Motorbikes

On Friday Daminen, my boss, offered to take me out with him and his buddies motorbiking on Sunday. Turns out he is loves riding his motorbike and even races them when he gets the chance. He and his brother-in-law and another buddy go riding just about every Sunday morning. He picked me up at 9 and we headed out to his brother-in-law's to get the bikes. The three of them all had pitched in and bought an old Royal Mail delivery van to use to transport their bikes to the fields and the races. They have even converted a section of it for sleeping so the three of them can go to the race the previous day and get a "good" nights sleep instead of having to wake up at 3 am to get to the track on time.

We got suited up for the ride and I hopped the back of Damien's bike. I started out riding behind Damien on his 250cc to get a feel for the bike. Then I graduated to practicing the clutch and throttle technique. If you have driven a manual, it is the same concept except it is a lot easier to accidently gun the engine and give it to much power. I more or less walked the bike up a grass trail four or five times before I got the hang of it. I then moved on to the dirt lane and just practiced starting and stopping using the rear breaks. The rear brake is a tiny lever next to your right foot. I started to get the hang of that and started changing gears eventually getting up to third gear and around 30 mph. I traded off rides with Damien from then on. He would take the bike off road and I would just tool up and down the lane practising the techniques. Didn't actually get to go off road, but that is ok. It was good fun.

Glenariff

After we got back to Damien's house from riding the motorbikes it was around 1:30. I met his wife, Karen, and their son. Two great people. We took showers and then headed off to Glenariff Forest. We walked down to the bottom of the valley stopping along the way for me to take pictures of the greenery and the waterfalls. It was an absolutely beautiful place to be. It was sprinkling, but for some reason it wasn't annoying, it just seemed like it should be raining a bit with all of the green around. We hiked back up, taking pictures the entire way, and took off going north. Damien showed me some of his old haunts that he used to bike through when he owned a road bike.

As dinner time approached we headed back again and then met up with his brother-in-law for dinner. We went to the resturaunt in one of the locals hotels. I had the pork which was pretty good. We went went over Damien's brother-in-law's house for a drink or two after dinner and to watch some of the Olymics. Ahhhh, it was a good day.