Assen TT, MotoGP, 24 - 26 June 2011

[Cloggy]

I know it's some way off but I'm going to the Assen TT with a mate of mine from the UK and was wondering if anyone might tag along or meet us there :thumbup: we're planning to go to to the races on the Saturday and also to the "party" Saturday evening and to take in some of the atmosphere on the Friday and Sunday.

 

[Jb40k]

Re: Trip to Assen 23, 24 & 25 June 2011

Hey Cloggy,

I need to start getting out abit more, I may be interested in the trip... Thread watched!

 

[Cloggy]

Re: Trip to Assen 24, 25 & 26 June 2011

Well it's just a week away now, really looking forward to it :rockon:

I'll be meeting up with my mate who'll be arriving at the hook of holland (hoek van Holland) next friday morning at 0745 and then riding up to Assen for the weekend :cheer:

Will anyone else be going?

 

[Unseen]

Cool Martin.

I'll check out if I can make it for Friday/Saturday :thumbup:

 

[Cloggy]

Cool Martin.

I'll check out if I can make it for Friday/Saturday :thumbup:

It would be great if you can make it. :thumbup:

 

[Unseen]

Hey guys,

I'll be driving down to Assen on Saturday (and back again the same day). I'll check out the tickets for a standing place today. So I'll meet up with you guys on Saturday. I think we should be able to find each other our modern communication mechanisms

Looking forward....

Høken is mandatory

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp2cvBqy330&feature=related]YouTube - ‪Normaal - Oerend hard (live)‬‏[/ame]

 

[greg]

would be fun to go, but i'll hopefully be gong back to the uk this weekend

i expect some good pictures and stories though

 

[Cloggy]

Hey guys,

I'll be driving down to Assen on Saturday (and back again the same day). I'll check out the tickets for a standing place today. So I'll meet up with you guys on Saturday. I think we should be able to find each other our modern communication mechanisms

Looking forward....

Høken is mandatory

YouTube - ‪Normaal - Oerend hard (live)‬‏

Luckily Høken is not mandatory heres the line up for friday night TT-Festival Assen

See you there :thumbup:

would be fun to go, but i'll hopefully be gong back to the uk this weekend

i expect some good pictures and stories though

Shame you're away that weekend Greg, I'll try my best to take a few pics :thumbup:

 

[Cloggy]

Well the weather looks fine for the weekend, but the Friday is a bit iffy. and this is of course a long term forecast, so it can still change.

 

[greg]

Shame you're away that weekend Greg

actually they are trying to cancel my flight, but they can go **** themselves, i have a track day the following wednesday and need to prep my bike (they mentioned flying me in on tuesday night and out on thursday morning!)

 

[Unseen]

I notice that tickets are not available online anymore, so I'll have to drop by the local Motoport one of these days to get a ticket...

 

[Cloggy]

I notice that tickets are not available online anymore, so I'll have to drop by the local Motoport one of these days to get a ticket...

Hope they still have some :thumbup:

 

[Andz]

I hope you guys have better weather than I had at Silverstone!

I will be watching the races in the comfort of my local pub :iconbeer:

 

[Cloggy]

I notice that tickets are not available online anymore, so I'll have to drop by the local Motoport one of these days to get a ticket...

Have you managed to get a ticket? will we be seeing you on saturday?

I hope you guys have better weather than I had at Silverstone!

I will be watching the races in the comfort of my local pub :iconbeer:

Sorry to hear about the bad weather Andz, after you travelled so far as well
The weather for tomorrow is changeable, but Saturday should be better with a slight chance of showers.

 

[Unseen]

Yesterday I rode down to Assen to meet up with Martin and his friends. It rained all the way there When I arrived I contacted Martin who got to the entrance gate to hand me my ticket that he conveniently bought for me the day before :thumbup: Lot's of people in the crowd still suffering from the party night before We viewed the races from Mandeveen, a good viewing position. Luckily for the MotoGP the only dry period that day was when the MotoGP was on :cheer: Despite the rain it was a really fun day :cheer:

 

[Cloggy]

I arrived back yesterday after a wonderful (long) weekend away, I put the kids to bed, sat on the couch and promptly fell asleep. Mrs Cloggy woke me up about 23:45 to go to bed .

One advantage was that I was up early this morning, and what a morning it was, sun was shining, birds were singing etc etc. What a difference compared to Friday and Saturdays weather.
Well I was faced with the dilemma, ride in early and catch up on some paperwork or take the scenic route to work (it’s an extra quarter of an hour) . As you have already guessed it was a no-brainer.

