SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[sv-wolf]

Pinko jazz freaks.

Deepest revolutionary red, johnj (like Pacific Salmon). And I can't stand jazz. Yerrrgh! Too wiggly! Into classical and rockabilly myself.

[Wrider]

Where ya at? Haven't seen any updates in a while! I need my fix of humor and strange language from across the pond!

[sv-wolf]

Where ya at? Haven't seen any updates in a while! I need my fix of humor and strange language from across the pond!

Wotcha mean? ‘Strange language from across the pond’? Hell, Wrider, are you trying to destabilise my sense of identity, or something? I’m very sensitive about language, as I’m sure you know. One’s language is a very intimate thing - not as intimate as some other things I could speak of (and vaguely remember), but intimate nonetheless. It’s a small thing but it matters. This site, for example, is having a highly damaging effect on my writing style. I’ve started using Americanisms like, ‘Hell!’ and ‘I guess’ and (oh! the embarrassment!) even 'sheesh'. That’s very distressing for an Englishman. The British equivalents (in my small corner of GB anyway) are things like ‘dodo!’ or ‘f**k it!’ which presumably shows that, despite the myths, you are a much more polite and well-bred people than we are. And some of it appears to be rubbing off – annoyingly.



Being polite, though, does not extend to the subject of bike electrics – I hate them! Alarm systems! – I hate them too! I’ve had so much electrical grief from both my bikes over the last three years, that I've grown to resent the very sound of the word ‘battery’. Once every three months or so, the Daytona's electrics decide to p1ss me off. They always do it on my way home from work. I set out all happy and without a care in the world and then the bike cuts out on me. I fire her up and she cuts out again. She keeps cutting out every time I pull in the clutch. This goes on all the way home. Have you any idea how many times you pull in the clutch on a six mile journey in a largely built-up area? I didn’t until this started happening. I do now.

But here comes the truly irritating bit. I get her home and park her up in front of the house. (I'm gentle. I try not to kick her.) I go into the house and let her cool down. I chuck something liquid down my neck to cool myself down too. Half an hour later, I get back on her and ride her to the supermarket. She behaves beautifully and I get no more problems from her for the next three months. Why is this? The wiring is screwed somewhere, but I can’t find the source of the problem and the dealers can’t find it either. I live with it. But I never know when it is going to happen again.

The Daytona’s other unpleasant habit is to drain the battery suddenly when I am least expecting it. So far she has done it three times this year. Usually it happens overnight and screws me up for getting to work in the morning. Last week the thing I've been dreading happened. the battery went flat while I was at work and she was sitting out on the forecourt waiting for me to ride her home. Despite the best efforts of two workmates to bump start her for me (they were shocked to find how unfit they were) we failed to get her going. So I had to leave her there. One of the plumbers lent me a dust sheet to throw over her to deter unwanted attention overnight. The next day I came into work on the train lumping a spare battery with me. Electrics? Hate em!



Of course, getting steamed up about the electrics is perfectly understandable, but who do you blame when you run out of petrol on your way to an important appointment? The least said about this sorry little tale the better. It cost me a sweaty trot across town in my leathers, the price of a petrol can, a litre of petrol, and a taxi fare back to where I left the bike. As I had run her out of petrol in a no-parking zone I also had to explain my situation to a factory security guard and plead with him to let me leave her in the firm’s car park while I found a garage.

Today (the Sunday before Easter) has been a glorious, sunny spring day – perfect for the bike club’s annual Easter Egg Run. (Last year, it was accompanied by rain, hail and near freezing temeratures.) Thirty-nine bikes turned out for the ride. We delivered about 120 Easter eggs in total, some to a residential centre for people with learning disabilities in Shefford (on the edge of our home turf) the rest to the kids living in local women’s refuges in the Hertfordshire area. As we couldn’t visit the refuges directly, we delivered them to the head office in Hemel Hempsted.



