Off out today with bikey for the afternoon, any one want to join me? Thinking maybe lake district or yorkshire dales. Having a rough time at the moment and just need to ride!

nothing like wind in the face ...enjoy !

have a good ride ...tomorrow for me

ha ha pretty much every night for me! Find nothing is a greater escape than riding fast down some demanding roads, not being able to think about anything but how to tackle the next corner! Never feel quite as free as when im out on my bike.

Becky wrote:ha ha pretty much every night for me! Find nothing is a greater escape than riding fast down some demanding roads, not being able to think about anything but how to tackle the next corner! Never feel quite as free as when im out on my bike.

+1 


K-rider

all i need now is a human version of bikey and ill be sorted! :p slightly older, good looking, brave, fearsome and fun to ride rofl!

Becky wrote:all i need now is a human version of bikey and ill be sorted! :p slightly older, good looking, brave, fearsome and fun to ride ;)rofl!

And after a hard ride ,he only needs a few hours in the garage by him self, to catch his breath 

k-rider

Exactly! And hes never once let me down and hes always willing to be ridden, no matter the time of day and loves the outdoors and camping!

Becky wrote:all i need now is a human version of bikey and ill be sorted! :p slightly older, good looking, brave, fearsome and fun to ride ;)rofl!

....and reliable! You won't find many of those on ebay!

Nope! Always seem to struggle in that area! Ill find myself a nice biker one day

And if not ive always got my bike! :p Only 22, ill figure something out :p Having loads of fun at the moment anyway, im away most weekends. Just chuck the tent on bikey and go! Meet loads of interesting people.

Becky wrote:And if not ive always got my bike! :p Only 22, ill figure something out :p Having loads of fun at the moment anyway, im away most weekends. Just chuck the tent on bikey and go! Meet loads of interesting people.

That's the way I see it too. You meet nicer people out on the road, have a laugh and enjoy yourself - what will be will be.
The bike is a great companion - likes to go places, is happy with just you or in company with others, doesn't complain, doesn't ask questions and doesn't get jealous if you admire another bike.

...in fact what on earth am I doing sitting here and not out there in the sunshine?

I would be out and about but it's just too hot. Add in the fact that I retired young (45) and can ride any day, seems silly to go out while it is over 30c.
Went to a nice place the other day for lunch out, a place where the Irish and the Aussie visitors have been, but the tourists are breeding by the look.
Another video here, you can watch this one in 1080 HD if you want:

bikerboy wrote:I would be out and about but it's just too hot. Add in the fact that I retired young (45) and can ride any day, seems silly to go out while it is over 30c.
Went to a nice place the other day for lunch out, a place where the Irish and the Aussie visitors have been, but the tourists are breeding by the look.
Another video here, you can watch this one in 1080 HD if you want:

Agggh - now jealous on at least 3 counts.......retired young, 30 deg C and beautiful biking country on your doorstep. 
PS - It's never too hot!

PaulLipscomb wrote:

bikerboy wrote:I would be out and about but it's just too hot. Add in the fact that I retired young (45) and can ride any day, seems silly to go out while it is over 30c.
Went to a nice place the other day for lunch out, a place where the Irish and the Aussie visitors have been, but the tourists are breeding by the look.
Another video here, you can watch this one in 1080 HD if you want:

Agggh - now jealous on at least 3 counts.......retired young, 30 deg C and beautiful biking country on your doorstep. 
PS - It's never too hot!

Yes Paul, but you could easily be in the same position as me. The secret was: Do well at school and use the qualifications to join the RAF as an aircraft tech at the age of 17. Put up with the crap wages, long hours etc till you are 40. You then get a small pension. Move to a place where that small pension goes a long way (France).
You see the option is there for everyone, but at 17 many prefer to smoke pot, stay in bed till midday, live off the dole, go binge drinking at the weekends and not commit to anything.
I managed to get up at 10:30 today when my wife made me a cuppa. I looked at my alarm clock, it still reads 05:15 as it has done since the battery ran out in 2007, but I still look at it every morning because it is next to my cuppa. Must get around to putting it in the bin.
By the way Paul, the hospitality offered here extends to you just as it has to everyone on the forum.

That video clip is just perfect. 88KE and myself can personally vouch for it. As for the restaurant, I think its worth a trip to France just to sample that route and the restaurant.

As for the hospitality, not enough words to describe it.


Bob and Jude, thanks for a really lovely trip.

