newark [part three]

alongside the racebikes, scooters and classics, the dragbikes alway's catch my eye, i suppose it's just the whole thing that they are built to do just one thing, go down that four hundred and forty yards in the minimum amount of time, just that, nothing more, so simple and yet the amount of money, time and engineering that these lad's spend is amazing, all in the name of those oh so brief moments on the strip, the tough, matt primer grey gixxer and it's pretty little sister in full replica paintjob were great bikes, check out the turbo and wastegate, extended swingarm and quickshifter, but then what you saying about the expansion chambers on the 'stroker.....

newark [part two]

the scooterist's had a seperate hall to show off their bikes this year and they certainly turned out in force to support the show, i ignored the moaning off dangerous, [he just doesn't 'get' two strokes i'm afraid, i love 'em me] and followed the geezer in the paddy smith, rally patch be-decked, m1a jacket into the scooter show, dangerous bitching and shuffling along behind me, there really were some very nice machines on show but unfortunately they were packed in a bit too tight to get any decent pic's, one of my favourites was the vespa streetracer, loads of s.i.p german tuning parts including the lovely billet race caliper and dropped headset, [the scooterist version of 'ace bars' or clip-on's but a lot harder to carry off, the headset has to be cut and rewelded at a lower angle as well as the top cover to match, lot's of work to achieve what we can do by just changing our 'bar's], for all you 'unbeliever's' like dangerous, do yourself a favour and have a look at the work that goes into some of these bikes and remember, they ride them all over the country and europe to scooter rallies, not like a lot of 'biker's' who think the world end's at matlock bath....

newark [part one]

first weekend in january? f.a.cup football and of course the newark winter classic bike show and autojumble, it's become a bit of a tradition now, so me and dangerous, armed with a long list of 'wants' made the fifty-minute drive, stopping at the golden arches for a coffee in, uhm, an hour and ten, the morning dawned mild for this time of year, but very foggy and it seemed to get worse as we travelled east, up to the entrance and the punter's are queueing back from the roundabout onto the dual carriageway, it's very busy, we park up and join the long row of people at the ticket office to pay our eight quid entry fee, ten minutes and we are in, everyone is turning left so we hang a right and enter the first of the many exhibition hall's, the newark 'jumble had declined in the last couple of year's, the vendor's selling used part's and broken bikes seemed to be in the minority, huge piles of, what is basically scrap, lying on the wet grass, the prices ridiculous for what was frankly just junk, lot's of stalls selling cheap, 'snap-off' tool's and consumables and 'bikerwear' [whatever that is?], last year they got their act together and the 'normous newark 'jumble' became the 'carole nash winter classic show' owners clubs were invited to attend, along with the two classic racing clubs and the show is certainly becoming one which i feel can only grow into better thing's, [anyway, what else are you going to do on a miserable, foggy day in january?], first bikes that caught my eye were the guzzi racer, the two yamaha's, the lovely little ducati 200 and the mighty wraith confederate, the engineering on the confederate is amazing and it's not just for show either, this thing is a world record holder at bonneville and i was going to tell you what speed it achieved, who's bike it is and when they got the record but my picture of the card detailing all the information was unreadable due to my camera being on the wrong setting.....

football

the f.a. cup, the best cup competition in england, i always look forward to cup weekend's, today we were drawn at home to high flying tranmere rover's of the first division, [one league below derby, but only fourteen places seperate us on paper], our normal seats in the stadium were not available today due to the small attendance and only certain sections of the ground were open, we opted to sit in the lower teir, roughly underneath our usual viewing position, oh dear, old folk and kid's all around us, i had to curb my usual 'industrial' language and nearly bit off my own tongue at some of the performances of the rams squad during the first half, the visitors huffed and puffed, but to fair to them, played some nice, neat football, on the ground instead of trying to play the long-ball game but they didn't really threaten the derby goal, the rams went ahead, just before half-time, with a scrambled goal from ben davis, we regrouped with a hanful of the regular's who we usually sit with and taking advantage of the almost empty ground, [official attendance 12,000, all rattling around in a ground that hold's 33,000!],we found somewhere else to sit in a less 'sensitive' area, [which just happened to be right next to the 1500 or so tranmere travelling faithful, at the restart, derby wasted no time at all and added another from conor sammon, john brayford and jeff hendrick to put the tie beyond the visitor's, teenager mason bennett, a product of the rams academy made an appearance on 84 minutes and three minutes later blasted home a scorcher to send derby through to the next round and send the visitor's home to the wirral with a stark reminder of the reality of championship football if they get that promotion, personally, i thought they played some nice football and didn't deserve to be on the end of a 5-0 dicking by the rampant ram's, but there you go, that's football and just to make the afternoon complete, forest got knocked out at home by oldham, a team, like tranmere, in the next division down, oh yeah, guess who we play in our next home game?

