I was persuaded to accompany Tony is his Subaru this time to the Ring and trailer the bike, strapped alongside his beloved GSXR750. It was going to be the last trip of the year and this one incorporated Kevin's stag weekend thingy too, so we'd have a laugh, rain or shine. Of which we got both.

Wayne and Keith rode down on the Thursday, planning a cross-country route through the Ardennes. That was the plan, but as it turned out Wayne's poor old girl sprung an oil leak on the train, before it had even touched French soil! Over the (many) years the exhaust had burned it's way through oil line and it had chosen that time to issue forth its contents. So stranded on the wrong side of the Channel with a leaky bike and many miles to go required some rapid repair.

Unfortunately Thursday in France seems to be 'shops stay closed day' and none of the bike shops they could find were open. Various bodges were tried from tape and bits and pieces found in a couple of petrol stations but they kept failing after a few miles - hot oil unsticks pretty much anything.

'Passing by a chauffage in one small town we thought of getting some copper tube to bridge the hole in the pipe - French tube comes in a variety of bores so water pressure can be balanced. Unfortunatley they were closed, but a guy in a tyre shop directed us to a bike dealership in the middle of nowhere which was open and very helpful. The mechanic was brave enough to cut through the leaky oil pipe so then we had to find a repair! He did have a selection of copper pipe and with two hose clips the leak was sorted. It took some doing to get the guy to accept any money for his help. Top chap.'

After that their leisurely journey turned into a hurried dash, stopping over in Chimay before their arrival the next day at Nurburg 30 mins before our Subaru convoy - perfect timing.

The other guys were due to arrive late Friday, but riding through the night and needing fuel when petrol stations only had automated paying facilities, which are of little use if you don't have the right fuel card, meant an unscheduled stop and late arrival the next day. Dave and Mattias flew in and hired a car, again arriving on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, back at Renata's Tony was busy unloading our bikes, while I loaded up our rooms, one thing to be said for going in a car, you can take what you bloody well like, very handy it is too. So by the time the circuit opened at 17:15 we were ready and waiting with our 12 lap tickets in hand. The first lap is always the slowest and therefore the most dangerous and when Murray Walker (well that's who he looked like) appeared alongside us all with his horn blasting whilst negotiating Weirsefern it all became a bit unnerving. Once past him again, not a problem, not until he showed up about 12 inches off our rear tyres that is, but hey, these things happen and it was the only time we saw him. Without a doubt though it was by far the most dangerous piece of car driving I have ever seen at the Ring. He obviously knew his way around, but patience is a virtue and one to behold when doing a lap.

With the first woozy lap out of the way things started to get better, but the sun was sinking fast. So with shadows getting long it was time to call it a day after 4 laps and retire to the bar. This we did with no complaints and a very enjoyable meal was had at the Italian restaurant in the village.

That night after more beer and now everyone being present the Sunday was looking entertaining to say the least, but the rain was to play a part in the reduction of laps being completed. Sunday morning came around and the roads were wet, but it wasn't raining. So a late breakfast was called for and a late arrival at the circuit. (Speak for yourself, matey - four of us were out at 8.00 am, wet track and all!) I ventured out about 11 ish and the track wasn't too bad, it was only under the trees that it was dicey, so I thought I'd give it another hour or so. During this time someone crashed and the track was shut for a while to clear the carnage, so we decided to go for lunch in Adenau.

From our lunch spot we could see when the track had reopened, so we shot back to the circuit to start lapping, now that the sun was out and the track 100% dry. However, this was foiled by the fact that a couple of bikes crashed at Schwedenkreuz trying to avoid the wreckage of a previous accident. Unfortunately the incident was a bad one and the track was closed for the rest of the day. This meant I only did one lap on Sunday, thank goodness I did so many the day before. A lesson to be learnt here, lap when you can and let your hunger wait - or don't drink so much the night before and get out earlier!

Back to the bar it was then for a farewell drink and dinner as some of our group were starting to leave for home.

Monday morning and it was wet again, so I was glad I was in a car. Ya, bollocks, Tet. The true bikers all set off homeward waterproofed up, but it soon stopped raining and we had a brilliant ride through the Ardennes. Thanks to Adrian for carrying the luggage in his Subaru, made the ride much more fun.

Seeing as the Nurburgring wasn't actually open until Friday afternoon we thought that by leaving on Wednesday we could spend a couple of days to sample the delights of France and Belgium. Bloody windy in the Pas-de-Calais and I have never had to lean off a bike more when in a straight line to keep the bike in a straight line than I did on that day! From there we picked up the A1 to get inland a bit and headed for Montreuil. Then we got the wind behind us towards Arras on the A39. The roads were too straight though - I blame Napoleon.