It was great to be riding with a big group again, the first time I have done it for over six months. I just love seeing the long line of bikes up front and watching the rest coming up behind in the mirror. And Bedfordshire is a great county to ride through. Its countryside is much broader than the kind you find in Herts, more open, less inhabited. The roads are generally twisty. They run between rolling fields, well-managed woodland and grassy verges sprouting millions of daffodils at this time of year. The soaring spires of village churches rise from the tops of steep hills and punctuate the skyline. I love to see that. Apart from the occasional sleepy market town, the only communities round here are tiny hamlets with brick and timber cottages. Big traditional farm buildings all in red brick, some timber framed, are set back from the road together with long lapboard barns, black with creosote. Small farm cottages snuggle right up to the road itself. And then there are the pig farms. (Well, OK! Pig farms are pig farms! But even pig farms can seem idyllic if you squinny up your eyes and look at them in the right way. I like pigs: intelligent sociable animals.)



On the way home from the run we stopped off at a café just outside Barton-le-Clay. The café is part of a new garden centre complex. Attached to the garden centre is a fake 'Dickensian' shopping mall constructed in the apparent belief that that badly laid brickwork and lashings of modern cement will pass muster as 'old' or 'picturesque'. In my view, anyone who is fooled by this deserves to be fleeced by the pricey little boutiques it accomodates.

I think it is only us Brits who have garden centres, so I'd better describe them. They are kind of big, open-air supermarkets selling plants and shrubs and pond fish and garden ornaments and forks and rakes and mowing machines and plant pots and all that sort of thing - everything you would find in a well-appointed English garden or garden shed. Garden centres are where huge numbers of Brits spend their Sunday afternoons – that is when they are not back home pottering around in their gardens gardening.

The fish and chips was good, though! Yum!



All this resurgence of biking activity is a bit of a breakthrough for me. Until recently, I was using the bike for little more than my regular commute back and forth to work. That’s six miles each way. So, no great journeys or remarkable adventures here, just the humdrum activity of riding the same ol’ roads, in the same grey weather and avoiding the same crap drivers every day. If there is one thing that will turn a generally mild-mannered man into a homicidal maniac, it is dealing on a daily basis with drivers who do not understand the art of signalling and cannot comprehend the purpose of those little white lines that run mysteriously down the middle of our roads. Normally, the mental and sensory deficiencies of drivers go hand in hand with their inability to see two-wheeled traffic – i.e. me! I need a couple of blades I’ve decided – not Fireblades but those utilitarian things that stick out from the middle of chariot wheels in films like Ben Hur.



If the winter has not been particularly severe this year (apart from one heavy snowfall) it has been pretty miserable. Having to ride on wet roads pretty consistently for the last four months has taken its toll. I’ve recently become nervous of cornering in the rain. The roads have been greasier this winter than I have ever known them and for a while my back wheel started to take on a life of its own. I’ve not had any serious incidents, though, so I’m not entirely sure how I became quite so anxious about it. Perhaps it’s just the slow drip, drip of advancing middle age. Or perhaps the three offs that I had last year (two in India, one green-laneing in Hertfordshire) have shaken me up rather more than I care to admit. It’s strange though because my cornering skills have improved noticeably in the last few months, and now that the dry weather has returned I’m finding my confidence levels have risen.

Brmmmm Brmmmm

And I’ve just wiped the very last few millimetres off the chicken strips on my back tyre. (Boy’s stuff, I know, but still important. If you handle it right, you only get to be middle aged on the outside.) And it’s nice to realise that getting older doesn’t automatically mean that you have to grow up (or ‘stop learning’ as I originally meant to say.)



When the spring finally came this year, it came suddenly and without warning. Within a few days, there were snowdrops and crocuses everywhere, then daffodils and primroses; then before you knew it all the trees were in blossom. I just love to see this. It makes me start to feel human again after the winter. Normally, I go on ride-outs and take the bike on longer journeys all year through, but not this year. This year it has taken the sudden appearance of spring to get me enthusiastic about riding again.

British governments like to spend their money on two things: foreign wars and public flower beds. They may have helped to reduce Iraq to a hell-hole of death and broken masonry, but they always make sure that England in the spring is truly beautiful. Working for a local authority as a gardener in the south of the country is probably one of the best ways to recession-proof your career. Everywhere there is a bit of public land, gardeners have been at work, and small towns like Hitchin all over England are now a riot of colour. Need I say that there is no better way to see it all than from the saddle of a bike.

