Letter to Santa

This morning my youngest daughter, Emily came into my bedroom with a letter addressed to Father Christmas telling him what presents she would like, and suggested that I write him a list as well and post it to him along with hers. What a great idea;

“Dear Father Christmas,

As I’m a big kid at heart, is there any chance of having the following items dropped down my chimney on Christmas morning?

Phileas Foggy’s New Zealand Adventure (DVD).

Charley Boorman’s book, Race to Dakar (preferably signed). By the way, could you tell Boorman he’s still not forgiven over the NEC bike show. Not until he gets himself on our blog to explain himself, and then it’s not guaranteed.

A rear carbon hugger for Winnie, my Blackbird.

A new petrol tank, again for Winnie. Not one word Santa… Don’t even think about it.

A rubber paddock stand.

The second series of American Chopper, even though I’ve seen them all on TV and will probably never get the DVD out of the packet. Just like series one I had last year.

Some half decent winter biking gloves.

Some new in-ear headphones for my ipod (to replace the ones that got eaten by my vacuum) so I don’t get bored riding on long motorway journeys whilst waiting for Dean to catch up!

The world’s most ingenious camping chair that folds up to miniature proportions yet when unravelled is comfy and spacious. Good luck with that one, I’ve been trying to find one for years. Get the Elves on the case big fella.

The debut album by Hinder, and get yourself a copy while you’re at it, you’ll love it!

That’s just about the lot me old fruit. I’ll see to it that there’s a nice mince pie and glass of milk waiting for you on the mantelpiece.

Yours hopingly

Mike

PS. Don’t worry about getting me any pants and socks. No doubt the army of unimaginative relatives will yet again come up trumps and ensure my supplies hold out for at least another twelve months."

Competitions

I thought I'd give your brains a quick jolt and try and kick your rears into action by reminding you that the closing date for our Christmas Photo Competition is the 18th of December. And to spare you the maths (that'll be math in America), it's roughly about three weeks away!!

Also before I forget, I'd just like to mention our last Caption Competition which produced some extremely funny comments. Well ok, maybe I've bigged it up a bit, shall we go with "quite witty" instead? Anyway, there's something missing..... A winner! Now this was a tough one and I've thought about it long and hard but alas I've reached a decision. The big win amongst stiff competion goes to Ant (again) for his very funny comment... "Matts thinking that Loz's understanding of "hide and seek" is slightly flawed..."

Well done Ant. Did I mention that there's no prize this time, and the winner has to get a round of beers in?

I'd just like to add that BLSB came a very very close second because out of all the comments, hers was the only one that had something to do with motorbikes.

Posted by Mike

Gaz & Cara in India

I've had an email from Gaz & Cara in India. It sounds like they're going to have one heck of a story to tell and some fantastic photos when they get back. I hope they've survived the traffic chaos on the Royal Enfield Bullet 500 they hired yesterday. Hopefully they'll be uploading some photos to the blog if the computer they're using will let them do it.

I'd better just apologise to Gaz and Cara for the other night. After being ill advised as to what the time was in India I ended up giving them a phone call and waking them up at 3 o'clock in the morning. Ooops

Gaz, Cara, If you can't get your photos uploaded why don't you use the comments section of this entry to keep us up to date with what you're up to.

Posted by Mike

The Bed Spring League

Our guestbook seems to have gone a bit wayward and I'm starting to think we're running a dating agency instead of a bike blog so I've nominated myself as; a) The Chief of Jangle Police, and B) The Love Doctor, and with my new found authority I've ingeniously formulated a plan.

Whilst the Jangle Team head out on bike rides and along the way review cafes, pubs, etc, Ray and BLSB can go on their own rides and review hotels and B&B's instead and we'll enter their findings and "experiences" in a new section entitled "The Bed Spring League".

Sheer brilliance I know, I take a bow!!

Posted by Mike

More Photos From The NEC Bike Show

I've taken note of what Ant and BLSB have said in the "comments" (check out Exhaust Troubles), and seeing as I was lazy with my camera at the bike show, I've had a word with Rig from Rigsville who's very kindly let me nick some of his photos from the show.


Dean, did we walk around with our eyes shut the other week?






Have you had an accident? . . . . I could be tempted to have one if those are the nurses!

Posted by Mike

Exhaust Troubles

I’m having a persistently annoying problem with the right hand side pipe on my bike in the area of the arrows in the two pictures.


Look at that chicken strip shining like a brilliant beacon of uprightness... Dean would be proud of it!!


Eeeek, where did that big toe come from?

The surface keeps tarnishing and it almost looks like rust. Every couple of months I have to attack it with the trusty old Autosol. According to Honda the effected area is stainless so I don’t understand why it should be happening. Especially as the problem started when the bike was just three years old with only 6400 miles on the clock.

The strange thing is my previous bike, a Bandit 600, developed the same problem in the same area. I was wondering if it had something to do with a draft that may blow underneath my garage door or maybe it’s just one of those things and coincidence that it’s happened with both my bikes.
Anyone got any ideas or had similar problems?

