Ireland Tour 2015 Diary - Day 2 - Belfast to Antrim via the North Coast Road

If you haven't read Day 1 of this tour diary click here to read that first! That post explains about our trip and our plans for it also.

Friday 7th August

After being awoken by a Geordie lady being blasted into our cabins at 5:30am, we disembarked at 6am to the start of what looked like a beautiful day in Belfast. Having had no breakfast on the ferry, we started our journey north primarily in search for somewhere that served a full English/Irish - so basically, anywhere with bacon was grand.

We headed up the North Coast Road which truly is a great road with some stunning scenery as you are literally right next to the sea. It's definitely a must for anyone wanting to ride in Northern Ireland. Not sure if you're on the right road? If you're heading North, look right - if you can't see the sea, you're on the wrong road!

Eventually, we arrived in Ballycastle at about 8 o'clock and we were definitely all ready for some breakfast. We found a small cafe right by the harbour called Bay Cafe which was manned by the loveliest people you will ever meet and didn't mind 21 hungry bikers descending upon them in the slightest. They asked us about our trip and what we were planning - they even gave us some handy tips!

After breakfast a few of us decided that, whilst at the seaside, it would be rude not to get an ice cream and handily enough, there was one just opening across the street from where we had breakfast so we had our pudding overlooking the bay before setting off again towards the Giant's Causeway.

Breakfast in the Bay

Once we arrived, we split into smaller groups with some heading to the Causeway and some heading to Bushmills on the train in search of a distillery they had heard about.

Most of the bikes all lined up neatly in the train station car park

The Giant's Causeway really is a bizarre geological site, it is definitely weird how perfectly it all seems to have formed and I actually understand most of the basic science behind it! It does, unsurprisingly, provide some gorgeous views especially when it is as warm and sunny as it was when we got there.

The Giant's Causeway

The rocks were almost perfect

A gorgeous day to sit on the rocks

Built by a giant or by natural Earth movement?

We asked one of the the National Trust guys to explain how it all formed in both the scientific "proper" way and the more entertaining giant story. he did so very cheerfully and was again very friendly and unbelievably knowledgeable, but, then again I suppose that is his job!

Story time on the Causeway

As logically implausible as the giant story is, although much more entertaining, they do say that generally in science, the simplest version is most probably the correct one! So I'll leave that one with you...

As we had most of the afternoon left and not that many miles left to do before we arrived at the hotel for the night, we decided to go back to Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge that I had spotted signposts for along the way and fancied doing. A few other people ended up coming with us after we said where we were headed.

The rope bridge was a bit off as it was basically a 1km walk with a rope bridge at the end to a little island. The original bridge was built (with way less stability) about 350 years ago by salmon fisherman to help them carry their catch back to the mainland and they could leave their boats at the island. The bridge has taken many forms over the years until the current bridge was built in 2008.

A fishermans' cottage

Through the bridge down into the sea

On the island of Carrick-a-Rede at the other end of the bridge

Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge

We then headed to Port Rush for what we hoped would be a cake and coffee stop but ended up being more of a mini meal at a packed pizza/pasta place. After filling our bellies and  quenching our thirsts built up from walking in the sunshine in bike kit, we headed to the hotel where we would be staying for the next two nights.

After sorting the rooms out as the hotel had managed to much a few up (annoying but fixable and anyone involved with the mix-ups did get a free drink out of it!), we all headed up to get showered and changed before going across the road to the local Brewers Fayre pub for our actual dinner.

Again, showing up and saying "Table for 21 please" caused a few worried faces from the staff but they got us all sorted and did a brilliant job of getting us all fed at a pretty similar time.

The gorgeous weather lasted all day and made for a cracking ride through some of Northern Ireland. Day 3 is Ulster GP Road Race day so keep an eye out for the next instalment of my Tour Diary.

Until then, ride safe
TFB

Ireland Tour 2015 Diary - Day 1 - Home to Liverpool/Belfast

At the start of August, the Ulster GP Road Race was on in Northern Ireland and I, along with 20 other bikers, went along to watch and do a mini tour of Ireland in the 5 days we had over there. The is a tour diary/ride report of that trip.