So, rev up your engine, settle the balls of your feet comfortably on your pegs, pull in the clutch, change up and cruise off into town, leaving those supercool sunshades at home, because right now you want to see the world as mother nature and the local landscaping department intended. Everywhere you look, the smallest open public space is bursting into flower: roundabouts, grass verges, parks and recreation grounds. Pavements are canopied by blossom trees, birds are singing, and the sun is pouring down on all.

The birds and the sun are tax free, of course (and unreliable), but that’s only because no-one so far has discovered a way to commodify them. They will - one day - and then we’ll all be saying things like ‘the price of sunlight is going up again. I won’t be voting for this bunch of greedy f***ers next time, I can tell you!’

Everyone will complain about the price, but no-one will notice the oddity of it all.



I had to go up to a meeting in south London last week and decided to take the bike. It was a kind of mistake. A bike ride is a bike ride but travelling through London on two wheels can be pure pain! What’s a country boy to do in all that urban chaos: a junction every hundred yards; a traffic hold-up every twenty; lines of frantic, weaving motorists; speed cameras everywhere; fumes; dirt… and the problem of finding a safe parking space at the end of it. In central London, filtering ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a grim necessary if only to retain your sanity and prevent your clutch hand from falling off. Roads there are a battleground. Motorists are civillian Commandos. The city is a specialised habitat and Londoners have evolved differently from the rest of us. They have combat gear markings tattooed on the surface of their brains. Adapt or die, that's the rule! The outskirts of town are bad enough, but once you get onto the Finchley Road and then on down to Swiss Cottage, you start to want to commit suicide – or homicide depending on which way you are feeling that day. For someone as impatient as I can be, this is not good news.

I don’t know what possessed me on that occasion, but I decided to get to Holborn via Wigmore Street. Wigmore Street is a stop-go nightmare with very little space for overtaking and I got caught behind a Chinese guy in a Toyota who clearly didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going. Ngggggrrrh! OK, I know a lot of people have to put up with this all the time, but I don’t. Give me a country road (or even the bloody A1) any day!



My mate, Sean, collapsed at work a few weeks ago (twice in ten minutes) and was taken to hospital by ambulance, and then on to his home. As it turned out, it was nothing too serious – just a combination of stress and a viral infection (so, said the medics.) They told him to stay off work for a week. Once my concern for his wellbeing began to diminish, my thoughts started turning, not entirely disinterestedly, towards his V-Strom which had been left standing in the office courtyard. Stevenage town centre is not the safest place to leave a bike overnight (even here, protected by CCTV.)



As the V-Strom has the same engine as the SV, I’ve often wondered what it handled like. As though by magic, Sean called me the next day and asked if I could do him a favour… Of course, I said. I would be only too pleased to help him out and ride his bike home for him after work the following evening. Sean lives out in one of the villages, so it would be a good ride on a combination of A and B roads - plenty of opportunity to get to know how the bike feels.

The next day, Dave, a mutual friend, picked up the keys, and later that evening followed me over to Sean’s place in his car, with a view to bringing me back once the bike had been safely delivered.

What a disappointment! I hated it. The handling was so different from the sportsbikes or roadbikes I’m used to, that for the first fifteen minutes I was sure I was going to drop it. Even allowing for the bike’s very different riding position and its sheer verticality, it didn’t feel right. It seemed sluggish and uncomfortable and the engine had an odd rhythmic cycle to it which started to annoy me greatly.

About half way to Sean’s place, I lost Dave in some heavy traffic (Well, OK I took a wrong turning off a roundabout – which made me feel foolish. I was on automatic pilot and headed off for my own home.) There was no moon and the sky was covered by some heavy cloud so the night was pitch black. After a while it began to drizzle, which made riding in this heavy traffic on an unfamiliar bike a bit uncomfortable. But at least I knew the way. Dave and I would meet up at the house.

Rolling down the A1198 fifteen minutes later, the regular engine rhythm was just beginning to make me wonder whether something was about to drop off when in the blackness up ahead I became aware of a parked car. The motorist, standing beside it was waving furiously at me and pointing. I knew it! Something was seriously wrong. I pulled over at the first opportunity to check. When Dave pulled up behind me a few moments later and asked why I hadn’t stopped when I saw him waving back there, that sense of foolishness overtook me all over again.

V-Stroms obviously just have a funny pulse to them – or at least this one did.

