Comment February 2023

 

It has been a difficult time since Christmas with health issues not being on my side drifting from feeling under par to being just not well. I managed to get to the Wey Valley meeting in January on the eighth but was working in the garage the next day working on a brake calliper and had a trip. I landed on a hard bit of the bike and winded myself. I had a very tender spot on the back of my rib cage. I have never encountered such a painful injury. I could not breathe properly and sleeping could only be achieved laying on my back laying on my right or left side just pushed air out of my lungs and I could not breathe. This stayed with me for about three weeks slowly improving but I did not feel right for about a month. In between I experienced the delights of A&E for five hours. That was a visit to record. I could empathise with the nurses and the pressure they are under. All they say is true. It is an accident waiting to happen and I think their skill and dedication avoids the disaster. I was examined behind screens with no bed. The bed was in use in the corridor. As soon as I was decent the screens were whipped aside and another patient was wheeled in on another bed. Patients were lined up on chairs nursing injuries. This conservative government has caused this with years of cut backs while lining their own pockets. All of the public services are failing through lack of funding. Now is the time to revolt. In the film Oliver the simple cry “More” was responded to by an unsympathising Lord or in this case Prime Minster. They need to go now before everything is gone.  The Nurses are not the bad guys here. We should join them on the picket lines to protest. The Work house mentality still exists with our Tory leaders it has filtered into every corner of our lives. Every little bit of help for the needy has already been removed from our society replaced by greed from those who have more than enough. My last thought on the political scene is that if we are doing so well as a country why are there so many food banks? Unheard of ten years ago! All of this along with an infection that would not go away made most of January an half of February an experience to forget. I had a break with the family at Centre Parcs, great for the kids, but not so sure that experiencing the water features there was a good idea for me. Swimming for me is slow drowning and the rapids experience left me a little battered and the flume left me stranded in the middle. We did a lot of walking that I felt better for doing. When we got home the Buell was taken in for service and a fettle as it had not been used much over the last year and needed a few things for the MOT.

You may think that all is not well and you will be close to the mark there but there is a ray of sunshine to brighten my world. It arrived in the post and it is the MAG magazine “Open Road” In it I have two articles “ The roof of the world” an abridged version of my trip up the Himalayas in 2019 edited expertly by Mutch the editor and the London Classic off road and racing show. This has now been passed on to those courageous guys who looked after me on that trip.

January 2023

 

January 2023.

 

As the first Sunday of the month was the First of January it was decided that the Observed runs would take place on the 8^th. Understandable because of getting up early to go out on your bike and concentrate after just going to bed from the revelries. Can anyone remember how wet it was? The first bike club meet of the year. It was wet but had stopped raining and the standing water was disappearing. I was there by nine to help man the club shop. It was to be an administrative morning to go through the stocks and create orders. Necessary and time consuming and completed by mid day. Heavy showers had come and gone and I was looking forward to a dryish ride home on the Kawasaki. I started off with the sun shining but that didn’t last as I progressed through driving rain. The M25 was stationary so I came home from Cobham via Walton and Ashford and Hayes. The route was waterlogged with long stretches of the roads almost flooded.  It was a good test for my new Oxford Advanced jacket and pants. I was slightly damp in the nether regions by the time I got home but I was mostly dry. Quite reasonable for a budget outfit I thought. Nothing I have bought before has kept me quite so dry.

On the Monday I slipped and fell in the garage when working on the last piston on the second 2CV front brake calliper. I hurt my back and this has curtailed progress for doing things. It has forced me to do some reading. 

I began with catching up on circulars and newsletters among them was the one from  the British Motorcycle Charitable Trust that announced the number of Free Admissions would be ending soon and that due to the economic climate the BMCT card would only allow a 50% reduction in entry fee for most museums on their list. Not sure this will help their membership much unless you are a regular museum visitor. From this newsletter I have a museum to visit in Gillingham, Kent. The Royal Engineers Museum. This has reminded me of a quest from when volunteering at The London Motorcycle Museum. It was finding the third in the trio of motorcycles that were tested by the military in 1949 to be the machine of choice. The bikes were Triumph TRW, Douglas DV60 and BSA. Triumph won the day and I managed to locate a Douglas but the BSA eluded me. It was still in military hands and in one of the REME facilities but no one knew which one.

I mentioned Dorothy Levitt, earlier, the fastest lady around in 1903 but there are other contenders like Olga Kevelos from the fifties who rode in ISDTs and the Scottish, rode for Honda in the Maudes Trophy team and amassed a number of  Gold and Silver medals. There is a book about her I would like to read called “Playing with the Boys”. The book I have read is one by tom Bartlett Motorized Bicycles. From Motorbikes to Mopeds to Ebikes first published 2010. It is the American look at these machines and views of what has been done. It is interesting in the difference the regulations are to the approach of the builder. In the UK we are stifled by having to register a motorised bicycle electric or otherwise whereas if it still is a basic bicycle in America you can have 100cc engines and loads of electric power and no safety gear insurance or road tax but as important a freedom to build what you want. It has put thoughts in my head of what to do with a Honda 35cc outboard engine.

