Ally Pally. Home of the BBC and bike shows

The return of the Ally Pally bike show and Paul, Frank and I headed down there with two wheels each as the weather was cool but not cool enough to wuss out and take the car.

Due to rather poor navigational skills on my part, I took the wrong exit at a roundabout on the A10 so had to play catch up with them for a few miles, which is surprisingly easy on a FZ6. On a nice straight bit of road where you could see for miles, and there were no other cars (but their bikes in the distance) I opened it up and the speedo tripped over into 3 digits for the first time ever. :-)

I then realised I wasn't in top gear so changed up. Twice!!!! Chuff me, it does a ton in 4th and still has two gears languishing in the comfy chairs smoking pipes and drinking Port.

We made good time all the way down to London until the google map directions suggested we turn down a one way street, so we passed on that and made our own way up to the house on the hill. Cracking views over London from up there and you can easily see Canary Wharf and the Gherkin.

Coffee (and a Danish Pastry for the fat git.... guilty as charged) saw us refreshed and ready for a wander round the halls. The stands were much more spread out than the Excel show earlier this year and there were far more stalls selling tools and bits n bobs (rather than whole bikes which my wallet doesn't stretch to). A break for lunch in the on site pub refreshed us and we went off for round 2 picking up some bits n bobs.

The ride home was more eventful in that there was a traffic jam for what seemed like several miles trying to get onto the North Circular. Paul and I (novices that we are) followed Frank (the elder) in filtering past all the traffic. I used my standard assumption that cars will suddenly turn right across your path randomly here, which they did, so made sure I could "make progress" quickly past each car so I was never in their blind spot. We saved loads of time doing this as the cars were pretty much stationary.

The route out of London saw us all split up due to random traffic lights catching us out and Frank and Paul headed off into the distance. Eventually, just before home, I looked in my wing mirrors, and did a double take as Paul appeared in them. They had stopped at a garage thinking I was mile behind, and apparently I whizzed by pretty much straight away.

All home safely, cups of tea, and possibly a biscuit or two, are the order of the day.

100 miles down. Many more to go this summer hopefully :)

Brum Brum.