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.............