in Vaasa
update on the scratched lower frame,
due to the hot weather my lips were starting to feel chapped so i went to a supermarket to by some lip salve, had to asked a female assistant where to find it, then i thought get some dark purple nail vanish to touch up the exposed metal under the frame, there was a lady standing near us when i was discussing with Rob which shade i was looking for when she started giggling at the sight of two bikers discussing nail polish, so i explained the reason for my purchase, thats a great tip she exclaimed i will have to remember that next time i scratch my car!, then a few seconds later she came back and asked is this what your lookin for?, sure is lady thank alot!
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somebody lost their tent to the river, donno how it got there! could be it wasn`t pegged down and the wind caught it, maybe the owner had upset somebody. The river became a source of great entertainment, there was a bunch of Polish guys sitting on white platsic garden chairs on some flat rocks drinking beer, one leaned back to far and the back legs snapped under the strain, he fell backwards into the water, his friend laughed so much he did the same thing, another friend tried to help the first guy up and his footing slipped on the slippery rocks and they both fell into the water again. Hilarious stuff.
The strippers were also having problems with there chairs, on the thursday nite the girl carried onto the stage a dining room chair, she was wearing just bra n pants/(a string underneath) and a pair of high healed high soled knee high boots, as she swung her leg over it to sit backwards on the chair she twisted her ankle and fell on her bum! The lil mishap was soon forgotten as she entertained us with cold water n ice cubes as props.
The next night there was a pink leather lounge chair but again the poor girl had trouble with this, the seat cushion wasnt fixed correctly and as she sat backwards on the chair the cushion slid forward and the poor girl was hanging upside down trying to hang on to the armrests to try n keep some dignity.
At the end of the rally the rubbish containers were filing up fast with broken foldable camping chairs, inflatable mattress and broken tents.
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10€/rally dollar eat all u can buffet every evening
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same menu everyday, pizza was available in other areas, also bbq fire sides of smoked salmon which we wanted on the last evening but was sold out! gggrrrrrrr!
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breakfast with musical entertainment
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u can pack all you need in this lil dethleffs trailer/caravan
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drinkin water n watching the activity go by
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saturday afternoon at the speedway, boy did we get dusty, the circuit crew would flatten the track and spray it with water after every 4 races to keep the dust down but with the lack of shade and the 30°c heat there efforts were in vain
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speedway moped
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this poor lil guys decided to play chicken with me but i couldnt avoid him and my rear tyre ran over him
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this picture was taken at midnight on saturday nite, this was as dark as it gets for the 3hours that the sun goes down at this time of year
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Our sunday ride was not a good day, we decided to check out some of the local attractions we rode to a shop that specialised in selling american cars, we arrived there at 10am but it didnt open till midday, so we peered through the windows to see which cars they had in there inventory, caddies, ponies, pickups, stretches etc etc
we decided to ride another Brothers Keskinen Ltd which is the biggest village shop in Finland opens from 9-20 on sundays, except this sunday it was closed.........bahhhhh humbug!
we had seen a sign for a go-kart track a few Km^s back so we rode there 1km up a very bumpy dusty dirt track in the middle of the woods only to find there were only a couple of guys there practising.
Oh well lets ride back to the rally sight, 10km to go Robs bike (04 Heritage) starts to play up missfiring, he thinks he needs gas, so i pin point him in my tom tom and ride off to fill up. The nearest gas station was closed, so i rode to another pulled up at the pumps finding it was a unmanned site, payment with credit card or euro notes. there was a small shop across the road so i bought a 1.25ltr lemonade pet bottle drank a little and poured out the rest, then i found my credit card wasnt accepted, so back to the shop to lower a 50euro note. I rinsed and filled the bottle with fuel and topped up my tank with 20€. Rode back to find Rob who was patiently waiting, he told me loads of bikes had ridden past but nobody had stopped to ask if he needed help. He topped up his tank but the bike still ran rough, we rode to the same gas station and he filled up. still running rough we nursed the heritage to the rally service depot.