Early in the month the Open Road magazine form MAG landed in my porch. This is the January/February issue with the report of the demonstration in Hackney. You have seen some of these pictures I have taken before. Nice to see them in print.

London Classic Off Road and Racing Show 2022

 

London Classic Off Road and Racing Show

December 3^rd 2022

 

It had a feel of an on-off build up to this show. Wey Valley pulled out because there was a more important thing for the members to do that Saturday. Understandable but it did leave me in a predicament of how to fill the stand with five bikes. I sent out a plea to MAG to generate numbers. Fortunately Spen responded and then sent out a plea to local MAG members. From nothing I had three people and three bikes. I was persevering with Wey Valley and had one taker but he contacted me that he could no longer come as his BMW 1200 had be stolen off his drive. A few days later I was contacted by Chris and he could display his Triumph T100. Things were getting better. I sent out requisite application forms to be filled in on-line. The theme of Adventure Bikes was lost but what more could I put on the stand to invite the visitors in. An inspiration struck me, I had read in the LE club magazine about an artist who travelled around to vistas in remote place in the Dales on his LE with a stack of art accessories to be able to paint the scenes in situ. He was Henry Mortimer Batten a well known journalist and broadcaster for the BBC in the 1920’s and the article was written by Paul Elliott who described some of Henry’s life and his appreciation of this motorcycle. I have my LE with a few accessories, some off road paintings I did fifty years ago with an old easel and equally old paint box and paints. I had a bit of astro turf to add ambience. I prepared my old Mac with videos of my trip to India on a Himalayan. Other than assembling and loading my bike trailer I was good to go. Spen, Graeme and Nic from MAG, Chris from Wey Valley and myself made the team for the event.

Thursday I built the trailer, Friday I loaded it with my LE and filled the EL Cid with props and delivered everything to the stand at Kempton ready for an early start on Saturday. This year the stand was on the first floor and bike access was by wheel chair ramp. Riding up it was interesting with a cold engine and shuffling it around the tight turn mid way was physical. Bigger bikes would have problems.

Saturday was a cold start and everyone arrived in good time finding alternative ways in using the goods lift. The stand was finally decorated with posters, a painting and the MAG banner. I should have brought my selection of coat hangers and pliers for hanging the banner. In all I was happy to have a presentable stand with interesting bikes to display. There was a great deal of interest in Nicks Norton Commando which had been much modified, Graeme’s Guzzi V7 and Chris’s T100 throughout the day. My LE proved to be a spark that brought people to the stand and prospective members for the LE Club. The IAM and Wey Valley were doing well and MAG was doing their bit.

Everyone had a chance to see what was at the show even viewing prospective purchases. The main event at the show were interviews with the former Speedway Champion Peter Collins. More interesting for me was who was doing the interviewing.

It was none other than LE Club Historian and Motorcycle Journalist Denis Frost. That name may ring a bell with Motorcycle road tests in the distant past. There were interesting bikes among them was this Benelli. Very much like the Aermacchi of that era.

It had been a long cold day and we started wrapping up at three in the afternoon. Even so there was still interest in the LE from one gentle man who had limited internet access. He was a little disappointed that the Club had moved away from paper. Where can you get membership to a club that is not on-line now? My advice was to get a friend to help him with the on-line application. Perhaps a Christmas present? It took me an hour to load up everything that I had brought including the LE and equally as long to unload it. As it was now dark a secured the trailer outside and dismantled it and put it away the next morning.

November 2022

 

November 2022.

 

An interesting month with finally getting to see my GP about ongoing health issues from having had Covid which have left me under the weather and not my usual energetic self. Even the cat was sick. Enough said. At the Observed Sunday it was raining so hard that I took the El Cid to the meeting. The driver’s wing mirror was a little out of place and I thought I would give it a little tweak to better position it and it came off in my hand. The internal bracket had broken. A job to do when I got home. It was a bit more complicated than that. I needed to get access behind the mirror glass. Fortunately the rubber was so old and hard it disintegrated under a little pressure. The broken bracket could now be removed and a replacement was found in my store of bits along with a new nut and bolt. I had to wait a few days for set of replacement rubbers from ECAS 2CV spares to complete the job. Looks nice again. 

