Motorcycling

Two Wheel Training

/ masher / 4 Comments

Today, Son has taken his Mod1 motorcycle test.
In the bloody freezing cold!

I’m pleased to say that he passed.

He has his Mod 2 later this week. Assuming he passes that – and his instructor is confident that he will – he will then have a full motorcyle licence… sort of.

To get to this stage, he had to pass his CBT (Compulsary Basic Training) first.  He did this on Saturday. This then allowed him to take his Mod 1 (Module 1), which he did today.  Passing that then allows him to go onto Mod 2 (later this week) and passing that will give him what’s known as an A2 licence.  This allows him to ride bikes with a limited horsepower.

He has to hold this licence for two years, before he can go on to apply for his full A licence, which then allows him to ride unrestricted.

This is a good thing, I think.

Back in my day (I took my test in 1979), we booked a test, passed it and then went straight out and bought the biggest, most powerful bike we could afford.  As a result, plenty of guys, unable to handle such powerful machines, or not fully understanding that a mix of youth, testosterone and high horsepower can be deadly, sadly ended up as roadkill.

The new system, though possibly infuriating to some, allows them time to get to know how a bike handles on the road and how, as a motorcyclist, you need to treat every car driver as a potential idiot who is going to pull out on you.

It would be interesting to see how much of an impact this new (well, it’s new to me) system has had on reducing the number of motorcycle accidents.

Chilly Willy

/ masher / 3 Comments

The motorcycle club that I belong to have some real die-hard bikers: guys that will ride any distance in any weather.

I’m not one of them.

I used to be, back in the day. I used to ride in all weathers: dry, warm and sunny to windy, cold and wet. I even used to ride in the snow – mainly because back then, my motorcycle was my only form of transportation… apart from my pushbike.

But, once I’d got a car, the bike very quickly became a warm weather vehicle. Notice I said ‘warm’, not ‘hot’.  When the degrees are up in the high twenties, I’d much rather be in an air-conditioned car than sweltering in leathers at a set of traffic lights.  In fact, I’ve become a very temperate rider: I don’t like it too hot and I don’t like it too cold.  Baby Bear’s porridge is just the right temperature for me.  Call me Goldilocks if you wish.

Guys at the club rib me and say I am a wuss for not riding all year round, as they do.

Each January, they do a ride called the Chilly Willy, which raises money for a local hospice or something.  I determined that this would be the year I would brave the weather and join them.

I didn’t.

The fact is, that nowadays I ride for fun. I ride for the sheer joy that motorcycling gives me.  And I get absolutely no joy whatsoever, riding when it’s freezing bloody cold and/or wet!

So, the die-hards can make fun and call me whatever – me and my steed won’t be joining them until the roads are nice and dry and the mercury in my thermometer gets within decent reach of 18° C.

Sunday, Sunday, So Good To Me

/ masher / 1 Comment

As Sunday’s go, yesterday’s was a pretty good one.

The weather was perfect – if maybe on the slightly chilly side, early on – as I rode up to Bletchley Park to meet up with a couple of mates for our annual Nerds Day Out. It was a lovely morning and the ride was most enjoyable – tempered only by some irritating roadworks that I should have known to avoid, as they’ve been there for ages.

Despite having visited many times, one of our little group had never been, so we had a good excuse for us to go again.  Not that I need an excuse: I must have been a dozen times already, but I still always learn something new whenever I go.

We looked around many of the huts and also made the obligatory (for us) trip to the National Radio Museum, before grabbing some lunch in Hut 4 and then going to see the Bombe.

After several hours, we’d seen enough, bade our farewells and we each went our seperate ways.

Back home, I had time for a quick cup of tea before I took the dog out and then Mrs M and I jumped in the car and headed to Milton Keynes.

We had just enough time time to shove a Nando’s down our necks before quickly heading to the theatre to see Ben Elton in his Authentic Stupidity tour.

He was this: fucking excellent.

I won’t write a review here, because many others can do it so much better, so I’ll just say: he didn’t disappoint.

That phrase could similarly sum up my Sunday as a whole.

