Unfinished Project [Part Two] Getting There.

feeling better on sunday after my ordeal at the dentist's on friday i packed some tools in my rucksack and headed off for a longer shakedown ride on the sporty, midweek i had rode up to carsington reservoir and done a plug-chop, this confirmed my thoughts that the mixture was leaning off and causing the backfiring when i was rolling the throttle off, i got home and removed five diffuser plates from each silencer, i had a quick run out friday night to frenchy's rally and the bike felt really strong in the midrange, it wasn't as breathless as i thought at the top end of the rev range and checking the plug's revealed that the jetting was pretty spot on, result, i decided to head south and have a nice relaxing ride rather than trying to spot our friend's from the 'safety partnership', down through rempstone and wymeswold, melton mowbray and into uppingham, the harley/ducati shop is alway's a good place to grab a drink but unfortunately the tea bar was shut, quick look around the shop and a pleasant surprise, the confederate wraith was a motorcycle that i had only ever seen before on the 'web and here was one in the flesh in a sleepy rutland village, the engineering is amazing, the carbon bodywork flawless, isr controls lush and, let's face it, it should be for the price, this one was a positive bargain at 39 grand, fill up and past the grammar school and meander across to market harborough, into maccee-dee's for a coffee and blueberry muffin and i sit outside in the warm sunshine, back to melton and the bike is running really well, from melton i make my way to griffy dam, coleorton and back into derbyshire at melbourne, i'm just trying to decide which way to go home when i remember that the vintage japanese motorcycle show is on at uttoxeter racecourse, that's it then, up to ashbourne, wallash and past the vast jcb factory at rocester and i'm soon faced with the massive staffordshire bull's bollock's that adorn the statue at the entrance to the town, park up, pay the tenner entry and grab a brew, there are some lovely bikes here but, i'm sorry, i really never have seen the point in restoring bikes to manufacturer's specifications, especially stuff like cb125's, superdream's and xs500's, i know that everybody is different and i appreciate the time, money and effort that their owner's put in, it's just that i like to see them chopped up and made more individual, one of the most fascinating machines was a ratty 500 kawasaki, i tried to get into the person's mind who thought it would be a good idea to fit their bike with knobblie's and then screw metal screws into the heavily blocked tread, whoever you are, [or were more than likely with that combination of peaky, ill-handling mental two-stroke and metal studded knobblie's], i salute you sir, the fantic chop, fsie, norton, 500 suzuki racer and the beautiful lc350 were worth the admission fee alone, spent the next couple of hour's digging through the autojumble and again, as i said about the classic bike show, i've skipped better stuff than some of the vendor's offerings, i retraced my route back to ashbourne and past kedleston hall before turning back towards home, i pulled off into a gateway to have a quick look around the bike, everything appeared to still be where it should be, the primary weep seem's to have stopped, [i like to think the new gasket is doing it's job rather than the fact that there's no oil in the case and apart from some fuel staining around the quick filler breather hole and a healthy splattering of flies and road grime the plot seem's to be coming together, i check the mileage, i've covered 340 miles, no wonder iv'e got a sore arse sitting on a piece of 1/4" neoprene for that long...........