SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[blues2cruise]

Didn't anyone think to phone you to ask where you are?

Glad to hear you had a great day anyway.

I was in a 4 wheeled vehicle this weekend. I went to visit my mother who is 84. Her old car is such a piece of junk, I took mine to drive her around in.

[sv-wolf]

Hi blues

Well, they couldn't really ring me, and that's my issue, not theirs. I have an old fashioned, pay-as-you-go mobile phone that cost me all of £15.00 in Woolworths before it went bust. The phone doesn't even have a camera. (I have a camera for that). Only one other person knows my number. I have a mobile phone for one purpose only - in case of breakdowns while I'm out on the bike.

Mobile phones? Yerrgh! Far too convenient; they leave no opportunity for things to go wrong, so there is nothing left to force you out of your rut and have new experiences. People think I'm cracked. I think they're boring. Which works in everyone's favour, since it gives us all someone to gossip about.

Your mum is 84, eh? and still active by the sound of it? That's a good age. And it has set me thinking. I've probably just still got enough time to have a family. That way I can be sure of someone drive me out on a Sunday when I'm 84. (Well, maybe not!) Mind you. Ideally, I'd still be puttering around on my C90 at that age. Hope you both enjoyed your trip.

By the way, what's happened to the site? All that mad activity on the board from the early years seems to have boiled away!

Good to hear from you, blues.

Rich

[blues2cruise]

By the way, what's happened to the site? All that mad activity on the board from the early years seems to have boiled away!

Good to hear from you, blues.

Rich

The nasties got banned.

[dr_bar]

Before you settle down and have that really late family, isn't time you wandered over to this part of the world and visited with a bunch of crazy Canucks and Yanks???

[Johnj]

Yea,

[sv-wolf]

Hi all,

Just enjoying the last days of summer here in the south-east of the UK. The cold and rain started to set in three weeks ago but then we had a reprieve and we are currently enjoying a week of mild, sometimes even sunny, weather. Had a great country ride out last weekend thanks to Mike, a resolute Scotsman who has a genius for organising things for the 5 Counties Motorcycle Club. 5 Counties is a great mixed bunch of bikers that I knock around with a lot these days. They are an especially friendly lot, and always up for any kind of activity, even if it is just slobbing around at a motorycle show site. Mike found a route that few of us knew even though it was all within easy-riding distance of Hitchin - nearly a hundred miles of twisties and back doubles. Couldn't believe there were so many brilliant local roads I'd never ridden before.

There are still a couple of bike events to go to before the riding season comes to a close. But the summer riders are already garaging their bikes, and it is getting much easier to get work done at the local dealers. Soon the roads will be left to just a few hardy (or foolishly freezing) all year-ers. I have to take the Daytona in to get its front, right indicator sorted out. I knocked it off pushing the bike out of a gateway recently. Damn! Bike needs a back tyre, so I can get the two done at the same time.

I've booked a test ride on the new CCM 450cc adventure bike which looks a beauty. (CCM is an old British marque.) It's kind of a 'triple-sport:' on-road; off-road; and long distance (250 miles to a tankful). It's a thumper, very light (which is what I need); pulls 42bhp: top speed 90 mph. My only concern is how vibey it might be for long journeys. The test ride is from the factory in Bolton which is way up north (150 miles from here.) I might have to make it an overnight trip.

OK. I'm running out of excuses for not taking a trip over to your side of the Atlantic, aren't I? Health worries has been the main reason recently, though I'm keeping my eye on the £££££s as well. Technically, I retire in 3 years time. I've been wanting to travel badly over the last five years and not really getting around to it. I'm starting to think that maybe I should stop dreaming about doing a long trip, and doing something more practical and manageable instead - and within my means? (?) (?) Maybe I should stop buying books and CDs and start squirrelling some money away. Who knows!

[blues2cruise]

Get an e-reader..then you can download books....cheap....or get books from the library....