In the words of every failed contestant on Bullseye, “I’ve had a lovely day”.

Biking Breakfast #2

/ masher / 4 Comments

“We must meet up again for breakfast, some time.”

We’ve been saying that for the past couple of years, the illustrious Mr Jones and I, but finally the stars aligned and yesterday we met up at the Two Flags Café on the A47 at Oakham – a popular haunt for leather-clad loonies it would seem, judging by the number of bikes that turned up whilst we were there.

Of course, we also both trundled up on our two-wheeled steeds: me on my rather sedate Triumph and he on his Kawasaki nut job Ninja… with the mirrors folded in for extra speed.

The All Day Breakfast was a little pricey, I felt, but when it arrived… good lord! There was enough for two! Proper full monty. Kept me going right till lunchtime, that did.

We chatted for a good couple of hours and then bade our farewells.

Having taken the quicker (duller) route up the A1 to get there, I decided to take the more scenic roads for the ride home.

The sun was shining, the roads were delightfully empty, I had a full belly and the Rolling Stones were playing in my helmet.

As motorcycling goes, it really doesn’t get much better than that.

Biking Breakfast

/ masher / 4 Comments

I’ve known Adz for some 25 years or more: a work colleague of old and a fellow motorcyclist.

But, in all that time, whilst we have often talked bikes, we have never actually been on a rideout together.

Well, that situation was remedied yesterday morning, when we met up and took a ride up to the Super Sausage for breakfast – well, second breakfast in my case.

“The Sausage” is a well known biker’s haunt and on a Sunday morning – which seems to be the most popular time for us leather-clad enthusiasts to all get together and go riding – it is absolutely packed, with the queue for food stretching out in to the car park, which itself is chocca with bikes of all shapes and sizes.

But, on a Monday… very different.

It was great to catch up with Adz and discuss the old days (and the old firm) over a cracking full English breakfast – though I think I’ll go for the Small next time as my Medium was bloody huge.

And the ride itself was most enjoyable, even if slightly cooler weatherwise than I had anticipated (I’ll admit to turning my heated grips on… in August!)

I’m hoping for more of the same next week… weather permitting.

Le Weekend

/ masher / 7 Comments

Ahh, Le Weekend… to coin a phrase nicked from us by the French.

Just because we nicked cul-de-sac from them.

Le tit pour la tat.

Or, should it be la tit pour le tat… what with tits being feminine and all?

I dunno.

Anyway… it was a good weekend because – despite the very blowy weather brought on by storm Kathy, I managed to get the bike out for a few hours, for the first time this year.

Saturday was a couple of hours up and down the A5, just to blow away the cobwebs. And then on Sunday, I met up with a couple of mates and we headed out for breakfast at one of our favourite biker cafés on the A10.  It was still a bit chilly, but my heated jacket did a marvelous job of keeping me toasty.

And we weren’t alone: it was packed in there.  I could barely hear myself think, as I tucked in to my Set 1 Breakfast – sausage, bacon, egg, beans and fried slice all washed down with a cup of slosh. Marvelous!

As we rode along some of the country lanes though, I found myself dismayed at the amount of fly-tipping… it seems to be getting worse. Rubbish everywhere. These people should be strung up!

Sunday afternoon, Mrs M and I decided to go out for a Sunday roast at a pub in the village up the road. To get there, we went along some of those very same country lanes that I’d travelled in the morning on my bike, but this time we were in her car.

Parked in a lay-by on one of these lanes where there was a lot of fly-tipped rubbish, was a black Astra. It’s boot was open and I could see lots of black bags full of rubbish, stowed in the back. A man and a woman appeared to be dumping their rubbish here.  I wound down the car window so that I could hurl some abuse at them as we passed.

But then, as we got closer, I noticed they weren’t dumping rubbish at all… on the contrary, they were wearing rubber gloves and were picking up the rubbish and bagging it and then putting it in their car… to take to the tip, I assume.

Rather than hurl abuse, I leaned out of the window and gave them a round of applause as we went past.

There are some bloody idiots out there, but there are some damn-right heroes as well.