En route the notorious GSXR BC 1216 developed clutch problems on account of duff seals so we popped into a friendly Peugeot shop for bleeding equipment and a dollop of brake fluid. Msr Tolouse Lautrec's great grandson obviously didn't inherit much from the estate!

After Le Cateau we headed toward the hilly country of the Ardennes and the pleasures of Givet. We'd never been there, but it looked good on the map, nestling beside the river Meuse. So Chimay, Trelon, Couvin and eventually into Givet. We found a top hotel, Le Val St. Hilaire, overlooking the river and which had secure parking for the bikes, really nice owners and a good Auberge restaurant. So after excellent grub we took a stroll round town and had a couple of drinks.

From Givet the roads were nice and twisty but a tad wet and had a strange sort of lined surface, so the Michelin Pilot Races felt none too good here. Lunch was had at Houfalize, where we spotted our first tank! Not a Sherman, but a Panzer. Been there since 1944. After lunch we headed for St Vith and cut across country towards Blankenheim. From here we were off the edge of my map, but luckily a bit of local knowledge got us the rest of the way to the Ring.

Upon arrival at Nurburg the heavens opened, so no evening laps for us. The other lads had trailered their bikes up the motorway and arrived just before us. Being the hardened Ringmeister he is, John ventured a wet lap, only to wish he hadn't as he scared himself with a big slide coming out of Galgenkopf onto the final straight. The 'Ring is definitely not a good idea in the wet - far too much rubber on the surface.

A morning scamp to Prum for tea and buns while waiting for the track to open. Once at the Ring it was pretty busy, but the circuit was hot and dry. A couple of us had Pilot Race tyres and they were a bloody pain, not warming up until after Hatzenbach and feeling like jelly until then. Double laps were definitely needed to properly enjoy the first section. Mind you, they were pretty good when hot.

A couple of Porsche's dumped oil all over the circuit as they exploded (bloody old nails, and one of them was only a day old!) and a few bikers fell off so the track was closed for recoveries and cleaning off and on, but no worse than usual.

One of our biggest surprises was whacking up Kesselchen and meeting some old banger of a 5 series BMW. He obligingly indicated right to show he'd seen us but overtaking was not easy as the faster I went the quicker he got. Subsequent interrogation in the car park revealed a fully stripped racer with a 350bhp motor! Bloody cheat!

Top bike in our bunch turned out to be Tony's trackday GSXR750Y on race rubber, light wheels, etc. which handled superbly and seems to make good power with its tweaked fuel and ignition mapping and Akrapovic pipe. He actually fitted his patent noise-o-limiter once but the noise-fed weren't out so it wasn't really necessary.

The Gixer1000s were going well but Keith Webster managed to throw his away storming down through Wipperman and landed on his head. I blame the crap Bridgestone 010 tyres he had but he maintains that the bike slipped out of gear and the back end went bananas when he banged it back in 2nd. Wipperman is really not a good place to crash and he did well to walk away from the off - he even managed to ride the bike back to the car park and save himself 300DM! Being a club racer he was of course completely undaunted by all this and was back out on Sunday after a quiet night in with his ice pack.

Most embarrassing stack of the weekend had to be the brand new BMW M3 - five seconds after this photo was taken it spun out at Ex Mulhe and rolled into the bank. Totally smacked on all sides and a flattened roof. When we got back out on the track on the bikes and passed him 10 minutes later, the driver was standing beside the flattened heap casually chatting on his mobile. Geezer!

The weather for our run to Dover could not have started in a worse fashion. Thunderstorms galore in our part of the world the whole day. About 40 miles from Dover the blue sky appeared and this helped no end. Stopping at Calais again, and we found the Metropol Hotel in record time - minutes as opposed to the hours last year - parked the bikes up in the huge garage, showered, changed and popped into town for a lovely meal of grilled frogs legs and snails testicles in a rich garlic sauce.

Next morning, Friday, the weather report from Duncan was excellent, 23 degrees right across northern Europe, so we decided to take the longer route incorporating fewer motorways and many smaller roads through France, Luxembourg and Belgium into Germany. We set off in glorious sunshine with spirits high. As we meandered down into France the sky seemed to get a tad darker, but it didn't bother us as Duncan had seen the weather forecast and it was good ... all through my life I'd trusted my big brother, why should I stop now? As we got nearer Belgium it looked decidedly sinister in the sky, with patches of lightness here and there, but mainly black or nearly black clouds. We decided to get off the N43 and stopped for lunch at Le Cateau to consult the map for twistier roads. The café only had two French sticks of the shorter kind, delightfully stuffed with paté and gherkins - for 6 of us. No fatties here!

If you're thinking of riding to the 'Ring via the picturesque Ardennes, don't do it during a thunderstorm ..