This was my first time abroad on any bike and the first big trip on my SV650. I had previously done a 1100 mile round trip on my old 125cc bike to do the 3 Peaks Challenge but that's a post for another time! There were 21 of us altogether on 18 bikes and it was most people's first time to the Ulster GP and it was definitely set up to be a good laugh.

We planned the trip around the Ulster GP which was on the Saturday mainly and decided to do a route that took us up to the North Coast Road to the Giant's Causeway on our first day and then coming back down to Antrim which wasn't too far away from the circuit for the second day. We then went down into the Republic of Ireland for the final 3 days and took in some of the views there and rode on some ace roads - keep an eye out for my future posts for more!

Thursday 6th August

Our ferry was in the evening from Liverpool so we started the trip nice and easy, taking a scenic route from home in Derbyshire to the Liverpool docks because it's far prettier than just hitting the motorway and going in a straight line at 70mph.

My SV650 packed up and ready to go!

All 21 of us met up for dinner at a pub in Chelford which I think surprised the waiters a bit and definitely annoyed the local punters who had just popped to their local for a nice bit of pub grub only to be descended upon by a large group of bikers who were all catching up with each other.. Whoops!

After dinner we headed, in convoy, to the docks where we checked in just before last check-in (on time as ever!) and boarded almost instantly ready to set sail at 10:30. We all met in the bar on the ferry where we annoyed even more punters by sitting in a huge group and generally being a noisy bunch of bikers. After a few drinks, we (my mum, my dad and I) headed to the cabin to get a few hours kip before disembarking in Belfast at 6am.

Waiting to board at the Liverpool docks

18 bikes, 21 people - Ireland 2015 is a go!

Bye England..

 Day 2 - Belfast to Antrim via the North Coast Road is coming soon so keep your eyes peeled!

Ride safe,
TFB

MotoGP 2015 - Round 12 Silverstone (III)

This post is part three of my MotoGP weekend write up and contains the highlights from Sunday. To read Saturday's please click here and to read Friday's click here. As mentioned before, if you haven't watched the coverage from the weekend and you intend to, this post does contain spoilers.

Sunday 30th

Moto2 started the proceedings today and following a wet warm up, the race was deemed, unsurprisingly, a wet race. Sam Lowes had a crash during warm up but luckily was unhurt and got back up very quickly. At the end of the warm up Alex Rins came out on top followed by Johann Zarco and Tito Rabat, defending world champ. Following his crash, Lowes was down in 19th but everyone was hoping that the race would prove better for the home rider who had done so well yesterday.
The Moto2 race was full of overtakes with some riders seemingly swapping positions in every other corner! However, during the race, the track was drying and with the main racing line drying quickly it looked to be becoming a game of chance with trying to work out the best time to come in to change bikes and go out with slicks. Much to my, and the other spectator's, surprise, none of the riders came in and decided to continue to ride on their wet tyres until the end of the race which absolutely destroyed their tyres by the end of the race but with no major crashes, the plan definitely seemed to work out in Zarco's favour who finished over 3 seconds in front of Rins who finished 2nd. Lowes, struggling in the trickier conditions, finished 6th after battling with Folger and Alex Marquez.
After the race, the riders came back round again and as Luffield is the last corner before the entrance to the pits, Zarco stopped and got off his bike (after signalling madly at the marshalls to get them to come over) to complete his routine back flip after winning. It's definitely impressive to watch, I couldn't do a back flip normally, let alone in a full set of leathers and a helmet!
Lowes also stopped at Luffield, not to do a back flip though, he chose to throw his gloves and boots into the crowd. Nowhere near me though! He then had to complete his ride back to the pits in just his socks which was quite funny to watch.

