beat up team [a.k.a 'i thought you'd be bigger]

saturday comes, i'm bored now, roll on the new football season, it's all motorcycles at the moment, another hot, clear blue sky day, it's unatural i tell you, riding around in 501's, plain white tee's and cat boot's, where's the rain? over to ben's at roadhouse tattoo, need a catch-up, he's tattoing luke, another mate, i remember luke asking me all about tattoo's, all the usual question's, 'does it hurt?' well, squeeze me, baking powder, you are going to get your epidermis punctured with a row of sharp needles at fifteen hundred revolutions per minute, cause it's going to hurt soft lad! i tried my hardest to put him off i promise, but, in the end it comes down to you are either tattooed or you ain't, to me being tattooed is about claiming your own identity, you only ever hear scaredy-cat's saying 'you'll regret it when your old' well, here's what i think, i am old, i've got a lot more regret's than being tattoooed and if i could start again, i would. anyway,  all-in-all, a great afternoon of talking bikes, bollocks, riding and drinking tea, a perfect summer day..........

more news from nowhere

newark autojumble, clay cross c.m.c british bike day, vmcc club night, m.f.n bike night, a quick blat around the local lanes, run out on the ducati to blow away the cobwebs and a trip to the local triumph dealer to pick up a primary gasket and a drain plug washer, [don't get me started now, i had to order them, three days delivery, what the fuck? dealers don't stock service items? pathetic] yep, busy week, lot's of riding, cool day out at the c.m.c british bike day, new norton sounded fucking brilliant, fair play to the owner getting it on the road, never, ever road legal but who cares? norton rotary bike project, jpn norton, 'inckley bonneville ally tanked cafe racer, 'johnny' rigid trump, the best triton in the world ever, [found out he lives a mile away from me, small world] cheeky as norton bobber and a hundred and one great bikes, rode up to the vmcc club night on my 'false' triumph and got slated, apparently my bike 'sound's like a tractor, too bally loud' well mate, i ride mine, i don't get it out of a van and push it into the carpark so people can admire it, over to newark for the autojumble, caught up with an old mate, chris green, he's sold his softail and is into a '45, we talked punk rock, bikes and i didn't heed his warning that the 'jumble was 'like a fucking car boot sale' it was. absolute junk. like barse said, 'it's everything that you can't sell on e.bay, anyway, over to the triumph dealer to pick up my service items, i'm swapping the clutch springs on the bonneville for some barnett 'green' springs to try and cure the slipping clutch, the dealership is pretty plush, full of t-shirt buyers just like a harley shop, i spot the 'special' bike up on the plinth, pride of place, thruxton with loads of money thrown at it, i actually liked it until i saw the price tag, bloody fucking hell, fifteen thousand big-ones, for a triumph? that's more than i paid for my first house............

moto morini riders trackday [a.k.a. the best kept secret in motorcycling]

friday see's me and mr's b up extra-early-door's, it's the morini rider's club practice day at cadwell park, probably the best kept secret in motorcycling, a great day out for everyone, from the first-time track-dayers to serious, tyre-warmer, better set-up, more gear than a british superbike paddock, hardcore trackday veterans, classic, veteran and everything in-between, all out to have some fun in their respective groups, no hassle, no pressure and just a great atmosphere, maximum track time and no niggles, brilliant. tea was drunk, biscuits scoffed and a great piss taking session with a bunch of glaswegians parked up to us, six twenty minute track sessions, the best ducati i've ever seen, [the radical ducati] i shagged my tyres, killed half the flying insect population of lincolnshire and mrs b and me ended up with sunburn, sorted, do yourself a favour and get it in the diary for next year..........

fire coming out of the monkey's head

checking the calender in the shed and i realise i've overlooked the morini owner's club 'a tutto gas' trackday at cadwell park next friday, bollock's, better get the beemer sorted out then, a very pleasant afternoon changing oil and filters, lockwiring various drain plugs and, sorting brake components, tea, chocolate biscuits, dogs on tartan blankets, radio-six, supplying the music-fix from the glastonbury festival, [been to glastonbury, brilliant, love to go back but the thought of camping next to a bunch of six-formers, away from mum for the first time, being sick after consuming too many drugs / cider / beer's / dodgy, half-cooked burgers, falling out with their best friends and crying all night about that piercing or shit tattoo or boyfriend or girlfriend, standing in a queue for a dump / can of warm lager / ethnic bead bracelet / butterfly face paint / kurt cobain t-shirt, nah, i'll take the highlights on the telly from the comfort of my own sofa ta] anyway, back to the plot, last time i rode the beemer in anger was at the thundersprint back in may, i had trouble selecting gears, lost loads of time trying to select the right gear especially on up-changes, working through things one step at a time and i narrowed it down to a too flimsy connecting rod on the rearsets, i'm pissed with nyself for not sussing it out sooner, only thing to do is to make a new connector out of eight-milly stainless rather than the six-mil that i'd originally used that wasn't up to the job. machine up a piece of eight-mil, tap it six-mil, strike up the bottles and bend it to suit, hot metal, cutting oil, new nyloc's, sorted.............

