The First European ST meet

["Anderson, Neil G" <AndersNG@xxxxxx>]

Not wanting to be outdone by our North American brothers & sisters, we
managed to get a good group together for the first European ST meet; Ludo,
Marc, Walter & Sandra, Paul (Manterfield) and his son Nick and of course The
Ballast and myself.  So that's two Belgians, two Dutch, two English, one
Scot and one Chinese - not a bad collection for a first outing really!

Originally we'd planned to meet on Saturday 1st, but after Ludo saw the
weather forecast we decided not to be April Fools - we couldn't find the
snow chains anyway - and we waited for Sunday, a fine sunny afternoon.  We
met in Eupen, South-East Belgium, found some pleasant winding roads through
pretty pine forests and rolling hills and passed by the race circuit at
Francorchamps near Spa.  It must have been the first Sunday of spring -
there were plenty of bikers out, everything from multi-coloured squids to
Harleys, Goldwings and even the odd trike.  We had every kind of ST in the
group - red (the fastest), blue (the coolest) and black (the slowest, at
least when The Ballast and I are tottering along on the black one at the
back!)

And now the prizes:

Winners - special thanks go to:
- ------------
Marc - for good route-finding, leading us at a pace that suited all in the
group and for doing 30,000 km on his ST within the first year
Ludo - for picking the meeting place (Rick's Pub - pity Rick was away for
the day!), for calling around to fix the time and for being right about the
weather

Sinners - slaps on the wrists go to:
- ------------
Nick - for not turning up on an ST.  Well, a Thunderbird is still a Triumph,
and he did have the loudest pipes, so we'll forgive him this time!
Me - apparently I'm a naughty boy for calling my wife The Ballast.  You'd
understand if you knew she calls me The Chauffeur!  Anyway, ballast is
actually useful weight essential for stability (she says)

Don't know when the next meet will be - I'm pretty busy from now until the
end of May - but it might be in the Sauerland in Germany for a weekend; nice
hilly country, East of Dortmund, not too far from Belgium or the Netherlands
and Walter tells me there's a good place to stay with an excellent chef who
is also a keen biker.  Next time we will have to decide how to translate
Dawg into European languages (I'm booking Scotty Dog in advance, thanks)

Hope we can all get together again soon!

Neil
P.S. For the record, Eric, of the five STs four had the "cracking" on the
paint surface on the front of the left fork.  Paul's forks didn't have the
cracking, but seemed to have a slightly duller finish - perhaps the paint
process has changed or his forks didn't have so much of the surface lacquer,
or whatever it is.  I think his is a later 99 model.  Anyway, the general
consensus seemed to be that we weren't very worried about it.

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