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It’s taken me many, many years of wrongheadedness but I finally understand. All my life I’ve gone for bikes that look pretty; naked, air-cooled, poser chic. Today was my first proper ride out on the Widow-Maker. Plastic fairings hiding an ugly, water-cooled (admittedly awesome) V twin engine. Took her for a spin up to the Lake District, learning about the pains of sports bike riding on the way. My wrists! You seem to be supporting your whole, chunky-monkey, body weight on your wrists. I took the pressure off by supporting more of my weight with my back. Which then hurt my back like a bastard. Also, some fool has fitted this beast with hideously loud exhausts. My ears were ringing afterwards, even though I was wearing ear protectors the whole time. As soon as I got it home on Saturday I ordered some road legal end cans. Poor neighbours! So there’s the pain and the noise. Then I pulled off the motorway onto the twisty A roads of Cumbria. Oh. My. God! I’ve wrestled bikes around bends before now. Often. And some had some poke. Forget it. No comparison. She flicks from left to right through the bends effortlessly. Think about acceleration and you’re already there. Get nervous and the brakes have you. They could stop my truck, I think. The only thing is it’s ridiculously overpowered! I was doing 70mph (on the motorway!), thought it was a bit rev-y, (though only halfway to redline) so I tried changing up. I had two more gears! Also, even with my tenuous cornering, I could feel the front end getting light. Some good news about the end cans I was forced to buy to quieten the beast down. With my failing reading vision, squinting at my ‘phone, I thought it said stainless steel end cans, £244 for a pair, titanium, £249. For the sake of a fiver I ordered the snazzier ones. I looked again, on the PC, and it was £294.Bugger. Still a steal for what it is, but it’s purely to make it useable, I’m not *that* arsed how it looks. I emailed the seller (of both sets) on ebay and asked would it be possible to change my mind and get the cheaper ones. He consented and refunded me £81. Huh? Yep, seems he had a special deal on! Brilliant. There are a few niggles with the bike, very minor. One embarrassing one was it kept cutting out on tickover. The revs would drop below 1,000 and it would die. I was worried I’d bought a dud, but I googled it and the tickover is supposed to be 1,250 rpm. Found the knob, sorted it. That was after today’s ride. During the ride at every set of lights (or whatever) I was having to rev a stupidly loud bike like an idiot boy racer. I felt a right twat. Road legal end cans with the sorted tickover should cure that. There are a few other things. The right hand […]

I know, right? Immediate interest. I have had a moment of epiphany. All my life I’ve judged bikes by their aesthetics. How they look and sound. Over the last month or so I’ve completely changed my criteria. What about a bike that does bike things? Goes like stink, brakes, leans right over in corners? I was looking at the Suzuki SV650. It’s not pretty. It’s a 650cc V twin, so it has lots of torque and grunt. It’s water cooled and fuel injected so no messing about. And the best thing about the ugliness is, it’s occurred to me that while you are doing the death-or-glory business, you’ll never know what it looks like! Also, being a V twin, just by changing over the exhaust you get a glorious sound. https://youtu.be/x75_q8qjvmo I was all set on getting rid of my bikes and buying one of these. They are quite old now, and were budget to start with, so you can get a good one for £1,800. Then I stumbled across a review saying the standard dismissal of them as scaled down TL1000S’ wasn’t entirely true. Really? What’s a Tl1000S? This: OK, it’s got a bikini (half) fairing. And it remains ugly. But with added plastic ugliness. But what does it do? Here is someone opening one up. Don’t worry it wont take up many seconds of your life. https://youtu.be/5183T5TX1po That’s actually the TL1000R, the sanitised and sanity-ised version of the TL1000S. But you get the picture. I was reading up on the original, TL1000S, beast, Suzuki’s snub of the Ducati V Twin sports bikes, on Motorcycle News: “The Suzuki TL1000S is a motorcycle which has become the Freddie Kreuger of biking.” “will always retain the ability to scare the pants off you occasionally.” “The rear end starts moving, plus the front end of the TL1000S is liable to flap about as the sheer grunt lifts the front wheel. Result; one scared rider, and possible excursions into the scenery.” “barnstorming motor, even today, with 125bhp ready to kick your arse within two seconds of opening the throttle fully.”   