THE GOOD BUCK

I decided to buy my gorgeous bike after debating retro Triumph Bonneville, Harley Davidson Sportster and Kawasaki W650. The Bonny: (referred to as a Hinckley Bonneville) Plus: has the general look of the bike. You get the ‘authentic’ badge. Negative: look at those not-very-convincing engine fins, ugly. No kickstart.   Then the Sporty: Plus: pretty, nice sound, authentic. Negative: mag wheels (not spoked), no kickstart, not very weather resistant, thief magnet.   And the W650: Plus: looks great, kickstart, Japanese build quality and reliability, same pull and sound as Brit. Negative: Not authentic, handling (shocks) underwhelming.   What swung me, you’ll recall, is seeing how simply someone had cafe racer-ed one. Hump seat, acer handlebars, smaller indicators and a slip on exhaust end can.   So that was why I bought it. Looks great, sounds great, gets you home at night, and has the potential to make a beautiful cafe racer. I have ironed out the flat spot on the revs (simple fix), put on acer bars after I pranged it, and upgraded the shocks front and back. Now I have a sweet handling, pretty bike. I have been looking for the last 14 months for a decent cafe racer seat. The trouble is, the frame under the seat is sort of diamond shaped so you either have to find a seat made for this exact model of bike, (few, and mostly crap) make one yourself (tried and failed) or have someone cut out the rear frame and weld in a U shaped arse end (a bit extreme). Then last week I stumbled across this site in Thailand. (I thought it was the States as they take US dollars for payment.) Omega Racer. Amazing kit, made from scratch, to order. I saw this seat and new that it was *the* seat! Then it was just a matter of saving up for it. I looked at it all night. And all the next day. By the night time I broke and ordered it. £291. Not cheap but a one-time purchase and basically perfect. Then I took to looking at the rest of the site. The only tank to go with the standard seat size (the one I’d ordered) was this: Note the lugs on the side of the tank for knee pads. Or smooth like this: Nice, but not soul stirringly beautiful. Then I saw the Norton style tank. Just look at it! The contours are on both sides, can’t see that from these pictures. I realised this was the tank I wanted. But it was longer than standard, therefore requiring a shorter seat to be made. In a panic last night I emailed the guy, asked him if he’d not started making my seat could I change it. I literally lost sleep over it last night. I was worried sick I’d bought the wrong seat and would have to make do with second best. It would have ruined my chi, resenting my bike every time I saw it. He got […]

Still not dead. Although I keep coming close. Just thought I’d confirm I’m still here.   The source of my ongoing near death experiences, my bike, is a joy, as ever. I’ve replaced the front brake pads, clutch cable, upgraded the front shock absorber springs, upgraded the rear shocks, and, as it was rusty, took the swinging arm off, de-rusted it and resprayed it. Worrying when it’s at this stage: And the before and after of the new shocks: Now, although I think they look prettier, that isn’t the main thing. The thing is now I have stiffer suspension, front and back. I can ride over, say, the white lines and cats eyes between lane 2 and 3 without setting up a speed wobble. And throw it into fast corners without weaving. Neither phenomena being conducive to bowel control.   Also I’ve had the cunning idea of waking car drivers up. On a course I recently attended the guy was saying we are conditioned to look for cars, we don’t even notice we aren’t noticing bikes, and that one biker dies every single day. Yesterday, dead biker. Today, dead biker. Tomorrow, dead biker. So my theory is this: no one notices bikes, but we are all conditioned to notice blues lights. The more dangerous your driving the more you are looking out for them. So: As you can see that was daylight and the tiny little spots were outshining my headlight. The idea is not to fool people into thinking I’m a bike copper, just so that they notice I’m there. Still on my shopping list are louder pipes, a short rear mudguard and ‘plate holder, still want a seat hump if I can see one that I like, and possibly clip on handlebars. The clip ons are cheap enough, but then you have to buy mounting brackets for your headlight and a new (£200+) bit for on top of the forks, or you are left with the handlebar clamps with nothing in them, looking ugly. Possibly all new cables as well. Oh and new air filter to get rid of that big black bit of plastic under the seat. So, plenty to go at. And if you’re not into bikes, well shame on you.   Work is still groovy. I really want to hang in at this one and get taken on full time. It’s long and unpredictable hours, but it’s so easy and you are under no stress whatsoever. Here’s your job, see you whenever.   I’m having to ditch that 50 miler. I just don’t get the time to train. I’ve entered the Warrington half marathon again, which is on the same day, instead. Starting just outside my sister’s cafe this year.   Karate is progressing in fits and starts. The last two weeks I’ve been twice a week, but for a few weeks before that I only made it once a week. They have caught on to my Tae Kwon Do tricks now. Sparring today I […]