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buy then his engine light was burning, they checked it out and diagnosed the rear cylinder wasnt firing so they replaced the coil and the plug, charged him 210€, rode it around the parking, seems ok.
my springer was due its 24k km service so i had the engine oil and filter changed out 180€, full service was booked the day after my return home
we rode off the same fault cropped up again, so back to service............ after rechecking they told us they didnt have all tech equipment so it was best they contacted the local dealer n they repair it. So the dealer turned up 2hours later on sunday evening and took the bike to the dealership where it was looked at on monday morning, we had a a 5hour ride and a 7pm ferry to catch monday evening.
Monday morning we were up early packed up our stuff and left it all in Robs tent, after breakfast i took him to the dealership, we explained our priority to the tech, who after chilling and drinking his coffee started to check the bike, diagnostic also indicated the same fault, he checked all cables connecters etc, told us he couldnt fault it, go for a ride n come back. Well it was ok, then it missed abit then it was ok again, i told Rob to give it some gas on a faster road, seemed to be ok now. so we went back to the Seinajoki dealership, they didnt charge him for picking the bike up or for the hours labour. I gave the guy 20€ to get some beers. We rode back to rally site and finished packing, then set off towards Turku and our ferry, but the intermittant missfiring was becoming more and more troublesome, by the time we reached a gas station near Tampere it was running only with the front cylinder firing, decision time, call breakdown n miss the ferry or plod on! As Rob had 2 extra days before his next ferry from France to the channel islands we opted to nurse the bike 300km to the ferry, she wasnt making any undue noises and managed a reasonable speed on the back roads away from the busy traffic. We arrived in Turku about 3pm, i said as we have a few hours lets go to the Turku dealership for another opinion, i asked the tech if he had time to hook the sickle up on the diagnostic, bring it down he said, no messing around we had 3techs searching for the problem they tried all they could then decided to remove a ecm from a used fat boy that was for sale, salesmen dont like us he said. Puuuuurrfect it ran like a goodun but the fatty had a standard set up and the heri stage1, one of the tech guys tried to phone Sweden to ask on availability of a ecm but no joy, so we asked him if we could use there ecm to get home then we would post it back to them, he asked the owner of the dealership who said Rob should pay500€ for the ecm and give them his bank acc details and they would reimburse him when they recieved to ecm back. They didnt charge him for the 2hours tech time either, WHAT A GREAT DEALERSHIP, TURKU Dealership SGN BIKES in Finland.
The pic below was taken at the Seinajoki dealership.
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Back at the ferry, i spoke with a bunch of guys from Belguim, who said they were held for 3hours by the police, one of them was over the limit eventually they were allowed to leave and told they had 5hours to reach the ferry after that there driving licenses would be suspended in Finland for 2months. A letter would be sent to the justice dept in there home town, from where he will expect to recieve probably a large fine and suspension.
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all aboard again
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Every morning the Heriboy wasnt happy until it warmed up, as the mapping/tune wasnt good. But it held out!
Boy what a temperature difference from the hot sweltering (up 2 30°c) few rally days to +13°c air temp in Stockholm
We took a different route through Sweden travelling down the east coast on the e22, tom tom said 12hours but we did it in 9. We arrived near Malmo about 3pm so decided as the weather was closing in again from the north to press on over the bridge to Copenhagen, bad judgement as we were not happy with any hotels in the city and now it was rush hour, we waited 1/2 hour in a gas station for the main traffic to pass then pressed on towards the next bridge and Odense, eventually we found a trucker lodging hotel on the highway (ouch 100€ per night)
next morning same as the day before Heriboy wasnt happy until she warmed up, we put on rain gear to keep out the cold, there were ominous black clouds coming in from the north heading south east, we just caught the leading edge (so last nights bad judgement turned out to be good) and we rode though Denmark and Germany via Hamburg Hannover Essen and back to Venlo in Holland.
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After a good evening meal and 2 beers we asked for dessert, sorry none today but i^ll ask the chef, chef will make a surprise is that ok, sure is!!!!!!!!!!