Bike

/ masher / 4 Comments

My bike insurance is due this month and my insurance company – with whom I have been fora few years now – have just sent me the renewal premium.

It has gone up from £146 to £255.  An increase of seventy-five percent!

Yes… 75%  !!

I’ve not made any claim in the last year.

I’ve not even contacted them –  at all – in the past 12 months.

And yet they have hiked it up considerably.

And it makes me laugh how, on the letter, it says I can ‘relax’ because they will take the payment from my bank account automatically.

Like fuck, will they!

When the time comes to renew in a couple of weeks, I shall  compare some meercats and will undoubtably secure a better deal with another company.

I will then phone my existing insurer to cancel my policy with them and the conversation will go like this, as it always does:

“I’d like to cancel my policy, please.”

“Sorry to hear that. Can I ask why?”

“Yes. I’ve just received my renewal premium and you have increased it by 75%… for no reason.”

“Unfortunately the cost of insurance is rising throughout the whole sector.  But, let’s see if I can get it any better for you.”

There will be a minute of silence whilst he taps away at his computer and then “OK, I think this is better. How does a hundred and sixty pounds sound?”

“That does sound much better.”

“Cool. I’ll just make the changes so you are only charged the new premi...”

“No. I want to cancel, please.”

“Oh. Is this price not acceptable to you?”

“Yes. But I have already gone with someone else. Maybe if you’d offered me that price in the first place, I wouldn’t have looked elsewhere.”

“What if I throw in free legal assistance?”

“No.”

Insurance companies will always do whatever they can to avoid paying out in the event of a claim, so I’m not going to give them any more than I have to.

And, with the abundance of Price Comparison websites available to us nowadays, taking your custom elsewhere to get a better deal has never been easier.

A Grand Day Out

/ masher / 8 Comments

On Sunday just gone, myself, Son and a few mates went down to the London ExCel to see the MCN Motorcycle Show.

Like most of the other visitors, we went by car, which is something you might consider strange, but the inclement weather was the deciding factor there.

In the main.

Anyway,  we had a great time and we saw – as you would imagine – plenty of motorcycles and motorcycle related paraphenalia.

We saw big bikes and small bikes; fancy bikes and scruffy bikes; sensible bikes and some downright ridiculous bikes… such as the 48 cylinder eaxample of ridiculousness in this photo.

Henry Cole was giving a talk at one end of the hall and Charlie Boorman was on the microphone at the other end – if you’re not aware of Boorman and Cole, then you probably don’t ride.   In the middle, a small arena had been set up and a couple of guys on scramblers were giving demonstrations, riding over an obstacle course.  At times it was pretty noisy in there but it all added to the atmosphere of what was a pretty good show.

Many of the major manufacturers were in attendance: Triumph; Harley Davidson, etc, but surprisingly only three of the Japanese Big Four turned up, with Honda conspicuous by their absence.

Again.

I won a pen in the Triumph ‘Spin The Wheel’ competition and I’m almost guaranteed to win a 1983 Triumph 750cc TSX in the raffle… according to the lady who sold me the tickets.

One exhibitor which seemed out of place was Tails… a company we already use to feed our own mutt. Speaking with one of the chaps on the stand, I commented that it seemed a strange place to try and drum up trade. He smiled and said that the company had done extensive research over the years and after collating all the data, their scientists had concluded that some motorcyclists also owned dogs.

Fair point.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

/ masher / 7 Comments

It used to be – in my younger days – that I would ride in all weathers. Mainly because I had to – my motorcycle being the only form of powered transport I had to get me to work.

Nowadays, I ride for fun and have become what they call a ‘Fair weather rider”.

As I say, I ride nowadays for the enjoyment of motorcycling, but I don’t get any enjoyment in riding in the rain or the cold. And so, the bike tends to sit in the garage during the less temperate months of the year.

But, sometimes in these Winter months,  we will get a day that is bright and sunny and which looks like a perfect day for biking. And indeed, that is often confirmed by the number of bikes that are out on the roads.

But not me.

Because, as bright and as sunny as it might be, it’s still bloody cold.

