Tenerife has a big motorbiking scene with a lot of clubs and groups that organise regular rallys. This Sunday May 25th, there is the 4th annual Gran Vuelta a Norte (the great north tour) featuring the Honda 70 in its many forms, originals and replicas.

This is a good point for me to confess to knowing very little about bikes, apart from Westlakes and Jawas from watching years of speedway, but they are probably regarded as relics now. I had to look up the Honda 70, expecting it to be a powerful brute of a bike, but it is just a small four stroke ( said he, trying to sound knowledgeable) and some of the photos I saw made it look almost like a moped, not that I’m knocking that.

Anyway , back to the research and apparently it was known as The Rocket, because of its ability to power up steep roads fully loaded, now it starts to make sense. Sounds like the perfect machine to explore the hills and mountains of the north of Tenerife.

I remember a friend of mine in Oxford was the secretary of the southern Honda Goldwing club, and once a year they would descend on Oxford, set up camp in a far flung field and do a charity pub crawl in and around town before being ferried back to the camp site in a convoy of 12 coaches. One year I went round town with a few of them a week before the event, on what they laughingly called the dry run. This was to visit the chosen pubs and square things with the landlord so he wouldn’t panic when an army of hairy arsed bikers descended on him. Dry run? this advance party of 10 beer monsters nearly drained the pubs on their own, I dread to think what the real event was like.

Meanwhile on an island in the Atlantic, it’s back to the North Tour. Last year they had 101 bikes and will be looking to do even better this year. The main run starts from San Geronimo Industrial estate in La Orotava at 9am and ends in Icod de Los Vinos. The southern enthusiasts will be starting a little earlier from Bar Davimar in Buzanada. So if you see a swarm of bikers on Sunday, don’t be afraid, they are just out to enjoy their passion for bikes and Tenerife.