SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[sv-wolf]

One looks normal the other like the guy busted for running a meth lab

I appreciate that flw, but in your opinion, which is which?

Careful how you answer! This could be very revealing.

Cheers

[dr_bar]

Hi Nalian

Good to hear from you.

Cosh? Sometimes I think we need to teach you guys some English? Is 'cosh' purely one of ours?

Oh who knows - it could be used over here by someone but I've never heard it before. Thanks for the explanation!

People on this side of the pond would call that a "Blackjack"

[mgdavis]

People on this side of the pond would call that a "Blackjack"

Here it'd be a baton or ASP*. A blackjack is a bit different.

Somebody sure was thinking on their feet, though. "That's my... fork tool ... yeah, that's it, a fork tool.

*Trade name for a line of collapsible batons.

[Nalian]

Hi Nalian

Good to hear from you.

Cosh? Sometimes I think we need to teach you guys some English? Is 'cosh' purely one of ours?

Oh who knows - it could be used over here by someone but I've never heard it before. Thanks for the explanation!

People on this side of the pond would call that a "Blackjack"

...if you say so. I've never heard of that one either. I probably don't hang around the right people for it!

[sv-wolf]

Cosh! Smosh! I'm in far too happy a mood to consider this one now. Feel free to continue the discussion guys but I am off to the club's Monday pub night in half-an-hour on the SV.

Yep, I have the 'ol girl back with me again, looking neat and pretty in the back yard. And with the new gasket and the new air filter she is sounding loads better. Friends tell me that I am sounding a lot less grumpy and old codgerish, too. No surprise there. The morbid belief that my bright motorcycle-shaped world is in a state of terminal decay and that I am now the owner of a shabby, unrecoverable mass of terminally sick hardware has begun to dissolve - the clouds have parted; and the blue meanies have scuttled off to whatever miserable bogey hole they go to when they need somewhere else to be self-righteously bad-tempered in.

But this is not a perfect world, apparently. (Have you noticed?) In fitting a new gasket to the SV’s pipe, the engineer broke off a 'bracket'. On the SV the clip that secures the joint in the pipe is (or was) welded to the bike's frame via this 'bracket'. Unusual. ( ) It was rusty the guy said – which is quite possible; I can't argue. The poor ol’ SV did get badly neglected during the long months of Di’s illness. Washing it down on a regular basis was not the most pressing thing on my mind and it got frequently salted up during the winter months. And as we all know, Suzuki have never staked their reputation on the finish of their bikes.

The dealer has ordered a part for me, but at present the joint is held together with a jubilee clip. It’ll do for now. I'm just hoping we don't get another long dose of rust-inducing stormy weather in the next week or so. [Just looked at the weather forecast. Lots more wet stuff on the way.]

That apart, she is running better, and I’ve stopped thinking of her as a tired 'ol thing on her way to the scrap heap. No indeed! I hope to get another 60,000 miles out of her.

And there is another reason why I am feeling a lot less grumpy now. I’m off on a short break in two day’s time. I’m riding the SV down to the Dorset coast (southern England) for five days of camping and walking along the cliff tops. The Dorset coast is one of the most truly magical places on earth (in my humble opinion.) Long summer days spent walking along this coast make up some of the very happiest memories from my much-extended boyhood years (which lasted well into my 30s).

Back in the 1985/6/7, Rohan (my oldest friend) and I spent many blissfully happy, funny, crazy days foot-slogging our way along the 550 mile South-West Peninsula Coastal Path. We hitchhiked down to the coast from Hertfordshire (that was part of the holiday) and then backpacked our way along it. We put up the tent wherever the night fell, and hoped to avoid the attentions of touchy farmers and irate National Trust wardens. Or sometimes, when the moonlight was full and strong enough to see by and the mood was on us, we just kept walking on and on into the early hours of the morning. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so completely happy or at peace with the world as on those journeys.

The path runs westward from Bournemouth on the Hampshire coast right through Dorset and Devon and then on to Land’s End, which lies at the tip of the Cornish peninsula. At Land’s End it turns eastwards and a little north and runs back up to Minehead following the line of the Severn Estuary. The southern part is a sunny, sub-tropical glory of a walk. The scenery and wildlife are stunningly beautiful and varied.

I’m meeting another friend and his family down there on Wednesday and we are walking to Durdle Dor, a fantastic rock formation along Dorset’s famous Jurassic Coast – Fossils and dinosaur bones practically fall out of the rocks in front of you along here. West from Durdle Dor lie the cliffs at Lyme Regis, where the whole Victorian dinosaur-mania thing was born. The Dorset cliffs are magnificent, and riddled with caves and ancient mine workings. The shoreline abounds in rock platforms, stacks, sea arches, lagoons, sand bars, offshore islands and bird colonies. You name it, this place has it. It’s just beautiful.

Can’t wait.

(Just hope the weather forecast for this week is wrong!)

[sv-wolf]

OK off to Dorset NOW. See ya in a week.

In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Y1IVCUVW4

(Thanks Ron for finding it.)

Try it. It's a video of a ride over the Hardnott Pass.

The pass lies on what is probably the most 'technical' motorcycling route in the UK. I rode this at dusk last year on my way home from Scotland. There was no traffic. It was spectacular. (I will finish that travel blog one day!)

