Best laid plans.....

Funny how plans go wrong - I had the weekend all planned-out; Saturday I was going to ride down to Edinburgh, visit the Harley dealer then catch a couple of comedy acts at the fringe, maybe stay in a nice hotel....so I set off from Aberdeen in the rain, sat bored on the dual-carriageway down to Dundee avoiding the tourist caravans and spotting speed cameras - 10 fixed, 2 mobile vans and SIX police motorbikes in a 60 mile stretch seemed excessive. I stopped at the BMW dealer there to examine the range, but he only had 4 different bikes, so I went and got a cup of coffee, watched the rain chucking it down and decided to go home instead.

Sunday morning dawned dry, if cloudy, so, refreshed from 14 hours sleep I rode up north, across the Grampians to the north coast at Forres. On the way I spotted a sign for a vintage vehicle rally at Brodie castle, so after a quick lunch break at Findhorn village I made my way there.. Brilliant...the sun was shining, crowds of people quietly enjoying themselves and some cracking cars and bikes.

There were plenty of old British sports cars, and loads of 50's and 60's MGB's, Bristols, AC's, Jaguars etc. I also spotted an orange Sunbeam Rapier Holbay, probably the only one not rusted away; and 2 Hillman Avenger Tigers, again probably the only 2 left!

Lots of nice bikes - I've added a few photos; especially liked the vintage cycle with the engine attached on its own little wheel.

After spending a pleasant few hours I rode back home at an utterly ridiculous speed, got home knackered but very happy, and glad that plans don't always work out as I had the MOST enjoyable day today!!!

Nice screen.....

This photo shows the recent mods I've made to the bike. Most obvious is the MRA screen, the little aeorofoil on the top can be adjusted to divert windblast over the riders head; unfortunately due to this riders abnormal body shape the windblast now hits smack on the bottom of my crash helmet, still, thats better than the original screen which put the blast on my chest and gave me a permanent sore throat. Then there's the handguards which do well at protecting my arthritic fingers from chilly early-morning windblast; and finally you may see the bar risers I fitted to give me a more upright riding position, thus relieving my permanent back-ache. Result!

I'm also celebrating today as I heard that I've finally obtained the University degree I've been studying for part-time for the last 7 years. I'm off tomorrow to buy a white lab-coat, some test tubes and a bunsen burner to start experiments in the garage; meantime I did consider going to the local drinking establishment and getting well oiled, but as that would probably lead to months of binge drinking and pain I decided instead to sit in and watch a re-run of American Chopper with a 12" pizza and a carton of - it says here on the box - truly irresistable triple chocolate cookies coated in indulgent Belgian chocolate with milk, dark and white chocolate chunks. Yummy.

Front-wheel drive bike spotted near pink castle

Spotted some different stuff while out riding yesterday.

Not sure how this handles round bends

Freshly-painted pink castle

Not sure when the invasion started

Touring envy

I had a great ride into work this morning - at 6.30 am on a Saturday there were no cars bumbling along the country lanes at 40 mph...heaven. To add to the enjoyment it was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining, mist on the fields, just one of those days when it was all perfect. It only took 20 mins to do the 25 mile ride from Banchory into the city so it was a contented El D that arrived at the office to find no-one else was working today! Excellent; I spent the early morning catching up on all the other bike-related blogs, especially enjoying the photos from foreign parts. I really am envious of all the bikers who seem to think nothing of setting off on days or weeks of touring - a two hours ride and I'm knackered. Maybe one day...in the meantime I've got a valve schedule to finish today (yawn) before I get to ride the long way home.

Keep control of those thoughts or you'll fall off......

I popped round to see Derek after work today; his R1 is in bits in the garage due to a siezed exhaust valve and the track bike looks like it exploded, so there were lots of pieces of metal to pick up and examine closely while exclaiming bloody hell and suchlike.. As we were chatting, he noticed my bike still had the removable baffle in the Scorpion can, so quicker than I could say anything he had the baffle out and the bike revving its nuts off. During the ride home I realised that it was now possibly much, much faster but definitely much louder. I was trying to come up with a comparison for the noise, you know, WWII airplane or something mechanical when it dawned on me that it sounded like a big fat lady who'd had baked beans for breakfast letting off a fart just as she was getting out of a wetsuit.

I spent the whole ride home wobbling about as I kept laughing at that mental picture which of course got more and more ridiculous with each mile. 

Essex girls

I'd been checking the weather forecast for the weekend - there was a 30 deg heatwave! forecast for London and the south-east of England, gales and heavy rain for the north-east of Scotland; seemed like a perfect time to pay a long-overdue visit to my 89 year-old Mum.A quick phone call to her  to make arrangements elicited the response that she was going to a "celebration of Essex Girls "on the Saturday. Now here I must declare that I don't understand the fuss made regarding  the sexist stereotype of Essex girls as promoted by comedians and the gutter press - they are portrayed as blonde bimbos with fake tans, large breasts and an easy attitude to sex. Having spent some of my teenage years living in Essex, I certainly never met anyone like that...unfortunately!

So I hatched a plan to fly down to London Friday night, hire a car and spend time with the Essex girls.I managed to find an internet deal on accomodation; Friday night found me relaxing in a Sheraton 4 star hotel for the princely sum of £44 - result! I picked up the car, a mercedes AMG sport which cost several times more than the hotel room, but had excellent air-conditioning and a fancy flappy-paddle gearbox controlled from the steering wheel. Not that it mattered how quickly the thing changed gear, I spent most of the weekend creeping around in traffic bloody hell it was murder no matter where I went.

First thing Saturday morning I headed for Jack Lilley's Triumph dealership, they do custom Triumph bikes and I was curious to see what they had, At the entrance was a huge Rocket 3 in black with all sorts of extra bits on it, it looked EVIL but extremely HUGE. They also had a custom Thunderbird, but not unfortunately the Steve Mcqueen great escape Scrambler. Next stop was to be the Victory showroom, but some time spent in traffic jams and 30 degree heat made me decide to turn around , head for the M25 motorway and zip round to South London to see my daughter - unfortunately the Blackwall tunnel was closed for repair, so the whole south-east corner of London, Kent and Essex was at a standstill! So I aborted that idea and headed straight to Chelmsford in deepest Essex.

The Essex Girl celebration was taking place in Hylands house, a stately home set in parkland. First suprise was how brown and scorched everything looked, it looked more like Arizona than Essex, and felt just as hot.The celebration was intended to show that Essex women did not conform to their stereotype, but were capable intelligent women. My Mum was there because in 1932 she joined a band called the Dagenham Girl Pipers, an all-girl bagpipe band that travelled the country entertaining; they also travelled to the USA early in WWII, Sweden in the 50's. Of course now the band members are all in their 70's & 80's, but were a sprightly bunch.

I wandered around the grounds enjoying the heat and sunshine, visiting the various stalls set up to demonstrate the capabilities of Essex girls. Thats where I met my first female Police motorcyclist - we had a chat and I must admit to being stricken...arrest me, arrest me!...but was politely rebuffed and wandered away, disconsolate. Spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the sun and chilling out with 3 Essex girls in their 80's, Mum and two Aunties. Sweet.

A walk up the hill...what, with those legs?

For some reason that now escapes me, I agreed to walk up Ben Nevis; not for charity, just for a walk. It wasn't too bad going up, took about 31/2 hours. It was a bit foggy and cold up top, then while we were tucking into our sandwiches the cloud cleared and we got some amazing views.

Coming back down knackered my old knees even more; the guys in the office tell me I look quite comical trying to lift my leg over the bike. Good day out though.