Well, at least the V-Strom is one thing I can cross off my Christmas list.



Murray and Gail from the bike club finally got spliced last week. Would they, wouldn't they. We've been waiting for ages. About half-a-dozen family members attended and the rest of the congregation was made up of about a hundred and fifty motorcyclists and their partners. All the blokes were looking extremely odd in suits. Only Big Dean turned up wearing formal attire: leather waistcoat jeans and boots (I’ve never seen him wear anything else – though as he’s a self-employed plumber he must have a change of clothes hidden away somewhere.)

It was a civil ceremony, held at the Hitchin register office and conducted by the usual combo of two highly over-excited women in twin sets and pearls. One of them, beaming as though her face was about to explode, conducted the ceremony; while the other waited in a froth of excitement to oversee the signing of the register. Dave and Gail arrived together (no stupid conventions about the bride keeping everyone waiting.) Dave manfully fluffed all of his lines – all of them - which prompted a lot of ‘encouragement’ from the assembled guests, at which point the whole thing broke down in gales of laughter. The newly-weds finally strode out to the hall to the sound of one of their favourite rock anthems.



So, Wrider, I guess, (I guess, I guess!!!!!) that I have to thank you for digging me out of my pit. (Glad to know one person is still reading this, by the way.) When I'm not working or riding or cooking or eating or sleeping (yep, that about sums up my last couple of months) I’ve been burying myself in a load of old textbooks on archaeology I found in the attic – all fascinating stuff but just a bit on the dour side. This should probably be put down under the general heading of ‘nostalgia’ (When I was younger I went on several archaeological digs.) The concept of ‘younger’ is one more thing that is getting a bit vague in my recollection, these days.

Apropos of nothing in particular (though I think you should know this - don't ask me why) there is no activity in the world quite as boring as trowelling away day after day on an archaeological site. But on every dig, there is a conspiracy at work. All day long, those trowelling away beside you are telling themselves that this is the most exciting, fascinating and dazzlingly meaningful thing they have ever done in their lives. It’s all bollocks, of course, but as a strategy, it works. I can honestly say that I’ve never enjoyed being bored to death as thoroughly as on an archaeological dig.



There’s a lot to be said for cultivating boredom as a life strategy. But fortunately it is not necessary on a bike. On a bike I have experienced drenched-cat syndrome, mind-numbing and finger-breaking cold, grotesque sweatiness, boiling temperatures, pain, distress, fear, anxiety, and desperation - but never boredom. Never, never boredom! That has to be good for something.



And one for you, Doc (On the Ginger Goodwin saga.) I got a message back from a Vancouver SPC member telling me what happened. Apparently Ginger’s grave originally had a much smaller headstone. The larger one in your photograph was erected in the 1930s by the local Communist Party. (No-one was asked, of course). The CP hoped to cash in on Ginger’s popularity and win itself a bit of kudos. It didn't work. The CP stuck a hammer and sickle on the grave but kept quiet about the fact that Ginger had been a member of the SPC, which had opposed them right from the start. Don’t you just love these guys? The local museum though, has got the story straight.

[Wrider]

See now this is why we need you writing in your blog more often! All this strange language is so hard to read in such large volumes!
Sounds like you've at least been having fun...
And of course your blog is a lot of fun to read! From what we see on TV (the telly to you) and movies it's rather fun to imagine a guy riding around what seems like dreary ole UK on a bright fast sportbike...

As for the Daytona and the SV's electrical gremlins...
You said you had an alarm on the SV right? I'm thinking that could be causing it's problems.
And the 'Tona, is it only after certain kinds of rides the battery is dead? Do you leave it with it's parking lights on? Is there an alarm on it that could also be causing that?

[sv-wolf]

See now this is why we need you writing in your blog more often! All this strange language is so hard to read in such large volumes!
Sounds like you've at least been having fun...
And of course your blog is a lot of fun to read! From what we see on TV (the telly to you) and movies it's rather fun to imagine a guy riding around what seems like dreary ole UK on a bright fast sportbike...

As for the Daytona and the SV's electrical gremlins...
You said you had an alarm on the SV right? I'm thinking that could be causing it's problems.
And the 'Tona, is it only after certain kinds of rides the battery is dead? Do you leave it with it's parking lights on? Is there an alarm on it that could also be causing that?

