For those not on our Spa hosts e-mail list, thought I'd share the following!
Hello,
The best sign that the weather has turned out here in the Ardennes is when i send out the round-up of events through the year from Ardenne and Eifel Aventures, finally the lovely mild weather and still strong sun has departed, the pressure has dumped and its peeing down outside, oh yea its also November,Game Over me thinks!!
The extremes this year have been amazing, we had near 3 months of snow on the ground over the winter and then we had the best sunny summer we have had in 8 years, all that sunshine melted thoughts of the 'Le Crise' as its called out here, so that was a very good thing indeed!
Due to money in Uk banks looking about as smart as lending a serving MP a tenner I bought some motorcycles over the winter, starting with a 1974 T500 Suzuki which was reputed to have raced in the 74 Liege 24hr, I then spotted a mint 750 Katana so nipped back to blighty to grab that and on the day I returned with it, ebay flagged up that a bike I had been watching was about to end, the price was too good to resist, I ran it past Ann and due to the fact that Iam also too good to resist I popped an optimistic bid on it and blimey i won that too, many thank to buddy Pete Darwell for babysitting that one till I got back to the UK once more, what had I bought? well many of you will remember I had a 78 ex GP Rg500 Suzuki and to be honest I was missing not having something sporting in L'equipe so Iam now the happy owner of a 71 TR500 Suzuki which was the modified twin cylinder road bike, Guy in Francorchamps helped me sort it and re lace wheels etc, I painted it to replicate Jack Findlays TT winning bike and at present it resides in the F1 museum at Stavelot, all three are in the pictures section of my website and all three are for sale if you are interested.
Our first real biking business of the year was right at the end of March, I had a call from three lads wanting to celebrate an impending marriage, they rang and asked what i thought their chances of riding the Ring were, NOW I will tell the truth, I looked out the window and it was pelting down with snow, that morning I had actually refitted the snow tyres, "should be fine next week if you fancy" say i crossing everything and it certainly was, we had a glorious few days which heralded the start of something good and of course late March at the Ring was just dead, which wasnt a premonition of things to come!!
The first trackday of the year for us was at the end of April with Bikersdays at Spa, the weather either side was pretty damn good but on the day it was really really wet and very cold and then to top it all one of our team lost his ignition keys which just added to the gloom! BIKE magazine were in attendance to prove that advertising does not work, I have an add in BIKE over the winters (had) we meet up with Matt and Chippy and upon finding out what we do for a living they tell us that they wished they had known that beforehand!!! DOH. Well at least thats another £150 I wont have to shell out in 2010. The bright side was that they did a piece on us in the article, cheers guys and boy did it convey the miserable conditions, not a great day out!
Talking Bikersdays despite the supposed lack of funds in ciculation all their Spa days etc have been rammned full and booked up very early so if you intending to ride the worlds best current race track (ABU Dhabi? pah) in 2010 make sure to book the track time nice and early and also do make sure your bike is below 102db as there is no margin now, we have the noise issues like everyone else to contend with and failure to comply means the whole event gets shut and we go home early.
Motorrads Perfection training events at the Nordschliefe once again proved to be popular with me organising UK groups to attend three events despite a near 1-1 parity on pricing and a need to leave transfers etc to the last possible moment in case the pound once more goes walkabout all of which lead to some stressful moments prior to events. This year they moved them all around dates wise and we started with the Ring Sharp 'Top Gun' event in June, what a blast! 2 full days on track and what can only be describded as a big trackday, lovely sunshine and very good quality riding from Participants, qualifying at the Ring must have been a similar atmosphere, everybody finished that one on a high that must have lasted for weeks, I did!
The Ring Pure and then the Ring Spicy are both aimned at riders still garnering the required skill levels required for Ring Sharp, both were well supported and both were great fun to be involved in, well for everyone other than Garth Forbes who gave his right collarbone a smashing time while riding a brute of a Moto Guzzi, bad luck buddy but Iam pleased to report he's well on the road to recovery.
