red right hand.....

realisation kick's in. i set off with the idea of just building a track-day only bike, hum, let's just have a reality check here, i do, in a good year, five track-days, averaged out? err, three, not exactly value for money or maxing out the use of the bike then bailey? so, a re-think is in order. right, daytime mot, just the bare minimum to be 'almost' legal. speedo, rear brake light and horn, [theres actually no such thing as a 'daytime mot', basically, if it isn't fitted to the bike, then, well, you can't mot it] but, that opens up a whole suitcase of norweigan skunk-weed and leffe blonde altogether. the dreaded 'construction and use' regulations, a whole load of shit, the sort of shit that does happen and the sort of shit that will see you, your mum and grand-ma tasered, beaten and pepper-sprayed and then shipped off to some godforsaken habitat to serve out a sentence of thirty-years hard labour, bread and water and beastings in the shower for the crime of running a motorcycle with a small numberplate and no indicators. sorry, i know it's not in the public interest, i'm a criminal, but, i'm fifty-six, i'm not trying to bait the law, i just think my bike look's cooler without a headlight / indicators / big number plate, i'm not trying to outrun the law, let's face it, if i was i would do what i used to do in the seventies and take my plate off, wheelie past pc plod in his escort, flick him the 'english archers' and leave them for dead in a haze of unburnt hydrocarbon's. nahh, i just want to run a bike on the road, do some trackdays and i'm prepared to take the risk, i've got a great bloke to mot my bike, i don't expect him to risk his business. he notes down everything as an 'advisory'. he know's the score. hardcore. sorted. and that was a partly typical broadcast on behalf of the 'bloke building stuff in his shed' party. a little concerned about getting a stone in the belt's now i've decided to run the bike on roads as well as doing trackdays. cut down the front belt cover, drilled and filed to shape and hit it with a can of 'wheel-silver'. turned up some frame end plugs, two drilled to carry the back-light, waiting for mad-john to finish off my paintwork so i can figure out a mouunting for the plate / light, cleaned up the rusty-as-fuck header pipes with scotch-brite, [bit shiny at the mo. can't wait for them to get that 'wheaty' colour that stainless get's when it get's hot] oh yeah, needed some more carciogenic stuff in my lung-holes too. cut out a cardboard pattern, [i'm ten again and watching blue-peter, this time around though i haven't got an adult to help me with the sharp-stuff] cardboard pattern over the carbon and cut and file with a hacksaw and file, by the end of the night i'm coughing up thick, black snot and the bikes are covered in dust, but, well, can you dig it......?