loud pipes, sharp knives

after a particularly lazy sunday, i have mostly been reading old issues of 'classic racer', walking jack russell's in the sunshine, drinking lot's of tea, watching early football hooligan documentaries on you-tube, entertaining sweary mick and chalky, drinking more tea, rubbing down my tank and seat unit on the sporty, sorting out the front mudguard on the 'macchi, searching for copies of 'a clockwork orange' on the 'tinterweb, researching mz's and ossa two-strokes and looking back through my photo collection, here's one that struck a cord with me, ben 'fucking' jones, probably the second best tattooist in the world, [by a slim margin to the mighty sharon maskrey at roadhouse tattoo, derby, england], i've actually took a photo that makes the 'masked molestor' almost look cool, they say the camera never lies......

football

people. what is it about people, some people you just 'click' with, other's? well, to steal the word's of an old workmate, the legendary albert 'one-egg', when i was working away from home as an apprentice pipe fitter/welder, albert, although not a tradesman, was recognised as probably one of the best pipefitter's mates in the business, he sort of took me, the callow young lad, under his wing and taught me the way's of the world, i was fifteen years old, i started my apprentiship and on the very first day was sent to lodge away from home, bloody hell, what a shock, i'd just left school and here i was, catching a train to a far off town to start work, not to return home after my shift, but to live with my contemporaries, the first night, sharing a room above a pub with four strangers, i just wanted to die, i felt so miserable and hardly slept a wink, the heavy snoring and farting, muttered, dream induced oath's and snatches of conversation, i guess i truly cried my self to sleep that night, albert was there for me, he must have been about the age that i am now, in his mid fifties, he woke me up that morning and after a quick wash we went downstairs for breakfast, a 'full english', fried breakfast with all the trimmings, the old bird serving up the fare must have had a soft spot for albert, 'two egg's albert?' 'no thank's darling, just the one egg for me' said albert, giving me a broad wink, suddenly it clicked about the 'one egg' nickname, albert helped me to become one of the gang, it was him who cut me down from the site cabin door when the rest of the lads nailed me to it through my heavy blue cotton boiler suit, he taught me how to play koum kan, a favourite card game amongst construction workers and introduced me to the 'edge' western paperback's, when the lads went out on the piss, albert would stop with me in the digs and we would just read our books or have a game of cards, i grew up quickly, passed my apprentiship and moved firms when my request for a few bob more on my hourly rate was turned down, i remember telling albert i was leaving, i can remember his response to this day, 'leaving? you'll never make it while you've got a hole in yer arse youth! keep yer tongue out and yer bowels open, good luck boy, you'll fucking need it!' like i said, people. on the other hand, there are people who to quote old 'one egg' again, 'i wouldn't piss on 'em if they were on fire' football today, derby vs wolves, wolverhampton wanderers were relegated from the premier league last season and if their performance today is anything to go by, could drop into the next division, they started the day fourth from bottom and after probably the worst game of the season i've seen, the two teams went home with a point each.....

time for heroes

ceiling fan in my spoon

orpheo sincronic sociedad anonima

one of the bike's, amongst all the exotica at telford, that i kept returning to was this little 250 ossa racer, an ex mick grant race bike, [mick never actually raced it but ran it in practice at scarborough], the four-speed engine housed in a frame built by mick's legendary sponsor and bike enthusiast jim lee, [hence the 'jl' helmet design on grant's helmet, carried as a tribute to the man, check out pictures of mick riding everything from formula one honda's to the ill fated  nr 500, trust honda, everyone else was racing highly strung two-strokes and honda decide to compete with an oval piston, 500cc, 32 valve, [count 'em], 8 spark-plugged four-stroke, excuse me?, sorry, off topic there, you are either a 'stroker fan or you ain't, sorry, but that's the way it goes, i love them, dangerous, chalky, mick, barse and most of the rest of my mucker's hate them, when i got home and downloaded my pictures to my library, i kept going back to this one, i know nothing about ossa'a, [or tossa's as mrs b says when she caught me looking at pictures of them on the tinterweb], i looked them up and discovered that they had a famous rider, santiago herrero, i knew the name and can remember that he got killed racing at the tt in 1970, [somewhere between the thirteenth and doran's bend?] when i searched the mighty tube there's a lot of footage of him racing, the film that just hit me straight in the gonad's was this one, i don't speak any spanish, or, by the grace of god, french, but i know enough to order two beer's, if anything ever summed up being a racer then this was it, please be warned, it contains very distressing scenes, there's not the usual smash, bash, crash of a 'normal' racing incident, just the reaction of 'santi's' wife, mechanic and pit crew, post accident, fucking hell, life's just so fragile..........

