NASA and Royal Enfield in Conjunction

conjunction

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
/kənˈʤʌŋkʃn/

▶noun

• 1 Grammar a word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause (e.g. and, if).

• 2 an instance of two or more events occurring at the same point in time or space.
  ■ Astronomy & Astrology an alignment of two planets so that they appear to be in the same place in the sky.

This second definition was our mission on Saturday as four of us Bulleteers in Madrid took out our bikes and rode into the mountains to see a curious alignment of old and new.
Our group was the traditional three (Pedro, Juanma and yours truly) with a new addition: Guillermo was taking his newly acquired and repaired Indian Bullet 500cc (2004) out on its maiden voyage on the roads. Both he and the bike did swimmingly, a pleasure to ride with them.


Winding curvy back roads, well paved and seldom traveled by cars took us through forests of Mediterranean pines and groves of encinas (holm oaks) under a gorgeous blue early summer sky. 

When these cyclists showed up, they too wanted in on the conjunction:

We decided to celebrate this scientific event by having a vermouth up at the Cruz Verde, a major biker bar on a mountaintop near Madrid. The Royal Enfield Bullets got plenty of well deserved attention, as usual!
This is Guillermo's Bullet:

 And here's Pedro's classic:

we were all home by lunchtime as planned, ready to face the week ahead and looking forward to the next trip.

A Day at the Races

Frankly, the idea of going to a motorcycle racetrack was never very high on my Weekend To-Do list before. But when Ogrix offered me to go with him and his sister to see an old biking buddy of his, I knew there wouldn't be any better occasion than this. So off we went, he and Maribel on his BMW R100 and me on my RE Bullet.

As soon as we got there, I could hear the motorbikes whizzing by. Fast. Really really fast. So fast that, as they whizz by, you're left waiting a beat for the inevitable sound of a big crash. My hair stood on end.
Luckily there were no crashes or any other trouble. The "kids" on the track were amateurs out for a day of fun. Lots of milling about in the boxes, the amount of testosterone in the air only exceeded by the amount of adrenaline in their bloodstreams.
It was all in all very exciting, an experience I never thought I'd enjoy, and now I'm looking forward to seeing a real race.