Ride to work

Joy of joys, today dawned chilly but bright and promising a better day, so with a commute to Sheffield on the cards it was a case of pulling the bike out of the shed and being brave but not foolish on the greasy roads. Care on the corners and roundabouts and making progress north on the M1 resulted in a good 1hr 10 minute commute time (it is regularly 1 hr 30 mins or more in the car).

Best bit, coming home. The day had stayed dry and bright so the roads were excellent and the return time matched the outbound morning trip - less time on the motorway but same journey time due to the shorter trip. What a great way to commute! All those frustrated car drivers should get out of their boxes and onto 2 wheels, preferably with a V-twin engine.

Congratulations & Commiserations

Phil - the man in the Suzuki Jimny a few posts down had his 61st birthday yesterday.

This morning he had an early call from the residential home where his mother has been these last few months - she passed away at 4:15 this morning.

The thoughts of our family are with Phil and Jane and family at this sad time.

1st ride-out of the year

Sunday saw me on the 1st ride-out of the year. 13 riders met up at Donington Services next to J23a of the M1 for a cross country ride south to Stoney Cove at Stoney Stanton. Got a photo of the group thanks to a kindly diver at the end point, shame we didn't get the bikes in. Turn out was very good with 11 Deauvilles, a Triumph Explorer and my TransAlp 700.


A right motley crew - would you buy a 2nd hand car off any of them?

Naked

My Transalp is in for service today at CMC Daybrook, Nottingham. My side of a deal that gives me a perpetual warranty for as long as I own the bike, which also allows me a courtesy bike. So here it is, a 2005 Yamaha Faser 600 that is obviously a shop bike that has seen a hard life despite the low mileage. The engine is a gem, unlike the rest of the package.


A 5800 miler, the engine is its strong point


It is tiny but the clutch is impossibly heavy

I recently bought a glossy motorcycle magazine that proclaimed 2014 to be the 'Year of the naked' (motorcycle). Well, it is generally accepted that this model Faser is one of the best in class and typifies the breed. Well all I can say is truly horrid. First off, while I am only 5' 8" tall weighing 210 pounds and with a 29" leg I dwarf the bike, it is tiny. The seat is more slippery than a glass surface covered in sheet ice and then covered in diesel - open the throttle and you slide off the back, touch the brakes and the wedding tackle makes painful contact with the fuel tank. It is cramped - footpegs are so high that even my stumpy little legs have difficulty tucking up into the crouch position that the footpeg position dictates. The handle bars are so narrow that it makes the front end feel twitchy. The instrumentation appears to be fairly comprehensive although I have yet to find a gear indicator so I am never sure which of the 6 gears I am in, but as it is so lowly geared and the ratios so close together I find that at anything over 40mph I am already in 6th and looking for more, which brings me to the worst feature - the clutch, which is so, so heavy that the 20 mile ride home resulted in a painful wrist.

That ride home highlighted the problem (for me) with naked bikes - the wind blast. I can cruise comfortably on my Transalp at speeds up to 85mph (in Europe, obviously) but this little bike is quite literally a pain at anything above 60mph and combined with the slippery seat means that there is no joy to be had - a motorway bike it is not.

So, if 2014 is going to be the 'year of the naked' then all I can say is that 2015 will see an awful lot of pre-owned naked bikes for sale as disgruntled owners trade them in for something that is more - more user friendly, more comfortable, more useable, more fun.

Availableman.com

After the classic motorbikes we stopped off at Availablecar.com where Phil found this nice little Suzuki Jimny. Not sure about the car but they got Phil priced up right.


Suzuki Jimney with a male for sale



Clean and well maintained, only one previous owner - that's Phil not the Jimny

Classic Motorcycles

Picked up a mate of mine (another Phil) on Sunday afternoon and went for a wander around the Classic Motorcycle Fair and the exhibition centre at the Donington Park race track. Arriving around 2pm we were give free entry and it was obvious that it had been poorly attended and that traders had already left or were packing up to leave.

Anyway, we had a wander around, I took a few photos and here they are, starting with the 2 strokes...


