Category: General Ramblings (Page 16 of 19)

Yes I know I make a habit of calling London’s bikers – well London people in general – southern pussies when it comes to things like rain and snow…. but even I am considering the sense in going out on the bike today…

There’s a main road there somewhere… more photos on my flickr page

There’s a great bike show in London – it’s just a shame half of it is at Ally Pally and the other half is at ExCeL.

The Superbike Show at Ally Pally this year didn’t go down well – just a quick read of the londonbikers.com thread on the topic shows how disappointed people were with the overall event – very little there, not much sparkle. In fact, most people thought it was more of a bike jumble, with the great discounts they were getting.

Then there was the MCN London Motorcycle Show, set to be the best ever at a state of the art conference centre in London’s East End, there was a lot of potential, but one small problem; it was horribly clinical. No manufacturers were there except for KTM, Ducati, BMW and a few other small representations. There were a lot of smaller indie bike shops though, and that was nice to see, as well as the show regulars (like the woman selling pink anti fog sticks), but the prices were not exactly cheap. Very few bargains to be had (unless you were buying tools).

I came away with a nice selection of new tools at very good prices, as well as a signed book – Into Africa, by Sam Manicom – and rather sadly the best thing I bought was an airtight salt and pepper holder. So when a motorcycle show highlight is a condiments container, something is amiss.

The problem, I think, lies in that fine line between a venue that is cheap and has character, and a venue that is more expensive, but allows more visitors, and gives the exhibitors access to state of the art technology to sell their wares. MCN must be rubbing their hands with glee, it was packed yesterday, many more people than I saw at Ally Pally last year.

Ally Pally is a wonderful venue, when you arrive you feel part of the biker community in London, everyone parking on the pavement outside, there’s something very ‘London’ about the place that you don’t get at Excel.

I’m sure the MCN show is going to go from strength to strength at Excel, and we’ll see the Sportsbike show go the way of the do-do, but I think that’s a shame, and we’ve lost yet another important part of London’s biker history.

Patrick has a couple of interesting this to say about the show too, specifically about the new Ducati. It was rather nice, the only problem was that my arse completely blocked the air intake valves at the rear of the seat. Ducatis and fat people don’t mix.

Here’s the full 30 min interview with Westminster City Council, after several people asked to hear the whole thing.

You can watch online here: http://blip.tv/file/138164

Download the file here: BlipTV File Download

Wrong wrong wrong on so many levels. Here’s a video we shot for londonbikers.com

Sign the petition here http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/FreeBikeParking/ and visit the campain website here http://www.free4bikers.org.uk/

It’s just stupid – bike bays are over subscribed, so build more, but to pay for them the council wants to charge us. How much would it actually cost? Serisously? What’s more by the time they’ve paid off the ‘costs’ what happens to the money then? Well it goes to Westminster Council of course.. to fill the coffers to spend on other projects.

Motorbikes cut congestion and polution. How can making it harder to use them in London help the capitals aim of cutting both those things? It’s insane.

Ian isn’t happy about this either.

Is it me or are the roads really quiet at the moment? Since Christmas I’ve found myself coming down the A1 into London (rather than the M1). I used to ride down the A1 everyday from St Albans as that seemed most sensible, but it got so busy I switched to the wide, filter friendly, lanes of the M1.

But over the past couple of weeks the traffic has been almost non-existant, I’ve sailed down the A1 with little more than a thought for the speed cameras – not normally an issue as the traffic is solid, and I can’t filter at 70mph. Even the dreaded Harlesden has been a dream since they removed the road works.

I find myself asking how long it can continue, I’m really enjoying my ride into work again. Even though it’s raining.

I know I bang on about bikers here in London not getting the whole riding through the winter thing, or at the very least complaining every time the temperature drops below 5 degrees, but I do have a confession to make. I’ve been off work for the best part of two weeks; during that time there have been many days when my wife has been at work that would have been perfect for taking the bike out for a spin; for no other reason than to just enjoy the ride. But I haven’t. At all.

I have very good reasons for not going for a ride. The first few days were taken up with sorting my new house out, my wife had asked friends around on Christmas Eve you see, and with only three days space from moving in day to guests arriving I had quite a bit to do to get it presentable. My wife was working of course so couldn’t help – so that was that, three days down, then we had guests and you can’t run out on them; can you?  Then of course it was Christmas day and we had the family to stay for four days, so there was no way I could run out on the old folks was there? Then of course I started my 16k service so the bike has been in bits since then – so still no ride – and unless I finish the service tomorrow I’ll have no bike to do the dull commute into work on.

So I’ve wasted my time off and not gotten a decent ride at all over Christmas and the New Year – and it’s all my fault – sub consciously I suspect that I’m turning into a soft southerner. This is not a good prospect.

Having learnt to ride on a 1997 CZ 125 9 years ago in Caerphilly and Cardiff I have little sympathy for people moaning about the weather in London, and ‘winter riding’ in the capital of this great country.

I’ll try to avoid this becoming ‘when I were a lad’ entry; but when I were a lad in South Wales I commuted 30 miles each way from Pontypool to Caerphilly (over the mountains) each day – I did it all year round and to make matters worse I did it on a naked 125 that frankly had ideas of it’s own when it came to a large Welsh lad mounting it each morning.