Yes, you can wrap yourself up with layers and I’ve been known before now to go out on my bike, looking like the Michelin Man.  But, once that cold works it’s way into all those layers – and it will – you will be flippin’ freezing.

And so – because I feel I am missing out on some good biking days – I have invested in some heated apparel.

The heated jacket in the photo above is powered from the bike’s battery. Using micro carbon fibre heating elements, it’s light and warm and can be worn under your main jacket. With three heat settings, it is pretty much guaranteed to keep you warm and toasty whilst riding.  All the reviews I have read have been most positive.

I haven’t tried it out yet though, because I have to wire it into the bike first, which means working in the garage.

And it’s too cold in there.

Lid

/ masher / 7 Comments

My crash helmet has built-in Bluetooth, allowing me to make and receive phone calls, listen to music or receive directions from Google Maps as I ride. This is – of course – all very useful.

It will also allow me to have conversations with other motorcyclists who are in our riding group and who have the same comms package. Unfortunately, this isn’t so useful, as none of my riding pals have this.

But, anyway…

Anyway, my helmet developed a fault and would not charge correctly. Of course, it has done this six months outside the warranty period.

And so, after much, much scouring of the Internets to see if anyone else has had this issue (and possibly fixed it), I managed to find not one single example of someone else having the same problem.

I decided to contact the manufacturer.  On their website, there was a Support page where I could ask my very simple question: “The LED no longer goes blue when the helmet is fully charged. Any ideas?”

But, to ask this very simple question, I had to traverse a range of text boxes asking for all my details.

I tried to ignore them all: all they needed was my question, the model number of the device and my email address so they could contact me back.

But no… every field was mandatory.

In order to submit my simple question to them I had to fill in each of the following:

First Name
Last Name
Phone Number
Email Address
Home Address
Country
City
Postcode
Model Number
Date Of Purchase
Where Purchased

And then, after giving them all my unnecessary personal details, they asked me to tick a box saying that I agree to their privacy policy!

Of course, I only gave them the bare minimum of genuine info – as I mentioned above – putting fake details into the remaining boxes. And – of course – I used an email address that I reserve for such things, so that my main email doesn’t get spammed more than it already does.

So, I was amused yesterday when I received an email from them saying:

“Dear Timothy Hetherington-Smythe . Thank you for your enquiry. Please try doing a firmware upgrade.”

It annoys me that all these companies feel the need to have all our personal details on their databases.

In turn, it pleases me that several of these companies think they have my details, but in reality, what they have is a load of old rubbish.

The firmware update worked, though. 🙂

 

Ride Out

/ masher / 4 Comments

Yesterday, I went out for a group ride with the club.

It was this: most excellent.

And this: very enjoyable.

About thirty of us took a circuitous – but scenic – ride along some wonderful back roads, going from Woburn Sands and ending up at quaint little St Neots.

Locals sitting in the town square, drinking coffee and watching the Neotists (a local troupe, playing melodies from Tudor times on recorders), looked on, bemused as a hoard of Triumph motorcycles – and one Kawasaki – decended upon them.

We stayed there for about an hour, drinking tea and eating cake, listening to the live music (!), and then made our way back to Woburn, taking a different route to the one we did earlier.

It was just as enjoyable.

Back in Woburn, more tea and cake was scoffed before we headed home.

It were a grand day out, Gromit.

 

 

 

For The Ride

/ masher / 4 Comments

Yesterday, myself and a few mates went up to Hinckley – the home of Triumph Motorcycles –  and took a guided tour around their factory.

It was most interesting.

The plan was – of course – for us to ride there, but the inclement weather put paid to that and we ended driving up instead. It didn’t feel right, turning up in a car, but I’d rather that, than get soaking wet.

The tour is a 90-minute, approx 1 mile walk around the factory. Being the weekend, the factory floor was empty, but apparently they aslo do these guided tours during the week, which I think would be far more interesting – being able to walk round and actually see the bikes being built.

Nonetheless, our tour – on a quiet factory floor – was still fascinating. I highly recommend it… if you’re into that sort of thing.l

A toasted sarnie and a cup of tea in the café afterwards, made for an excellent Sunday morning.