You know, I've never thought of the UK as dreary. I've thought it was a lot of other things, but never that.

There's something you ought to know about British films and British telly. There is a long-standing stylistic tradition of film-making in this country called "British Social Realism". It can be questioned whether it is really social or really real, but it does colour the way other cultures see us.

I had this discussion with noodle about a year ago. When I said American comedy was all about 'winners', he responded with suprise by saying 'Of course it is, everyone likes to see images of people on the way up, not on the way down' or something like that. What he should have said is that Americans like to see images of people on the way up. As far as I understand American culture, it is based on seizing opportunities. That means Americans also have a deeply ingrained fear of (and therefore contempt of) failure. I've seen this many times in American friends when they come to visit. Don't know what your take is on this. The observation is based on a very small sample.

British culture, on the other hand, has been traditionally more collective, and about supporting those who find it hard to make it through. British television drama is often based on a documentary warts-and-all style, and British comedy is largely about losers not winners. That's probably one reason why British comedy doesn't do so well over your side of the pond.

(It's about self-deprecation as well, and in my experience Americans are not big on self-criticism or hiding their lights under a bushel. There is also the problem of mutual understanding - or the lack of it. I've often joked with Amerian friends only to see their blank, uncomprehending faces staring back at me. You are a lot more direct than we are so you approach humour in a quite different way.)

American films tend to have a more classical style - they idealise or essentialise everything, even squalour. Everything becomes larger than life: it's more in your face. In a British film you are much more likely to see the ordinary little details of daily existence poking through: the chewing gum on the pavement, the dead flower in the flower pot, the rubbish in the street, a woman's slightly runny make-up, that sort of thing. American films do that too occasionally to make a particular point, of course, in which case there will practically be a big arrow on the screen bringing your attention to it. In British films it is just there as part of the normal imperfect background to life.

So, no, I've never thought of life in the UK as particularly 'dreary' - though British films sometimes are. Ask me about British politics and you will get another kind of response. (Light the blue touch paper and stand well back.)

As for riding big shiny motorbikes round the country, what else can I say but Brmmm Brmmm. Big shiny motorbikes are for riding anywhere, anytime and the UK is as good a place to do it as any.

Yeah. I agree. I'm willing to bet the alarm has quite a lot to do with my electrical problems. Trouble is, having it reduces my insurance payments by a hefty amount. I suppose, (UK speak for 'I guess') I'll keep checking the electrics from time to time to see if I can find the problem.

Cheers

Richard

[Wrider]

You're right, I can't think of any British shows except for Top Gear that do well over here. As for comedy, you've given us Eddie Izzard, Mr. Bean, and Monty Python. All geniuses!
But you're right, two of those three focus on the losers, not the winners.

As for dreary I meant the weather. Every time you see Britain on TV or anything it's always cloudy, overcast, rainy, snowy, or some combination of the above. So to imagine a bunch of small econoboxes (tiny efficient cars) driving along a road in the rain, then them all getting passed by a bright red sportbike is just funny to me.

I agree with you on the self-deprecation part too. It's one of the tools I use regularly to make people laugh, but I routinely run across people who get angry because I'm joking about myself! (I'm not the best looking, I'm 6'2" (just short of two meters), and weigh 300 lbs. I've got a lot of material to work with!)

Now for the electrical... If you'll merely buy me a ticket over there I'm more than willing to look at your problems!

[sv-wolf]

You're right, I can't think of any British shows except for Top Gear that do well over here. As for comedy, you've given us Eddie Izzard, Mr. Bean, and Monty Python. All geniuses!
But you're right, two of those three focus on the losers, not the winners.

As for dreary I meant the weather. Every time you see Britain on TV or anything it's always cloudy, overcast, rainy, snowy, or some combination of the above. So to imagine a bunch of small econoboxes (tiny efficient cars) driving along a road in the rain, then them all getting passed by a bright red sportbike is just funny to me.

I agree with you on the self-deprecation part too. It's one of the tools I use regularly to make people laugh, but I routinely run across people who get angry because I'm joking about myself! (I'm not the best looking, I'm 6'2" (just short of two meters), and weigh 300 lbs. I've got a lot of material to work with!)

