its probably a daft question but .. I've just gone to have a quick blast out on the old girl and I've got a flat battery :'( that's what you get for not using for 2weeks and having a datatool alarm .
Anyway I've got a fully charged 600 battery and while I don't want to use it to start the old girl (which I'm assuming it won't ) I don't want to leave my pride and joy at mercy of the thieving Essex oiks while I'm charging the thou battery for 8hour, Does anyone know if the 600 battery is ok to put on just to run the alarm ??
Anyone fitted a MT03 headlight or similar? I can't decide what headlight to choose... I like the MT03 style, and the speed/street triple double headlight, but the only twin ones i can find are the "dominator" ones, and i dont like them.
Any suggestions for a new headlight? Single, double? Show me some pictures :-)
Been looking at all us old gits reminiscing about all the bikes we owned in the past, and I got to thinking about some of the characters I've known through biking. Motorcycles do seem to attract a, er, colourful brand of person!
One that most sticks in my memory was a cat who I shall just call Steve, who I used to knock about with for many years. A few things I remember from back then:
[size=1em]I first knew Steve through my brother. We were all into heavy rock music, so that’s what brought us together. We all used to get the bus to Manor Park on a Saturday night for the rock disco at the Ruskin Arms, the place Iron Maiden started out, although I never saw them there. Steve was ahead of me in getting on two wheels - he had a CB125 twin that he thrashed mercilessly everywhere…well, we all thrashed our learner bikes mercilessly didn’t we?[/size]
[size=1em]I wound up with a CB100N, and started going places with him. His antics at that time were a bit more, er, interesting than mine. He’d do things like seeing how long he had the bottle to ride with his eyes closed. When he finally crashed from doing this, his eyes were closed cos he’d actually fallen asleep after a night shift at the petrol station he worked at then - ploughed straight across a roundabout, which I guess probably woke him up.[/size]
[size=1em]Steve was a big guy, about 6’ 4’’ and heavy with it. He liked his junk food and was the only guy I ever knew that could eat a 16oz Blowout from Jake’s burger bar, then he’d nip across the road to Maccy D’s and chase it down with a couple of cherry pies.[/size]
[size=1em]He got a Suzuki GS550 after he passed his test, he still dwarfed it though. I remember one night heading back from the pub, I was pillion on his GS and he loved to just go round and round a roundabout with the pegs dragging and great showers of sparks flying out behind.[/size]
[size=1em]Then he graduated to a GPz1100, and at the same time I got myself a Kwak 750 Turbo. These two bikes were well matched and we hacked about everywhere together. We both liked to ride fast, but he was a nutter. He’d try to bait cop cars into chasing him, other times he’d wheelspin that thing along the pavement outside people’s houses. One time, he wanted to hear what it would sound like if he took the complete exhaust system off, and the flames were shooting out of the block about a foot, but he quit that when he realised it was burning all the paint off the frame front tubes.[/size]
[size=1em]One time we both went to this party, fancy dress. I just put my dad’s old brown dust-coat on with string tied around the waist, and an empty bottle wrapped in brown paper and called myself a tramp. Through the night, I was pouring drinks into this bottle and just taking swigs from it now and then. Steve didn’t see me pouring the drinks in there though, just me getting them at the bar and every time I ordered he thought I was downing it right there. Unbeknownst to me, he was trying to match me drink for drink and knocking them straight back one for one - whisky I think it was we were ordering. Man, was he a state by the end of the night. I think I was too for all that. We couldn’t get a lift back to his place (I lived miles away), and we were so trashed they locked us in the bare, freezing cold bike club hut over night, left us a message saying they’d come let us out in the morning. I don’t remember being dumped in there, but we woke early, couldn’t get out, waited hours for someone to show up with the keys. I couldn’t even put a bottle of whisky under my nose after that night, never have since.[/size]
[size=1em]He was quite into the occult, I think he really believed in all that shit. Him and another mate went out to this old desanctified church out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. They saw weird lights and heard all this chanting inside as they crept up on the place. Then they heard footsteps approaching the door they were listening outside of and the pair of them turned and hightailed it from there. He kept telling everyone about it in awestruck tones after as if they’d stumbled upon the very lair of Satan himself. I think even his folks used to wind him up about that stuff.[/size]
[size=1em]Anyone else got stories of people they met through bikes, funny, interesting? Go on, I've got time to read em.[/size]
....or if not, does anyone know of a backstreet bike bodywork / paint place, manned by a guy called Paul, off Newland Avenue (opposite Lloyds bank IIR) in Hull? I lost his number, can't find him on T'interweb, and need his services again. I'd like to know he's still trading at least before making the journey....
It's never easy is it...lost my 11 year old lab two weeks ago. Still can't quite get to grips with it. Today I went on a long ride, through the Wye valley and into Wales, then back. It kinda cleared my head, as the bike does, was cold, but I was well wrapped up and the road was ok most of the time. He was a beautiful dog, and the gentlest creature I have ever known. Today helped no end in truth, another reason we all love bikes I guess. The fazer is the best two grand I have ever spent. It turned a cold winter ride along the Wye into something altogether different, and lifted my mood for the first time since I had to take my best friend to the vet, and never got to take him home.. Here's an old bike, ridden by an old man, outside an old castle in Chepstow. Roll on spring, but until then, I'll keep riding the thou, it's an incredible machine In any circumstances
Thinking about doing this late April/early May next year, basically the N260 all the way down, possibly doing some short detours for scenery/places of interest, maybe back up on the French side of the range. Anyone got any hotel recommendations for that route? Anyone fancy tagging along?
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