We were due to ride in different directions the next morning, Thursday, me to Switzelrand and Rob to west france where he had a ferry to the channel islands on saturday evening.
The next morning was cold n drizzly to start but i decided to add on a few extra Km and hours and ride with him as far as Namur in Belguim.
Heriboy was felling worse today and Rob indicated to me to stop at the next gas station, he asked me to check with tom tom if there was a dealer nearby, only 18km in Belguim so we headed there, checked the condition of the plugs which appeared a lil black but mech said no worries, Rob bought a couple of spare plugs n we set off. Heri was running a lil better by now, we parted company on the highway and i headed south.
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I headed through the rolling hills A4highway of Luxembourg to France via Metz towards Nancy
I wasnt paying attention and was flashed as i rode past an unmarked dark car at the bottom of a dip, unless there was a reduced speed limit there i dont think i speeding to much. Further up the gradient i saw two motorcycle cops, fcuk i thought, one was sitting on his bike the other standing in front of him facing him, i slowed a little but rode past them, over the nest cresent i could see a cop in my mirror, but he overtook me and the car infront and took the exit road, so i will have to wait to see if i recieve something in the mail.
after Luxembourg i jumped off the highway and took the route national roads through the moselle and alsasce regions of france
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after an enjoyable afternoon with ever warming temps i arrived back in switzerland where there was a big increase in temp, so i jumped into the first tankstelle to strip off a bit of clothing only to ride into a Polizei control, got through without getting stopped, and continued the last hour home, my wife was working evening shift and as i hadnt had lunch i rode straight to my local chinese for a 4pm early evening meal. After prawn curry with rice and a coke i rode the last 10mins home.
So there we are guys, i hope you enjoyed following my trip.
Roll on next years super rally in Patras Greece 2010 not so far away when i take a ferry from Venice to Patras
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Just heard from Rob and the Heritage with a Fat Boy ecm has made it already to the St Malo ferry port and has changed his ticket to get tonights boat to Guernsey.
Cheers! :drink: :drink:
He was thinking before this trip of trading her in for a road king, i wonder what he thinks of the old thumper now!
Chrome wont get you home, this cycle did the moco proud!
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Great pics/report thanks for sharing. :2vrolijk_21:
:pumpkin:
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
:fireman:
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Long but nice trip :2vrolijk_21:
Jacques
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Thanks for sharing Nige.Great pics.
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Great report, thank you for sharing.
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Here is something u guys will remember
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Pay back!
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last 2 pics were from my friends cam, if u can make it out there was this scaffolding construction and somehow a red Honda touring motorcycle was parked behind, we were all wondering how in hell this bike managed to get into a Harley/Indian only event, where all other makes of bike have a parking area outside of the rally area.
The next day somebody put up this billboard, of the guy in a Honda leather jacket pssing on the MOCO memorial.
Then we realised that this was payback, this was a temporary pissoir, the poor bike was sprayed with urine all nite!
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ice6900 - great trip report. Enjoyed it very much. Looks like you had a great time.
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Nail varnish? AGAIN?
lunch break by the marina in Vaasa
update on the scratched lower frame,
due to the hot weather my lips were starting to feel chapped so i went to a supermarket to by some lip salve, had to asked a female assistant where to find it, then i thought get some dark purple nail vanish to touch up the exposed metal under the frame, there was a lady standing near us when i was discussing with Rob which shade i was looking for when she started giggling at the sight of two bikers discussing nail polish, so i explained the reason for my purchase, thats a great tip she exclaimed i will have to remember that next time i scratch my car!, then a few seconds later she came back and asked is this what your lookin for?, sure is lady thank alot!
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Loved seeing your pictures and hearing all about your trip!! Thanks for sharing :orange:
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Nail varnish? AGAIN?
hmmm i^m getting quite a repretation now arent I, I^ll have to use modelling enamel paint in future LOL
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Ice6900 - that was a superb account of your trip and unique experiences to and from the 2009 super rally in Finland. I enjoyed every photo and the dialogue that accompanied them. I can’t wait to hear all about your attendance at the super rally in Patras Greece 2010. vtyanqui