Des...

it's not what you know, it's who you know...

it's not what you know, it's who you know, especially true in the case of renowned rickman metisse owner, builder, gixxer riding nut-job and ace welder to boot, johnny 'owd bollock's, after searching high and low for a pair of 'arces' top and bottom yokes to hold a pair of autojumble find, period ceriani fork's to complete his latest bike. good job then that he know's someone who work's in the foundry at a certain well known, local, world famous, aircraft engine manufacturer, [ahem], who could cast up a couple of blank's in a top quality alloy, beautiful, just leaves us the job of machining them up then....

renzo pasolini

after a rather 'late night' [ahem], it was a rather subdued start to the day in the loveless household, mostly trying to re-hydrate with endless tea and idly flicking through one of my xmas book's, the brilliant 'italian racing motorcycles' by mick walker,renzo pasolini is obviously featured a lot and although this picture is not from the book itself, i just wanted to post it up, such a great photo from back before the publicity machines that are today's grand prix superstar's, don't get me wrong, i have the utmost respect for them, but can you imagine a modern racer just slumped against a straw-bail taking a breather without an army of p.r. people, dietecian's, physio's and brolly dolly's fussing around?

do i love you [indeed i do]

ladies and gentlemen, may i take this oppurtunity to wish you all a happy and peaceful new year, thank you for checking out my grumpy bastard rambling's, here's to my bro-man whitey-dog-william's, jan tomlinson, [bless you jan, you know why] ed for the true roadracing perspective, hairy larry, nanno, mr ben jones, [the world's most handsome man], sweary mick, squire neil, dangerous, [my funk soul brother] barson, gordie, jim, dave 'soul man' taylor, my baby girl, jessica loveless, my boy jack edward, [you ram's!] and last but not least, my little hen, patricia mary, [love you baby].... oh yeah, for everyone else who check's out the blog on a regular basis, thank you, i can see you on my stat's, don't be a stranger, chip in, stick your oar in, contribute, bless you all and as the late, great dave allen used to say, 'whatever god you support, may he go with you.....goodnight'  oh, and here's one of the greatest northern soul tunes ever.....

aermacchi

well, the holiday's almost over, a last afternoon of major tea slurping and mince pie chompin' before a return to everyday stuff, i got my new calender's out ready to nail to the shed wall and rather worryingly realised it's only twelve week's until the first test day at mallory park, better get our finger's out then, matt black rattle can job on the damaged ap caliper, turn up the 3/8th's fine thread mounting bolt's, bollock's, the thread is stripped, turn up the new 10mm metric mounting bolt's, [never a fan of set screw's anyway, rather have a bolt from an engineering point of view] tap out the caliper, suprisingly easy, then dangerous inform's me that it's an aluminium and magnesium casting, that's why it's easy to work, doh! apply a splash of 'the racer's friend' [or loctite, or as sweary mick call's it monkey spunk] and we are good to go,dangerous set to and drilled the shit out of the brake disc, it need's surface grinding to finish but there's plenty of meat left on the bones, a bit like myself really, i'm on a mission now, got to shed half a stone and get fit for the forthcoming season......

gilberto milani

doing a little digging after my discovery of mike's comment identifying the work's aermacchi rider, mr gilberto milani,i found that mr milani was the aermacchi race manager and also part of the management team that helped walter villa win three world championship's for a little known american outfit called 'harley-davidson', i'm sorry to be so cynical, but come on, the 'official' [t.m.] website glosses over this remarkable fact in less than two sentences! it really amazes me that harley steadfastly refuse to recognise the achievement's of the racer's who put their neck's on the line so that the 'factory' could claim the glory and the right to sell motorcycles to wannabee weekend warrior's, middle-aged wanker's searching out a lifestyle, you are not worthy to clean mr milani's boot's, heritage?, yeah, whatever...

aermacchi

no, you aren't having a flashback moment, well, yes you are actually, i posted this photo up a few week's ago, as you probably know, the blogger tool that automatically display's your latest comment's is broken at the moment and it was only by chance that i found this comment posted by mike, here's what he wrote, 'hello, the rider is gilberto milani, the bike is a 250 factory aermacchi racer with magneto ignition and special pre-production 230 ceriani 4 l's brake and already the last frame model, so, the year would be 1966 and i would be very pleased to know the exact place and have the year confirmed. these two shot's are real gem's for paddock pictures without a fairing are scarce....and coloured!! thank you for these pictures, i will offer them to gilberto who is 80 at present time, mike' so there you have it, a couple of photo's sent to me by ed at fingymoto discovered by someone who know's gilberto milani the rider in the photo, made my day today, mike, if you are in touch with gilberto, please pass on my regard's..........