The continuing saga of things for the van was sorting out the front brake callipers. Both had seized with lack of use. The dilemma was how to push them out when they are no longer connected to the system. A novel approach suggested by my brother Adrian was to make up a piston on a screw thread that could compress brake fluid and so force the calliper pistons to come out. To make the piston I enlisted the help of my engineering friend Bob. After a few days Bob had made the item and I set about the job of removing the pistons from the callipers. I have done one piston from one side of a calliper. It is not a quick job screwing down the piston and recharging from the bleed nipple as you undo the bolt. I may or may not be finished by Christmas.

I gave the Buell a run out one Sunday morning in sunshine and a warm start descended into bone chilling cold as I went up the M40 towards Oxford. Fog was never far away and it was not long before my outing was curtailed and I returned home. Another day ,after giving the Valiant a run out I seem to have got the ignition right for the carburetion to be right. How many weeks, on and off, have I been playing with it?  Any way it is now good enough to get parked at the back of the garage and get the LE out for the London Classic Off Road and Race Bike Show. Washed, polished and fired up it was prepped for the event. I only had to get the props out of storage to be ready. 

A bit of effort had to go into this one as Wey Valley had the toy run the same day and I could not rely on their support. The Le Club was similarly unavailable. I contacted Spen from Motorcycle Action Group to see if anyone from them would like to help out. Fortunately for me they were or it would have been me on my own. I had one taker from Wey Valley, Chris, to help out. I had five bikes for the display. They were standard bikes, but as you know you don’t need a specific off road bike to go off road and that was the theme.

October 2022

 

October 2022

 

Where has October gone? Early on I was in Norfolk then later that week I was in Barnsley for an eightieth birthday travelling in the Burton on both occasions followed by the Hackney protest on the Kawasaki and Vee day At the Ace cafe that I attended on the Valiant. 

The next week was filled with travelling to the Nehru Centre for performances by Gita and the concurrent exhibition of arts and crafts from all the states of North East India around Assam. During the week I did a cursory check of the Toyota and managed to dislocate my thumb dealing with an unrelated electrical connector I was trying to crimp up that didn’t crimp. The following week was MOT time with tests booked for the Toyota and Burton. The Toyota failed and required new front brake discs and pads that required a return to the garage on the Friday for the work to be done. That was Tuesday, Thursday it was Burton MOT at the station I use in Isleworth that has done all my 2CV MOTs for years and know my cars well. On checking the Burton over I found the brake lights not to be working. I was not able to fix it in time so had to cancel the MOT. I spent the Thursday fixing it by fitting a new wire as I could not locate the exact point of the problem in the harness. The Toyota was delivered to the garage on the Friday. We filled the garage time by walking around Feltham avoiding the showers and sampled the delights of the local Weatherspoons. I had a Ruddles best and a burger on offer for just four pounds. With deals like that it would be difficult to stay away. Gita was driving because my thumb was still very painful and got about a mile down the road we could smell something very hot and when we stopped in traffic there was smoke pluming up from the nearside front wing. It was the left front brake pads smoking and almost on fire. Needless to say we returned to the garage. It took some time to fix but most of that was waiting for replacement pads. The ones first fitted were faulty. Just my luck to have a faulty set of pads. It is a rule for me in that if things can go wrong they will go wrong. Have you ever heard of faulty brake pads? All fixed and nothing more to pay I went home with an MOT. Saturday we went to Bristol for my elder brothers’ birthday, Barry. For eighty years old he is still a good dancer supported during the evening by the Jive and Ballroom dance clubs and an excellent local band. While in Bristol I collected a little four stroke outboard engine that my other brother Adrian had and no longer needed. He thought there was a problem with it in that while being used it slowed and finally stopped. I would try to get it running again at some point. Back home and Monday was Dewali with a celebration meal cooked or really created by my Master Chef Gita for the family. Wednesday was the rescheduled MOT for the Burton. My thumb was feeling much better after it clicked back into place over the weekend. The Burton passed and is good for another year. 

Over the next few days I got the little engine running, found a set of 2CV brake callipers in the loft of my garage cleaned them up ready for fitting, cleaned the rust off the front pipe and silencer box and gave them a thick coat of black heat resistant paint. When that was dry made two new hanger brackets from some galvanise sheet. I don’t feel I have done much in October.

Comment Time October 2022

 

October 2022 Comment.

 

I avoid being political on the blog because I do not want to labelled with being one party or another but I have seen many dubious acts by our politicians that defies belief and only confirms how corrupt they are, but our current Prime Minister has endeared no one with a reduction in tax that pretends to be beneficial to the country’s economy. Inflation that is running close to twenty percent for our food bill and energy at how many percent means that most low income people will be cold and hungry this winter. I was appalled at the budget with the decrease in higher rate of tax. It was obvious it was a reward for her mates and everyone knows if the rich get money they keep it and whinge like hell if they can’t even if they have so much money it doesn’t make any difference. Why not be benevolent if you take some off the bottom add some at the top. That is levelling up. One percent tax for the people who have nothing is still nothing. One percent added to the top is dramatic. The masses need money to survive if they have nothing the economy shrinks. This inflation we see is the result of printing money to pay for Covid. All of Europe gave people support in that time and is now being paid for. It will take years to sort out and we will all be poorer at the end of it.

