Two Wheels move the Soul

  Neat = Spectacular O ur second day in Caserta and Sandra's research has hit another homerun! Santa Maria Capua Vetere,Caserta ( Campanian amphitheatre) Alot of people, us included, have heard of the Roman Colosseum, and many of us have been there. Matter of fact we are fortunate enough to have been to many such World Heritage Sites (WHS). Well the Colosseum in Rome is apparently a nickname for the   Flavian Amphitheatre. Now we all know. So this amphitheater predates the Roman one by centuries and is attributed to the Etruscan civilization of 900-500 BC. It is thought by many to be the model for Rome's amphitheater. Our weather forecasting skills allow us to see it early enough in the day to avoid some of the thundershowers that are rolling through western Italy right now. The big difference between this and the one in Rome, is that it is in Hidden Italy and away from alot of tourism. But the artifacts and access are as Sandra said, "Neat" which I suggest is spectac

 Old and New      -   Perspectives Mount Vesuvius - Tale of 2 Cities? (Click any picture for a larger view) Our ride south from Ostia via Roma started with a blustery morning in Ostia and an observation that'll have to be explained offline. We left the B&B at 10:30am having checked weather forecasts and knowing we'd have to adapt to what came next. We already felt the winds which were bringing in the weather systems we'll experience over the next couple of days. The 220 kms is covered in less than 2 hrs. and we had decided to use the Autostrada to allow us to move through the weather quicker., try to outrun, or take cover at a rest area. We had a brief shower catch us for a few minutes but because of the hot conditions we dried up within a couple of minutes. No harm no foul! For those not familiar with Italy, in 2014 we had titled that area south of Rome as Hidden Italy . It's still true today. As we arrive in the Caserta area it's still much more a day to day c

 Ostia Antica and Ostia Lido After a nice hot humid afternoon getting repacked after recovering our riding gear from panniers etc. we enjoyed a nice pizza at our B&B suite hotel. They run an extremely successful B&B, pizzeria near Ostia Antica, which was the birthplace of Rome before Rome. We had been here passing through in 2006 and stayed in 2014 while visiting the ruins of Ostia Antica itself. Our neighbor Jeff who has a degree in Archeology remarked about how impressed he was with OA and it is impressive. Our 2014 Ostia experience is here .  This morning, Sunday, we reset and were just going to go for a walk when I suggested we head close to the Lido and then take our walk there. It was a good plan. Neptune and Friend to the left The Lido was busy when we got there around 10:30 am as it was super sunny, 33C humid and real beach weather. As we walked the Lido we got to see Neptune with a guy fishing beside him, and jam packed beaches. Beaches crowded The architecture there i

 Hope for the Best, plan for the worst! Ready to Ship This year we re-committed ourselves to travelling back through parts of Europe on our bike. Westjet's BikeAir program was not well founded at the beginning but in June seemed to have found it's feet. We found reasonably priced premium Economy seats, chose Rome as the destination as Barcelona/Spain doesn't honour the EU temporary permit for moto's for leisure purposes. We wanted to avoid as much of the high tourist season and high heat temperatures.  Plan for the Worst We knew that Westjet would fly the bike from Vancouver as well as Calgary with a small surcharge but since we had family to visit we decided to truck the bike to Calgary and visit family in advance. That worked great and a benefit was my son-in-law came to the cargo drop-off and I got a picture with the bike after the customs clearance was given for it. Next day, was flight day, our premium economy seats came with priority boarding passes and we were th

 Do K&N Air Filters Work? I rarely do service tips or 'how to's'  but with so much dis-information out there about this specific product I feel the need to share my experiences.  I've had a K&N air filter on this motorcycle since 2012 and we've ridden in a huge number of difficult conditions. This year I am re-shipping the bike to Europe for a couple more trips and wanted to do all the needed service work to ensure the bike is well maintained for the duration. As you know the K&N air filters are a 'reusable' filter. I've used them for 20 some years in the Porsche we had, previous and current trucks, and our cars. The engineering concept is simple but technical. You can read about it from K&N directly. This year I wanted to refresh my re-oiling technique and thought I'd check Youtube to see what was out there. Like everything else there are good and bad videos and information. One that struck me was a guy that claimed he did a deep tec