Anyway I’ll catch up on updating this post later today, when I’m back home.:thumbup:

 

[Cloggy]

On Friday morning I left home about 0600 and headed for the port of Hook of Holland (Hoek van Holland) to meet up with a good mate of mine, Mike. I had packed my tank bag very carefully so I didn’t have to take a rucksack, but it was so tightly packed that I couldn’t fit another thing in it (not even a wafer thin mint). As I left it was pretty overcast so I put on my waterproof trousers over my leather ones and headed off .

When I arrived at “the Hook” I First went to fill up, as Mike would be doing the same in England, so we’d be ready to get going straight away. Anyway whilst filling I had to move the tankbag off of the fuel cap, and whilst doing so also accidently knocked the bike off the stand and with all the weight on the opposite side the bike went down. I was still clutching onto the handgrip on the right hand side, but could not stop the inevitable :surrender:, luckily I managed to lay it down very gently but it was really frustrating. Luckily someone came running over to help me(as it all went very slowly) but was just too late to save the lay down but he helped me pick the bike up pretty quickly, whilst I was still trying to remember what I’d read on the forum about the best way to do it on your own. I was very fortunate that there was only a very slight scratch on the LH bar end.
I rode on to the port where I got a coffee and waited for Mike, just down the road from the port I saw a parking area which was full of police cars and bikes. Anyway the weather had now improved so I removed my waterproofs. Mike came through customs and we decided to head off straight away. Well just around the corner the police pulled over bikers for an alcahol test. Despite me saying that I wasn’t even on the boat, they said orders are orders. Of course after passing the test we could finally get underway.
Well the weather slowly got more threatening and by Utrecht we had to stop at a petrol station to don our waterproofs. It rained on and off all the way to Assen.

We stopped at Hardewijk for a coffee and Apple pie. Hardewijk is a nice old walled town which was about halfway into our journey.

We set off again towards Assen, on the road we passed one of the (many) speed checks (there were more than 1600 speeding tickets issue don Friday) , I thought it was quite funny that a bike shop had put up a makeshift billboard in the field next to the police control, everyone was riding slow enough to read it .

Just as we were leaving the motorway the heavens opened and the rain was bouncing off of the pavement. When we finally arrived at the bed and breakfast, the rain stopped, but the owner opened the door to be confronted with 2 soaked riders, we had to go into her garage to remove our dripping gear before being allowed further.

After unpacking and changing I went with Mike into town to grab a bite to eat. Well after a 10 minute walk we were in the centre, which was already buzzing with riders of every nationality, Danish, Germans ,British and of course Dutch. Well we grabbed a pizza, with a couple of Beers to start off with. After this we went back to pick up my mate Ronald who had just arrived. Then we all went into town to enjoy the entertainment and to have a couple of Beers.

There were 5 different stages spread around town, set up for the nights entertainment, and there were lots of tents set up where you could buy beer.
There were several shows along a cordoned off stretch of road , the main one being a stunt show, with wheelies, burnouts and donuts. There was a Group of mini motorbikes, a disco booth with dancing girls, a parade of old timers and a parade of random bikes oh and not forgetting the marching band which kept coming back around and which seemed the only thing that didn’t really fit in with the evenings entertainment . Later on the bands started their acts and the town started to fill up with not only bikers but also local folk. According to later reports there were more than 55000 people taking part, which is pretty amazing for a reasonably small town.

We stayed at the jupiler stage to watch the bands there, and watched among others Roel van Velsen who is a highly acclaimed singer, after winning the Dutch version of Pop idols.

After this we headed back at around 1 in the morning, knowing we would be getting up earlyish the next day.


I'll post some more tomorrow......

 

[Cloggy]

The next morning at breakfast we got chatting with 2 other guests who had stayed the night, well they happily chatted with us in English, one of them had lived a couple of years in London. They had come on a brand new R1 so this got us rolling on chating about bikes, but when we asked if it was their bike they replied that they had "borrowed" it for the weekend They said they were journalists. Anyway after a long chat about bike stuff, we got ready to leave, anyway they admitted they worked for motor-forum, the best known and most respected motorbike forum in Holland, and just before we left, one of them said that he was the owner of the forum and was at the race for both business and pleasure, wow what a job :bow:

Unfortunately we left the B&B a bit later than planned, and I couldn't find my camera quick enough so I left without it :banghead: (which is why I'm happy Andre took a few pics :thumbup:

We walked through the woods to the circuit, our B&B was strategically placed, between the town centre and the race track

here we are arriving (sorry for the bad quality but I used my telephone):

Well we went in the nearest entrance and started walking around the track doing a bit of window shopping. Most of the stores were behind the main (hoofd) tribune. One thing I realised was that I'm an anti Rossi fan, almost half of the merchantdising is from Rossi, The Doctor T shirts and hats up the yingyang :banghead: don't get me wrong he is an amazing rider but it was just so annoying, especially as half the people were wearing his gear aswell.