Zarco, Folger, Kallio, Rabat

Sam Lowes fighting his way to the front of the pack

Rins leads from Rabat, Alex Marquez, Folger and Zarco

Sam Lowes lining up an overtake on Nakagami

Zarco moving up to the front of the pack, battle for 1st place

The MotoGP warm up was largely uneventful with the riders practising swapping bikes in case of a flag to flag race and ended, much to the fans delight, with Valentino Rossi at the top with Petrucci, Marquez, Crutchlow and Lorenzo rounding out the top 5.
Before their race, some of the MotoGP riders were visited by Brad Pitt who was just wandering up and down pit lane with one of his sons. With the race declared as dry by race direction, the riders headed out on their sighting lap, only for them all to discover the track was wet after it had rained after the Moto2 race and every single rider went straight back into the pits to switch to their wet bikes. It was absolute chaos in pit lane with all of the riders switching bikes as fast as they could to try and ensure that they could be first out of pit lane first and on to the track. Race direction seemed to notice this chaos and red flagged the race and allowed the riders to switch to their wet race set up and re-form on the grid after delaying the start of the race. This then allowed us to watch as the riders tried to U-turn in pit lane to go back to their respective garages which was quite amusing.
Once the race finally got underway, you could tell it was going to be a good race. With Lorenzo leading off the line, it was going to be a hard push for Rossi, starting on the grid in 4th, to get back up to the top which he needed to do if he wanted to continue leading the championship. The rain always levels the playing field in MotoGP but also leads to more crashes than normal and Hernandez was the first to go down after a flying start following an impressive qualifying on Saturday and unfortunately for him, his race was over.
With Rossi and Marquez fighting their way to the front to ensure Lorenzo didn't get too far in front, they overtook both Pedrosa and Pol Espargaro in quick succession with Marquez following Rossi through a rapidly closing gap on Espargaro. Jack Miller, who had gotten the best start I've ever seen him have, then took out teammate Cal Crutchlow after also trying to get past Pol Espargaro and going in too hot so being unable to stop for the corner. Cal did come back out on his other bike but as it was still raining, he wouldn't have been able to get back in the race on slicks so instead went around the track waving to all of the spectators who cheered and clapped him as he went by as we were all so disappointed for him, especially in his home race.
Danilo Petrucci was having no such problems on the Pramac Ducati who had overtaken Lorenzo, Pedrosa and Dovizioso to get up into third position and was holding Dovi off very well on the factory Ducati. However, Marquez had a huge fall trying to chase down Rossi so Petrucci moved up into 2nd place, leading from Dovi, Pedrosa and Lorenzo. With Lorenzo struggling in the wet from what turned out to be a misted up visor, Rossi managed to open up a substantial lead over the next group of riders.
With 4 laps to go, Pol Espargaro had a similar fall to Marquez, ending his race also. Petrucci and Dovizioso continued to battle swapping places at what seemed like every other corner before Petrucci was able to pull a bit of a gap. Lorenzo also managed to get back past Dani Pedrosa which meant his championship standing wasn't damaged too much.
As Rossi crossed the line with a 3 second gap, the spectators in all grandstands cheered and yelled as he proved once again that he is a master in tricky conditions and kept his cool to retake the championship with a 12 point lead from Lorenzo who finished 4th ahead of Pedrosa, Redding, Smith, Iannone, Aleix Espargaro and Bautista. The Brits put in an impressive performance fighting with each other for 6th place.

Lorenzo leading from Pol Espargaro and Rossi

Rossi and Marquez are coming through!

Pedrosa, Petrucci, Smith, Dovizioso.. the battle is on!

Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone

Lorenzo in 3rd followed by Petrucci, Dovizioso and Pedrosa

Pol Espargaro leading from Iannone and Redding

Tech3 boys at play with Smith leading from Espargaro

Marquez sitting close behind Rossi applying the pressure

Lorenzo slipping back into 6th as Dovizioso leads the 2nd group

After Marquez's crash, Rossi has some breathing room and keeps his cool

Petrucci gets in front of Dovizioso and they pull a gap from Lorenzo

The Moto3 riders were last out on the track this morning with Danny Kent topping the session and he looked very strong for the race happening later in the afternoon despite having a crash with 10 minutes to go.
Moto3 was declared a wet race and with a flying start from Hanika but at Turn 2 he falls followed by Jorge Navarro, pole-sitter, leaving them both out of contention for a spot on the podium. Turn 3 also saw falls from Jorge Martin, pushing Kornfeil wide, Binder who was chasing a podium finish and Vinales who was leading at the point.
Fenati later fell at Turn 7 who has running well in third with clear track behind him. The following laps saw crashes for many of the other riders but luckily with no major ones, all riders were okay.
With all of this going on behind him, Danny Kent, the Brit leading the Moto3 championship, kept his head down and rode a smooth ride, quickly dispensing of the people in front of him and then pulling and maintaining a gap of almost 8.5 seconds. He crossed the line in first position with the whole crowd cheering behind him after riding an near perfect ride minus one wobble between Luffield and Woodcote which worried everybody with two laps to go.
It was fantastic to see a Brit on the top step of the podium and to hear our National Anthem being played in honour of the deserving winner on the British GP who now leads the Moto3 championship by a whopping 70 points from Bastianini.

