The Yellow Peril and The Italian Stallion

Hi friends.

Yes, we’ve been a bit quiet this week after a bit of a tumble (hangs head in shame). hence the yellow peril (us in our yellow riding jackets) and the italian Stallion – the Guzzi, of course.

Jan decided to take a short cut across friend Mike’s lawn in order to avoid riding on his lumpy, bumpy gravel; but he didn’t spot the ditch in the long grass and, maybe thanks to the new fork oil, the bike was less bouncy and the jerk caused his wrist to slip and open the throttle!

He did pretty well at trying to regain control but, alas, after about 20 feet, we went over to starboard!

Oh, what a tangle we were in. We were jumbled together – Jan landed heavily on my right foot – which was twisted by the fall. My boot seems to have bust a rib on Jan’s right side. I managed to get my foot out but one of Jan’s feet was trapped under the bike and the side bags. I was able to lift the bike enough for him to slide out before hobbling off with a few choice swear words (funny how swearing helps pain).

By then, Mike had come out of the house. he helped us pick the bike up.

As the adrenalin wore off, the aches kicked in. My ankle was too painful to walk on for about three days and Jan is still in quite a lot of pain in his ribs – his calf and foot are just bruised.

So we haven’t been able to make it to the library to use the internet unless Barb brought us in by car.

We did get on the bike yesterday and went to visit a photographer friend of mine, Kathleen.

This is yet another rush job as the library is about to close so I will add a few pics from the week and will write the details offline and try to get back to the library tomorrow.

We will probably set off this weekend – Sunday possibly. The route is sort of worked out – so more on that tomorrow.

We decided to check there was enough give in the front forks – a little baby powder did the trick…

It seems as though the fluid is ok.

A lot of the rest of the week has been sorting out stuff for the trip – reinforcing the side bags and shortening the strap across the seat as the bags have stretched and were almost touching the exhaust. (that’s Barb giving us a hand)

We had an audience….

Pepper

I spent a few evenings watching the sunsets 🙂

looking for wildlife….

and photographing this barn….

and watching the empty country road…..

Lonely Country Roads

At Kathy’s house with our Nikons

and a nice barbie

We even managed to help Barb demolish part of her deck

And finally, today, we made it here to the library 🙂

That’s it for now folk. Fingers crossed for good weather on Saturday and Sunday. TTFN xxx