classic tt / manx gp 2015 [part one]

dangerous is the most miserable fucker in the world. he doesn't 'do' mornings, anytime before , oh, let;s see, 1030hrs and you are risking a short, sharp, 'FUCK OFF!' he was absolutely delighted when i informed him we had an 0600hrs start to set off to the classic tt / manx gp. i love it me, i was like a kid on xmas eve, tossing and turning, up at 0400hrs, shave, shower and brew, sitting in the shed, buzzing, ready to go, cleaned my visor three times, checkd the oil twice, at dangerous's for quarter to six, he's as grumpy as fuck, 'i need fuel' for fuck's sake, talk about piss-poor-preparation-prevent's-piss-poor-performance! down to the lion garage, thankfully twenty-four hour, fill up, engines warm now, ten miles out, getting into a rythmn, there's a flashing from behind as we approach ashbourne, i pull over, dangerous pulls in alongside, 'i've left my glasses at the garage youth, i've got to go back' 'you didn't have them on when i got to your's' 'oh, well, i'll have to go back and pick them up then' to say i'm chuffed is an understatement, back to dave's, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck! glasses sorted we retrace our steps, making good progress, bloody hell, summers gone, it's cold, i'm layered up, but by congleton i've had enough, fingers white and cramped, dithering like a bridegroom, i pull into mcdonalds for a coffee, park up, gloves stuffed next to the exhaust, warming my hands in the gent's, the warm air dryer a luxury. onto the motorway, mayhem ensues as we carve through the suprisingly heavy for this time in the morning, bank holiday traffic. into liverpool, aiming for the liver building that marks the entrance to the steam packet ferry, board, coffee and we are underway. a couple of hours pass, i'm hanging on, it's rough! dry land and we join the traffic into douglas, straight up to the grandstand, park up in nobles park, meet up with chalky, a quick walk around the pit's, dave roper is warming up the rare-as-a-virgin-in-ilkeston ajs porcupine, next door the beautiful bimota, a squirt up to creg- ny- baa for evening practice, the two german bikes, a triumph bonneville, long chopper, raked out, leather bagged and not a plaid shirt or beard in sight, the spirit of kent, the flat-tanked, rigid, flat grey, foot- boards, sprung saddled panhead, cool personified, couple of pints, chip butty, thirty mile ride down to the south of the island,  blurry photo of bradda head and a solo ride down into port erin to look at the fishing boats in the harbour, 'night, night...........'

classic tt / manx gp

well, a year gone already and it's time for the classic tt / manx gp again, i booked the ferry and dig's last november,[ not that i'm obsessed or anything...] it's just something i have to do, it's not just about that fabled 37 and two bits of tarmac that make up the legendary tt course, it's the whole feeling that you get on this little island in the middle of the irish sea, just the stuff of legends, so much glory and for some, so much heartbreak, if you have any leaning towards the two-wheeled life it's just essential to do it. this year i'm taking two bikes, 'peaky blinder' is already there, courtesy of chalky who has hitched it to his trailer along with his triumph, so i can ride at the festival of jurby next sunday, [and hopefully have a couple of 'brisk' laps of the tt course too!] i'm riding over on the hyper-retard along with dangerous on the scramber tomorrow, we are up at stupid 'o clock friday to make the journey up to liverpool for the ferry, the weather is not looking good and more importantly for me, the crossing looks like it may be a tad 'entertaining' [sorry, i'm no sailor me, give me high, fast roller coasters - no problem, but, bloody boats, i could spew on a duck pond me...] oh well, at least the sea gulls should get some breakfast! so, that's it then, no posts for a week, like cilla used to say ta-ra chuck.......

everybody loves the sunshine...........

