My big babies. Don't they look just so cute together
I got a shock last week. I went down the back garden for the first time in a month. (It is all divided up by hedges and I can’t see it from the house). It had grown into a jungle. The horseradish is putting on loads of muscle, valerian is sprouting out of the stones and bricks in walls and pavement. And alkanet and comfrey are taking over everything. A creeper had made its way under the fence and wrapped its way all around my poor neglected Hyosung 125. In fact, anything that is into being green and leafy is sprouting green and leafy stuff everywhere.
I’ve been a bit morose for the last few months and haven’t had the motivation to do anything much. I've been going to work daily on the SV, coming home, making a meal and going to bed. Day after dreary day. I've been getting to hate my work and everything to do with it. I did wheel the mechanically challenged Daytona into the kitchen to keep her out of the rain one afternoon - and then left her there. I looked at her longingly but couldn’t be bothered to ring the dealer or do anything to get her sorted. Out in the garden the grass remained uncut for another week, and then another and another, and a dozen pressing jobs around the house got stuck into a queue which I pushed out just beyond my conscious awareness. I just couldn’t be bothered to stick my head up and look at the big wide world.
March was hard because it was the aftermath of the EnduroIndia ride and I didn’t want to be back home facing the ‘real’ world when India seemed so much more alive and interesting and meaningful. April was hard because I realised that I hadn’t made any plans beyond the Enduro since Di died and suddenly found myself floating around aimlessly in a sea of confusion and apathy. May was hard because that was the month Di died - it's over a year now; I can hardly believe it - and all the anguish of her last months came back to me again.
June however, seems to have come in with a bit more energy, and I’m beginning to peek out from under the bedclothes. Last week, I hacked a path through the undergrowth down to the bottom of the garden and liberated the Hyosung. I started dealing with all those annoying letters that have been flopping through my letterbox for months including one recent one which tells me that the swingarms on the Hyosung GT 125s and 250s have been rotting away and the bikes are subject to a product recall. I have had the Daytona ‘rescued’ up to Norfolk to the dealers and today I rode her back home again in Triumph (OK, groan if you like: the pun was entirely accidental) And… wait for it! Here’s the biggie that has got me really excited. I have decided to sign up to do the EnduroHimalaya tour in 2008. Yay! I’m also planning a trip over to the States and Canada earlier in the year. This is going to be my year of travel.
A small part of the BMF showground
But not everything has been at a standstill recently. I did go up to 'The BMF' at the East of England showground near Peterborough last May for a weekend of unrestrained buying, fast food, rock music, beer and bikes - along with every other bargain-hunting two-wheel petrol-head from the South of England. I always enjoy The BMF. In an odd way it defines this blog for me. It was the subject of my very first post here. How long ago was that? Two years? Three years? I've lost track of time. I’ve grown and changed with the blog. My life has changed so much in that time that I hardly recognise it. My relationship with motorcycles has changed too, deepened and grown and gradually integrated into the rest of my life.
Squeaky and Brian providing some top class cuisine in the club tent at the BMF
I still love BSA's. What a beauty!
No, the BMF is an annual ritual that cannot be ignored. In time-honoured fashion, I left work at 2.00 one Friday afternoon in mid-May and hurried back home to Hitchin to load my camping gear onto the back of the SV. I said goodbye to the house and all those uncompleted chores and headed back to Cory's Mill on the outskirts of Stevenage where I met the guys from the club. It was a good ride up despite the fact that the A1(M) between Stevenage and Peterborough must be one of the most boring roads in the kingdom. It was dry for once and it stayed that way over the week-end. The camping was easy and comfortable. I'm beginning to show my age because I've started to take a blow-up mattress with me. The show itself was a bit low key this year, partly because the rock concert wasn’t on site as it usually is, but five miles away. Maybe it's not just me who is in a can't-be-arsed-to-do-much mood because nobody wanted to trek over to it. That evening we just sat in a bar on the main show site and listened to a couple of guys bashing out some old rock and blues numbers. It was a good evening.
Speedway in the BMF arena
There was one nasty event at the show this year. We got back from the bar in time to see an ambulance drawing away from a marquee just a couple of pitches down from the club stand. Some young lad had been badly beaten up, I’m not sure how badly but it didn’t sound good. Another of the traders had turned up just a few minutes earlier to see the kid lying on the ground with a bunch of bastards standing round, p1ssing on him. The police thought that they were from off-site and had climbed over the fence into the showground. I’ve never heard of that kind of aggro at the BMF before. It is usually a very friendly show. Shame!