Year on year our car trackday business grows and this year Mels Porsche club not only filled the whole place but also brought along thier own instructor and blow me if he wasnt a 'Stig' Of course iam sworn to secrecy as to his identity, suffice to say Nicki Lauda owes his dad a few beers!
The standout bike this year in the garage was our first Desmocedici, boy they are a thing of beauty spoiled by a silly small fuel tank, we even managed to check out its off road capabilities as we detoured to get around farmers tractors blocking the roads in protest at milk subsidy cuts.
Two firsts this year, BMW launched the new S1000RR superbike to the German public at the WSB round at the Nurburgring and I was invited to bring UK riders along and work as a guide aboard the new beastie. The bikes we rode were pre-production, mine did not have Traction control or ABS but believe me the hype is justified, they are a missile and the quickshift is soooo cool! Not much opourtunity to test the handling as early morning it was very cool and smashing up one of the first bikes before guests arrived is probably considered bad form by the BMW management , it then came on to rain and so it was a case of steady eddie although I left the settings on sport and it was fine, why anybody needs 'dumb it down' switches is completly beyind me, if you do not have the required finesse to ride a powerful bike you should not be on it point blank! If you were thinking of buying one I say do it, I dont think you will be dissapointed.
The Second First ?? was the Thames Valley group of the IAM getting a full day booked for the Nordschliefe, OK it was late October but the opimism was well founded and the day was Ok for lapping the circuit, everybody seemned to leave with a smile on thier face and for me it was a nice way to finish to the motorcycling season after a bit of a tricky period.
Tricky? Well the final 8 weeks of the year did not quite go to plan with one guest taking a heavy fall in Luxembourg and needing some attention, Garth experiencing difficulties at the ring, another guest taking a heavy fall on his way back to blighty resulting in us jumping in the van to get him back to a surgeon in the Uk for treatment and then my trusty Gixxer blowing up on my second lap of the track at Monza, Bugger!
Firstly may I say that none of the above riders were directly in my company at the time of their accidents, but I must take full responsibility I suppose for lunching the motor of my Suzuki!!
On four wheels the premier event in the Spa Francorchamps calendar is the F1, as always we have a great crowd in and this year we showed that the must have accessory is a blacked out ,pimped up Mercedes Vito in black, each day we I drove the gang in we got all the way to the pits tunnel barrier without as much as showing a pass of any sort, top fun and a big thankyou to Terry for squireing Ann on race day in the best seats in the house.
On two wheels due to a lack of frontline competitive motorcycling at the track the Spa Bikers Classic is the biggie, this year none of us had bikes on track but its just an awesome event with plenty of ageing stars and fabulous old bikes, the original list of race stars attending proved to be a work of fiction, some suggesting that next year Barry Sheene would be headlining!
The two trips we took with guests this year were both track orientated, firstly in July we went to Hochenhein staying at Speyer for a few nights. Spear racing provided a very well organised trackday and everybody other than Mike Smith had a swell time! Outside of the track we spent a day at the amazing Speyer tecnical museum, Ann met an astronaut (a real one this time) and we enjoyed some good evenings in fine company and great weather.
The second trip was our annual October Italian sortie which this year even threatened to make a profit with 19 people experessing interest throughout the year, make that 7 once you chase the money and sadly only 5 actually arrived at Monza, hey ho! Early in the season I had identified what I hoped would be a good chance of open trackdays at Monza and with 5 weeks till the trip we lucked in and got both days, reeesult! The Fossati is a great hotel full of racing atmoshpere and as usual the family running it made us very very welcome so if you scratch the fact that my bike went awol almost immediatly things were fine! On the first day we went upto the Imagne Valley and over a tight pass and down to lake Como and the Moto Guzzi factory, the weather was pretty dire but everyone other than me kept a sense of humour and the Guzzi museum is very nice indeed. The following two days were Monza et'al and once I had despatched the bike to Europ Assistance Ann and I spent day two cycling around the Monza Parks and riding on the old banking while some folk behaved like tourists and some hooned around the track, lucky bastards! WE then moved onto Imola for three nights to another lovely hotel, the Zio which is the only one in the centre of town, Ann and I just chilled as the hired Fiat Punto had become an object of hate while again the bike gang toured and enjoyed the good weather. Job Done.
