Op Storm Wales 2023 8th, 9th 10th September

[fabiostar]

Have a safe weekend lads

[tony.mon]

Chasin Alastair all day means I now need clean keks

[tony.mon]

All back safe and rubber side down.

Now "rehydrating" and the barbecue is warming up nicely.

Enjoy your hols, Al, thanks for a good route.

[cheekykev]

Just like to say thanks to everyone for a brilliant weekend.
Add to it my trip to Angelesey and coming down to Rhayader the day before via the coast roads, nipping through all the towns and villages made it a great 3 day trip.
Good to see everyone get back safe too.
Anyone up for next year ?

[MacV2]

Had a great weekend
Thanks for organising everything Kev. Great ride out on the Saturday. As ever good to catch up with every one. See you all next year !

[MacV2]

Some pics, didn't take a lot to busy having fun hooning around...

Thurs eve all packed & ready to go...






Frank all excited for his trip out...



Obligatory bin shot... @ Aust meet up with Pete L

[MacV2]

£100.19...61.71l

Worth of Except for the rainy M way miles on the way home...More of a

[sirch345]

Good to see the photo's Mac, thanks for posting

Great you had good weather while you were there.

How many Firestorm's was there at this meeting in the end, I think you were hoping for Four

Chris.

[MacV2]

Good to see the photo's Mac, thanks for posting

Great you had good weather while you were there.

How many Firestorm's was there at this meeting in the end, I think you were hoping for Four

Chris.

Yep 4. Me, Jonesey, AlMcQ & Flattie... Reds 2 yela 1 silver 1.

[Duffy1964]

Glad you all had a great time


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[sirch345]

Good to see the photo's Mac, thanks for posting

Great you had good weather while you were there.

How many Firestorm's was there at this meeting in the end, I think you were hoping for Four

Chris.

Yep 4. Me, Jonesey, AlMcQ & Flattie... Reds 2 yela 1 silver 1.

That's good

Chris.

[MacV2]

Reading bin shot...



Balla lake on Saturday no bins but two fat sweaty blokes...





Early morn at the bunkhouse...
Sunday IIRC


At one of several fuel stops, bins & a baker.

[tony.mon]

Alastair and I found a red Honda that you'd find it harder to fall off, Mac


And a nice bin.

[AMCQ46]

Bloody hell it’s sunny! That’s the summary for the last OP storm weekend of 2023, we were in wales and the sun is out for us!

As usual Kev had done a grand job and had sorted out the bunkhouse just north of Rhayader. Although fully subscribed a few weeks ago, there was a number of last minute dropouts, but still a great turn out with a few who hadn’t done wales before and 1 who hadn’t been on a Storm weekend.

3 of us turned up a day early (thursday), and for that 1 night there was a 2 : 1 ratio of firestorms vs other bikes with Flatline and I waving the flag for the forum and only Tony.mon breaking the full house with his Tuono V4.

I had gone down and met Tony in Abergavenny on Thursday ( in a petrol station obviously so I could fill the storm up)

Vtr in aberg

Tony in Aber

so we had already had a nice play up via Brecon and over the Eypnt military range

Military range

and then a swift beer in the lamb and flag in Rhayader.

Rhayader clock

Then the co-op for beer and grub shopping before headimg up to the bunkhouse to get 1st selection of the bunks.
Leathers off and a beer in hand, we can hear the familiar noise of a VTR coming down the lane and here comes Phil.
The 3 of us spent the night chatting, drinking and watching the Moto3 race from last weekend, and then drinking some more!

Beer and motoGP

Friday was schorcio again, and as Saturdays route was going to be heading south, Tony and I went north for a 200 mile route and Phil elected to go his own way and not get caught up in the high speed antics that he imagined the pair of us were going to get involved in!! I don’t know where he got that misconception ;).

Sat ready for the off

Our loop started with a short run to the cafe at Crossgates for breakfast and food, then up the famous A483 to Newtown, then we wound our way through the valleys till we got to Bala, where we stopped by the lake for an ice cream.

Bala ice cream

There wasn’t many bikes there but there as a cool looking Ariel with the girder forks. Also there was one rider, on a Yamaha diversion, that despite the hot weather was wearing his waterproof leggings!

From Bala we went west past the reservoir and then back south towards Dolgellau then west again to get out to the coast road before another stop for an expensive coffee by the sea front in Aberdovey.

Aberdovey

As we rode through Machynlleth, Tony pulls up beside me and says he want to see if the car wash people we just went past would wash his bike for him (yes I know, this is Tony who never washes his bike) so we went back and he got them to hand wash both bikes!

So with shiny bikes we did the last leg towards Aberystwyth, then east on the fast & flowing corners of the A44 (now a lot of it with 50mph limits!!) back to Rhayader….. where we stopped again at the Lamb and Flag for a quick Shandy or 2 before catching up with the rest of the lads (and ladies) who were arriving at the bunk house.

by now there was 2 more storms here (MacV2 and Jonesy) making this the highest firestorm count of any meeting this year.

The other arrivals were on their usual non Honda toys.

CheekyKev on his BMW R1200.
Mark VTR1000 on his V2 Ducati Multi.
Budd on the KTM 1290GT and his mate Mick on the same.
PeteL on the Suzuki GSX1000GT.
Bazza in a VW Van, but he had brought his brother Rob who did have his triumph street triple in the back of Bazza’s shagging wagon.
UK13iker .. Lee (who has always signed up on previous years, but failed to attend) on a Suzuki GSX750R.
Grumpyfrogs brother Lindsay turned up with out the grumpy one on his BMW GS1100.
And last to arrive was Kev’s mate John on a big BMW 1300 touring thingy.

Sue cooked up a big pot of Chilli and about 20 pizzas, so we drank and scoffed food late into the night as we caught up with old friends.

To be continued

[Duffy1964]

Great write up Al, sounds like fun was had by all.


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