Posted by Mike

A tenner bet, a lesson in love, a bit on blogs and finally, how to realise your assets

I've made a bet with somebody that Nicky Hayden isn't going to finish next years Moto GP championship in the top 3. I haven't found anyone who agrees with me yet and that's worrying. Have I made a serious error in judgement? There's logic in my reasoning though... This year he only won two races and up to the last race of the season he hadn't finished a race in the top three for five races. He's basically been consistent amongst a group of potential championship winning riders who have been plagued with mechanical problems and injuries. Trouble is, at the time of making said bet I'd overlooked the fact that they're all on new bikes with smaller capacity engines next year, and I've got this awful feeling that Honda are going to be better prepared than the rest of the field. I'm starting to think what I saw as a safe bet is looking a little shakey. Roll on next season, all will be revealed.

Another birthday.... I'll just mention a quick happy birthday to Dean's girlfriend Nicola, which leads me nicely into a little lesson on how to impress your loved one on her Birthday, or not, as the case may be. Mentioning no names (cough.. Tackleberry...cough), it sort of goes on the lines of this.... If you enjoy life, want to live long and enjoy a beautiful and fullfilling relationship until death do you part and all that, don't treat your girlfriend to a lovely pair of earings on her birthday when she doesn't even have her ears pierced!

Back to bikes.... winter's on it's way, there's salt on the roads, and I know I'm going to walk straight into some mickey taking with what I'm going to say, but the fact is, weekend ride outs for us lot aren't likely to be happening in any great quantity for the next four months or so. Subsequently the poor blog is going to suffer a wee bit with lack of anything interesting to add. But it's not all doom and gloom. Matt and myself have come up with a few good ideas to keep the site from stagnating.

And last but not least, it would be really nice when posting comments to give yourselves a name other than anonymous. You could be one or many people and it confuses the hell out of my limited capacity brain, and as Biker Loving Sex Bomb so flirtatiously points out in our guestbook, how can she show you her,,,, uh humm, how do I word it,,,,, "assets" when she doesn't know who you are?

Phewww, I'm all typed out now.

Posted by Mike

Happy 40th Neil

They say life begins at 40 and Neil seems to be making sure it does for him. The lucky old bugger's taking a month off work in the New Year to accompany Derek Edmondson in the Dakar!!

All the lads decided (to be fair it was Loz's idea) that because it was such a special Birthday we should all chip in and get him a present. So we've gone and got him a Givi box to attach to .... wait for it, you'll never guess.... ok so you probably have, one of Loz's homemade mounting racks.

The reason why Neil hasn't featured much on our blog so far is because he bought himself an XJR earlier on in the year and promptly decided to pull the thing to bits and as yet hasn't got it back together. So now that he's got a new luggage box he's got no excuse for not converting his unicycle back into a motorbike and joining us on a few trips.

Happy Birthday matey

Posted by Mike

What The Hell's Going On?

I thought our police force was strapped for cash? Isn't that the reason why they're never around when you need them, because funding is low and they haven't got the resources they need to do the job properly? Well maybe the reason's got something to do with the fact that instead of ploughing money into getting bobbies back on the beat to protect us from the likes of muggers, they'd sooner divert money in the direction of the traffic cops, no doubt in the hope of making life for us motorists even more miserable than it already is.

No more BMW 535d patrol cars for the rozzers anymore. Instead they will have a gas guzzling Italian 6.5-litre V12 four-wheel-drive at their disposal in the form of a 640bhp Lamborghini Murcielargo LP640, good for 211mph and 0-62mph in 3.4 seconds. It's nice to know our money is being so carefully distributed to where it's most needed... I think not!



Posted by Mike

NEC Bike Show

Dean and I went to the bike show yesterday. As if £15 entry wasn't bad enough, I got stung a further £7 for the privilage of parking my car. And rubbing more salt into the wounds, I got conned out of £4.95 for a pork and stuffing bap! So now that I was £26.95 out of pocket I was on the lookout for some bargains to recoup my losses. Trouble is I was spoilt for choice and the simple task of finding some winter gloves, waterproof armoured trousers and a new crash helmet became a mine field and I gave up in the end and all I left the show with was an Orange County Choppers T-shirt...



... and a rather superb waterproof sack for my sleeping bag. Oh and some waterproofing stuff that goes in the washing machine and a free Carol Nash calendar.


For some really good high quality bike touring/camping stuff check out http://www.traveldri-plus.co.uk/

Dean on the other hand had a bit more success than me and walked away with a Micron pipe for his R6, some braided hoses, a neck warmer, a rucksack and a pile of cleaning products.

I should have taken a load of photos but I didn't find much of interest apart from a few customs.






Orange County Choppers' Lincoln bike

There was a few famous faces mulling around, Leon Haslem, Greg Lavilla, Kiyonari, John Reynolds, Jamie Whitam and Charley Boorman. I'm going to have a rant about Boorman.... If you're going to do a book signing, bloody do one, don't just turn up early in the morning, sign a pityfully small amount of books (40) and then bugger off. I was going to buy your book but you can get lost now.

I had a mutimedia text message off Loz this morning asking me if Dean really did go to the show as he'd seen this picture in the newspaper yesterday...



Posted by Mike