ride out this afternoon with dangerous, lot's of tea drunk and hooligan behaviour, every set of traffic lights turns into an opportunity for wheelies and stoppies, we some how end up causing mayhem in sheffield city centre after a wrong turning, as we escape the city and arrive in buxton cue 'god's own thunderstorm' fuck! within seconds we are soaked to the skin! nothing to do but just enjoy it, rooster tails of spray and no discernible decrease in speed, i love this bike, [mrs b has already christened it the 'hyper-retard'] instead of trying to miss the puddles and surface water i'm deliberately riding through them, dicking about and laughing like a drain, the storm gets heavier, dangerous needs a pee, i need a pee, he pulls up on the pavement, under a hedge, suitably relieved i ask why he's parked up on the pavement, 'well, i don't want to get my bike wet' hey, everybody loves the sunshine............

made in england

last weekend i trapped up to darley moor to catch the british historic racing meeting, paid my twelve quid, parked up and watched the always entertaining scooter races before having a walk around the pits, always for me the most interesting part of a race meeting, snatches of conversation, people working on bikes, the loyal army of wives / girlfriends / partners making tea /sandwiches /offering support and kind words when the weekend is going to rat-shit, brilliant. a whole world away from all the pretentious 'look at me and how cool i am' bollocks that i'm growing to despise. in a far off corner i spotted a couple of bikes that stopped me in my tracks, a dohc vee- six bsa, belt driven cams and a dohc belt driven triple bsa, i just stood and stared me, not quite comprehending what i was seeing, after twenty minutes or so i noticed a heavily tattooed bloke slumped in a fold out picnic chair watching me as i walked around the two bikes, i was reduced to just uttering 'fuck' 'fucking hell' 'what the fuck' i bombarded him with questions, why? how? he patiently informed me that he had made the crankshafts, what the fuck! had the cams made, the belt drive was 'just a temporary measure until he could figure out gear driven cams' holy cow batman! there's me dicking about in the shed and then there's pure fucking genius! carbs? 'temporary again, i'm making my own fuel injection system! game over, i'm going to order some rim-tape for my hypermotard, that'll show 'em.........

oop's!, i did it again

i remember the first time i saw a ducati hypermotard, me and dangerous went into a 'well known, midlands, motorcycle dealer' and there it was, whoa! my initial thoughts were i don't know what it is but i really, really like it! i couldn't take my eyes off it, for once i was literally speechless, poring over the details, the underseat exhaust, the 'beak' the tiny headlamp, rear light aero-foil thing , the single sided swing arm, the back wheel 'floating' in mid air, the fork protectors, radial brakes, abbreviated front mudguard, just so beautiful and so different, then i looked at the price tag, not for the common working man, just unobtanium.
 scroll forward seven years, i sold the 900ss, sold 'yellow-hammer' and had a garage clearout of all my redundant 'spares' and i was in a position to purchase an eleven plate, two owner, low mileage 796 hyper from a kawasaki dealer in britains second city, two new pirelli rosso's, new belts, oil and filter, three months warranty, six months tax and a tank of fuel sealed the deal.
      the original bar end mirror / indicator combo had been replaced with ducati performance items, horrible, sticking out like mickey mouses ears, first thing i did when i got home from picking the bike up was take them off, got them on the 'bay and purchased oberon bar end indicators and a mirror, to fit the indicators required sawing off the end of the bar's as they have a machined section to fit the oem parts. mrs b's face was a picture, [and her language a tad 'fruity' to say the least when she bought me a cup of tea into the shed to find me attacking the bars with a hacksaw!] 'tim, for fu[ inaudible as she slips into scottish] 'you've had it less than twenty-four hours and your cutting it up already!'
       so, i've got my hypermotard and the more i look at all the goodies you can get for them, the carbon, titanium, the exotic exhausts, blah, blah, blah, the more i'm thinking that i might just keep this one [almost] stock, i'm loving the performance, the quiet pipe, the big numberplate, i'm mr anonymous, especially behind that black visor. no one acknowledges you, not sports bike riders, harley riders or tourers or the too kool for skool 'brand new, your retro' beardies and that's something i'm revelling in............

in silver rain with a paper key

sold 'yellow hammer'. picked up dangerous's new scrambler.