Yamaha RD350 - this one was really neat and on the money



Honda NS400R - not my cup of tea, but clean and tidy



Kawasaki H2 750 triple - import from USA



Kawasaki H2 750 triple - another US import



Suzuki Stinger (I think)



Suzuki 350 Hustler



Another angle on the 350 Suzuki



Suzuki GT750 - neat but not 100% complete



Suzuki GT750 - a favourite of mine back in my youth



Honda CB400/4 F2 - I owned a F1 in blue back in the 1980s



Mine never quite looked this good, back then it was my daily transport



This one did look sweet (in my eyes)



Suzuki MT1800R / VZ1800 - now, if only I could afford a 2nd bike...

What was mind blowing was the prices being asked by traders for basket cases needing full restoration, many of them incomplete and all of them badly corroded and in need of bucket loads of cash to get anywhere near road worthy let alone show standard. Anyway, those were the highlights for Phil and I.

Politics

I don't usually get involved in politics because in the past, on the few occasions when I have the result has most often been an opportunity for paid politicians to set about point scoring with no tangible benefit to the cause I am supporting. As a result I firmly believe Billy Connolly ("The Big Yin") got it 100% right when he said that the extent of person's desire to be a politician should be measured as the reason for them being banned from ever being one... or something to that effect. In my jaundiced eyes politicians, whether local, national or EEC/MEP are only after two things. One - money and lining their own pockets. Two - points and votes, as in points off their opposite number and votes to keep them in a position to achieve point #1.

Now I love filling in on-line surveys when I find them or get invited to complete one. They can be good fun and I love silly or not-so-obvious responses. Anyway, I recently completed a survey about my views on Europe - Should Cameron do.... x, y, z? Being devil's advocate I responded with all the options that would 'make the buggers work'. I selected all the difficult to do answers, all the hard options. In response I got a letter from Ms Emma McClarkin MEP thanking me for 'telling me what you think' which was very nice of her so I looked up images of her on Google. Seems that she must be doing OK as an MEP because she has piled on the pounds a bit since starting out in politics, but still, not a bad looker. Good old Wikipedia tells me she was (at 30) the youngest British MEP so she must have some brains to go with the 'out of a bottle' blonde good looks.

Now it turns out that I wasn't alone in my responses because 83% of the 13,500 respondees agreed Cameron should 'negotiate a fresh settlement with the EU' and 91% agreed he should 'cut the EU budget' - both of which I see as 'hard work' tasks. Oh, and 90% supported action to 'reduce net immigration' (which I understand he can achieve by letting fewer immigrants into Britain or financially supporting us Brits to leave England and move to sunnier/warmer/less stressed climes) while 97% support the work permit rules.

That's all very entertaining but a consequence of participating has been emails from Tory HQ asking me to go onto Twitter, Facebook and all the social media sites and 'like' various statements. Well what can I say to an invite like that? I'll tell you what, not a hope in hell. There's more chance of me swimming to the moon!

Dear Mr Cameron

I recently followed a link to David Cameron's Facebook page. Boy, doesn't he bang on spouting a load of poorly thought-out crap! Every other line refers to 'the working class' and him being 'one of us'. All posh boy's school tosh of course but hey, somebody voted him into power.

Anyway.... I want to take issue with some of his (and Tory party) policies, such as pushing up the retirement age before state pension is paid.

That is so much the wrong thing to do. Let those that want to retire earlier do and provide them with a state pension, but make it dependent upon the number of years they have been in gainful employment paying NI contributions - let's say 40 years. By allowing the 'older workers' to retire the young will have work opportunities. This will reduce payouts to the young jobless on benefits and allowing those that have done their bit to enjoy a more relaxed way of life.

An additional benefit from this policy would be that if the young have jobs then they can start saving for a house. And to encourage this the government should set up a scheme whereby every young worker who does not own a home automatically has money deducted at source to be paid into a government backed saving scheme towards their mortgage deposit. This would leave less money in the pockets of the young to go out on binge drinking sessions every time they get a pay packet.

My starter for 10 Mr Cameron - time you started thinking a bit more 'out of the box' and looking at the bigger picture, because IT IS MASSIVE.