Kent keeping his cool after passing two riders including his teammate Vazquez

The Moto3 riders switching and swapping places corner by corner

Kent leading from Kornfeil coming up to lap Vinales

Danny Kent pulling and maintaining an 8.5 second lead

Fenati running 12th after an early fall

A crash on the entrance to Luffield

Kent takes victory in his home race

Danny Kent on the top step of the podium after a near perfect ride

Race 2 of the Red Bull Rookies Cup saw them face very different conditions to yesterday with the track now being wet and the temperatures were also lower than they were yesterday too. This played very well into British lad, Rory Skinner's hands and he put in an impressive performance throughout the race and finished 4th, just behind Bo Bendsneyder who was yesterday's winner. This was Skinner's best performance of the season so far, improving on yesterday's finishing position.
Watching them race around Silverstone on the KTM 390s gives a really good insight into what it takes to get into the leagues of Moto3 let alone MotoGP but some of these riders, the Dutch Bendsneyder in particular definitely look like they are on the cards to start getting offers to move up into the GP classes sooner rather than later.

It was a great weekend of racing and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. I'll be keeping an eye out for 2016 tickets to hopefully go again.

My next post will probably be the start of my Ireland Tour Diary from when I went there at the start of August for the Ulster GP. Hope that you've enjoyed my MotoGP highlights posts, if you've got any comments or feedback please let me know either below or check out the Contact page if you want to send me a message that way.

Until then, as always, ride safe.

TFB

MotoGP 2015 - Round 12 Silverstone (II)

In an attempt to keep the posts slightly shorter, I have split the days up from the MotoGP and this is Saturday's highlights, if you haven't read Friday's yet, there's a link to that post here.. Also, as I mentioned in my last post, this series of posts does contain spoilers so if you haven't watched the coverage and you intend to, you might want to stop reading! Hope you enjoy!

Saturday 29th

Moto3 took to the track first thing to complete free practice 3 which ended with Kent in 4th and Jorge Martin finishing on top but with only 0.2 seconds separating the top 6, it was easy to be optimistic that Kent would do well in qualifying and in the race tomorrow.
Qualifying for Moto3 saw home rider, Danny Kent take the lead very early on and sat in provisional pole up until 5 minutes before the end of qualifying. With all the riders back out on the track and many waiting for a tow to help them get into somebodies slipstream, Jorge Navarro and Karel Hanika each put in an incredible lap to take pole from Kent and push him down into 3rd on the grid.

Kent and Vazquez in qualifying

Lots of riders sat in close behind others to get the added benefit of a slipstream

MotoGP saw Lorenzo holding on to his lead after some fast laps to regain control from Marquez before qualifying that afternoon. With Aleix Espargaro and Vinales both outside the top 10, they didn't advance straight to Q2.
In FP4, with the bikes set up with race settings, Marquez lead from Iannone and Pedrosa with the 3 Brits sitting in 9th, 10th and 11th.
Q1 was on straight after FP4 for the bottom half of the grid with the top 2 finishers advancing to Q2. The Suzuki pairing of Espargaro and Vinales lead the pack early on and retired to the pits whilst many others were still out on the track. This was definitely a mistake that became clear after Yonny Hernandez put in a lap that was faster than both of the Suzuki Ecstar boys, knocking Maverick Vinales out of the running to advance to Q2 and it left both of them too little time in the session to go back out and complete another lap.
Q2 was fast paced from the start with Marquez breaking the pole position record on his first lap! He stayed on top all session with Lorenzo only able to get as close as 0.3 seconds behind. Pedrosa rounded out the first row of the grid with Rossi, Pol Espargaro and Smith on the second row. Scott Redding and Cal Crutchlow qualified just behind Bradley in 7th and 8th respectively. An excellent result for all of the fans watching whoever they were supporting I think.