hey man [now you're really living]

so, wednesday i decide to give the local bike night another go, ok, ok, i'm a shallow toss-pot, especially after my rant about jacking in the blog i decide to be 'mr. nice' to approach things with a less jaundiced eye, yep, the new timmy loveless that's me, reasonable, kind, understanding, pleasant, my attitude has disappeared almost overnight, everyone has an opinion, everyone has the right to ride whatever they want, wherever they want without some sarky comment from yours truly. see, it's working, me [on the 'inckley and 'the lord of swarf' or dangerous, on the 'yella peril' ducati], tip up at 1900hrs, the place is rammed already, the two overflow carparks are already full and we do a cheeky squirt past the bloke on traffic duty trying to get us into carpark three, flashing a smile and a cheery wave, [see timmy, you can be nice, usually you would have given him the english archers and shouted 'get a big black dog up 'ya'- sidenote, from a great aussie based cartoon that used to appear in 'superbike' magazine back in the early eighties] we park up outside the pub and get a coke in, dangerous wanders off with chalky and i sit on the kerb opposite the hostelry watching the constant flow of motorcycles in the milky sunshine, a gathering of the tribes that make up this life that we choose to follow, the sportsbike riders, doing the 'monkey' the half stooped, knee bent, shoulder-hunched lurch that you have to adopt when wearing a set of race leathers, the cut-off, rally patched wearing harley warriors, the scooter kids in van's, board shorts, mx helmets and hoodies, the old geezers, on restored bantams wearing original wax cotton that a shoreditch urbanite would sell a kidney to own, urban camouflage cordura suited bmw r1200 gs. riders, gixxer boys in white simpson bandits, black as night visors, m1a jackets and ox-blood polished doc's, trike riders, a hundred light-up skulls, reliant robin engines, bench seat with four kid's all wearing the same petrol station two-quid shades as mum and dad, [and the same scowl], the classic boy's, gold-stars, triumphs, velo's, they park in the same place every week, their spot marked by an oily witness, like a dog marking his territory, i'm sitting there on that piece of raised curb, just drinking it all in, the sounds, the smells, the people, then, my ears prick up like a jack russell hearing the cheese box come out of the fridge, thats a couple of sorted two-strokes that is, from a hundred yards i can tell these two machines are very special, i feign nonchalance as i wander across to get a better pike at the two machines in question, bloodyfuckinghell! game over, [expand the shite phone camera pics and have a look for yourself, absolute genius, i'm not going to insult you by pointing out what's been done to these two bikes] so, i spunk an hour just drinking in the workmanship, in the end i have to break away and have a look around the carpark at the other bikes, i'm talking to people, communicating and keeping the inner-demon under control, it's great, i bump into dangerous, chalky and sweary and start to tell them about the elsie's, but, i make the mistake of tuning into another conversation of some by-standers, some bloke, [i'd hazard a guess at early forties] is regailing a crowd of associates with how much he's spent on titanium fasteners, 'ya, ya, i phoned up pro-bolt and just ordered the whole shebang, got a GREAT deal, only cost me three-kay, absolute revelation, the bike is just the bike it should be now, soooo responsive now i've lost all that weight!' now, this superstar is your typical, 'direct access' rich twat, he must weigh close to 18-19 stone and he's rocking five-eight, yep, he looks like one of those old watney's part-seven's, in other word's a lardy-arsed barrel, dangerous clocks my face first, 'behave bailey' too late, another potential friendship ruined forever......................

pieces of a man

spending loads of time out on the bike's at the moment, just riding, wednesday night over to mfn for the bike-night, absolutely rammed, thursday a quick hundred miles on the ducati, friday, over to ammo's to catch up, saturday see's me and mr's b taking a solstice ride out into derbyshire on the bonny, sunday, well sunday is sunday is sunday, the usual sixty mile ride out late evening, we are past the equinox now, the longest day gone, time on the bike is time to think, fuck me, i've just become so cynical, i analyse stuff too much me, i need to chill and not let shit bother me, i'm becoming the bitter old twat i've always hated, if people want to build bmw cafe racers, pipe-wrap old-ride-to-work-honda commuter bikes, grow beards, ride in an organised bike-run wearing tweed or attend pre 1967 only bike events then who am i to cock a snook at them? when i look back at some of my early posts it was all about fun, perhaps it might be time to call it a day...........................