smilinjack

You got more sun than us by the look of it Hebden Bridge is quite a way for your self confessed navigational bypass Jax. Well done. Hope to see you in Derbys this summer.

Nice one Stue. must get over Wales now the days are getting a bit longer.

welcome mate. i know that name from another forum you ought to have come out with us today. I expect we'll get a few pics when the rest of the crew get back from the chippy at Matlock Bath.

BTW I've a set of engine bars for a B12 in the lockup in Spain. Keep saying I'll bring them back to sell.....

Always thinking about your belly Dave!

OK I've drafted out a bit of a loop, about 55-60 miles start & end Matlock Bath. Backroad bimble to Chatsworth, photo stop if you wish, then Taddington Dale (A6) almost to Buxton, turn south towards A515 to Ashbourne, back out past Carsington & down the hill from Wirksworth back into M/Bath. That OK?

I won't name the author but it won't be hard to guess. Nothing new in a rideout for the hell of it "The extravagance in which my surplus emotion expressed itself lay on the road. So long as roads were tarred blue and straight; not hedged; and empty and dry, so long I was rich. "Nightly I’d run up from the hangar, upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them, after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes my bed would be down, ready for the night: in four more I was in breeches and puttees, pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut, opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick: a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression. Boanerges’ first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet College into life. ‘There he goes, the noisy bugger,’ someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman’s profession to be knowing with engines: and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off. ‘Running down to Smoke, perhaps?’ jeered Dusty; hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons. Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordlily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine’s final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand. Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England’ straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar’s gravelled undulations. Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus. Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewash Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to : and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself. The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should. The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the ‘Up yer’ Raf randy greeting. They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot: but an overhead Jap twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering. We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. Bif caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp, we are, here: and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door. I let in the clutch again, and eased Boanerges down the hill along the tram-lines through the dirty streets and up-hill to the aloof cathedral, where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous God: and man’s very best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness, in the sight of Saint Hugh and his angels. "I let in the clutch again, and eased Boanerges down the hill along the tram-lines through the dirty streets and up-hill to the aloof cathedral, where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous God: and man’s very best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness, in the sight of Saint Hugh and his angels. Remigius, earthy old Remigius, looks with more charity on and Boanerges. I stabled the steel magnificence of strength and speed at his west door and went in: to find the organist practising something slow and rhythmical, like a multiplication table in notes on the organ. The fretted, unsatisfying and unsatisfied lace-work of choir screen and spandrels drank in the main sound. Its surplus spilled thoughtfully into my ears. By then my belly had forgotten its lunch, my eyes smarted and streamed. Out again, to sluice my head under the White Hart’s yard-pump. A cup of real chocolate and a muffin at the teashop: and Boa and I took the Newark road for the last hour of daylight. He ambles at forty-five and when roaring his utmost, surpasses the hundred. A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness. Because Boa loves me, he gives me five more miles of speed than a stranger would get from him. At Nottingham I added sausages from my wholesaler to the bacon which I’d bought at Lincoln: bacon so nicely sliced that each rasher meant a penny. The solid pannier-bags behind the saddle took all this and at my next stop a (farm) took also a felt-hammocked box of fifteen eggs. Home by Sleaford, our squalid, purse-proud, local village. Its butcher had six penn’orth of dripping ready for me. For months have I been making my evening round a marketing, twice a week, riding a hundred miles for the joy of it and picking up the best food cheapest, over half the country side."

Nice 1 Dan me you and goldstein can meet up at tesco car park in Syton at 10.00 then where we meeting you smilin ? Well the obvious one if you're planning hitting Matlock is the layby at J27 of the M1, where I met you & Jimmy before.

Don't panic mate-just be sure you park next to me

That puts you at J27 M1 around 10:30-10:45 I guess then Dave. Is it light then? And don't forget we alter the clocks on Sat night. So, what's the game plan? Meet Rob @ Matlock first up, or what?

I think I'm OK for Sunday Dave. Was thinking of a bit of a tootle towards Buxton/goyt Valley then back via Gellia-ish towards Wirksworth or Matlock.

good on you mate. I didn't get out this weekend-we cycled some of the High Peak Trail on Saturday, and Sunday I had to go and fix my niece's . I got it going though-by adding petrol and turning on the fuel tap!!

Perhaps I will get to see a race here sometime, although I must admit when I was looking at ticket prices I got a bit of a shock. Do ppl really pay £50 plus to see a MotoGP round? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/motorbikes/9411320.stm

Going into Nottingham to try & fix my niece's 'ped.

Of course! That's going to fool everyone!

Yeah be more like the Ballache Caff for us more northerly types.

One side aim of relatively high VED on bikes is to not encourage their use. Like it or not, bikes are dangerous things per million vehicle kilometres, and politicians are not terribly keen on expanding their use. And I do remember reading some emissions figures for bikes and it didn't make pretty reading.

If it's not too serious then fine-limp along for a bit until you have the cash or confidence to repair. Do not however neglect to do it. Is it an easy job? Subjective question. Would you do your own valve clearances? Change a set of plugs? Replace your brake pads? Give us some clues as to what you feel your mechanical competence is & you'll get an honest answer I'm sure. Also, what bike is it and where are you?

A much underrated bike. I think the only issues can centre around the EXUP valve IIRC? Enjoy

The year that Marina was built I bought a brand new Kawasaki Z650. Money much better spent

Is the missing letter in part 2 a deliberate mistake?

Absolutely the best place for a Hillman Hunter. Thank *** I didn't keep any pics of my Morris Marina estate.

Well, sort of. I had to repair a machine today which is in such a tight space we had to push part of it into the adjoining lift shaft to give me room to work. Got it done, and as I was reassembling this bunch of yoyos pitches up with all their guitars & drums & silly jeans etc, asking how long I'll be cos they need to use the lift. I was all for saying use the stairs but a sudden onrush of humanity prevented me. Cleared up & off they went. Turns out it was Kasabian, who apparently are quite well known so there you go. Earl Shilton isn't nearly as dull as you might think