Rossi and Petrucci

Scott Redding definitely looked strong in qualifying

Marquez with Bradley Smith in tow

Marquez and another Brit, Scott Redding

Rossi leading from Espargaro and Hernandez who advanced from Q1

Moto2 FP3 saw some more crashes but luckily not from any of the top runners and with Lowes finishing in 5th behind Alex Rins, Alex Marquez, Tito Rabat and Johann Zarco.
In the qualifying session for Moto2, Sam Lowes ran off the track and had to push the bike back to the pits early on which was worrying for all of the fans of the home rider whilst Rins and Zarco sat at the top of standings. The final few laps came around and the Brit was back out on track and after putting down an absolute stormer of a lap, Lowes smashed the track record and the pole record set by Rins earlier on the session to claim pole position in his home race. Naturally, the crowd went wild when we saw a Brit was on pole after being disappointed earlier in the day when it was stolen from Danny Kent in Moto3.

Sam Lowes in qualifying

Tito Rabat was running well in 4th position before a late high side

Zarco keeping a tight line around Luffield in qualifying

We also got to watch Race 1 of the Red Bull Rookies Cup which is actually really interesting. All of the riders are aged between 12 and 16 and are all on exactly the same bike which means that the talent of the riders becomes lots more evident as you know that the bikes all have identical capabilities so any differences come from the riders. There is one Brit currently in the Rookies Cup named Rory Skinner and in Race 1 he finished 10th after fighting with about 4 other riders. The Dutch rider, Bo Bendsneyder won Race 1 and is currently leading the championship by 41 points from Italian Fabio Di Giannantonio who finished second. Race 2 in Silverstone is tomorrow so hopefully Skinner will have a good ride and another good fight.

Sunday is race day and that will go up tomorrow so make sure you come back for that! Let me know of any comments you have below and ride safe

TFB

MotoGP 2015 - Round 12 Silverstone (I)

I was lucky enough this year to get tickets for the British GP at the end of August. I went down for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday and an entire weekend of excellent racing. If you haven't watched the British GP and you are planning on it - stop reading now! There are spoilers all the way through as I'm talking about qualifying and the races.

Unluckily for all of the riders, it was gorgeous weather on the Friday and Saturday which meant they got all of the right settings sorted and ready for qualifying which saw some storming laps from Marquez and Yonny Hernandez but race day came and it was overcast and rainy which definitely mucked them up a bit!

We were sat in the Luffield grandstand and could see the last three corners (Brooklands, Luffield and Woodcote) clearly so we knew whoever went around the last corner in the lead in the races, would go on to win due to where the finish line was. I took all of the photos on this post on my normal camera which is why they are not in super high definition but I thought that they turned out pretty well!

Friday 28th

In Moto3, Danny Kent, currently at the top of the championship standings, had a tricky start to the weekend with a technical problem ruining FP1 early on for him leaving him a practice behind all of the riders as he was unable to go back out on track. Navarro was showing strong pace though which was worrying for all the fans as we were obviously rooting for the Brits at their home races.
In FP2, he finished sixth which was a strong result considering he hadn't been on the track yet this weekend. However, all of the times were close with the top 10 being less than a second apart so things were looking up for Danny at this point which was good for us fans!

Danny Kent after FP2

In MotoGP, Marquez was quickly on form and came out on top in FP1 and Scott Redding, Bradley Smith, and Cal Crutchlow looked to be running well finishing 6th, 7th and 10th respectively.
Lorenzo finished top in FP2 however followed by Marquez, Smith and Pedrosa. The other Brits were 9th and 15th and Rossi seemed to be off the pace in 10th

Two of the MotoGP Brits, Smith and Redding

Repsol Honda boys in FP2

Gunning for a win to help him on the way to his 10th World Championship

Lorenzo keeping smooth through the corners

Defending World Champion, Marc Marquez

Johann Zarco stole the top spot from home rider Sam Lowes with the tiniest margin in FP1 and with Tito Rabat and Alex Rins looking strong too, we could tell it was going to be a tough weekend for Sam at Silverstone.
Sam Lowes topped FP2 after putting in some stellar laps and Zarco crashed out. Moto2, like Moto3 was very close at the top with the riders all posting similar times.

The highlights from Saturday will follow tomorrow so keep an eye out, let me know of any comments you have too!

Ride safe,
TFB