My trip to the Bike show....

On the bike, of course!
Steve came up from the deep South and we launched ourselves up to the NEC via Jacks Hill Cafe on the A5 near Towcester (strangely the bike can't seem to get past this without turning into the car-park, and throwing me off into the cafe in the process) We topped up the Cholesterol here and continued on our way.
I noticed, after travelling the first 30 miles and my fingers had started explaining the definition of frost-bite to my already frozen-from-birth brain, that the air temperature gauge was registering 3 degrees C.
My nice new Halversson's ensemble was keeping me quite warm - but my gloves were failing me around the fingertip area - and the rain had failed miserably to penetrate anywhere - Result!!

Having got to the NEC we parked the bikes -indoors- and I discovered that the NEC coms system didn't get on overly well with my alarm! It took ages to get the thing to set correctly and would only work when the Transmitter/receivers were in use and thus ignoring my alarm system?!
The show was better this year -in my opinion- than last year, my only disapointment was on the Triumph stand,

The New Thunderbird!

It's bloody awful!
What are Triumph thinking?
Just call it the 'Rocket 1'

Don't sully the name and looks of a design classic by comparing it with yet another Harley clone! leave that to Honda et al

Once over this, we met up with Teresa, Mick & Hanna for coffee and pasties in the highly priced Cafe in the NEC (opps, sorry I forget to insert 'corruptivly' between the 'highly' & 'priced')

AND, (here's a good thing that you all need to do!)
we joined the Royal British Legion Riders Branch they get up to all sort's of ride-outs and trips, displays visits etc. they also are looking to do a record breaking sort of 'iron butt' trip of 1000 miles in 24 hrs with over 200 riders, this could be fun! all for £17 a year! (This also covers the RBL memebrship fee)
Click on the link and find out more.

My newly insert wing mirror mounted LEDs worked extremely well and leaving the indicators on is now a thing of the past, jury's out though on the fairing deflector kit I fitted. I need to get out more to find out if this works.


Oh yeah, Have a look at this website I'm putting together it's all about the '7 Points' trip some of us Round Britain Ralliers did in May 2008
you may like to have ago yourself!!

The escape from Wales

Success! I got out of Wales without mishap! that's twice I've managed to escape the clutches of the Red Dragon this year.
normally I have some sort of disaster when in Wales, punctures, fall-off's etc, I can attribute 2 of my assisted recoveries (1 to the RAC & the other to the AA) to my Welsh soirées.
I did forget/lose my little foldy-up handle that I use for the cooking pans which resulted in medium-rare fingers and abuse to the God of gas camping stoves, and the C&CC clubrez booking system stuck again as despite my paying online they had used that payment to cover the cost of my forthcoming camping adventures at Norwich, once again the site staff came to the rescue and took more cash from me, how kind!



Early morning start was a bit misty



The Site at Rhandirmwyn (pronounced @#/'.,##'**?)
was the best I've been to yet -despite it's name, (I say this at every site I go to -other than Teversal- as each one seems better than the previous one!)

The scenery is marvellous and the showers produce enough water to enable you to stand still and get wet; as opposed to most camping site showers which require you to run around in the shower to get wet.



Somewhere on this bike is the handle for my cooking pots!




More about the Motorcycling to follow, watch this space!

Tempting providence!

Why is it that when you talk about past disasters they repeat themselves? is there some God like being amusing him/her self? Is the aforementioned email fairy moonlighting for a few extra laughs? am I paranoid? does any one care!
I remember a conversation at Hayfield about joining the AA/RAC and how good they both were, I mentioned that I tend to get the bike low-loaded about twice a year (This has been the case for the last 4 years!) this year I have only been low-loaded once, (My ignition barrel and steering lock seized in the locked position)
So one of the above was obviously seeking to redress this piece of -relative- good fortune by supplying my rear tyre (only 800 miles old) with a complex puncture as I left the camp site, complex because having plugged it 3 times it was still leaking air, so a mad dash for the nearest garage and a phone call had the AA coming out to rescue me,


Getting comfy as I wait for the AA





I was fully expecting a low-load home due to being unable to stop the leak, but the very nice man from the AA managed to insert another plug and some 'slime' which -finally- stopped the air escaping.


A very nice man!





I drove the rest of the way home in the end thus saving that other low-load home for another day!
The Bike is now a unicycle in the garage awaiting another tyre! Interestingly this is a story/moan/whinge for another day!!