What a fascinating thread trying to apply a UK mentality to European query,i�ve Spent a life time travelling Europe and when it comes to travel on bikes the Southern Europeans just don�t do it,you�ll of heard the expression �Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun�.

Never a truer a word we�ve ridden down into southern Spain and the across to either Bilbao or Santander and the only bikes you see are tourists it�s why unfaired bikes like Ducati�s Monster are such big sellers for wizzing around local street but travelling more than a couple of hundred miles from home is a rarity.

We had a Spanish national come to stay with us for 2 weeks and stayed two years so we�ve seen quite an insight to their mentality when staying with the saids family,yes in recent years you see more Italians and some Spanish now travelling to the TT but a drop in the ocean compared to Northern Europeans who head south to sweet their knackers off in the heat