Top of the world ma

Salamanca in Spain was today's destination. Our route took us along the Duoro valley before hearing south to visit Portugal's highest mountain.

Once again the weather was fine and dry. Soon we were sweeping through the country roads at our usual autobahn speeds. Blasting down a hill I thought I'd nip past a couple of cars only to realise that the reason they were going so slow was because the front car was a police car!

Slamming on the anchors, the knobblies struggling for grip and the back sliding out, I put a good show on for the boys behind. I'm fairly sure Mr Plod would have seen my antics in his mirrors, but he luckily didn't take exception.

Some of the group took shorter routes to Salamanca, but Phil, Jim, Chris & I went with Julian and a chap called Antonio to the mountain top. It was stunning.

Near the summit we stopped for some photos and Phil decided to tempt fate. First he drove his bike off road so he could get a picture of it near the mountain edge. Then he got the little red devil out to star in the picture. Now that devil has got us into all sorts of trouble before, so it was no surprise when Phil fell off trying to get his bike back up to the car park.

It was a proper fall too! The back roll down the hill gave Phil full artistic impression scores and managing to leave the bike with the wheels higher than the tank ensured a good technical merit mark. We took copious photos before offering to help pick it up.

The road down was really tight and twisty. Antonio who was riding a BMW road bike took the lead and showed us how it should be done, hanging his backside off the bike in the tight bends. I was quite pleased as to how well I kept up on knobblies. There was the odd sphyncter clenching moment, but it's all part of the fun!

At the bottom of the mountain we said goodbye to Antonio and headed up the motorway to Salamanca, 2 and a bit hours away.

After checking into the hotel it was a quick triple S, and then we were all in the main square blowing the froth off a couple of cold ones. We decided it would be rude not to re-visit the Irish bar where it all got a bit messy last year. And guess what, it got messy again!

It's hard to say if it was the atmosphere, the beer or the godess behind the bar that made us stay. Probably the latter!

Unable to drink any more beer we went on to shorts. Things got even messier......