Obviously this all sounds like a hoot. But I discounted it as they said the insurance was group 16 out of 17. Just so I could say “You’ll never believe what they wanted for insurance!” I did a mock quote. £155 p/a, fully comp, parked on the road. WHAT? The bikes are only £200 dearer than the SV650, the insurance is £20 more, and they are ridiculously scary fun. It’s a no-brainer. Apparently when they first came out they immediately gained a reputation for tankslapper crashes and one person died.Supposedly they sorted that out with steering dampers and better mapping of the fuel injection But they are still referred to as Widow Makers. In fact, you can google “V twin widow maker” if you forget the bike’s name. The bright side being, they are cheap as chips to buy! And possibly not as lethal as reputed. Possibly. More on that story later. […]

Work is being weird. I got my contract, a few days later Tesco’s bought us out, so we were scared of being replaced by Eddie Stobarts drivers. Then last week, less than 3 months into my 3 days a week, 6 month temp-to-perm contract, they asked would I be interested in a full time contract. Hell yes! Even if it all goes tits up when the merger finally shakes out, at least I’ll have a year (say) of full time and a better contract when the axe falls.  To clarify, I’ve not been offered a full time job, just asked would I be interested as there as some coming up. Even if I’m at the front of the queue for one of the jobs I might not want it,it could be nights or something. I want a full time contract but not that badly. I can get 5/6 day weeks on days as it is.   We (I say ‘we’, I mean me) had a spending spree which we are now paying off. I painted the bedrooms and made a right mess of the carpets. They were the cheapest we could find when we moved in which was 11 years ago so I wasn’t that arsed. Until I priced the replacement. £180 for underlay, £750 for carpet, then a Dyson as our generic hoover was crap, £220 for the car MOT and repairs, a few other outlays, suddenly shitloads of debt. All of that seemed to happen at once, but I wasn’t bothered as I’d landed my super job, then Tesco’s, now it’s a flat out race to pay it all off, just in case. One bit of debt I’ve added was totally the right thing to do.  I was obsessing about the soprano sax as it’s small and portable, then I got the smaller alto case and it made the alto a better proposition. But that cheapo, own brand sax I had was inconsistent. It kept squawking on the A note. I could play A, move up and down a few notes, come back to A and it wouldn’t play. I tried a stiffer reed, a different ligature, (the device that holds the reed to the mouthpiece)  loads of different embouchure positions, still patchy.  Bad workman and all that, but it wasn’t happening on the tenor. I read some more about Gear4Music and the reviews were not kind. “box shifters, not a music store” in other words they just ordered it in from China and shipped it out to the customer. No checks, set up, etc. Pig in a poke. I started looking around and found a 10 month plan on a new Yamaha alto. It’s a learner model but the reviews say it’s so good they are wondering why people would spend twice as much for the intermediate. The thing was, I was getting frustrated with my cheapo and not playing it. If I got the Yamaha I knew the problem was all me being crap. Wendy encouraged […]

Well, it was all going so well. I’d got over my bollock dropping of a few weeks ago. In point of fact, technically, I may not have missed a rota-ed shift. They got my shifts mixed up so thought I was working Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, so the Sunday was officially, mistakenly, my rest day. That’s by the by, not a word said about it, move on. So last week I got it sussed. 