Yesterday - Been down the Mrs allotment building raised beds n picking runner beans. Weather was lovely n sunny n dry. so took a bbq down with us n cooked sum gourmet burgers n sum veg we picked aswell and we sat on the bench watching the sun go down over the hills over a cuppa and slice of cake, loved every second of it as the Mrs is awesome
Rode up to Hartside up the centre of the Pennines and then came home the other route. A nice elongated loop and it was one of THEM rides. Everything went perfectly. Quick, safe, no nasty surprises. Light traffic, stitching corners together = one big big smile
Nipped out to the village BP station to top off the bike for a quick start tomorrow. Just threw my RST textile over my tee shirt and kept to my jeans and walking boots. Hmmm, haven't ridden dressed like that since the year of the Royal wedding....Charles and Diana that is. First impression was the lack of constriction and how much more liberating it felt. Second impression was how much fecking heat the engine was imparting to my legs. Made me think about tomorrow wearing my leather trousers and textile jacket for my day with the police.
Amazing how nice it feels innit In the summer I was having part of my garage rebuilt and stored my bike at a mate's house about a 2 minute ride away. I've got no textiles or even just a leather jacket and there was absolutely no way I was putting on the leather onesie in 28° heat to walk to his house and then do the very short ride back so I just grabbed my skid lid and gloves and rode the 2 mins back in jeans and a t-shirt. I felt lovely but I was very very aware of how unprotected I was.
Not at all. That was one of my thoughts too. Complete lack of anything in front of them. It felt weird.
fitted hi/low HID's to the zx7r, what a difference very bright. also fitted a full akro exhaust to it, what a difference, managed a power wheelie !!! and as a bonus the akra only cost me £175 with carbon end can !! dropped the forks 8mm thru the yokes and raised the rear end 25mm, what a difference, steers much quicker. swapped the bars over from left to right, so instead of them dropping down they now rise up, what a difference much more comfortable no more aching wrists !!! fitted wavey disc's and new pads, what a difference ! bike now stops so now she's stops,goes,handles and i can see and be seen no matter what time of day !!! there are days when i really miss the blade, but now with a few minor mods the old girls making me smile
Went to Le Mans for first time, had a coffee and chatted about the endurance race, then absolutely nailed it to ferry when miss judged length of said coffee stop. Blades rock when needed
cleaned the bike, & gave it a wipe over wonder duff 40, fitted a double flouresant light in the garage so I can play in there when the days have turned to night
Went out today to try and get that damn elbow down. Going round the dundrod circuit I was getting lower And lower each pass.the 55 rear was gripping well And I have to say I haven't had the bike so low but The front done a few slides to tell me it wasn't happy So I called it time before I chucked it down the road. On the plus side there isn't one mm of KFC strip on The front or rear
I was three line whipped into attending a management team 'safe' driving course at Pro-drive in the West Midlands yesterday. I was pissed off about it being on a Friday as it's my 'lie in till about eight, work at home day' and given I had already been away from home all week attending a trade show it was a double whammy. After a shitty journey marred by broken down trucks and road accidents I arrived just in time for the bacon rolls and team brief to find out that not only was the course about safe driving it was also about finding out the limits of your vehicle in a controlled environment. Ie, ragging the shit out of our cars around the track and skid pans. My mood improved. We got randomly paired up, I got buddied with another senior manager who turned up a bit late because of the mornings traffic problems and missed the team brief, as he has the same car as me he naively offered for us to just use his car rather than keep swopping cars all day. It was hard to keep the grin off my face as we walked to the car park with our instructor who introduced himself as a professional race car tester and rally driver. After a few sighting laps of the circuit. We started off with a test to see who could get the best fuel consumption over a controlled 3 lap run. Lee, the guys who car we were using went first, me in the rear with the window open and my arm hanging out to create as much drag as possible, it was a nice a gentle jolly returning a overall 45.3 mpg. We then swopped seat, first thing i did was turn the air con off and flip the mirrors and off we went, again nice and gentle, never going over 2000 rpm or 50 mph, didn't touch the brakes either, returned 49.8 mpg. We have a winner, and the first pint was in him. The instructor then explained that the next test was controlled braking to avoid the cones both with and without all the driver aids, the more cones hit the less points you accumulated. First at 30mph, then 50' then 70' then finally a go for it run at about 95 ish. I have to say for a big heavy car it stopped better then I thought until all the driver aids where turned off and the fun started. Lee was not over joyed as we relentlessly shagged his tyres. After a short coffee stop to let the brakes cool down, we headed back out on track for some high speed work. The instructor took the drivers seat and floored it down the back straight, stood on the brakes right, left and a hard right and rocketed out and back up the next straight through the cones without even lifting of the accelerator into the large bumpy right and back down the back straight again, bloody hell, I have never seen an E Class move like that before. Lee was next and drove like a accountant, which he is so was true to form. Braked to soon, missed the apex,s, and generally made a bit of a mess of it. He got better with each lap but was not pushing the car very hard despite the encouragement from the instructor. It was soon time to slow down and get some air round the brakes before my turn. Now, bearing in mind it's not my car...........i flipped the transmission into paddle shift mode and ragged the shit out of his poor car, pushing harder, braking later and later on each corner following the instructors advise whilst Lee contantly moaned about his car. I even managed to get it drifting sideways at 120mph when the instructor said it was time to call it a day and do a couple of slow laps to let everything Cool down. We had spent so much time on track we only got a few minutes on the skid pan before it was wash to go for lunch. The afternoon the mostly boring stuff not worth talking about including a chat with a traffic officer followed by an on public road test with an IAM tester, who quite frankly was a bit of a self opinionated prat. All in all it was a great day out that I didn't expect would be much fun, but made better by watching our account leave with 4 shagged tyres and half a tank of fuel less then he arrived with. Funny he didn't offer to buy me the pint he owed me though, but that's accountants for you.
Spent the whole bloody day with my head stuck in my laptop working on short deadline tenders, got a massive head, shoulders and neck ache and ready for a drink, I will have to do the same thing tomorrow, what a waste of a weekend. Will I get the time back in lue, what do you think!
Bit of a wasted day for me also (although I did need it as I was coonted) All I managed today was to make some breaky, walk the dog for a couple of hours, and have since then tried to decide on wither to keep the Blade for another year and upgrade the front suspension, or buy something new. This is the only bike that I have had that I actually need to think about getting rid of, as my head says that I'd be daft to get rid of it with little over 9k miles from new. Normally I just decide that its time to go and buy another without a second thought. (Tells a story in itself)
Today I have done the "ride to the wall" event to the National War Memorial at Alrewas. 5,200 bikes there today, with all people paying their respects to those who have fallen in battle and also those bikers who no longer ride beside us. Great day, sun shone and was a moving experience One thing I did note was that the was not many Fireblade's there people !!! More Hog riders who don't like being "buzzed" LOL Next year people??
Today I am Duty Driver have have chauffeured the Mrs to Leeds. Haven't been here many times and it definitely isn't my favourite town to hang around in. Oh well will be worth it for the brownie points and the non-birthday reward later
Ragged the absolute arse out of the wife's 1100 monster all day, lol best bit is she didn't even realise I taken it until I rocked up back home.
