mucker and ben hit the bike show, top photo is wallace and gromit, bottom photo show's steve and the worlds most handsome man at the nec. spooky or what?

fuel stop on the england /wales border, bikes are hancock's h2 kawasaki, johns mk1 guzzi and my gs1000 suzuki, the usual suspects from left, mark hancock, me, gail, vincent, lesley hancock, hilary, john, debbie and jeanette, it was a friday afternoon of the august bank holiday, we ended up in newquay, [wales not cornwall], i can remember riding back from the beach up a single lane road to the boarding house we were stopping at, it was a lovely day so we had no helmets on, me, vince and hancock, a police escort mk 2 comes round the bend and we have to stop, no room to get around them, the coppers get out, 'right boyo, what the fuck do you think your'e doin', ridin' with no crash helmets on?', i'm the lead bike and he's talking to me, 'sorry officer, i didn't know we had to wear helmet's here with it being a different country', he looks at me like i've just swapped spit with his grandma, 'look bastard, get your fuckin' helmet's on and don't take the piss', vince and hancock are pissing themselves which makes the situation even worse, 'what you fuckin' laughin' at you wankers?', 'can i apologise for them sir?' i plead, ''no you cunt, get your fuckin'helmets on and fuck off before i book the lot of you'.

lost today, 2-1 against norwich city, always dissapointing to lose but fair play to norwich they had done their homework and were 2-nil up within 20 minutes, we pulled one back, huffed and puffed but they were the better team on the day, what's really important is that we have coach tickets for forest away on the 29th december, you can get a train to the game but there's nothing back to derby after the match, what's all that about?, let's ship 3000 derby fans into nottingham, everyone's off work for the xmas holidays, on the piss all day, local derby against our hated rival's and no way of getting home, genius, we haven't even got tickets for the game yet, roy is going to queue up at 6am on december the 12th when they go on sale, even then we aren't guaranteed a ticket to get in the ground but we are going to nottingham on the bus anyway, beautiful.....

dave mackay grips billy bremner, 20th august, 1966.

dug some old photo's out last night, this one is about sixteen years ago, my boy jack on my cut-down beemer, ex metropolitan police bike, pensioned off and a despatch rider stuffed it into the back of a car, insurance write off, i bought it off ammo for £300, got a frame with log-book for £40 and a set of forks and front wheel for £60, koni shocks, powdercoated everything, trailer mudguard, bates headlight, rg 500 mudguard, lc 250 handlebars, nicked some stainless tube from work for the exhaust cans, aeroquip hosing to sharpen up the brakes, used this bike all year round, loved it, rallies and demo's up and down the country, started to drip oil from the oil pressure switch, i got pissed off with it and one winter night at ammo's i replaced the switch with a metric screw which blocked off the oil supply to everything, i gunned it down the a52 from nottingham and made it home to derby before the crank decided enough was enough and i got the sick feeling in my stomach as the knock, knock, knock got louder and more terminal, the engine was absolutely donald, i pushed it home and the next day a replacement was winging it's way from darkest dorset, then, i had an idea, what about building a cafe racer?

rear brake caliper, it's a brembo off a cagive mito evo, same as i run on the mz racer, £15 e-bay purchase, [caliper, master cylinder and reservoir], set to with my trusty can of mr muscle and an old paintbrush and stripped the anodising off the old, tatty caliper, it works, just needs some therapy with a copper cup brush and wet and dry, some stainless fasteners, a stainless bleed nipple, some new pads and it will be a decent rear brake.

i love the isr clutch perch and front brake master cylinders that the superbike boys use but my budget won't stretch to that so i spent a couple of hours in the shed cleaning up my recent purchases from the breaker's, i've used this combination of r1 perch and nissin mastercylinder on my last two project's, [the mz racer and the sporty chop], they work well, you can pick them up cheap, [£20 a pop] and they look great with some elbow grease, mr muscle, [to remove the anodising], nitromors, to strip the ratty powder coating], a combination of a copper wire brush mop in my drill and scotchbrite and some stainless fasteners, thought about some 'pazzo' style levers but not sure if they would look any better than the stock dog-leg levers?

derbyshire today, me and jack up at 0500 hrs for work, 'dad, have you seen the snow?', i'm cleaning my teeth, half awake,i'm functioning on  remote control, dressed, brew on, let the dog's out, whoah!, the snow is deep, i reckon about 10 - 12 inches deep, there's nothing moving up and down the lane where we live, there's no-way we are going anywhere today, another brew and it starts to get light, don't even bother putting the leads on, the snow is drifting around 20 inches on the fields, i turn onto the lane and take a photo of the sixty limit sign, a minute later and a 'safety partnership' van drives past..........