Cycling= 2 wheels without an engine so i suppose my Gixxer now qualifies but the cycling season this year was lot's of fun and we had a proper gang in for the 'Rad am Ring' day riding round the Nordschliefe, some of whom looked to be taking it suspiciously seriously(sorry about all the 'ously') Big news for 2010 is we have a leg of the Tour de France finishing in Spa and Sebastiian Rosselar who lives 5 minutes from us just signed as a team mate to Lance Armstrong in Radio Shacks team for the coming season
Mentioning Armstrong may I say a really big thankyou to everybody who nipped onto the Livestrong site and purchsed items to help support the fight against cancer following my appeal in memory of my much missed buddy Brian Macey, Group hug everybody!
Having started this tome telling you about buying bikes guesswhat? Iam finishing it in ther same vein! Home from Italy on a mid October Thursday I nipped onto a range of sites and on the Autotrader site I found another K3 with less than 3000miles on the clock so snapped that up on the Friday and its now sat in the garage awaiting all the goodies off the blown one as recovery had it back here in less than a week, top job fellas!
Where does all this leave me and Ann? well 2009 was a cracking year business wise so may we say a great big thankyou to everyone who visited and especially to everyone who helped us by passing on our details to fellow enthusiasts, in 2010 we both celebrate our big 50, I know child bride etc, leave it out eh! which will be emotional for Ann and hopefully someone buy me a Maserati by way of a surprise!!
First things first we will be winging our way somewhere in the sun in Nov, still dont know where, as prices are still firm, get Xmas out the way and dates will start to surface for events in 2010, once that occurs I will be passing them on pronto and plans will be under way to provide another year of 'Ardenne and Eifel Aventures'
I can Hardly wait, Can you?
Sporting Regards, Neil Leigh
www.aeaventures.com
Hello,
The best sign that the weather has turned out here in the Ardennes is when i send out the round-up of events through the year from Ardenne and Eifel Aventures, finally the lovely mild weather and still strong sun has departed, the pressure has dumped and its peeing down outside, oh yea its also November,Game Over me thinks!!
The extremes this year have been amazing, we had near 3 months of snow on the ground over the winter and then we had the best sunny summer we have had in 8 years, all that sunshine melted thoughts of the 'Le Crise' as its called out here, so that was a very good thing indeed!
Due to money in Uk banks looking about as smart as lending a serving MP a tenner I bought some motorcycles over the winter, starting with a 1974 T500 Suzuki which was reputed to have raced in the 74 Liege 24hr, I then spotted a mint 750 Katana so nipped back to blighty to grab that and on the day I returned with it, ebay flagged up that a bike I had been watching was about to end, the price was too good to resist, I ran it past Ann and due to the fact that Iam also too good to resist I popped an optimistic bid on it and blimey i won that too, many thank to buddy Pete Darwell for babysitting that one till I got back to the UK once more, what had I bought? well many of you will remember I had a 78 ex GP Rg500 Suzuki and to be honest I was missing not having something sporting in L'equipe so Iam now the happy owner of a 71 TR500 Suzuki which was the modified twin cylinder road bike, Guy in Francorchamps helped me sort it and re lace wheels etc, I painted it to replicate Jack Findlays TT winning bike and at present it resides in the F1 museum at Stavelot, all three are in the pictures section of my website and all three are for sale if you are interested.
Our first real biking business of the year was right at the end of March, I had a call from three lads wanting to celebrate an impending marriage, they rang and asked what i thought their chances of riding the Ring were, NOW I will tell the truth, I looked out the window and it was pelting down with snow, that morning I had actually refitted the snow tyres, "should be fine next week if you fancy" say i crossing everything and it certainly was, we had a glorious few days which heralded the start of something good and of course late March at the Ring was just dead, which wasnt a premonition of things to come!!