Then you can save that cash for travel.

Music? Borrow and copy or download...cheap....

Our libraries here have CD's available.....how about yours?

As Nike would say.......

Just Do It.

[dr_bar]

Well, I don't have that behemoth bike to threaten you with anymore... LOL

[sv-wolf]

The motorcycle season dawdles to its close in the South-East of the UK, with occasional sunny days still bursting through the autumn blanket of grey skies. You have to take the days as they come now. There is no telling what the weather will be. Yesterday it was in trickster mode, beginning cold but turning unseasonally warm in the afternoon until everyone was cursing the additional riding layers they had put on. It was the day of the Copdock bike show. The show takes place every year at the Suffolk showground under big East Anglian skies. It was first conceived several decades ago as a small event for aficionados of vintage bikes but has grown year by year to become one of the biggest bike events in the country. On arrival and continuing throughout the morning the air reverberated with the roar of exhausts and was heavy with the smell of petrol fumes as thousands of bikes poured onto the site. And it is a great show. Right now it has hit a sweet spot: it's bustling and varied, and it has a sense of occasion about it, but it has yet to become predictable and commercialised. Hundreds of traders are packed onto the site, but most of them are small. A good number of stands are held by individuals trying to sell auto-jumble, old bikes and other gear. There's an amateurish feel about the event. It's personal and face to face, with many of the 'traders' more interested in having a good natter about bikes than selling you their stuff.

I rode out to Copdock with 15 or so other Five Counties club members. The route we took was along trunk roads (A505; A11; A14), busy and boring but the surrounding countryside is lovely this time of year. UK geography is very varied and complex, and the landscape can change noticeably every few miles. Copdock is only an hour and a half away from home on fast roads but the surrounding land is different; it's fresher and less contained than the rolling Hertfordshire hillsides. Mike, who has a house near the showground, had got there early and erected a small club gazebo, and with Issy, his wife, was dispensing cups of tea and biscuits when we arrived.

While there, I saw Graham Field flogging his book at a tiny stand. Graham is a long-distance adventure biker. He has just got back from his latest (short) jaunt to the Caucasus on his KLR and is busy writing up his (second) book for publication. He's a great character, modest, a good conversationalist, and an excellent writer. It took me a week to read his fat first book, In Search of Greener Grass, about his overland two-wheeled trip to Vladivostok: it was time well spent. The UK travel book market is saturated with accounts of motorcycle journeys these days. Ninety per cent of these books are little more than journal transcripts of 'what I had for breakfast' and 'how often I changed my wet socks' and sometimes 'why I felt miserable and wish I hadn't come'. For a journal, that's fine, but most of this stuff should never have been published. Graham's story-telling, though, is a feast. It's the genuine article.

I spent so much time talking to Graham and others who had stopped to question him about his journey and his bike that I didn't notice when everyone started packing up to go home. By the time I did and hurried back to the club gazebo where I had left all my gear, it had been packed up, too, and Mike and Issy were patiently waiting for me to return. Ho Hum!

The ride home was fast but a bit of a strain. Coming back from East Anglia to Hertfordshire in the late afternoon at this time of the year means that the setting sun is in your eyes all the way. Even with my lid's dark inner-visor down I still had many moments when I was riding semi-blind. Often, I couldn't make out the shape of the road, and had to rely on the barely discernible white lines directly ahead of me to keep me in lane.

Like you, Blues, I was riding on new tyres (or tires, for you Canadian types). I didn't have a problem with grip, since there are no corners or dodgy surfaces to negotiate on these trunk roads, and my new tyres were familiar: the same make and version as the old. But I was unused to their profile. I'd been doing a lot of motorway riding on my old ones and had got used to their being heavily squared off. When I did have to lean over on the way home, these new ones gave me a moment or two of surprise!

[blues2cruise]

Like you, Blues, I was riding on new tyres (or tires, for you Canadian types).