6 shifts, 65 hours, 2 weekend days (+20%), 11 hours 45 sixth shift (time and three quarters!) laughing all the way to the bank! Happy, happy Bucky. Then, on my sixth shift the news came through the company had been bought out. By a company that uses Stobarts for their logistics. Not just because they initially thought to have a third party logistics provider, but because they actually sacked off their unionised, well paid, driving division and brought in Stobarts. Fucking super. Things like triple time for bank holidays, time and three quarters for sixth shift, overtime at +20%, working past 18.00 20%, midnight- 06.00 +25%, everything that raises our wages from ok, to bloody great, all gone if we get Stobarts. To say nothing of being treated well, never pushed, stressed, and never being treated like shit. Nothing any of us can do. We just have to wait to see what happens. I’m not optimistic. They only have to look at Stobarts driver, 29k max, then us, 44K possible, and rub their hands. Ho hum. I thought I’d landed my job for life. Shit. So there goes the 50k retirement pad in Spain (even if Theresa the Appeaser doesn’t totally bollocks it up with Europe) and the 10K Triumph Thruxton. Not to mention the Morgan 4-4 I wanted for Wendy when she passes her test. I mean, look at it: If you’re popping to Sainsbury’s for a loaf of bread, that’s the general utility vehicle within which you want to travel. Practical, unassuming, modest, cheap. Absolutely none of those things. The one pictured might have issues as it’s *only* £18k, usually at least £10k dearer. Talking of which, no sign of a rush to buy that, the doctors still haven’t even filled in her medical form from the DVLA. Bastards.   The Spanish lessons went tits up as well. Introduction to holiday Spanish, I was thinking, “Hello my name is Buck. One beer, please. Do you have the number of the British Embassy? Please don’t press charges.” That sort of thing. The first lesson was just that. Well, the “hello, my name is” bit. The second lesson he gave us a list of Spanish sentences we’d never seen before two lists of words and wanted us to fill in the blanks. It wasn’t until the next morning I worked out the first list of words were pronouns and the second list were conjugations of the verb. (“Is”, I think.) It wasn’t just me being thick, Wendy was baffled. Other people were saying “Sorry, I don’t understand […]

First things first, seems my new job has strict policies on social media, such as tweeting or blogging using their name. So I won’t. Which is a shame because it is the best job with the best company, but rules are rules. Last week I did two days of induction and started work. As I said I’m starting on a 6 month, temp- to- perm, 3 day  a week contract. They said that if I wanted more work I could request it in the overtime book, first come, first served, but usually always get a shift. I did my induction 2 days,but it was too late to request the following day. I booked the rest of the week and this week (around my rota-ed Sat/Sun/Mon) and got work on every day. 6 straight shifts. Then I legally had to take 2 days off. So that has answered that question. Yes, I can make my hours up. Also they do overtime rate for anything over 45 hours a week, 1.75 rate for a sixth shift, up to treble time for a bank holiday, match your pension contributions up to 5% of earnings, company share scheme that makes a profit but guarantees your investment in case of share drop…Honestly, this is a golden goose that just keeps laying. Plus all the standard stuff that I have been lacking on agency/ self employed such as sick pay, union, holiday pay (HOLIDAY PAY! I remember that!) And, outside of the pay and benefits, the job itself is great. Supportive, helpful, not pressured.  I love it. After some of the jobs I’ve done…I’m never leaving. My first day was a bit epic. I levered a post into position on my trailer, thought it had locked in place, took my hand away, then it sprang open and smacked me in the face.   It was only a scratch, but as you can see it bled a lot. I got a plaster and I was fine. I had to fill in an accident form when I got back “Time with company?” 3 days! Lol. In other news, I’ve sacked off the flute. It was a portable means to an end. To whit, to learn the sax. But I just couldn’t get up enough enthusiasm to force myself to play it.  I’ve bought a cheap, new, alto sax (a bit smaller and higher pitched than my tenor and just about fits in my work bag.) I wanted to get the same brand as my tenor (Bauhaus). I struck lucky with that, I bought it by chance just before they became a respected brand and put the price up. But I’ve read good reviews about the alto, so I gave it a shot. I love it. Nice sound, very easy to blow. By the way, it’s supposed to look like that, it’s “vintage”. *hard stare to camera* I’ve been lugging it to work and playing it on my breaks. Sod’s law I’ve not been forced to sit around for […]