I worked in the NHS for forty years doing my bit. In 2008 there was the banking crisis. Generate by unregulated greed. There is no sympathy from me but the real sufferers were the NHS and public services.  The money had to come from somewhere and since 2008 there have been successive cuts to budgets and changes in services which have come to a head now. Pay has never been good in the NHS but now the work force has been beaten into submission and can no longer cope with the expectations of receiving a very good standard of care. There are not enough people to do the work and Covid along with the government has driven them away. Those courageous people who still keep things running are martyrs but I’m not sure they can keep going much longer. There is still no money to pay for anything. I guess that borrowing more money will be the only solution because heaven knows why people who have billions need so much dosh. It is obscene. The people from our history who had that much money did something with it. All those statues of people you did not know of built schools, universities, hospitals and invested in public works that benefited the community. I see none of that coming forth from our current batch of business men.

I could go on but that could be boring and a bit more down to earth Hackney council motorcycle parking charges. I have had one rant about this along with Genghis Khan’s ULEZ and it was time for action. Organised by the Motorcycle Action Group, MAG, a protest ride around Hackney town centre took place on Saturday 8th October. About one hundred bikes gathered to make our voices heard and added to the traffic congestion in the centre of town.  It was an experience for us in promoting camaraderie but I’m not sure it had much effect other than being visible for over an hour repeatedly going by the council offices several times. The traffic was so dense it took ages to circumnavigate Hackney but when engines were too hot and clutch fingers frayed were retired to the Dark Arts cafe for refreshments and a well earned rest along with rallying speeches about what to do next. If you want to have a say email the council offices directly on their web site. Hackney is not the only council wanting to do this. If Hackney wins then we will have lost London to the unimaginative and blinkered who cannot seem to see that two wheeled transport is a solution to a problem. A little insight into Hackney is there are so many not so legal e-scooters and electric bicycles why are they so hell bent on getting rid of motorcycles? WE pay more road tax than most cars and are insured which all the bicycles, e-scooters and e-bicycles are not AND we obey the Highway Code.

September 2022

 

September 2022

 

Life has been going at a pace with interruptions from colds and infections. I’m sure I’m not right yet. In Hackney on Colvestone road is the Rebellion Blue plaque for Dorothy Levitt “Fastest Girl in the World” learning to drive in 1902 was trained as a mechanic and chauffer she got the speed bug and was winning races from the start. Not satisfied with racing cars she turned to boats and held the water speed world record in 1903. She held a number of world records up to the First World War. She wrote books on motoring and even invented the rear view mirror using her make-up mirror from her compact strategically placed in the car. Who would have thought someone so ‘dare devil’ lived just a short distance from a Primary School? A notice for Girl Power if there ever was one but I’m sure few people take much notice of the Blue plaque and its significance.

Giving the El Cid a rest and wanting to put some miles on the Burton I had a number things planned, like the 2CV Club night, the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcyclists trade faire and the model railway exhibition at Whitewebbs Museum. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of that week all of which I missed. Sunday I was on my way to the Norfolk Broads for some quality time with my Brothers. I popped into the Museum on the way and saw four of the model engines I had built running. Number five had been working but had expired by the time I arrived. I had built them in the early eighties when working away from home. It was a real treat to see them performing again on the tracks at the museum.Arriving at the museum it turned out to be Morris Minor day and to my surprise  I was invited to display the Burton while I was there. 

The Norfolk Broads, specifically Martham, has a very good DIY store where you can get everything from tow ball covers to household fittings, rope, tools galore and paint for any job. It was a must visit place for me as I was able to replace the tow ball cover lost in Spain and another one for the Burton. It was a good escape to some fresh air with some sailing and trips out using a new lightweight outboard devised by Adrian using a 50cc two stroke strimmer engine. It worked well with a centrifugal clutch that had lighter springs that allowed the drive to disengage just above tickover instead of half way up the rev range. There was some fettling to be done to get the most out of the engine that probably needs a less aggressive propeller to make the most of the revs and power from the engine.

Back home and the fuel economy from the Burton returned 54mpg. Not bad from a thirty-five year old engine. Home a couple of days and Gita and I were off to Barnsley for an eightieth birthday party. The Burton returning 49mpg for that trip. Not quite so good but it is up hill going north.