For the Australian forum members: as true Irishmen we spent a lot of time drinking. Drinking in the scenery, the rides and the hospitality. We did so much of that there was no room left for beer.

bikerboy wrote:Yes Paul, but you could easily be in the same position as me. The secret was: Do well at school and use the qualifications to join the RAF as an aircraft tech at the age of 17. Put up with the crap wages, long hours etc till you are 40. You then get a small pension. Move to a place where that small pension goes a long way (France).
You see the option is there for everyone, but at 17 many prefer to smoke pot, stay in bed till midday, live off the dole, go binge drinking at the weekends and not commit to anything.
I managed to get up at 10:30 today when my wife made me a cuppa. I looked at my alarm clock, it still reads 05:15 as it has done since the battery ran out in 2007, but I still look at it every morning because it is next to my cuppa. Must get around to putting it in the bin.
By the way Paul, the hospitality offered here extends to you just as it has to everyone on the forum.

Sorry, seem to have hijacked Becky's post!

I'm working on it...although I have another 4 ½ years in my current employment if the latest plan works out - which ties in perfectly with my youngest finishing school - and then I'll decide what to do and where to do it. Your secret for success amused me - I have frequently used a very similar reply to people telling me that "It's alright for you..." as if I had been blessed or born into my life style. State education, mediocre school qualifications, university and then work hard to get where I have got - but not so hard that I forget to enjoy life and the opportunities it offers up on the way.
My pension won't be as good as it should have been - someone decided that she wanted her half recently, but leaves me enough for a pastis or two and the freedom to really enjoy life.

Your offer of hospitality (endorsed by Will & Olaf) is very kind, I am quite likely to take you up on it too! 

We rode to a place for a Sunday lunch and there was a municipal camp site I would be very keen to try out. It was by a bend in a river and looks like a nice place even if it was a wet day. .........

Apparently lunch was so good the K smoked for 3 miles after the lunch.....

92KK K100LT 193214 wrote:We rode to a place for a Sunday lunch and there was a municipal camp site I would be very keen to try out. It was by a bend in a river and looks like a nice place even if it was a wet day. .........

Apparently lunch was so good the K smoked for 3 miles after the lunch.....

Sounds like a plan in the making......my interest aroused further!

As for the smoking K - that must have been some seriously heavy meal - or more likely, a typical french meal that goes on for several hours leaving poor old K on her side stand for a long time.

92KK K100LT 193214 wrote:We rode to a place for a Sunday lunch and there was a municipal camp site I would be very keen to try out. It was by a bend in a river and looks like a nice place even if it was a wet day. .........

Apparently lunch was so good the K smoked for 3 miles after the lunch.....

The place where we had lunch on Sunday was Roque st Christophe as shown in the video. We went on from there to St Leon which is where the campsite by the river is. The two places are only 6 or 7 miles apart.

just so you know we were not all pot heads at 17, i was at college doing a levels and working full time to keep my own flat. I then went to university, got a brilliant degree while also working full time. And now no one will touch me because i have no experience, whereas my step sister got pregnant at 17 to her drug dealer and has had everything handed to her. I thought i was the smart one but obviously not!!

Becky wrote:just so you know we were not all pot heads at 17, i was at college doing a levels and working full time to keep my own flat. I then went to university, got a brilliant degree while also working full time. And now no one will touch me because i have no experience, whereas my step sister got pregnant at 17 to her drug dealer and has had everything handed to her. I thought i was the smart one but obviously not!!

Was no trying to imply that everyone was a pot head Beks, but I bet you would not have considered taking the Queens shilling and committing yourself to a low wage for years.
I was lucky in that I managed to get a posting to RAF Germany just after my 18th, and lived there tax free for three years. That bought the brand new BMW R75/7 and put the cheap fuel into it.

I thought uni would get me somewhere. A good degree in Biology is worth nothing though. And enjoy my freedom too much. Only thing that keeps me sane. And technically i work for the MOD so i am taking the queens shillling!

By the way i am the lowest of the low there, starting at the bottom and hopefully working up, but even they wont give you a contract longer than 6 months....makes it impossible to do anything long term. Uni just feels like it was such a waste.

Becky wrote:By the way i am the lowest of the low there, starting at the bottom and hopefully working up, but even they wont give you a contract longer than 6 months....

