'miles fom nowhere', i like that, i like that a lot, it sounds like a track off a calexico album, ['album', check me out, i'm not down with the kid's am i?], surely it should be 'miles from anywhere', i prefer the former, anyway, me and dangerous had a ride up tonight, me on the sporty and dangerous on stu's sv650, i'm worried about dangerous, we went out yesterday and by the time we had got 80 miles in, dangerous was talking about the merit's of the sv, he need's to get his finger out and get the triumph sorted, we ended up at the ritz in belper for a showing of the incredible 'tt-closer to the edge' screening, not seen it before and i must admit i didn't sleep easily last night, fantastic, anyway, back to tonight, cloudy but warm and we made the boring, boring ride in 15 minutes flat, grab a coke and have a chat with linda and ammo, the carpark fills quickly and i'm drawn at once to the great sohc honda 750, surely everyones owned one of these?, i've had a couple and can't fault them, this thing is great, someones shoved a ducati usd front end up the front and kicked it's backdoor's in with a monoshock aluminium swingarm, the monoshock casting carefully cut away and fabbed twin shock mountings welded in place, very nice engineering touches all over and a high standard of finish including the paintwork, very, very nice bike, had a look around the rest of the bikes and drifted over to the far side of the carpark to discover the radical beetle hotrod, front end kicked way out, radical roof chop and a baja style back end, german helmet air-filter cover and chrome chain steering wheel, proper attitude, brilliant.

friday night, post work ride, the shit that was the working week disappear's as i head out towards wirksworth, stopping for fuel, big fat raindrop's sting my face, [cromwell open-face tonight], big rainbow overhead, i'm chasing the swallow's down the single track lanes, grass growing through the middle of the road, front wheel skipping on the gravel, sky, flash of late evening sunshine, the weekend starts here.....

cormac conroy, #71, get to a crmc meeting and see this lad in action, one of the most exciting racers i've seen for many year's and a star in the making, big up cormac.....

last few photo's from the crmc meeting at darley moor, the #7 bike of steve dobbie, a beautiful harris f1 kawasaki that run's in the post classic 1300 class, the #41 bike of mark george, the tz 750 yamaha, i love two strokes me, this thing made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when i heard it, the frame look's so skinny compared to modern bikes, combine that with a peaky two-stroke motor with "on-off" power delivery and skinny tyres and you are going to get an 'interesting' ride, the stand out bike for me on the sunday was the 'famos' 50cc racer, air-cooled engine, combination composite/aluminium frame, skinny wheel/tyre combo and great engineering, check out the rider's helmet on the seat to get an idea of the scale of the bike, lovely..............

home after my shift, walk the dog's and get the sporty out of the shed for a ride over to mfn for the monday night bike night, i really don't fancy hanging around in a pub car park tonight, to tell the truth, the ride is a nightmare anyway, 30 and 40 speed limit's all the way, urban riding and speed camera's to boot, no fun, instead i head out into the peak district, it's great to ride the roads at this time of night on a weekday, traffic is very light, just the last few commuter's making their weary way home, there's a decidedly chill feel to the early evening, cloudy and almost autumnal, i guess that's no suprise as it's mid august and the day's are already getting shorter, first time this year i've worn my cromwell open face helmet, the wind is getting behind my glasses and my eyes stream with tear's, i cop a couple of large insects and i know why i mostly ride with my trusty arai full face, but, there's just something about riding in an open face lid at this time of the year, the pollen count is on the way down and i like the fact that you have unrestricted vision instead of catching the periphary and the senses of noise and smell are increased, it started to rain on my way home and i could smell the dampness way before i would have seen the raindrop's on my full-face visor, the induction noise of the big mikuni slurping petrol and air through the bellmouth, yeah, i like open face lids, [sometime's...........]

 enjoyed the crmc meeting at darley moor so much yesterday that me and dangerous decided to catch the last six races this afternoon, we arrived around 1400hrs, no one on the gate so straight in and parked up, talk about low-key, only the infamous 'darley diner' was open for refreshment's, no catering van's and very little in the way of 'trade' stands, [apart from the ever present ken inwood of hersham racing service's, he's been supplying racer's with tyre's and consumable's from when god was a lad], my new hero the irishman, cormac conroy carried on his devastating performance from saturday on the brendan ryan bsa's, dave taylor the sheffield rider was on good form on his gs 1000 based machine, enjoying a pre-manx outing and collecting a couple of decent places, me?, i just wallowed in the sight's, smell's and sound's of glorious classic racing machines, oh yeah, here's a few 'devil is in the detail' photo's.................

more bikes from the crmc meeting at darley moor.

crmc meeting at darley moor today, me and dangerous trapped at 1030hrs, we didn't bail until 1800hrs, don't know where the day went, i can't remember the last time i stayed at a race meeting that i wasn't competing in this long, totally brilliant, close racing, the sound of proper race bikes, the smell of castrol 'r', dirty two strokes and thundering diesel engined four-strokes, great people, all with that far-away-look in their eye's, the star for me today was the irish lad cormac conroy, absolutely blistering all day on a variety of machines, respect due.......