football

it's derby day, the date that every derby and forest fan look's for as soon as the fixtures are released, today we are entertaining our scutty neighbours from down the a52, we beat them at their place in september and today we are looking to make it four on the bounce, i'm up early door's, p.m.t, [pre-match tension] waking me, it's a cold, bleak day, lot's of snow in our patch of derbyshire, it's a 1300hr kick off, apparently to prevent the rival fan's getting too pissed before the game, i don't really understand it, the pub's are open from 0700 hr's, offering matchday specials, a cooked breakfast and a pint, the boy jack check's out the twitter thing and there's loads of lad's up and at 'em already, come 1300hrs there's going to be a lot of drunk people about, i dig the car out of a snowdrift and we make our way gingerly into the town, the roads are eerily quiet and there's that wild west feeling, as we walk to the ground i catch the odd glimpse into the packed pub's and the sound of chanting drift's into the almost empty streets, 'as you walk into the popside, your heart will skip a beat....' condensation running down the windows and the police in force hopping from one foot to the other and blowing onto their frozen finger's trying to keep warm, big alsation dogs barking with excitement but wagging their tails in anticipation of taking a chunk out of a pair of designer jean's, we stand patiently in line at the turnstiles to gain entry to the ground, the steady 'click, click, click' as the turnstile rotates to admit the derby faithful, a thought passes my brain, how many of these 'fan's' will be here next week for the f.a. cup match against blackburn? cynicism put to one side as i join the queue for an overpriced bottle of lager, so many unfamiliar faces, then, just to add insult to injury, a steward 'has a quiet word' about the 'industrial language' coming from 'our' section of the ground, for fuck's sake, there's no-one sitting here normally, just the die-hard derby fan's, this club make me piss, we pay up front for our season tickets, year after year to watch the second stream of english football, we come week in, week out and have to put up with them selling 'our' seat's to away fan's and moving us, giving away free tickets to the less desirable matches and free 'pie and pint' deals to non-season ticket holder's and their worried about a bit of 'robust' language? like it say's on the posters, DNA, derby now always, i'll still be here when this load of once a year 'fan's' have come and gone, anyway, typical local derby match, not much quality from either side, we sink to the red-dogs tedious long ball game instead of playing the neat passing game that we have been doing of late, the dog's score before half-time, cohen with a comedy special, miss kicking the ball to send our defender the wrong way before scuffing the ball into the net, i want to die, fucking forest scoring at our place, i feel sick to the bone, halftime comes and goes and as the majority of derby 'fan's' are trying to find their seats, looking blankly at their ticket stubs, the ram's equalise through jamie ward,before i know it i'm hanging over the front of the stand giving it to the scum, the traditional 'english archer's' and my feet are off the floor as i'm picked up in the surge of celebrating derby rabble, the rest of the match descends into a mixture of misplaced passes, half shot's and clumsy fouls, the east midland derby end's honours even, that's it then, until next year, D.N.A....

ritmo-sereno

well, after my self-righteous blast about being alcohol free until the end of the month i've fell off the wagon, i'm sorry father, but the devil has all the best tunes after all! it's friday night and like ed say's, a couple at the end of the working week ain't so bad, i really needed to get away from the aermacchi today, i'm afraid that i get fixed on something so much when i'm working on a project that it takes over almost all my thought's, [even when i'm supposed to be asleep, the minutiae comes into my haddled, old, brain and wakes me up], so, i resisted all urges to look up stuff on the 'tinterweb regarding aermacchi's and turned my attention to perving over my ritmo-sereno obsession instead, the best bmw boxer's in the world, the engineering is just so good, there's absolutely nothing on these machines that doesn't have to be there and i love the fully faired r100 too, have a look at a photo of a standard bike then compare it with what they have done to this one, absolutely beautiful machines, guess i won't be sleeping too much tonight either....

aermacchi

yes, i know, it doesn't look like an aermacchi, it's a picture of my old mz racer and the next one's a photo of a thermos flask, stick with me, it will all become clear [i hope], if you look at the photo of the mz [click on the photo to enlarge it], now look at the bottom of the rear shock, you will see a 'shark's fin' with a loveless sticker on it, you have to fit these to prevent your fingers [or other appendages] getting caught between the rear sprocket and the drive chain in the event of a spill to comply with the road racing regulations, we didn't want to make up something that stuck out like a pimple on a pig's arse, it called for something a little more subtle, just a simple stainless 'p' clip would suffice, except i didn't have any stainless stock of the correct gauge, so, what to do?, ah ha, i spy mr's b's thermos flask, perfect, [it's ok, she doesn't read the blog so she won't know where it's gone...i hope!], quick hacksaw and file, bend it to shape around an old mz forkleg which just happens to be the same diameter as the swingarm, drill two holes and bingo, just can't decide whether to make the 'shark's fin' in carbon or aluminium.....