The first trackday of the year for us was at the end of April with Bikersdays at Spa, the weather either side was pretty damn good but on the day it was really really wet and very cold and then to top it all one of our team lost his ignition keys which just added to the gloom! BIKE magazine were in attendance to prove that advertising does not work, I have an add in BIKE over the winters (had) we meet up with Matt and Chippy and upon finding out what we do for a living they tell us that they wished they had known that beforehand!!! DOH. Well at least thats another £150 I wont have to shell out in 2010. The bright side was that they did a piece on us in the article, cheers guys and boy did it convey the miserable conditions, not a great day out!
Talking Bikersdays despite the supposed lack of funds in ciculation all their Spa days etc have been rammned full and booked up very early so if you intending to ride the worlds best current race track (ABU Dhabi? pah) in 2010 make sure to book the track time nice and early and also do make sure your bike is below 102db as there is no margin now, we have the noise issues like everyone else to contend with and failure to comply means the whole event gets shut and we go home early.
Motorrads Perfection training events at the Nordschliefe once again proved to be popular with me organising UK groups to attend three events despite a near 1-1 parity on pricing and a need to leave transfers etc to the last possible moment in case the pound once more goes walkabout all of which lead to some stressful moments prior to events. This year they moved them all around dates wise and we started with the Ring Sharp 'Top Gun' event in June, what a blast! 2 full days on track and what can only be describded as a big trackday, lovely sunshine and very good quality riding from Participants, qualifying at the Ring must have been a similar atmosphere, everybody finished that one on a high that must have lasted for weeks, I did!
The Ring Pure and then the Ring Spicy are both aimned at riders still garnering the required skill levels required for Ring Sharp, both were well supported and both were great fun to be involved in, well for everyone other than Garth Forbes who gave his right collarbone a smashing time while riding a brute of a Moto Guzzi, bad luck buddy but Iam pleased to report he's well on the road to recovery.
Year on year our car trackday business grows and this year Mels Porsche club not only filled the whole place but also brought along thier own instructor and blow me if he wasnt a 'Stig' Of course iam sworn to secrecy as to his identity, suffice to say Nicki Lauda owes his dad a few beers!
The standout bike this year in the garage was our first Desmocedici, boy they are a thing of beauty spoiled by a silly small fuel tank, we even managed to check out its off road capabilities as we detoured to get around farmers tractors blocking the roads in protest at milk subsidy cuts.
Two firsts this year, BMW launched the new S1000RR superbike to the German public at the WSB round at the Nurburgring and I was invited to bring UK riders along and work as a guide aboard the new beastie. The bikes we rode were pre-production, mine did not have Traction control or ABS but believe me the hype is justified, they are a missile and the quickshift is soooo cool! Not much opourtunity to test the handling as early morning it was very cool and smashing up one of the first bikes before guests arrived is probably considered bad form by the BMW management , it then came on to rain and so it was a case of steady eddie although I left the settings on sport and it was fine, why anybody needs 'dumb it down' switches is completly beyind me, if you do not have the required finesse to ride a powerful bike you should not be on it point blank! If you were thinking of buying one I say do it, I dont think you will be dissapointed.
The Second First ?? was the Thames Valley group of the IAM getting a full day booked for the Nordschliefe, OK it was late October but the opimism was well founded and the day was Ok for lapping the circuit, everybody seemned to leave with a smile on thier face and for me it was a nice way to finish to the motorcycling season after a bit of a tricky period.
Tricky? Well the final 8 weeks of the year did not quite go to plan with one guest taking a heavy fall in Luxembourg and needing some attention, Garth experiencing difficulties at the ring, another guest taking a heavy fall on his way back to blighty resulting in us jumping in the van to get him back to a surgeon in the Uk for treatment and then my trusty Gixxer blowing up on my second lap of the track at Monza, Bugger!
Firstly may I say that none of the above riders were directly in my company at the time of their accidents, but I must take full responsibility I suppose for lunching the motor of my Suzuki!!