Right, onto the seriously twisties through the Champagne-Ardenne then. Brilliant! Off we went and it started to spit with rain. As we made our way further into the hills the weather got worse and the rain became persistent. The map seemed to be a bit wrong - basically what scaled out at about a 50 minute ride through 3 small towns, turned out to be a 4 hour ride through the three small towns and about 20 even smaller towns on roads that were not on the bloody map! These roads were just too small - perhaps OK when dry but hopeless in the wet.

Time to consult my sometimes trusty map and work out a shortcut. This turned out to be a blinder, the roads were faster but still bendy and had no traffic at all. This was good scratching. But about 40 miles from the Ring the heavens opened up again. Thunder, lightening, the lot. There was no way we were going to carry on, so we stopped in a bar near Blankenheim for beers and grub and waited for the weather to improve.

We were somewhat selfishly warmed by the thought that if the rain is this bad this close to the Ring, then at least we're not missing out on any lap time!

As we left the bar and ventured into the final leg the roads became decidedly dry in places. We eventually got to Nürburg in lovely evening sunshine, to be greeted by Marlboro Pete and JtP. They looked relieved to see us, bit we were a bit miffed to find out that they had completed 8 laps each and it hadn't rained all day!

Bearing in mind this is my 3rd trip to the Ring, I should have been feeling confident, but for some reason I wasn't - not used to the GSXR perhaps. The first three laps were a mismatch of wrong lines and a few scary moments. Even though I was following meister John I just couldn't get my head round it. Then whilst pondering my dilemma in the car park area, I decided to go out on my own and see how I got on. It was the best thing I could do and was by far the best lap I had done so far. That was it, at my own pace I was now off and running.

Over dinner that evening stories of daring do and bravado abounded, mostly centred around young Tony and how well he was going on his first trip there. Talent is always something Tony has had and I've been calling him Mr. Corner Speed for some years now from antics at the Isle Of Man. He reconfirmed my trust in him the following day, when Keith, Tony and I went out for a lap. Tony was leading and it was the first time he'd lead. Keith's words were, "Tony's gonna lead" - brilliant, I should be OK with this one I thought. Could I stay with 'em?

Not a chance pal. I could see 'em, but once I'd lost the tow, I couldn't regain it. It stayed like this the whole lap. It's taken Tony about 5 laps and 40 quid to get up to speed, but to know the track? Well, some people have it and some don't, I fall into the latter category I'm afraid.

On the Saturday afternoon, we had encountered the noise abatement society for Nürburg. Shortly after lunch four of us arrived at the track for a lap. Tony was tapped on the shoulder as he went through the barrier and asked to pull over (effectively you lose a lap, so it's a bitter pill to swallow). He did so and I went over to see what was going on. He was told to hold the bike at 7K revs whilst a meter was held near the exhaust. 109.1db means you're out ! And he was.

Wayne was pulled for 104db; banned, the limit being 100db on the nose. Pete and I came back from a lap and decided to stay in for a while as there was obviously a noise purge happening; you could still get out if you picked your moment. They tend to get a bit arsy if they find a banned bike back out on the track. Then Gaz got banned and all 3 of 'em wound up standing near the barrier gesticulating at the noise blokes. Eventually they twigged that you could go out fairly easily even if your bike was banned, so it didn't affect proceedings too much.

On the Sunday it was my turn. I'd escaped all day Saturday, but my luck had to run out some time. As I placed my ticket in the machine to lift the barrier, I felt the dreaded tap on my right shoulder, only to turn my head and see a finger pointing to the side of the road. I knew the form, so asked what revs to keep the bike at. 6K was what he wanted and you just know you're gonna be out. He indicated enough, and proceeded to fill his chart out. He took my registration and jotted it down, a few other details too, and then "Come on mate, how many db's??" 99.9 !! My bike was Nürburgring legal!

Guru John rode the GSXR750 X and Y to compare their wonders and decided the X fitted with Pilot Race's was the best ... so na na nana na to the Y! Then the clutch went on his Ducati SPS (again) so that'll teach him. Kevin tried a large range of alternative bikes as his Blade was handling like a shed and decided that the new 2000 R1 is brilliant but the Honda SP1 is wooden and gutless. Pete's Ohlins suspended R1 was an ideal mount for the Ring as the lightweight wheels and top-hole suspenders make the steering a lot easier than the standard (1999) bike and the engine laughs at the hilly bits. A couple of the guys had fitted Michelin Pilot Race tyres and these gave amazing grip once they had warmed up (slide until then, though) .. But standard shocks aren't up to the rigours of the Ring - rear tyres were badly chewed up after only 400 miles. Decent WP or Ohlins needed methinks.

Anyway, top weather once we got to the Ring, even if the ride there was a bit damp.