sporty

knocked up a bracket to mount the gps speedo and mounted it to the top yoke this week, couple of nights just pottering in the shed inbetween working on the aermacchi, the damage to the sporty tank due to the ethanol in the fuel, turned out to be a lot worse than i first thought, the paint was actually lifting from the metal to a four-five inch radius of the filler, i sussed that when the sporty was on the sidestand and the bike leaning over to the left, fuel was creeping up the 5mm holes that i drilled in the top of the tank to mount the race filler and eventually, after a couple of years, started to soften the paint and lift it causing the bubbling, i started cleaning up the damaged paint, carefully cutting back the damaged paint with a stanley blade, then dangerous hit it with the orbital sander to get it back to sound paint, [and destroying my 'loveless engineering' lettering on the top of the tank and covering everything within a three mile radius in dust!], four coats of filler primer and it's ready for shaping with wet and dry, i've got a couple of options, i buy a replacement tank and scrap the race filler idea, get it re-sprayed and that's that, or, i save my money, rub it down, fill it and rattle can it matt black and chuck some stickers on it, araldite the mounting holes after i've re-fitted the filler and just run it like that until i know it's sound and not going to leak again and then get it resprayed, or i could just stick with it in rattle can black......

telford [part 5]

another bike i was looking forward to seeing again was the amazing 1957 v8 moto guzzi belonging to sammy miller, i've seen a couple of the v8 guzzi's before, one in the museum at solvang and one at stoneleigh, [at the race-retro show, again, sammy miller was involved but i'm not sure if this was the same machine, the bike looked more 'original' with the patina of age, where as the bike at telford looked more like a restoration or even a replica?], nevertheless, to see one of these extraordinary machines in the flesh and to actually hear one running, is a real treat, the guzzi v8 is a unique bike, with a bore and stroke of 44x42mm, the 498.58cc engine's tiny pistons were fed by eight individual 20mm dell'orto carbs, twin overhead cams and watercooling, combined with a relatively light weight gave an output of nearly 80 italian ponies at 14000rpm! to put things in perspective, at the belgian grand prix in 1956, the guzzi was timed at a staggering 178mph, compare that with a modern day gp bike, [remember the guzzi is 500cc, the moto gp bikes are 1000cc], with a top speed of 220mph........

telford [part 4]

as well as all the bike's to lust after, telford hosts a sizeable autojumble and a lot of traders plying their good's, my eye's nearly popped out of my head when i spotted this aermacchi 350 engine sitting on a paste table in a corner of one of the hall's, on first examination everything looked promising, the point's and condenser were tie-wrapped to the motor in a ziploc bag, all the fin's on the barrel and cylinder head were intact, the motor was grimy and showed signs of sitting unloved in a damp shed for many years, but, i've only ever seen one for sale once before and that was offered as a spare with a complete, but dog rough bike, i lifted the motor onto it's side and a rusty water/oily emulsion mix spilled out onto the table, closer inspection revealed the valves heavily corroded into the head, not so good after all, the engine wouldn't turn over, seized piston?, knackered crank?, who know's, but for the 500 quid the vendor was asking, it was just one of those times when it seemed more prudent just to walk on.....

telford [part 3]

earlier in the day it was almost impossible to get near enough to have a good look around walter zeller's 500cc, 1954, rennsport bmw that he rode to second place in the grand prix's in 1956, later on, as the show visitors thinned out i was able to have a good look around this legendary machine, i'd seen a 500cc rennsport before at the solvang motorcycle museum in california but what really struck me again was the diminutive size of the machine and of course, i'd never heard one actually running, when they started it up and let it warm up before giving it some serious rev's the noise was amazing and it actually drew a spontaneous round of applause from the watching crowd, just a lovely, lovely thing indeed......

telford [part two]

telford isn't just about road racer's, in fact, i reckon the race bikes only made up about of a third of the show, classic scrambles bikes, trials bikes, dragracer's and speedway bikes were all represented, i don't really know much about the classic moto-x, scrambles and trials scenes, but, like roadracing, there appears to be a whole cottage industry based on spares and parts for these machines, there were frame manufacturer's, wheel builders, replica graffix designers and a whole load of other small businesses present at the show and all seemed to be doing a brisk trade, the three halls that host the show were bursting at the seams and it all got a little claustrophobic around mid afternoon, we found somewhere to sit, have a sandwich and grab another java and the throng's seemed to ease a little, by 1500hrs it was back to a comfortable level and we split up so that i could get some pictures and poke my nose over some of the two strokes that dangerous hates with a vengeance, i love them, to me the two -strokes were racing bikes, he just stands there moaning and making comments about 'those dirty, smelly bloody things!' every so often the quiet contemplation of mechanical excellence was literally shattered as race machines were started, the rennsport bmw, sammy miller's v8 moto guzzi, the unmistakeable 'crobba, crobba' of a manx norton and the high revving scream of the 'bloody 'stroker's', brilliant, especially as the confines of the hall seemed to amplify the sound, as well as letting you enjoy the heady mix of castrol 'r', hot engines and of course, the sweet, sweet smell of two-stroke oil...

northern soul

sam williams, 'love slipped through my fingers'. soul music.