Don't believe that you are the lowest of the low as that would be an E2. A degree qualifies you for direct entrant to a D grade with the MOD. How do I know? I was a C grade engineer and had to know all the rules so that I could look after my people.

ha ha nope i am an E2, as a casual so basically they use you for 18 months and then say we cant keep you any longer, off you go. Just office rubbish.

Dont suppose anyone knows any biological labs that are hiring? :p

Ireland is a bit of a haven for pharmaceutical and agriculture. Agri sector has approval for selling dairy and milk products into China, not easily got.

On the pharma side a lot happening.

Lilly are currently building a large new plant.
GSK are here.
Johnson and Johnson are here [Centecor].
Jannssen are here.
Warner and Lambert.
Pfizer.
Boston Scientific


Others:

ICI
Proctor and Gamble.
Coke.
Pepsi
Ferrero Rocher
Dairygold.
Kerry Foods.

Try some google searches, virtually every pharma company in the world has a manufacturing base here and a lot of them have set up on line career information and applications.

We don't have Queen's shillings over here, but we have some great roads, nice places and a few K riders so that wherever you go there will be one near you. Might be worth coming over, Sgmayhew might have a few leads for you. Eh, I believe he is over in Manchester at the moment......

Cool, sounds good! Bored of England anyway :p will have a look in a bit, my step brother has just moved over to Ireland, hes doing something for google.

If you can stand rain then Ireland would be better, but you are from Blackpool so the rain will not be too much of a problem. 
They will be getting much more investment from international companies while the UK still has the £, and there is doubt about the UK staying in the EU.

This plan is starting yo sound better and better, plus prefer rain, sun just burns me to a crisp!

I'm not great with accents though, tend to get by by just smiling and giggling...

Bikerboy mentioned rain. There is some of that stuff here just now. but you need to know that's why the RT LT was invented. We found some stuff in France that bore a remarkable resemblance to the rain we get here. The result was that we ended up in some place called Cognac. In Ireland we usually have to settle for a pub with a fire, but in France they laid on 2 distilleries for us.

If you research Ireland the east and south east coats are driest, south west, west and north west are more wet. South east at Wexford is driest, has rainfall average 25 inches a year, Dublin about 30, Cork 60, parts of Kerry, Connemara and upwards reach 70-80 inches a year. I am not sure about Manchester but my experience of Wales is that anyone used to rain in Ireland will feel at home there. The middle of Ireland is flat, the mountains are generally around the edges. By motorway Dublin to Galway is 2 hours, Dublin to Cork is 150 miles or 2 hours [less on a K]. Dublin to Belfast about 2 hours also. Cork to Ballycastle is 5 1/2 hours including time to refuel and eat. Then you have places like County Wicklow, people have been known to get lost in there and valiantly resisted efforts to find and extract them. Cork and Kerry are similar. You can go on the Ring of Kerry and because the route is a complete circle you could still be found on it 6 months later. As for Norn Iron, well the North Antrim Drive and Torr Head drive will leave you gagging for more and to cap it all they have a distillery [Bushmills] and a lovely seafront to Ballycastle to make darn sure you will cither come back or forget your way home.

Bikerboy's Satnav has some defect in it that does not allow it to point north. Having said that if I lived where he is I wouldn't bother getting it fixed either.

Becky wrote:I'm not great with accents though, tend to get by by just smiling and giggling...

Don't worry, we will understand your smiles and giggles just fine......

Ha ha have a real weakness for accents and if they have blue eyes too in helpless! Ireland does sound pretty good, think a change of scenery is what i need in my life about now!

Becky wrote:Ha ha have a real weakness for accents and if they have blue eyes too in helpless! Ireland does sound pretty good, think a change of scenery is what i need in my life about now!

Be aware Becky, 92KK may have a nice accent and blue eyes, but he aint the prettiest bloke that I ever met  . He does look like someone famous though, Steptoe out of Steptoe and son. I know that he won't mind me saying that as we laughed about it over here.

in going to make you all feel really old now, i dont know who steptoe and son are....and i quite like my men with character lol

oh and going back to earlier, ive never seen an actual shilling....

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=steptoe+and+son&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=nIKUU6imFK6g7AbC2oHIDg&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=542#imgdii=_

I never had anything to do with shillings either, I was brought up with Deutschmarks.

ha ha does he look like the older one or the younger one? :p

Becky wrote:ha ha does he look like the older one or the younger one? :p

Like the older ones Dad      

ha ha so what most people think k riders are then? :p