aermacchi-metisse

late night's, early morning's, can't stop looking at the aermacchi in the shed, the more i look, the more it makes sense, the weight of the machine is low down, the centre of gravity almost perfect, with a wheel-base of 54 and a quarter inches, [that's a quarter of an inch shorter than the boxer and a massive three and a half inches shorter than the sporty, the aermacchi looks long, but in reality, it's shorter than a very short thing, almost up with the wheelbase of a modern cbr 600rr at 54.7 inches, this bike is amazing, we don't know anything about it really, the front wheel for example, to me, it look's like it should be rocking a four-leading shoe drum in that massive casting instead of a little cast iron disc and ap lockheed caliper, why is it twin plugged but only running a single coil/ht lead? at the end of the day though, it's whole point of being is a no-compromise machine, built to go around a race track as fast as possible, i just don't know if i can do it justice.....

the loveless vinyl vault [aka skeletons in the cupboard}

 had this tune in my head all day today, from the moment i woke up, classic soul, it moves me to tear's everytime i hear it, i guess it's a soul thing........

if you want blood......

strong beer? classic bikes? road racing? absofuckinglutelymental! czechoslavakia, got to get over there, from a link on the british historic racing forum......

aermacchi-metisse

did i really have too much to dream last night? i had to get up very early this morning to make sure that it really did happen, there on the bench is an aermacchi-metisse, after sweary mick's new project arrived in his shed, a 350 aermacchi racer in a replica harris frame, he made the decision that rather than the 250 metisse spending another 25 years under a blanket in the shed me and dangerous should poke it with a stick and race it on a 'you bend it, you mend it' basis, you can't say fairer than that really, what an oppurtunity, we jumped at the chance and went to pick the bike up last night, after some heaving and sweating moving some of sweary mick's other bikes around, we got the metisse on chalky's trailer and mick's 350 aermacchi back up on his bench, no small task as the wheels are out and we had to man-handle it from one shed to the other, after the same amount of grunting and exertion getting the boxer off our bench, the sporty out of the shed and the aermacchi up on the bench then re-packing the increasingly diminutive available shed space with bikes we cracked open a couple of peroni's and just sat looking at the beautiful little race bike, the frame is a work of art, the frame rails look massive, the aermacchi 250cc single cylinder engine hanging between the frame rails as a stressed member, the 30mm dellorto downdraught carb standing straight-up, topped with an open bell mouth, the twin leading shoe rear brake, yep, twin rear brake, the unusual front rim and ap lockheed brakes, the brown suede seat, narrow clip-on's and long slim petrol tank, the bike need's a lot of work to recommission it, the tyres are as hard as a junkyard dog, the brakes are seized, fork seals shot and of course, the engine hasn't run for a quarter of a century, but, well, what else you going to do? watch the x-factor..........

aermacchi-metisse

can you guess what it is yet?

well.it's actually happened,the boxer is off the bench and the other bike is up on it, need's a lot of work to get it race ready, but, hey, it's going to be a long winter.....

so, we end up doing a job for a mate of dangerous's who is struggling to find a rear sprocket for his bike, the one on his machine is more hooked than captain hook's hook, it's totally f[hooked], we get a blank, right pitch, right number of teeth, [51, erm, rings a bell somewhere in the dark recesses of the 'ol loveless swede]from talon, brilliant, arrives next day, we nick the idea of the person who owned the bike before and rather than re-inventing the wheel, make a carrier out of the old spprocket, bore the centre of the blank sprocket to suit and mount up with some 8mmx25mm hex heads, cleaned up on the lathe and dished on the miller for that 'race' look, which is good because it's for a racer, yep, it's for a ...bugger, anyone got a bob for the meter?

the view belongs to everyone

just a little teaser, full details might be revealed on friday, [or might not if it all fall's through]

boxer racer project

entry accepted for cadwell park for the last meeting of the season, only doing the saturday as finances are very tight and we are still massively down on horsepower, still, i love cadwell, it's my favourite circuit, uphill and downdale,twisty, narrow and the run-off area makes darley look like silverstone.........

dirty little secret

i've decided the time is right to come clean, it follows an e-mither off long term contributor jan who found this photo and sent it to me tonight, i'm sorry everyone, it's true, this is what i look like in real life, i'm not really that baldy bloke with the tattoo's........

dangerous

dangerous, if you follow the blog you will know that dangerous is my partner in crime, the crime of cutting up old bikes, new bikes, sports bikes, commuter bikes and all combinations inbetween, he isn't in many photo's because he doesn't like having his picture taken, if you look carefully he can be found lurking in the background, dangerous is a brilliant engineer, an ex racer of ducati's, a demon rider, a grumpy old bastard sometimes, a magician, [you want to see him make a fridge full of peroni dissapear!]and one of the coolest blokes i know, he's that cool he wears oakleys in the shed, now that's cool........