On four wheels the premier event in the Spa Francorchamps calendar is the F1, as always we have a great crowd in and this year we showed that the must have accessory is a blacked out ,pimped up Mercedes Vito in black, each day we I drove the gang in we got all the way to the pits tunnel barrier without as much as showing a pass of any sort, top fun and a big thankyou to Terry for squireing Ann on race day in the best seats in the house.
On two wheels due to a lack of frontline competitive motorcycling at the track the Spa Bikers Classic is the biggie, this year none of us had bikes on track but its just an awesome event with plenty of ageing stars and fabulous old bikes, the original list of race stars attending proved to be a work of fiction, some suggesting that next year Barry Sheene would be headlining!
The two trips we took with guests this year were both track orientated, firstly in July we went to Hochenhein staying at Speyer for a few nights. Spear racing provided a very well organised trackday and everybody other than Mike Smith had a swell time! Outside of the track we spent a day at the amazing Speyer tecnical museum, Ann met an astronaut (a real one this time) and we enjoyed some good evenings in fine company and great weather.
The second trip was our annual October Italian sortie which this year even threatened to make a profit with 19 people experessing interest throughout the year, make that 7 once you chase the money and sadly only 5 actually arrived at Monza, hey ho! Early in the season I had identified what I hoped would be a good chance of open trackdays at Monza and with 5 weeks till the trip we lucked in and got both days, reeesult! The Fossati is a great hotel full of racing atmoshpere and as usual the family running it made us very very welcome so if you scratch the fact that my bike went awol almost immediatly things were fine! On the first day we went upto the Imagne Valley and over a tight pass and down to lake Como and the Moto Guzzi factory, the weather was pretty dire but everyone other than me kept a sense of humour and the Guzzi museum is very nice indeed. The following two days were Monza et'al and once I had despatched the bike to Europ Assistance Ann and I spent day two cycling around the Monza Parks and riding on the old banking while some folk behaved like tourists and some hooned around the track, lucky bastards! WE then moved onto Imola for three nights to another lovely hotel, the Zio which is the only one in the centre of town, Ann and I just chilled as the hired Fiat Punto had become an object of hate while again the bike gang toured and enjoyed the good weather. Job Done.
Cycling= 2 wheels without an engine so i suppose my Gixxer now qualifies but the cycling season this year was lot's of fun and we had a proper gang in for the 'Rad am Ring' day riding round the Nordschliefe, some of whom looked to be taking it suspiciously seriously(sorry about all the 'ously') Big news for 2010 is we have a leg of the Tour de France finishing in Spa and Sebastiian Rosselar who lives 5 minutes from us just signed as a team mate to Lance Armstrong in Radio Shacks team for the coming season
Mentioning Armstrong may I say a really big thankyou to everybody who nipped onto the Livestrong site and purchsed items to help support the fight against cancer following my appeal in memory of my much missed buddy Brian Macey, Group hug everybody!
Having started this tome telling you about buying bikes guesswhat? Iam finishing it in ther same vein! Home from Italy on a mid October Thursday I nipped onto a range of sites and on the Autotrader site I found another K3 with less than 3000miles on the clock so snapped that up on the Friday and its now sat in the garage awaiting all the goodies off the blown one as recovery had it back here in less than a week, top job fellas!
Where does all this leave me and Ann? well 2009 was a cracking year business wise so may we say a great big thankyou to everyone who visited and especially to everyone who helped us by passing on our details to fellow enthusiasts, in 2010 we both celebrate our big 50, I know child bride etc, leave it out eh! which will be emotional for Ann and hopefully someone buy me a Maserati by way of a surprise!!
First things first we will be winging our way somewhere in the sun in Nov, still dont know where, as prices are still firm, get Xmas out the way and dates will start to surface for events in 2010, once that occurs I will be passing them on pronto and plans will be under way to provide another year of 'Ardenne and Eifel Aventures'
I can Hardly wait, Can you?
Sporting Regards, Neil Leigh
www.aeaventures.com
