lemonheads, 'big gay heart'

airhead cafe racer project

bank holiday monday, special day for a working man, i'm up at sparrow fart and in the shed, just me and the dog's, [curled up on 'their' chair] a mug of tea and radio six for company, oh yeah and my bahco files, there's just something about files, they are my favourite hand tool, [apart from my spanners, socket's, scribes, selection of hammer's, various weights and construction, rubber? ball-peign, nylon or plain old engineering? my old man's 'made in england' vice, 'snap-on' driver's, punches, ratcheting spanner's and various stanley knives, then there's the plier's, side cutter's, the trick lockwiring pliers off sweary mick via 'a well known aircraft engine manufacturer', the needle-nose's, the thread gauges i couln't live without, or my 'tables' the legendary cross reference that tell's you pitches, tapping drill sizes and a thousand and one other bit's of priceless information, oh yeah, almost forgot about my steel-rule collection] yeah, files, my favourite, [apart from.....] there's just something about the way you can cut and shape with a file that you tend to lose if you just use the milling machine or lathe, i used to spend my dinnertime at school making hand-fork's, [the little tool for digging out weed's] for all our neighbour's, i just loved using the hacksaw and filing them to shape, it's something i've never lost or got tired of doing, good job really, there's plenty to do on this frame that's for sure......

airhead cafe racer project

well, there you go, i'm waiting for paul to wire up my sporty, the boxer race project is down in kent, the 'macchi is round at dangerous dave's, it's bank holiday sunday, right, let's have a poke at the new project, the airhead cafe racer, the frame and a load of stuff i scored off barse, the remnants of his boxer dirt-digger daily ride, a monoshock r80 frame, r75 diff and swingarm and a few other useful bit's and bob's, as we were making our way back to stuey's mini last weekend after the stafford show i spied a set of honda vfr fork's and yokes, the bloke had not done any business all day  and was desperate to move something on, forty quid later and i'm carrying a set of 41mm fork's, clip-on's yokes and a brake caliper back to the car, the brake mountings are 80mm, opening a vast array of options, japper, brake caliper's, available from your local bike breaker's, take your pick, the clip-on's i scored in the deal are a bit, to put it bluntly, 'pedestrian', swapping them over and turning them upside down reveals another option, perfect, cafe racer heaven, steeply angled and cheeky as fuck, got the drill out and started chain drilling the redundant bracket's from the frame, torch on and remove the bearing's, game-on.........

young spirit's

last weekend, walking around the classic bike show at stafford, i chanced upon a young lady painting motorcycle pictures, she didn't speak any english and i don't speak any french or flemish, i tried to ask her about the video that was playing on her stall, but, we ended up just shrugging our shoulder's and laughing at our lack of foreign language skill's, what we did suss is that she was from belgium and the video was about the classic bike road races at gedinne, the belgian tt, check this out, atmospheric and beautifully filmed, it captures the whole classic racing experience perfectly........

football

ey up, big problems with my computer  this week so no post's, hopefully sorted now, football, last day of the championship today, me and the boy jack have drawn the short straw and have to work the next three saturday's on the bounce, shift done, not worth going home to come back into town when we work within spitting distance of pride park, so, 1200 hrs i lock up and we walk to the ground, theres not much to play for really,  a win will see us finish tenth, two places better than last season but with less points, millwall could be relegated, but, it's not likely, i reckon there's around a thousand millwall here, they are a pain in the arse wherever they go, [look at the recent wembley cup appearence, fighting amongst themselves], typical, 'laandahhhn' all mouth and 'gor blimey guv' cockney bravado, they know how to push the button's and it doesn't take them long to start chanting about the scumbag phillpot, 'you set your kid's alight' 'sing when your burning' 'murderer's' yeah, very clever, you know what? i'm glad you live in lahhdahhn, you deserve it, it's a fucking shithole, why the fuck would anyone want to live there?  when conner sammon stepped up and nutmegged your keeper i almost wet myself, you were going down, unfortunately, results elswhere went your way and you managed to stop up, the mighty ram's end up in tenth, two places up from last season and forest got edged out of the play-off's by leicester, [who are going to get dicked by watford anyway] situation normal then, the footballing void that is the east midlands continues into next season......

stafford classic bike show

more stafford photo's, probably the best triton in the world, ever, the sparton stroker, a brilliant, barn find ironhead sporty chop, reg plate said 1975, i see know reason to doubt that, the sissy bar was around six feet long and raked backwards at around 45 degree's, probably the second best triton in the world and finally, the immaculately prepared 'rayspeed' lambretta, [with a cheeky little vespa smallframe peeping over it's shoulder]............

stafford classic bike show

stafford, brilliant, russian two-strokes, beezer a65 flatrackers, triumph hardtail chop's, bmw cafe racer's, benelli's, tz yam racer's, suzuki xr69's, ducati's, conner cumming's / tony dunnell manx norton, where else in the world would you want to be in the world but staffordshire on a cool, spring day? forget long beach california, forget new york city, forget skateboarder's jumping on the motorcycle bandwagon, this is where it's at 'dude'...........

ghostdog

watch this film all the time, sum's me up really........

stafford classic bike show

just back from stafford, stuey, dangerous and me shot over today around lunchtime, meeting up with chalky and sweary mick, very, very busy, i just wanted to go home after half an hour it was that busy, very claustrophobic, the crowds thinned after 1400 hours and it became more tolerable, amazing bikes, no matter how many times you go to stafford you alway's end up coming away seeing something that you have never seen before, there must be literally millions of pounds worth of motorcycles here, the biggest classic motorcycle show in the world and most of the people are great, i say 'most' as i had a 'moment' when some bloke and his mate thought it was highly amusing to keep wandering into my space, knocking me about and acting the twat as i was trying to take a photo, i just stood back and let them get on with their buffoonery for a while, drunken gurning and stepping into the shot and then, doing it again and again and again, well, i lost it, proper joe pesci moment i'm afraid, not done that for a long time but they tried my patience, didn't get the hint and i'm not proud to admit it, pushed my button's, i found out a long time ago, nothing, but nothing sober's you up like the threat of a beating, i know the sign's, the lips are tight over the teeth to protect them, if you want to fight the colour drains from the face and you adopt a fighter's stance, these boy's bottled it when i challenged them, all wind and piss, they dissapeared into the crowd and i got my picture, result, proper buddhist punk, no one hurt, everybody going home in one piece complete with a full set of teeth and me not getting a tug, full show report coming up over the next few day's.......

'is this your pen?'

'casino' enough said. tough.

classic racing motorcycle club, darley moor, [part five]

right, i've been saving this one, this gsx-r is tough, tougher than mr's b after a bottle of shiraz, tougher than steven seagal in 'under siege', tougher than listening to captain beefheart's 'trout mask replica', tougher than booking an appointment for a tattoo at 'roadhouse' with ben jones, but, not quite as tough as joe pesci when he stabs the bloke in the throat with the pen, outstanding, i want this bike, tough......