sleaford mods

the more i listen to the sleaford mods the more i like them. absolute antipathy of all the bollocks in the charts and all the merchandise, t-shirt / sticker combo, back issue, 'brian eno, what does he know?' trendy, 'love me' motorcycling blogs. arse kissing tosser's, we don't give a fuck about your 'scene'  a big fuck you to all the pretenders, wannabe's and fashionista's and a big-up to all the genuine people out there....... or, you could always play some brazilian surf music, 'when i say i didn't like it...........'

ruined in a day

just like to get out there on my own sometimes. fuel. service station sandwich. 150 miles on backroads. dull, showery. motorcycle emptiness.............

satan your kingdom must come down

less than a month after finally getting the 'peaky blinder' ducati on the road i've clocked up 900 miles, not too shabby considering that i've been out on 'yellow-hammer' and 'the false triumph' too. seeing the weather forecast for the weekend was good, i took a days annual leave on friday to take advantage of the very warm weather, a great ride out with dangerous, [me on peaky and dangerous on yellow-hammer] out past ladybower dams, [the testing ground for the famous bouncing bomb raids on the nazi dams during ww2] out over snake pass, you never get a clear run at it. until today that is. light traffic and perfect conditions, you forget how good it is to ride this road, most of the year it is shrouded in cloud, permanent drizzle and snow, friday was a different kettle of fish altogether, into glossop and back on b roads to castleton stopping at a cafe for tea and homemade scones, sitting in the hot sunshine, perfect. in the early hours of saturday we had the mother of all storms, the first clap of thunder had me leaping out of bed to see what was happening! sheet lightening, torrential rain and very, very loud thunder. saturday dawned misty and grey but humid, i'm soaked walking the dogs as i make my way through the waist high corn, legs red and itchy from the pollen and grass sawing at my skin. the sun soon burns off the low cloud and the roads start to dry although there are stones and debris washed across the road surface on the apex of almost every bend by the storm. the corner speeds are somewhat reduced as we both get a couple of bum-clenching moments on the ball bearing like gravel through, err, 'enthusiastic' cornering. out into the high peak again, a wrong turning see's us cutting across the bottom of sheffield where there's a huge police prescence due to the english defence league march. brilliant, i'm on a 'barely' legal trackbike and theres more coppers than i've seen since the days of the miners strike back in the '80's! i'm not aware what's going on at this stage but ask an indian taxi driver who i pull up next to at the lights. 'what's with all the law mate?' he flashes me a grin through the open cab window, 'the e.d.l. are in town, protest march. rather be having a beer in the garden than fighting!' word up. we eventually make matlock early evening and meet up with mucker marsh, deb's, gadger and steph for half an hour of piss taking before the run home for a couple of san-miguels. then there's sunday. early morning walk, check the tyre pressures on the 'false' triumph and off to heage windmill for the classic bike meeting. it's, what, a ten minute ride from my house, but a forty-mile meander see's me there. i mean, why go straight there? there's cool and then theres ice cold. so much motorcycling goodness here today, where to start? the panhead, the proper gs thou engined xr69 replica, the trident, the velo's, the scriminger bmw flat twin, the mint 916, bsa chop, the tee-zed race bikes, the dave potter, ted broad yamaha, [thought it was the original, but apparently a replica, owner had actually raced it in the manx gp, he went to ted broads garage to get the paint codes to complete the build, been done so long the bike just had that genuine look about it that only old race machines have]. the rgv, oh yes baby! the mental kawasaki drag bike, the owner started it up and children started crying, dogs howled and a bloke dropped his cup of coffee as it chimed in. i just stood at the back of it, breathing in the two-stroke, fucking ace! les cross had his beautiful mv agusta / kay engineering bike on show, just one of five bikes built and costing a brain numbing one- hundred- thousand- english- pounds. oh yeah, then there was the stunning katana turbo drag bike. quick chat with the owner reveals he used to race it but has now retired, a sub nine second quarter mile bike used on the road?, brilliant. remember kid's. masturbation is not a crime.............