Well we walked down to the Mandeveen corner, where we found a nice place with a view of 3 corners and a screen.

Unfortunately it was raining on and off all day and although the 125's started in the dry, it started raining half way through, so the race was stopped (as the 125's are not allowed to change tyres). The person who was winning when the race had stopped was declared winner of the race.

Just before the moto2 started I got a call from Andre saying he had arrived, so I went to the south gate to meet him. On the way I passed a guy who was layed out sleeping/drunk, on the way back a couple of guys had put a cup in his hands and hung a notice around his neck saying I'm homeless please give me money

The Moto2 was more spectacular as it starting raining more heavily during the race, so there were a few crashes close to where we were, there were lots of wheel slipping too. It was a great race

At the begining of the TT the riders got driven around in a bus:

Then came the MotoGP main event, and wonders will never cease but it had stopped raining the bikes came out with slicks on (you could see this by the white stripes). we saw the accident when simonnelli rode Lorenzo off of the track on the big screen, and it was great to see how they kept on going after getting back on their bikes again. I was also impressed with the brit Crutchlow who had only had surgury a week before, he kept up a good pace for a while, which was great to see.

At the end of the day the Yamaha won, congrats to spies for his first motoGP win.



After this we moved to Ruskenhoek for the Dutch superbikes.this grass bank was much higher which gave a much better view over more of the track, but the bit of track infront of you was pretty straight. The grass bank was also much steeper, to be honest it was a pain sitting on the grass bank in the wet as you would be constantly trying not to slide down.

Well during the superbikes the rain steadily got heavier, so afterwards we headed straight into town to meet up with Andre for a meal. We were planning to walk but we passed the bus stop near the entrance and we could just hop on a free bus heading for the station. By this time we had now walked all the way around the (outside of the) track, Ok lap time was the best part of a day but it was a wet lap.


Met up with Andre in town and we all went for a great indian meal, and talked some more about bikes.
After the meal we saw Andre off, only to find he had removed his Puig windscreen and his top selerie seat, apparantly this to ensure he doesn't get them stolen now he's living in the "big bad city" , Amsterdam.

After this I went out with Mike and Ronald to listen to some music and have a few more beers. Most of the stages had been taken down by now but a small one in the centre of Assen remained, and there was a rock band playing on it.

 

[Cloggy]

Sunday:
On sunday got up and had a late breakfast, just before 10 Ronald left for home and I went with Mike on a 350Km ride (mainly in Germany) which I had planned earlier at home, I had used bits of 3 routes I found here which I joined up using a couple of stretches on the autobaan . We started by riding some smaller roads towards Borger, where we stopped off at a Dolmen (hunebed) where we took these photo's

We then rode some pretty rough wooded roads past another dolmen site

(there are a lot of these sites around this area, but most are in the middle of wooded area's). We then crossed the border into Germany where we rode our first stretch of autobaan. There were a few stretches where we could open her up , the fastest I rode was 216Km/h but that was not on the satnav so I suspect about 200Km/h. I was really pleased that I had put all the effort into packing my tank bag so that everything fitted, as I felt so much better being able to see my luggage traveling at those speeds (I know I'm a bit wierd).
Well the route was a real mixture from roads with grit on them to perfectly made twisty roads. The route roughly took us paralell with the border to just north of Munster and then with a short stretch of autobaan to Haltern am see. After this we followed a route back to Nijmegen where Mike had a hotel for the night.

We had a drink at the Waag and then I headed home, Mike had a day to do a bit of his own riding and then had a meeting in Brussels (he works for an international company), and after that back to the UK.

 

[Andz]

These are the kind of photos that make me want to trade my camera in on a bottle of Jaegermeister.....

Cycle News - June 28, 2011

Cycle News - June 28, 2011

Cycle News - June 28, 2011

Cycle News - June 28, 2011

I hope the links work