I like soup. It is a great mid-day pick-up; or a restorative after a long day in the saddle. This year I sampled many euro-soups in our 3000 mile loop through 8 countries. I think it may have been a dubious French soup that upset my intestines for a week after the first night. Nevertheless, from Bouillon to BohnenSuppe and Goulash to Slovenian Jota and Spargeln Creme, we relished in our Gruppe Suppe (Phrase courtesy of Tom, this year’s organiser)

The lure of the Ring

Motorcycle Racing Legend Randy Mamola tries Genesis for size in the Silverstone Paddock on the evening of Day of Champions, 17/6/2010.
(See more about MotoGP's favourite charity, Riders for Health, at www.riders.org)
Earlier in the evening Randy was reminiscing about driving an Ecomobile. Photo: Paul Blezard

Peter Duke, MD of Duke Marketing and son of the legendary Geoff, with Genesis in the TT race paddock in the Isle of Man, June 2010.
Photo: Paul Blezard

Blez in Genesis and Eco-owner Steve Van den Berghe outside Steve's house in Antwerp, Belgium during my visit during 'Clean Week' at Zolder.
This is the first time that Genesis has been snapped with an Ecomobile. May 2010.
Photo by Els. PNB archive

Here's a professional video showing the newest offering from Peraves. Probably the most efficient EV in existence, and one of the fastest.

Blez at Filching Manor, near Eastbourne, after the Quasar rally, Sept 2009. Ian Pegram kindly lent me Genesis to take to the annual Quasar rally since my Quasar was still indisposed. Photo by Elspeth Beard, PNB archive.

Finally became a Quasar owner, 1978 Red Quasar, bought off Andy T. Engine is running well after Andy had a new distributor fitted. I'm going to look at sorting the dash out first and make a list of other jobs to look at later. Added more pictures after three weeks of tinkering.

August 2010, newly painted and with new electronic distributor. Now has driving lights on each fork. Now owned by Gavin Newell and I have the VF750 based mk2, July 2011.

Key Peraves personnel with the first Ecomobile to be converted to all-electric Brusa power, at Brno in 2008. Far left: Roger Riedener (who paid for the conversion to his own Eco, previously powered by a BMW K1100 engine); in the machine: Gustav Prochazka and Dan Lexa, who were building MonoTracers in the Brno factory; Far right: Felix Wagner, first Ecomobile world champion in 1991 and eldest son of Ecomobile creator Arnold Wagner.
Roger Riedener and Felix Wagner went on to run Peraves CH until its sad demise in 2014.
Peraves CZ have been building electric Monoracers since 2020. PNB.

A barefoot Cedric Lynch looks on while I go for my third spin in his all-electric streamliner, August 2009. Great fun! PNB
(Photo taken by Paul Compton, Paul Blez archive)

Arthur Middleton rode his VF500FF to the 2009 Isle of Man TT. This Blez pic of the beast on Douglas Seafront appears in the February 2010 issue of The Rider's Digest (www.theridersdigest.co.uk). The finish on this home-built machine is as good as it looks in the pic.
Photo: © Paul Blezard

Tudor Thomas rode the GPZ1100 Slug to the Isle of Man for the annual TT week in June 2009. It was quite an eventful trip....not least on the motorway getting there. This Blez pic of the beast on Douglas seafront appears in the February 2010 edition of The Rider's Digest magazine. www.theridersdigest.co.uk (The blue Yamaha Ténéré behind is the bike Blez rode to the island and back).

This was the first time I saw a Quasar, 1980 when I was 14. I think the event was at the Police HQ in Preston and even had a Police version. The last pic is a group from the show.

Yours Truly sitting in the repaired Quasar In the south of France after the horrendous crash on the autoroute near Carcassonne in which I hit a Renault 5 which had been carelessly parked on its roof, in the fast lane, at night! Doesn't look too bad, considering, does it? My passenger, the unfortunate Ludmila, was still in hospital at this point, while I was very lucky to get away with a few bruises...(Fortunately she made a good recovery and later became an adventurous motorcyclist in her own right.)

This is Dave Lochead's remarkable Quasar replica, finished in New Zealand in 2009
Dave explains:
"Built from a Kawasaki GPz550 UniTrak, and using the donor bike's monoshock system.
Forks are fabricated leading link currently set up for a slight dive under braking
It's probably putting out 55 -58 horsepower, and by my calculations weight is under 200 kilos, it's certainly deceivingly light, and has good power/weight ratio.

Pictures and information, plus a great video, on the latest LSR record breaker

Both these historic machines featured in the Top Gear FF feature in 1988, but not together. The Quasar was filmed here at its home, the National Motorcycle Museum with William Woollard sitting in it, while the Ecomobile was the one I was filmed driving in and around its birthplace in Winterthur, Switzerland.

This series of three photos shows an Ecomobile being driven through the Daimler sidewind test facility in Untertürkheim at 80km/h (50mph) circa 1991. A similar sequence of photos with a standard BMW K100 shows it leaning less but deviating more from its path. Arnold Wagner sent me the photos in response to my ruminations about Craig Vetter's comment that 'streamlined is round at the front and pointed at the rear'. Arnold commented: "Round at the front has nothing to do with head or feet first. It’s a necessity to get decent crosswind behaviour.

Nose is novel, in terms of Voyager-style shape development, in enclosing the front wheel. This is built to TTXGP FF rules, i.e. not more than 50mm in front of wheel. Intake slot fits well with Yamaha airflow over the small front wheel into the radiator mounted low behind the wheel. If this works well a similar nose, minus the intake slot, may be fitted to FJ.

Cmax foam shape now ready for covering. The body tent is too small to get full body in one shot. This is the site of the 'old factory' where 001 and 002 were built.

Next stage is to cover the surface in a thin, sealing layer of micro-balloon/resin 'filler' ('glascell 10 in Sicomin epoxy resin - AKA 'Aero-Mick') to protect this fragile shape and provide a hard surface to lay up glass cloth, so that excess resin can be squeegeed off. Surface will be finished with more aero-mick, then prepared for painting.

This bunch of Bonneville record-breakers were amongst several more displayed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2007 in a superb representation of the famous salt flats, complete with support vehicles. Photo by Blez