At 5am in the pitch dark I’d push the bike from its hiding place around the back of our terrace, over the next door neighbours’ patio and out onto the road. Once there I’d tickle the carb to get a little juice into it and then start my morning prayers… “please Dear Lord let it start first time…. please… I’ll never ask for anything else just let it be one kick this morning.” I was obviously a very naughty boy and God never answered my prayers – but the neighbours answered my kick starting a noisy bike outside their bedroom window each day with a torrent of abuse and threats to call the police – but this was 1997, Tony had only just been elected and ASBOs were a sparkle in David Blunkets eye; so my dear neighbours received a typical Welsh two finger salute and I continued to kick the bike into action, if you could call it that.

The problem you see was that at 5am, in the winter, in Pontypool you’re exceptionally lucky if the temperature is above -5 – and even the bravest of bike will have problems fireing after being left out in the cold with no cover. Which brings me to my point; I rode for two years over two mountains in all weathers, even snow, on a God forsaken East European 125 and would cheer when the temperature reached 0. So to hear people complain about London makes me laugh, it rarely goes below 0, okay there’s loads of salt on the road but that washes off, and most of the city is very well lit, the roads are for the most part good, there are no cattle grids to fall off on (that’s another post) and you don’t have Daffydd the local traffic cop pulling you over each morning cause he’s board and knows you have a thermos of coffee with you for emergencies.

How hard can it be? A 16 year old with a diploma from the local collage can do it, that polish chap I met at Chiswick Honda can do it, so can I. In fact, I booked myself onto a Motorcycle Mechanics course at Merton Collage in South London (just to be safe) – I’m half way through it and according to my notes we’ve covered everything I need for the service – apart from everything else, and as my tutor likes to point out – the course has given me the confidence to work on my bike, if not the actual skills.

Three days ago I started the service, it’s taken two of those to clear the crap in the garage to a point where I can get around the bike (It’s pissing down outside) and a day to take all the bloody plastic, screen, tank, seat and all the other stuff that seems so unimportant now my aim is to cause grieves enginely harm to my bike. All that done I’ve replaced the spark plugs – dear god how difficult is that! Or rather more to the point, did Honda think about getting to the spark plugs when they designed the engine? I don’t think they did, but three and a half hours later I’ve got the old ones out, the new ones (gaps checked) in and tightened and the leads plugged in. Shame I didn’t think to look at the manual for the ordering of the leads – it’s amazing how much noise a bike can make when you get cylinder 3 and 4 confused.

Next came the oil change – nice and easy only took me an hour or so, in fact I was pleasantly surprised, apart from nearly destroying the old filter because I thought I could use a cheap Halfords filter remover (chain) rather than the proper part (must get that ordered). The other thing I found interesting is how the hell you tell if you have enough oil in there? I followed the instructions in the shop manual but my pristine, brand new Castrol oil is so beautifully clear that I can’t tell how far up the dip stick it is – I’ve stuck to the shop manual and put in exactly 3.8 litres of oil – let’s hope this works.

Frankly that’s as far as I’ve got – I’ve done valve clearances at collage on a single cylinder bike – easy enough – but mine scares me so it’s going to the garage for that – as it is for the carburettor synchronisation – I think I’ll be booking onto the advanced course at collage next year. Everything else is just inspection (chain etc which I can do with my eyes shut – in fact that’s what I get accused of every time the garage has to fix my mistakes) so let’s just cross fingers I don’t blow the CBF up like I did my very first bike – a 1997 (brand new) CZ 125.

It’s finally here, my new house, and with it (most importantly) is my new garage! I was adamant from day one that this garage was going to be a shrine to my bike. A clean, healthy environment with a red painted floor, white walls a ‘clean’ workbench, a ‘dirty’ bench and a kettle – not to mention a PC of some sort. But the inevitable has happened and I’ve succumbed to the ‘we don’t have enough space’ argument from my wife – so now the back of my garage is cluttered with gardening things, a table and chairs, two bikes we never use, some gardening implements which frankly (although my wife assures me they’re not) look like something I’ve seen in medieval war films.

So now my pristine garage does have a red floor (already scratched), it does have white walls, and it does have all my shelves patiently waiting for me to stock them with bike parts, sprays and oils. What it doesn’t have is a work bench or room to work on the bike in the dry and warm – it also doesn’t have enough light, but I can’t get around to that until the crap is cleared into a shed and I can get at the consumer box.

What we do to keep our wives as well as our bikes.

Yes I know it’s Christmas, and I know it’s the New Year, and yes I know the most important thing at a time like this is family, friends and home. But for some unknown reason I’ve really missed being connected to the net over the holiday period. I’ve moved you see, and this has lead to all sorts of fun and games (new house you see); mainly that I have no phone line…. who knew that having a phone line was so important!

I thought it would just be a case of moving in and giving BT a call, and hey presto a couple of days later phone, then another couple of days on dial up until the broadband gets moved over…. oh no! I have to wait three weeks for a BT engineer – and only then can I request the broadband is activated on my line, so I’m without internet and more importantly without a wi-fi enabled machine in my garage. Bugger.

So this is an apology for the dump of posts – there’s several hitting the blog at the same point because even though I’ve not got net access at home I’m still writing.