aermacchi

what did you expect? i filled the 'macchi with three pints of silkolene r40 oil, added some petrol, checked for any leaks and dropped it off the bench, i'm wearing short's and a t-shirt, i push it two steps and it chimes in and fires up, settling into a steady tickover, perfect, if only..... i can't tell you how many times i ran up and down the road outside the shed trying to bump start the 'macchi, choke on, choke off, soft plug, race plug, choke half on, choke half off, doesn't help that the road is wet after a heavy rainfall and the temperature is ten degree's below the seasonal average, push, push, push, jump, skid, nothing, at least thirty times, it's a cold, cold, wet day in derbyshire and me and dangerous are soaked in sweat in our efforts to try and start the bike, in the end we lift it back onto the bench and tell sweary mick what we have known all along, the carb is fucked, he need's to dip in his pocket and get a gardener or the 'macchi is destined to sit under a blanket for another twenty-five year's and that's no good to me, i'll be long gone by then....

sporty

after loads of time trying to decide what i'm going to stick on the sporty tank, a few long night's agonising over different type-faces, font's and logo's, the one i finally decided on was the one i new was the only real choice, the traditional harley-davidson, 'bar and shield' design, while i was down at roy's to get the number thirteen numbers printed off for the 'macchi racer, i might as well get some 'bar and's' printed too, roy had painstakingly laid out some racing stripes on the tank and seat for me, 20mm wide, 'old-english white ivory' perfectly symmetrical, and as soon as i got the tank and seat home and tried them on i knew it wasn't going to work, just too busy, i left them overnight to see if i would change my opinion, half-past seven this morning i was in the shed peeling them off and applying the 'bar and's' instead, what a job, the design is cut out by the machine but i never realised that you had to carefully pick away at the stuff you don't want, the lettering is actually the paint finish, so you are working back to front really, after a couple of aborted go's i eventually got my old brain tuned in and with a scalpel picked at the edges to peel away the stuff i didn't need, two hours later i'd cracked it........