The club stand. Note Sarah on the left hiding from the camera. She escaped me all weekend.
But I got her Buell instead. Sarah is new to riding and doesn't mind letting you know it.
This year’s purchases included two new pairs of bike gloves (one pair for the winter, one for this summer); a new pair of summer Sidi boots; and a new Wolf leather jacket. The gloves and the boots were good buys - things I genuinely needed - but the Wolf jacket was a luxury. It was expensive and I've already got enough jackets to last me a lifetime. But it is a good-looking piece of kit. So, how could I resist? And it has a wolf logo on it. I wore the Sidis on the ride home and my feet had organs all the way back down the A1(M). The boots have controllable vents in the toecaps. When they are open the air circulates round your feet while you ride. Mmmmmmm! They were a great buy. The boots are one purchase I can justify to anyone - even myself.
Some of the club members in the bar at the BMF
At the beginning of June I rode up to Hull on the SV to visit an old friend I hadn’t seen in over 30 years. I felt a bit nervous about meeting him again. I didn’t know what I was going to find. Sometimes people change out of all recognition. And sometimes they don’t. As it turned out, Steve hadn’t changed at all. And I guess I haven't really either. When we met, it seemed like we were picking up the conversation from where we had left off 30 years ago. That's happened to me before. It's very weird.
Steve was a biker. It was his enthusiasm that encouraged me to take the plunge and buy my first bike. When I knew him he was heavily into BSAs, but over time he’d turned into a Harley man. I wasn’t at all surprised. He’d always been into Americana. When I knew him back in the 1970s, he used to take part in American Civil War re-enactments He'd go off every month or so in his Southern Cavalry uniform and come back covered in bruises. That hadn’t changed much in 30 years except that now his interests have now broadened out into Wild West re-enactments as well. I’m having my arm twisted to go up to York with him on August Bank Holiday Monday next and take part in a Western shoot out. It’s put on by a small museum on the outskirts of the city. Steve and I are about the same build so he is insisting he can kit me out for the event. Not sure about this one! Errr… (But what the hell! It sounds like it could be fun.)
Two big things happened last week. The first was that in a moment of weakness, I logged on to the EnduroHimalaya website. I'd been putting it off because I knew what would happen if I did. I opened up their photo gallery and… bang! There was no hope for me. I had to sign up. Some of the photos are stunning. Here, take a look:
http://www.endurohimalaya.com/gallery.htm
It’s not a charity deal like the EnduroIndia; it costs £3,000. But what the hell! I’ve emailed Nick, one of the organisers, with a few questions before I decide exactly when I want to go next year, but my deposit is committed.
The second thing concerns the Daytona. One afternoon back in May, I had wheeled it out to see if I could shed any light on the oil problem - and couldn’t get it to start. I drained the battery twice trying to fire it up but it didn't even hiccough. So I put it away, sat down and forgot about it. I was that demotivated!
Last week, I had it taken up to the dealers for them to look at it. They fired it up with an external charger. There was no oil in the air box as I’d been expecting, so it hadn’t been over-filled. Ben, one of the mechanics, took it out for a 60 mile run and - sigh! - predictably couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The oil level didn’t go down; she didn't mis-fire; she behaved perfectly. I'm starting to doubt my own experience. I have to keep looking at the empty oil bottle by the kitchen door to remind myself that the bike did eat up one litre of oil in one hundred miles of running.
But at least now the dealers have the problem logged. They’ve noted the mileage and the oil level. If it drops again suddenly they will crack open the engine and have a look at it. Part of me is hoping that the bike will start eating oil again so that they can get to the bottom of the problem. I don’t want to spend the next six months anxiously looking at the clocks to see if the oil light has come on suddenly. Another good thing to come out of this is that, having talked to the mechanics at Norfolk Triumph, the dealership where I bought the bike, I've developed quite a lot of confidence and trust in their attitude and in what they do. I feel the same way about the guys at SDC in Stevenage where I now take the SV. After all the hassle I've had with dealers over the last couple of years that's worth having.
Mrs. Stark got the report today, the tendon is torn. She may be in for a date with the surgeon. Nothing would affect her relationship with the ol' Smackie-pup, they're inseparable. He was adopted from the SPCA weighing 27 lbs, the little blob now weighs 75! I call him "Smacktard" 'cause he's such a nuisance, or even "Smack-turd" when I'm ticked. His real name's Keller, he's stone deaf.