boxer racer project

thing's were getting a little 'fraught' tonight in the loveless shed, the boxer race project is off the bench and on the floor, the work bench back around to my-mum's-mavis's-shed-next-door-but-one, quick clean up, tool's back in the box and a sweep up, 'harry potter' or paul-the sparky-turn's up, muttering and connecting wires, 97 in the tank, fuel on and i get that sick in the stomach feeling, here we go then, choke on, ignition on press the button, nothing, the carb's are bone dry, press the button, nothing, check the timing, miles out, new plug's, press the button and fuck me it start's! rough as a badger's arse but we are running, the pipe wrap is smoking like a cigarette test centre beagle, i open both door's on the shed, chase the dog's down the street and round them up as i forget their out in the yard, time to fill the gearbox, shaft and diff with oil, proper crude, fill them 'til it leak's, leak's? more leaks than the torrey canyon, oil all over the shed floor, all over my rear tyre, all over the dog's, my barry sheene poster, everyfuckinwhere, dangerous snaps a jet off in the left hand carb, more stress, i just want to drink vodka, eat veggie hotdog's [with onion's and english mustard and listen to some ray charles] all of a sudden a little bobber pull's up on my drive, we all look at each other, it's simon, he walked past the loveless shed once with his little boy and talked to us about motorcycles, his bike is a honda cd200 rigid, cool as fuck, he's struggling to get the gearbox sprocket cover off his bike, me and dangerous do the world famous supreme team double act and remove the rusted cross head soft-as-cheese screw's, i get a couple of stainless socket heads out of stock and replace them for him, looking round the bike seem's to ground everyone, here's a cheap as chip's commuter bike that no-body gave a shit about turned into a cool little bike with the minimum of financial outlay, big up simon, i start up the boxer, i'm wearing short's and a t-shirt, converse, no gloves, no mot, no insurance, race tyres, it's getting dark, no light's, i ride the mile around the block, the tacho is jumping out of the fairing, the suspension mashing my kidney's, the jetting is miles out, the clutch slipping and you know what? i'm laughing like a fucking drain me............................................................................

national motorcycle museum

here's some norton's from the  national motorcycle museum last saturday, i've just been looking at the photo's i took from me and dangerous's day out, sweary mick and johnny owd bollock's turned up to have a look at the boxer project tonight, what a double act, they kept interrupting each other and owd bollock's look's at mick and say's 'through the chair mick, through the chair', i ask them what that's all about and apparently it's an old trade union saying from when they used to get shouted down at union meeting's back in the day, i tell them about our recent trip to the museum, moaning about the lack of a cafe to get a brew, mick look's at owd bollock's, owd bollock's look's at mick, 'there's a cafe upstair's you twat.....' oop's.........

boxer racer project

 fitted the rear wheel today, picked it up from central wheel's saturday, it's one of my favourite bit's of the whole project, just a stock part milled to shit, proper dangerous.....

tattoo's

your either inked or you ain't.....

wes cooley #34

wes cooley and the yoshimura katana, just look at that motorcycle, sharp, dangerous, you just know it's going to hurt you, bad........

4-real

 not sure what happened to the text that was supposed to accompany this photo of the manic's richie edwards, let's try again, richie was an enigmatic character, he was the driving force behind the manic street preachers, his lyric's drawing on his influences of his political and literal heroes, i can remember sneering at the manic's when i saw them on some tv programme, who the fuck did they think they were? 'you love us', cocky bastard's, by the end of the set i was converted, following an argument with the then new musical express journalist and now radio 6 dj, steve lamacq who questioned richey's commitment to the punk ethic he famously carved '4-real' into his arm with a razorblade........

national motorcycle museum

had to nip down to birmingham today to pick up the rear wheel for the loveless boxer twin project, on the drive down dangerous revealed that he had never been to the national motorcycle museum, less than four miles away from where we are picking the wheel up from, be rude not too wouldn't it? i had visited the museum many times before the fire in 2003 that destroyed many of the original hall's and exhibit's, brilliant that many of the bikes have been restored to as 'before fire' condition, i really couldn't take it all in on one visit, all of the british motorcycle's produced are here, my only critisism is that they are packed in too tight, please, if you get the chance, visit this place and support their effort's to keep the legend's alive, i can't post all the photo's i took, as you know, my main interest lies in the competition machines, please be patient, i've got load's of photo's to post of this amazing place.......

loveless chopper

here's some photo's from back in the day, before choppers went mainstream, from before pipe-wrap became the norm, [when it was still used to promote a scavenging effect for performance], when fat 16 inch wheels still rocked it, when you didn't need any stinking paint, when you used japper brakes on your old four-speed sporty because they worked, when you used a trailer mudguard, a bates headlight and a piece of ally checker plate to blank off the performance machine name from your front 6-pot caliper, back when you didn't need a hand tooled leather seat, [or an overpriced 'original' bates seat], back when you made your own battery carrier, number plate bracket, clip-on handlebars and grips, back in the day when you drilled the fuck out of all the engine mounting plates to lighten them off, back when motorcycles were cut down to make them faster and not a fucking fashion statement.........

boxer racer project

i'm in world of my own, i'm centre drilling, drilling and machining bolt's for andy smith's ex-loveless mz racer, andy want's to run three set's of wheel's, wet's, slick's and inter's and want's all the hardware to mount disc's and sprocket's to save time at the track, paul, the sparky, is tinkering away on the boxer, he doesn't say a lot, he just goes about it, totally immersed in what he's doing, some people are like that, i even have to turn the radio down, usually chugging away in the background, as paul get's distracted by it, he's been to the loveless shed five times, had one cup of tea and we must have spoken twenty word's in total, that's just the way people roll, i'm singing along to the buzzcock's, 'ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with' that mark riley is playing and all of a sudden i realise he's talking to me, 'is the bike in neutal?' ' in love withhh, oh, sorry, what?' 'is the machine in neutral?' it takes me a second to compute, 'oh, uhmm, i'll try it', i try and spin the rear wheel, it's locked, i move the gear lever by hand whilst turning the wheel, it slip's into neutral, i'm aware the idiot light's are illuminated, red generator light and red oil light, i get a shiver, fucking hell, frankenstein lives! from that blown up, discarded, sixteen owner, neglected, ride-to-work, abused little boxer, that we started work on back in october last year, from a pile of part's on the shed floor, here was a sign of life, i whipped the plugs out, hold on tight to the front brake lever and paul stab's the starter button, engine turn's over but no spark, paul strokes his four day old grey stubble, 'hum, i've not connected the coil' slip's the connection's on and bang, big, fat , blue spark's from the spark plug's, the h.t. leads dancing across the cylinder's.............

m.z. racing

andy smith is out at cadwell this weekend on the ex-loveless racer, still rocking the old #51 number, he's starting to get some places now with his new tony holmshaw engine, the bike is still looking good too, i knew it would, he like's his bikes 'right', love the second photo, left hand feathering the clutch, just in case............

lambretta

here's something really special, the pm tuning lambretta twin, amazing bit of kit and beautifully engineered, the carbon body work is stunning, two-stroke fan's click on the video for a proper treat!