Now for the electrical... If you'll merely buy me a ticket over there I'm more than willing to look at your problems!

Oh my god! You don't have to endure Jeremy Clarkson too, do you? I feel your pain! The guy is such an opinionated prat - especially on the subject of motorcycles. He's probably done more to give motorcylists a bad name here in the UK than the whole of the bloody anti-bike establishment put together.

(OK, I sometimes enjoy watching him in a sneaky sort of way, but he is such a w***er. Opinionated people are only OK if they share the same prejudices as you do, but mostly they are too up themselves to share anything with anyone. JC is more up himself than most.)

Oh well, yes, the weather can be dreary sometimes - especially in Manchester. Up there in that benighted city they would all fall down in worship if, by chance, a big golden thing ever appeared in the sky. But we have a habit of talking up our meterological miseries in this country. We get some lovely summers and long golden autumns, too. The problem with Brit weather is not that it is universally dreary, but that you can never predict what it is going to do from year to year or even minute to minute. It can be gloriously sunny one moment and hailing or snowing the next. Three years ago we had one of the most brilliant summers ever. The UK became biker heaven. The optimists all started thinking that this global-warming lark wasn't so bad after all. Then the two summers following were absolute cr*p. So the climate owes us; we're due for a good one again this year - one more good season before HM government sticks a chip in our registration plates and starts to bug us all by satellite - party control freaks! But who can tell. Everything is in the lap of the gods, and no-one believes in them any more, so what can a poor man-ape do? Oh whoops! That slipped out. Am I allowed to invade U.S. space with that sort of comment? You have no idea how I censor my language on this site to avoid treading on anyone's post-colonial toes. At least we don't have the Darwin debate here. And god is a football anyone can kick around, since very few people believe in him/her/it in any meaningful way any more.

Wrider, believe me, if I had unlimited resources I would send you a cheque in the post immediately and invite you over for an unlimited stay with all the roast beef you could eat. If you are handy with a spanner and a pair of pliers, then you are very welcome in this household. You could come and practice as much of your self-deprecating humour on us as you like and no-one would get angry.

By the way, 'econoboxes?' LOL. I love that one. We think of them as cars here, and treat them as such. You see status in the UK is also self-deprecating. You can't be too flashy with your money in these islands or you will just be sneered at. Big is a sign of insecurity. Only the aristocracy (what's left of them) can get away with doing things on a really grand scale, and only then because they do it with traditional taste and restraint and most important of all, because they have a sense of humour about it.

Ah yes, one of the really big kicks I get out of motorcycling is overtaking a long line of traffic on my big shiny sportsbike, picking off the sluggish little 'econoboxes' one by one or in twos and threes. This is real biking, real exhilaration.

Bugger it wrider! While I've been down here in the cellar happily chatting away to you I've damn well gone and burned my supper - charred risotto is on the menu tonight. Have you any idea how long it takes to cook a really good risotto from fresh? - with proper risotto rice and slowly steamed spelt and pinto beans? The smoke won't do my vinyl collection much good either. Oh wellllllllllllllll! Gotta go now and rescue what I can of it.

Good to talk to ya, anyway.

Cheers

Dick

[sv-wolf]

A new bike has appeared in the courtyard behind my offices recently. It belongs, apparently, to the manager of the bank which leases part of the building. Actually, its not so much a bike as an elaborate confection - one of those HD things, a silver grey 883 custom. It has all the bells and whistles you would expect to find on an item of this kind: tasseled luggage, acres of chrome... It's the sort of thing that wealthy weekend outlaws tend to go for (lawyers and bank managers usually).

Fortunately the owner has the good taste to hide it away behind the rubbish bins every morning - well out of everyone's line of sight.

[poet]

At the risk of being unoriginal...






Continue the funny language blog

[sv-wolf]

At the risk of being unoriginal...






Continue the funny language blog

LOL, I wondered who I'd flush out with that one.



But poet, how come a self-confessed risk taker like yourself (from Las Vegas, no less) wants to limit his riding experience to something about as feisty as my ol' mum's Singer sewing machine?

I admit it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is surely something here I do not understand. But... ignorance is bliss, they say - and who am I to disagree?

(BLISS - )