Andymann

After much kicking and kicking and swearing and kicking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5cWxn_5wQo&feature=youtu.be

Oh don't you dare start that **** again...

So I guess you might say he was...... Suffering from lack of front grip

Jaaaa - been there, done that. It's all fun and games until the third or fourth time you have to push it back up the hill....

i subscribe to Practical Sportsbikes which now incorporates Performance Bikes and there is an article in the January edition about how to beat MM. They interviewed a Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Wayne Gardner, Casey Stoner and a few others. They all came down to pretty much the same thing - you need to put him under pressure and rattle him. But if no-one is able to get close to him during the race, he's just going to disappear up the road like he did last night.

No exciting news from my side on the Norton I'm afraid. It hasn't got a kickstart in the box that came with it, so the only way we are going to get it fired is with some rollers which we don't have. So I had to be content with sitting on it and making wroom-wroom noises while the dog looked on and wondered what I was up to....

That's a BSA Gold Star btw

I resonated with the situation, because I foresee my father being in exactly the same one. When he was at university he had a BSA Gold Star 500 - the Ducati 916 of the 50's. He always wanted another one and in 1980 found one in the UK and imported it. I remember the year, because I was the unlucky **** who had to clean off all the bright green grease the shipping agents covered it in. He stripped that bike 6 months later and never put it back together again. Last year he started with the rebuild and has got to about 80% - only for it to stall again. Have no idea why he won't finish it, but I am genuinely concerned he never will....

Or better yet - throw some sawdust, rat droppings and chicken feathers all over it, and sell it as a barn-find. Will be worth a fortune.....

I do believe though that it has the correct Manx Norton close ratio gearbox so that's at least something!

I doubt it - no papers, it has the 500cc Twin Norton engine which someone told me would battle to pull itself out of bed, has a Suzuki GT750 brake which is probably worth more to a Suzuki collector than the bike(!) and Honda forks off I think a CB750 - you can see the mounts for the disk brakes. But it looks cool.......

Seeing as it's so quiet let me let everyone in onto my latest project. A bit of (sad) history - I can't take credit for this bike - it was built by a guy who wanted a Manx Norton, but obviously couldn't afford a genuine one so he collected parts over 20 or so years and when he felt he had enough to begin, started putting the bike together. As you see it now was where he was when he was called in for lunch by his wife, and after lunch took a little nap, from which he never woke up again. He was busy bleeding the oil lines making sure oil flowed through before he started it up. The bikes and all his tools went into his Estate and I bid on the Hydraulic Bench that the bike was standing on. When I went to collect the bench, the Norton was still there - no-one wanted it and they were pretty desperate to get rid of it. In the end I made what I thought was a fair offer and bought it. It's not worth what I paid, it's totally impractical, has no collectable value because it isn't original, but I just could not see it being stripped down and sold for parts which was the next option they were considering. I feel I need to finish what the old man had started. So this weekend I'm going to fire it up. Hold thumbs!

So far so good - I haven't raced them much to be honest but the times I have they were fine. I can't feel a huge difference over my old Zipp 606/404 Tubbie combo - they are very similar in performance, and the Zipp overall package is quite a bit lighter than the BladeX combo - (almost 300g actually), but I needed a set of new wheels for the TT bike that were 11sp Compatible, and these fitted my wallet. They are Bitex hubs.

I know a few people whose Ironman and 70.3 races have been saved by coke bottle tops when they were refused entry into transition because their bar-end plugs were missing.... In fact I have a coke bottle top in my toolbox when I go to big races, just in case :-)

Skinny Jean. Usually worn wif a boots. And a body-stocking

Remember these bad boys... My mate had one. Was super cool we thought. Probably weighed a ton, but in those days we weren't weight weenies!

The air in my garage smells of Thinners. Does that constitute doping?

I see now. There was small print. Always read the small print.......

Did anyone else get an SMS for TEAM VITALITY saying my 2019 easy renewal fee has been debited and benefit will be activated? Not so sure I like the idea of automatically being joined to Team Vitality without being asked.....

And the Dopper is the dude who does the announcing at the start of the said race and also the one who will make you feel really *** when he asks why you were out training and not in kerk on Sunday mornings.

Did that bastard thing on Saturday too. My power intervals ended up being up and down Tom Jenkins and then again down Tom Jenkins and into Eastwood. My calves still haven't recovered!

For the Die-hard F1 fans out there who followed racing in the 70's and knows a bit about the Tyrrell P34.... http://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/10062/what-would-the-tyrrell-p34-look-like-if-it-were-built-today

Holy smokes.... I saw what you did there

Haha - at R3000 per injection and a 6-month course I told the Doc he's got to be kidding. R18000 gets you a lot of motorbike bits that will make me just as happy.

This will solve point 2...