Motorcycle Live 2010!!

Took drive up to Motorcycle Live on saturday with our friend Melvin, was a really good day, got to see all sorts of great bikes, met Sam Manicom and Nick Sanders and managed to grab the odd bargain too. Paula bought me a new signed Sam Manicom book for Christmas, good timing since I literally just finished Johnny Bealbys - Running with the Moon (great book). Was great chatting to Sam, hope to bump into him again at the Horizons meet next june.

First stop though was all the way up to Nottingham to pick up the eBay Beemer panniers. Snow and roads got a lot worse north of birmingham, but there were no dramas, apart from a driver/satnav interface problem that sent me off down the M6 Toll (typical!). Panniers look great, suitably dinging up, but in great condition considering.

There was a fair amount of dual-sport/enduro bits and pieces around, with big Touratech, KTM etc areas and a lot of traders selling expensive tours, but our goal of trying on as many peaked lids failed totally, with pretty much the only enduro helmets being the Arai, Shoei and BMW models.

Charley Boormans LWR bike on the 30 Years of BMW GS stand

Simon Paveys Dakar bike.

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The bike I so nearly bought (Tiger 955i)

Paula on Cyril Despres' Dakar KTM

The new Triumph Tiger 800 - I hate it for copying the BMW front end, but still love it. I have to say I like the theory of panniers mounted on dampers, rather than a rigid frame, but how well they'd work in practice I can't imagine..

Tamsin Jones' Yamaha Dakar bike. Read about their dakar adventure here.. http://www.tamsinjonesdakar.co.uk/page10.htm