The Hardnott is the first half of the Hardnott/Wrynose pass, between Ravenglass on the West Cumbrian coast and Ambleside in the heart of the English Lake District. If you have never been to this part of the world, then you have missed something special.

(Actually, I was a bit miffed watching the vid because it makes the ride look a lot easier than I remembered it! Maybe, I'm less of a hero than I thought )

[Shorts]

Nice video. Don't worry, it's just camera playing tricks on your eyes about the difficulty. I thought the same thing reviewing my tape of our offroad excursion (which sections of your vid made me think of). It doesn't look all that bad on tape, but by golly, riding it sure was something.

[sv-wolf]

Thanks for the ego boost, Shorts! I'm sure you are right. The gradients are certainly much steeper than they appear on the vid.

I rode back from yet another week's holiday in Ireland yesterday and am feeling absolutely cr-ap. I've never ached so much riding a bike before. My hands started hurting the moment I left the ferry at Holyhead (North Wales) and got worse all the way down the A5/M54/A14/A1 back to Hitchin. By the time I stopped at the Corley services, east of Birmingham my knees and back and shoulders were aching too. Then I started to feel sick. Big stress! I was practically hallucinating by the time I got back to Hitchin - I kept catching something non-existent out of the corner of my eye. I felt seriously weird. I think I must have eaten something nasty on the boat.

But the SV performed beautifully all the way. The journey put another 1,500 miles on her clock - that's 450 miles on the outward trip (Hitchin to Donegal via Dublin) and 600 on the way back (Donegal to Hitchin via Belfast, Kildare and Dublin again). The rest of the miles were made up pootling round the Donegal mountain roads - beautiful!

I rang up the Triumph dealers as soon as I got back to see what the news was on the Daytona. They've replaced the piston rings under warranty and taken her for a road test. They say she is running well again now - no more exhaust smoke. That is the good news.

The bad news is that while they were doing the work someone put an ugly 2 inch scratch into the (plastic) tank. If anyone has been reading Harry Potter and has picked up a spell for breaking bike jinxes please let me know. I haven't reacted to this news yet. I'm just too knackered. But somewhere from under all the layers of tiredness a big 'Oh "poo poo"!' is gradually working its way to the surface.

At least the mechanic was totally up front about the damage and immediately offered to have the tank professionally resprayed - no messing around. He asked me if I wanted it done now or over the winter when I'm not using the bike so much. I said I'd like it done over the winter. I've got another kind of ache. I need to be riding her again. I'm picking her up tomorrow.

By the way - I've just read an absolutely brilliant werewolf novel (yep still chewing my way through them!) It is called Sharp Teeth and it's by Toby Barlow. It's a great read. The unusual thing about it is that it is in verse! It is a very free, narrative verse, so after a couple of pages you hardly notice. But it does concentrate the images. And the book doesn't pull any punches - it's pretty gutsy stuff. The werewolves (more like were-dogs, really) work in urban criminal gangs/packs. It's the first really successful updating of the theme I've read so far.

I've got some pics from Dorset and Ireland. I'll post them to the blog as soon as my head stops hurting quite so much.

[sv-wolf]

Quick update here for those of you who are riveted by the saga of my scratched Daytona tank and replacement piston rings.

I caught a bus out to Aston Clinton on Saturday to pick up the bike from the dealers, thereby learning a lot of new things about the rural roads out that way. (Being a country bus it spent at least 30% of its two-hour travelling time going in a direction that was diametrically opposed to its ultimate destination - the bike shop.) Take it from me - busses are OK in an emergency but bikes are faster.

When I saw it, the scratch was not as bad as I had expected. It is noticeable, but not very. I had thought about blagging a tank protector out of the guy in the dealership to cover it, but frankly it wasn't worth it. The scratch is very obvious close up and if you are looking for it, but on the plastic tank it doesn't really show. I can live with it for now.

The guy behind the counter was very apologetic and reiterated that the firm would get the tank professionally resprayed for me whenever I wanted them to do it. I said I'd bring the bike back when it was ready for its next service and they could fix it for me then. He said, OK, and then added that he'd throw in the labour on the next service for free to make up for the inconvenience.

I like this crew!

It's a good loyalty-building strategy too. It has probably worked on me.

I asked him why a new bike might need new piston rings. He seemed a bit embarrassed at first but then said that it might be because I had ridden it in too gently. Well, I'd wondered if that might have had something to do with it. A friend had thought so, too. And it's true. I had stuck to the running-in instructions in the manual down to the last convoluted detail. Well, more or less! On a couple of brief occasions, I had given in to a fundamental desire of sportsbike riders and gunned it up the motorway. I think I might be just a bit less careful next time.

I couldn't wait to get on her.

I love the SV, but riding the Daytona home with all that extra power between my legs was slick and orgasmic. Was it Bernard Shaw who said that the only new pleasure invented by man since the time he dropped down out of the trees was SPEED? He might have added, POWER and TORQUE too. You don't need to ride like your arse is on fire to feel the seductions of all those bhp.

Now I'm off to another Monday club night. Tonight we are meeting at the Abbot and Pig in Abbingdon Piggots. Good pub. Good food. Good company. Strange name.

See ya!

Glad you're all out there!

[dr_bar]

Glad to hear both you and the Daytona are back on your feet...