Christmas can come early when you have a Tenere in the shed.

She has been on Sorn since August while I tried to love my Pan Euro ST1100.

I failed muchly in that respect.

The proof is in the pudding .. and what a pudding!

Even manouevering the bikes in the workshop the Tall Tenere feels like a lightweight compared with the solid Pan Euro …

Built in 1994 at a time when Mr Honda had transformed the 1000cc sportsbike world with a pocket-sized  lightweight ‘Blade – their Pan Euro was still an overweight behemoth.

I was riding the first incarnation of the BMW1100GS back then – good bike though she was – an indicated 100mph aboard her on a dried up river bed in southern Spain will remain one of the biking ‘highs’ in my life – she was still a heavy ‘ol mutha when the wheels stopped turning …

I should have stuck to ‘dried up’ riverbeds for a few days later — high in the nountains — I realised just how heavy that big BM was when I went backwards off a high riverbank landing flat on my back in the rushing waters with the hot Beemer still throbbing away on my lap!

To quote Billy Connelly during his brief foray into wrestling when his Turkish opponent had poor Billy tied in a reef knot and all he could see were a big pair of nuts dangling in front of his nose —

‘It’s amazing how much power a man can find when he bites his own pretzels!’

Something similar must have happened to me on that river bed!

Without a soul in sight for miles I somehow wrestled mesel and that big GS onto what passed as terra firma and back to civilisation.

A few years later BMW realised the error of their ways and transformed the overweight 1100GS into what is now the much lighter – state of the art – top selling 1200GS.

Honda are made of more stubborn stuff and present day Pan Europeans aren’t any lighter than my ol’ 1994 version .. which is why she will remain under wraps till Spring has sprung and I will celebrate an early Christmas present to mesel …

Yup!  I have just put Road Tax on my Tenere from 1st Dec for her 7th year out there in my hands 🙂