aermacchi-metisse

did i really have too much to dream last night? i had to get up very early this morning to make sure that it really did happen, there on the bench is an aermacchi-metisse, after sweary mick's new project arrived in his shed, a 350 aermacchi racer in a replica harris frame, he made the decision that rather than the 250 metisse spending another 25 years under a blanket in the shed me and dangerous should poke it with a stick and race it on a 'you bend it, you mend it' basis, you can't say fairer than that really, what an oppurtunity, we jumped at the chance and went to pick the bike up last night, after some heaving and sweating moving some of sweary mick's other bikes around, we got the metisse on chalky's trailer and mick's 350 aermacchi back up on his bench, no small task as the wheels are out and we had to man-handle it from one shed to the other, after the same amount of grunting and exertion getting the boxer off our bench, the sporty out of the shed and the aermacchi up on the bench then re-packing the increasingly diminutive available shed space with bikes we cracked open a couple of peroni's and just sat looking at the beautiful little race bike, the frame is a work of art, the frame rails look massive, the aermacchi 250cc single cylinder engine hanging between the frame rails as a stressed member, the 30mm dellorto downdraught carb standing straight-up, topped with an open bell mouth, the twin leading shoe rear brake, yep, twin rear brake, the unusual front rim and ap lockheed brakes, the brown suede seat, narrow clip-on's and long slim petrol tank, the bike need's a lot of work to recommission it, the tyres are as hard as a junkyard dog, the brakes are seized, fork seals shot and of course, the engine hasn't run for a quarter of a century, but, well, what else you going to do? watch the x-factor..........