the loveless temperance society

mr's b and me decided to give up alcohol for the whole month of january, our last drink was on the first of the month and we are almost halfway there, while mr's b is finding it a right doddle and feeling the benefit's of healthy living i must 'fess up, i'm struggling, monday to friday? [school-nights], not a problem, but come friday night? very strange, there's nothing like cracking a few beer's or a couple of bottles of wine to get the weekend started, i've been at work all week and i'm ready to chill, it's just not the same having a couple of glasses of sparkling water and i'm waking up with a thick head the next morning too, what's all that about then?, on the other hand though, we are saving a fortune and i'm getting some weight off, yep, alcohol sucks...

aermacchi

so, dangerous and sweary mick are sitting in the shed, i'm running backwards and forward with cup's of tea and passing the biscuits around, oh yeah, while i'm playing the host and their having a chat, i'm making up the front brake line for the 'macchi, everytime i make a 'line up i always end up with the stainless braiding down the back of one of my fingernails, claret, much to the hilarity of the 'audience', 'are we having a brew youth?' back in the kitchen and a fresh round of tea, jaffa cakes this time, right, the disc need's mounting to the wheel, [i sprayed it gold last night to echo the twin-leading drum in sweary mick's 350], with the disc rotor mounted and bolted to the hub you then have to feed the caliper onto the disc first before you put the front wheel back in as it's such a tight fit and actually sit's inboard of the hub [check out the photo's to see just how little clearance there is], with fresh pad's in, new cotter pins and wheel back in place it's just a quick job to bleed the brake up, except it isn't because the bleed nipple is inboard of the hub and the only way to get at it is from the other side through one of the holes in the casting, all very fiddly, imagine my joy when the master cylinder started leaking, dripping great gob's of brake fluid from the seal just behind the brake lever, deep joy, i drained the fluid off, removed the mastercylinder and put the kettle on, 'anyone fancy a rich tea?'......

oxfam

mr's b. is on a mission to get the loveless housold tidied up for the new year, so this morning i got 'volunteered' to do the run down to oxfam with a load of book's to donate to the cause, two, big, heavy bags of book's in fact, trouble is, the oxfam shop is at the opposite end of the street to the carpark, up a very long, very steep hill, deep joy, i'm breathing out of my nether regions when i eventually make the shop, i just point to the two bags and the young man say's thank's for the donation and heaves them into the rear of the shop for sorting and pricing, i take a moment to recover and peruse the secondhand cd rack, here's what i came up with, now all i've got to do is try and sneak them into the house without mr's b sussing me out....

aermacchi

with a top-end gasket set winging it's way to us in the post, i set to and dropped the valves out of the aermacchi head, after all, they've been stuck in the same position for the past 30 year's or more, i measured the valve springs and they were well within tolerance, the inlet valve was perfect, but the exhaust valve and exhaust port were very sooty, sweary mick confirmed that it had been running very rich and not running very well all those years ago when he managed three laps of donington park before calling it a day and consigning the 'macchi to three decades under a blanket in the secret 'shed two', i lapped the valves in and span them up on the lathe to give them a good clean, finishing them with solvol to a high finish as recommended in the tuning manual, the ports in the head are a real work of art, once i removed the sooty deposit with some fine scotchbrite and a quick rub with white spirit the workmanship was revealed in all it's glory, the exhaust port had been polished within an inch of it's life, whilst the inlet port is cleaned up to remove the casting marks, but not polished and left slightly rough, added a few drops of clean 'r' to the valve stems and re-assembled the valves in the head after carefully cleaning any residue grinding paste from the valve seats with thinner's, once the valves were back in i dropped a little thinners into the ports to see if the valves were seating correctly, not a trace of fluid, job's a good 'un.....

aermacchi

way back at the beginning of december, me and dangerous had a day out at the bike show at the n.e.c where we had a very interesting chat with a bloke on the rickman stand, he had in his possesion a copy of the original sales ledger, listing all numbers of frames that they produced, the date and to where they were originally supplied, i gave him the number off our frame and he was able to tell us that it was originally supplied to lawton and wilson in september, 1968, the bloke on the rickman stand asked for my e-mither address and today this popped up in my inbox, brilliant, a copy of the original lawton and wilson sales brochure.....

newark [part four]

after my post about the scooters the other day, here's something else that might put the cat amongst the pigeons, 50cc racing motorcycles, this selection belonging to sjl racing, photographed at the newark show, i've seen the trellis frame yamaha before, but check out the tank on the other yam, these tiny machines really are beautifully prepared to a very high standard, i've got a soft spot for the tiddlers, raced from the early 1950's until 1983 when they got dropped from the gp race itinerary, from the humble itoms to the honda dohc four valve, the 50cc capacity may be scorned on by some people but not me, i think it's great that enthusiasts are still racing these jewel like machines today...

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....