No, not Slim Shady, just me. I’ve been having a weird old time of it. Not enough work but too much. I can’t seem to get a steady 5 days but what shifts I get are buggering everything else up. Not enough time for karate or runs.  Last week I worked the Sunday as well, which is usually the only day I can guarantee I can get to karate. Then the bills have all hit at once. I let my motorbike insurance renew (full year’s riding, only one crash! Go me!) and the sneaky buggers didn’t renew the monthly payments, took it all at once. Cheaper in the long run, but a nasty surprise. When I was considering getting this bike the reviewer (here if you want a good read: http://www.realclassic.co.uk/kawasakiw650.html ) said the standard upgrades were to the carbs (done) and shocks. I’ve been putting them off because they are expensive and not high on my (purely aesthetic) cafe racer agenda. Anyway, last week as I tipped it into a corner the front end skipped out. Only an inch or so, too quick for me to react, but a wake up call. Usually when you lose the front end the first you know of it is watching the bike sliding away in a shower of sparks. I know whereof I speak. So stiffer, progressive, fork springs then, post haste. £130. *sad face* I got them and they said you can either fit them properly by taking the front end off, or do a half arsed job leaving the forks attached. Sweet. Half arsed it is. “Drain the fork oil out of the bottom of the forks.” No drain hole on this model. Of course. So front wheel off, brakes off, mudguard off, forks out. OK. Huge allen bolts holding the front wheel on, lots bigger than standard sizes in an allen key set. Ace. Shop. Turned one side other side span. Needed another huge allen key.  Shop. Finally got the wheel off and the rest was quite easy. Apart from the fork oil coming with the warning that ingestion is lethal. Inhalation is lethal. Skin contact causes cancer. Ace. I eventually got it all back together. My first tentative ride I couldn’t notice a difference, but the second day, throwing it into a really tight ‘40mph’ corner connecting two motorways the front end was solid as a rock. No juddering or skipping, massive difference. The weather was really baking and I was off on Wednesday so on a whim I rode to Whitby, home of the goths. It was a lot further than I’d thought, but a great ride out. When I got there I was well happy. My spiritual home. Goths and bikes. I don’t know if it was a special occasion but there were about 40 or 50 old bikes on the pier. Including a real live Vincent HRD! *we are not worthy, we are not worthy!* Here’s an advert for one if anyone is stuck for […]

Lots and not a lot happening since my last blog. Work went mad busy, loads of really long shifts. I was always buggered and I lost my mojo. Even on my days off I just wanted to rest and recuperate. No running, no karate. This last week had been a bit slack at work, I only got a 3 day week. And a twitter chum was asking for noob running advice, and I started to feel like a fraud so I forced myself to do a run. And that’s all it takes. The more you put it off the less you want to do it, as soon as you do it you are keen to do more. I’ve still not been to karate, but there is a good reason for that; I’m letting my new tattoo heal first. For my birthday present I treated myself to a righteous Sisters tat. That was still in the tattoo shop, the purple tinge is the transfer thing they put on to get the outlines. Today it’s looking like this: I love it! In other ‘stuff I love’, the bike is rocking my world. Still pretty. I saw an online tutorial on how to make your own cafe racer seat. The frame isn’t flat it’s flat up to the wide point, then kinks up at a steep angle, so I’m not sure a ‘universal’ seat would fit properly. Obviously if you make your own, on your own frame, it’s going to fit. So I set to. Polystyrene blocks, fancy glue, lots of sandpaper. I surprised myself, and stunned Wendy, by knocking up a bloody good mould.   That wasn’t the finished mould, but it was getting there. Then I just had to coat it in tape, then wax, then fibreglass to make the actual seat. I thought once I’d got the mould done that was the hard work finished. Just slap some fibreglass on, job’s a good ‘un. Could I get it to work? Could I buggery. Because the back is curved down and in I had to try and get the sheeting to fit it. I just couldn’t. It was going everywhere. In the end I sacked it off. Most miffed.   However, I had a bit of a success with that helmet Lisa’s neighbour gave me. I loved the look of it, but it had obviously been unused and going musty for years. Every time I put it on my hair smelled musty. I tried to track on down on the internet but I couldn’t find the same style anywhere. In the end I pulled the fabric out of the lid and machine washed it, whilst washing the attached bits by hand. It smells fine now. I’d forgotten what fun it is* being battered in the face by driving rain at *cough* 70mph *cough* (*none whatsoever). Right, I’ll update twitter and such later. I had a crap night’s sleep after the run on Thursday (legs glowing and restless) then yesterday afternoon I […]

So far, so bloody good. The job itself is pretty cushy, delivering to big Bookers/ Makros or whatever. These tend to be on industrial estates with lots of easy access. Then all you do is pull your curtains to let them get the pallets off the side of your trailer or jump on the back with a pump truck and move the pallets to the end for the fork lift to take off. The easiest option is when they have a proper dock so you just back up to it and they unload you, but they are not that common. Then it’s usually go to a relatively local factory or warehouse and pick up a load to take back to Haydock. They treat the drivers really well as well. On the curtain sided trailers they have a security cord that fits through all the fastens along the curtain, so you can’t open it. I went to one place, they said to open my curtains, so I pulled the cord through, looped it up on the catwalk between the cab and the trailer and pulled my curtains. Then they said to reverse into the bay area. Which I did. Then realised the catwalk is part of the cab, the cord is attached to the trailer, there was a lot of movement, the cord got snagged and snapped. Bollocks. At my last place that would have been ‘one strike’. I was expecting drugs and alcohol test and disciplinary procedure. I got back to the office and told them, they said “Go and put a new one on. Be more careful in future.” Wow. The downside to the job is the shift length. Either a bare 8 hours, or like last week, 15 hours, 13, 12 etc. I have been struggling trying to get to karate or do runs. I have talked to two drivers who are full time, probably they have been dragging the job out and grabbing (which I can’t get my head around. If you can go after 9 hours, I’m gone) but one of them said he made 45K last year, the other said 50K. This was in front of other drivers, so I don’t think they were bullshitting. For the full timers it’s something like £12 per hour days, plus 20% after 18.00, 25% after midnight, I think one of them said it was time and a third for overtime, time and three quarters for working your sixth shift. If you were doing a 60+ hour week that would soon add up. The agency have been doing what I want as well. I asked for mornings, the latest I’ve started was 10.30 I think, earliest was 05.30. Pretty much dead what I asked for. Today I asked if I could do regular Sun-Thurs, they said OK. Sent me a text saying work has been pretty slack at Bookers this week (I’ve been in all week, so didn’t know) but they’ve been giving me priority as Bookers ‘like my […]