just been riding, here's some photo's from the founders day rally at stanford hall in leicstershire, instant karma, the heavens opened and i got piss wet through as i passed the triumph factory in hinckley, ten minutes later, hot sunshine, some fantastic bikes here, the theme this year was the old 'flat-tankers' and it was great to see so many vintage bikes, not just trailered or vanned in, but actually ridden, walking around the avenue revealed many hidden gem's just leaning against the tree's, out on the duc monday night, tuesday on the duc again, wednesday, over to mfn, caught up with ammo, bench-donkee's andy, [thanks for the stickers mate], grant and his good lady, chalky sipping a pint of shandy and the ever present harold fresh from his counterfeiting operation with the wristbands to gain access to 'a really big and important classic bike event' fucking great! a septuagenarian displaying punk rock ideology and spitting in the face of a big, corporate organisation, an army of pensioners storming the gates with their dodgy band's, produced on a home computer and their winter heating allowance safe for another year! i can't get my head around the amount of people so packed, i couldn't get my bike out of the carpark when i decided to skin out, anyhoo, the stunt plane was brilliant, he came in fast and low, people were actually ducking as he skimmed the bikes, straight up, up to stall point and just flopping back to earth through the clear, blue ether, oh my, what would i give for a ride in one of those bi-planes, thursday and up to the norton factory at donington hall, the new domi racer and the tt bikes on display, a totally different vibe to wednesday, just super chilled, a cup of tea and a chat with the main honcho responsible for the norton domi-racer project, he explained just how hard it was to prepare each machine for the dreaded S.V.A test, the back light has to be at the furthest point at the rear of the bike, suspended on a horrible 'wheelie-bar' type outrigger, the indicators have a fixed centre and have to be 'e' marked and be of a certain size, then of course is the dreaded emissions test, the bikes are fitted with horrible silencers and cat's as standard, luckily, the bikes come with an optional race kit which includes the beautiful pipes, a re-map and a numberplate relocation bracket, [see the previous post for a photo of how the bike should look] i could spend a whole night just drinking in the details on these machines, bloody lovely, unfortunately dozy-bollock's forgot his camera and the phone pic's aren't wortha wank, so you'll just have to get your arse up there in a fortnight, or, wait until i go back again! the norton boy's were really interested in the view of 'normal' motorcyclists on their bikes and were taking notes and photographing bikes that caught their attention, me being me i asked him a lot of 'awkward' questions, one of the things that bugs me is how high the engine sit's in the frame, 'why can't you just cut the lower frame rails away and use the engine as a stressed member, you can lower the centre of gravity then?' the geezer then goes into an advanced mathematic's answer regarding the stresses that are put through the frame if you use it as a stressed member and i'm shot down in flames, [but, i did notice him scribbling notes in his book, norton 1- loveless 1, points shared, score draw.........
Comments
Post a Comment