loveless, the movie, directed by kathryn bigelow, was a 1982 biker movie starring willem defoe, marin kanter and the rockabilly artist robert gordon, i can remember getting it out from the local video rental shop and being knocked out by how cool it was, i searched high and low for a copy after my old vhs tape finally gave up the ghost, i managed to track it down on dvd in the states when i was over there, this is a copy of the dvd cover, i tried in vain to get a copy of the original movie poster but the film wasn't a big success so they very rarely come up for sale, bummer............

......so mrs b bought me an original movie poster and had it framed for my birthday, cooler than a very cool thing in a fridge.

my great, great, great, uncle abner loveless, he used to race back in the day, he had an unfortunate accident at the tt races, the bike he was riding was a special that he built himself in his shed, following the leader on the road on the second lap as he descended bray hill the bike started to misfire, coughing and blowing back through the bell-mouth on the carb, as he bent down to see what the problem was there was a massive bang and a huge ball of flame set fire to his beard, his helmet and glasses were blown off in the incident and he crashed at the the stunning speed of 27mph, i can remember a bit of advice he gave to me when he was a very old man, "chuck them fucking engine brackets in the bin youth, you have made a right mess of them, don't be a tight bastard and try to do them yourself when you can buy a set off burwins", wise old uncle abner, he's right you know, the brackets are shit and i'm not using them.

not the most interesting photo in the world i admit but a couple of pieces of work that are vital to the project, the top spindle is the swingarm spindle, it's actually an old harley davidson sporty item thats been turned down to suit, the standard item was knackered, the bottom spindle is the front wheel spindle, dangerous tried to turn the standard one down to fit the smaller wheel bearings on the grimeca wheel but the metal was absolute shit and was picking up as he tried to machine it so, he did what anyone would do, nicked a bit of silver steel from work, turned it up to suit and made a stainless nut to fit from a piece of hexagonal bar we had in stock, dave, you are the lathemeister.

racer front wheel fresh from the powdercoater's, got to get disc cleaned up and bolted on then get tyres fitted, i'm going for intermediate race compound, the lad's on the bmzrc forum reckon two sets are enough for a seasons racing, would have liked to run slicks and wets but haven't managed to track down another rear yet which would give us the option of tyre choice depending on the weather conditions, i suppose i could get them changed on race day but everyone says that it is a real hassle, so i'm going with the intermediates and hopefully this should be ok until we get a spare set of wheels.