Chas

CAREFULL. I peeled one off my (once) immaculate blue tank & brought alot of paint off with it. Suzuki's (Bandits in particular) really do have a SHITE standard of finish.

Just to make a few things clear . . . Eddie didn't create Eddie Stobart, his dad did. Eddie was actually Eddie Jnr. Eddie wasn't born with a silver spoon in his gob, his dad had them all working hard as soon as they could walk, Eddie was simply the oldest. Eddie inherited his dads legacy & built it up to be a reasonably sized transport 'Co despite the fact that several family members were employed on a 'gravy train' basis. Eddie, both Snr & Jnr, was a good 'un, real oldskool gents who took time to talk to everyone & treat them on an equal basis. The transport monstrosity that we know today as Eddie Stobarts is actually fronted by his younger brother William, along with a business partner who is both the money & brains man. The whole lot is 55% owned by Tesco's ! I never met Snr but I knew Eddie Jnr quite well, I wouldn't piss on William if he were on fire yet I still consider myself a humanitarian type person !

I had a 'Kangol' lid, C/W press studs to fasten down the Bob Heath visor. Move your head at anything above 60 & the visor would flip (I think BANG is more correct) open, catch the draught, & damn near rip your head off. Pah, kidz today don't know they're born.

You can make all the fun of her as you wish, but please bear in mind . . . she is all the customer service you're going to get in the very near future ! You think Indian call centres do your head in? Scary or what? Hollywood is throwing BIG money at avatars that can appear realistic, Angelina Jolie's career is limited. Why pay a flesh & blood actor/ess $millions per movie when a computer generated rendition can/will do exactly as the director wishes? Speech recognition software has come along in leaps & bounds in the past 2yr period, in fact it's already being used by several major call centres & no one seems to notice. Couple that to an FAQ database & we're all fooked. Be afraid, be very afraid.

I never had an 'excess' 1100 but I did have several other lardy, litre+ bikes of 70's/80's design. F#cK me, we used to call them Superbikes? Kidz today, tut, they don't know what it was like to throw a 2ton bike with an elastic frame + swingarm, tyres with no grip (Avon Roadrunners ), brakes like blocks of wood etc. into a corner at 100mph & still come out on the back wheel with one finger in the air.

It's called 'static sag'. With the front wheel OFF the ground, ie. forks fully extended, wrap a tie wrap around the stanchion so it touches the rubber seal. Now let the front wheel carry the weight of the bike, the forks should compress & move the tie wrap. Take the weight OFF again & measure the distance from the tie wrap to the seals ie. how much the forks have compressed. A good result is 20-25mm. Do the same again only this time let the bike carry its full normal weight ie. the rider or rider + pillion + luggage etc. A good result is 30-40mm. Use the preload adjusters to achieve a sag of approx 35mm with the bike carrying its normal weight. THIS WILL NOT MAKE YOUR BIKE HANDLE ANY BETTER !

Where I come from M8, 'watersports' means something differant entirely

A bloody good mate of mine died thru the drink, I know at least 3 of us sat her down & had a one to one with her when she'd decided that the bottle was her best way to go. You've lost them when they make that decision m8. I'd like to think that I'm stronger than the drink, I'd like to think that I'm stronger than the big C, I'd like to think that I was her friend till the end & always there for her.

I grew up a few doors down from Ron Haslam & as young kids looking for a hero to worship our gang never gave him a second thought. But when Barry came to stay, or Joey popped in, or Randy stopped over . . . . Does anyone else know how Barry came to be a top flight rider? In his later years it was all about the media circus surrounding him, but he truly earned his place, do you know how?

No, I said cutting a piece of 4x2 & building my own shed doesn't make ME a joiner. As a joiner/carpenter/chippy you will know the skill, expertise & years of practice you need to call upon to make a decent living from your chosen trade. As a semi-skilled mechanic, I fully appreciate that being able to competently service & repair your own vehicles does not make you a mechanic, at least not one that can make a decent living at it. Do you think there's better money to be made in spannerring? I know lots who tried & failed, only to later find success in something closely related. An ex-miner mate lost his £40k redundancy in a service/repair garage yet now makes £40k+ a year fast fitting tyres & exhausts. One of my riding mates makes £30k a year breaking brand new bikes ! I know lifelong garage mechanics who struggle to earn £20k, either their own business or employed. Opportunities are out there & the skillset required isn't always as high as some might think.

Seggs, I can't believe that we wore seggs in our shoes. Hands up every social inadequate who tried to fit seggs to their DM's . . . .

Being able to cut a length of 4x2 & build my own shed does not make me joiner. Similarly, servicing & repairing your car/bike competently does not make you a mechanic. Have you thought about roadside recovery? A lot of mechanics try it out simply for the experience or to get out of the garage for awhile but the skills needed aren't really that hard. You won't get a look in with the AA or RAC but you will have at least 2-3 dedicated recovery co's in your area, that's not counting the small service/repair garages that do it as a sideline. It's a job you'll either love or hate & you soon find out which, they tend to have high staff turnovers so there's always an opportunity going. I know quite a few who've done this, I still do it Ad Hoc to keep my finger in, & most go on to better things. If you want start at the bottom then this is a good first rung.

I like anything with artistic merit. This is what is currently grabbing my attention.

She's preggie mate, she's making room for the cot. Gotcha !

Frank Thomas are in administration, this is not the same as receivership. Hopefully, it will be sold as a going concern. Second best is to break it up & sell the individual parts. Worst case scenario is if it's all liquidated & only the brand name remains.

I've looked closely at Hein Gericke's business model & have to say that going the 'franchise' route with those expensive & under used shops was a good decision. Where do you get the info that they're "teetering" on the point? If Micron's founder & principle driving force had not sold out then Micron would still be a very profitable Co'. Several manufacturers of similar products have spawned from the Micron factory over the years, Art failed but Scorpion are still going strong.

I tend to buy disposable tents, cost £30-£40 each but you don't have to bother about bringing 'em home. Why on earth would you need to stand up in one, the only time I use 'em I can manage nowt' more than crawling into one.

Robert Johnson is the great Grandaddy of 'em all, he gave birth to everything that came after. It's a shame that we can't afford him the respect he deserves. I can't pin my favourite down to within a top 100, but the most played song throughout all my life so far has to be . . . Taj Mahal's "Leaving Trunk".

Best was an early 'New Model Army' gig at Nottingham's Rock City. Right place, right time. Everything was as close to perfect in my life as it could possibly get. Worst was a 'The Cult' (spits) concert at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall, I've never been so embarrassed for a fellow human being, Astbury, in front of a full house, visibly failed to swing his mike stand to demolish those fake speakers. Some disgruntled roadie had apparently swapped the lightweight stand for a real one. Pathetic.

But . . . but it's PINK

I saw this on (I think) a Chevy Chase film, Ferris Buellers Day Off or some similar shite. Nightmare, but I can't imagine not being aware of something being 'not quite right' when I'm driving my 4X4.

I'm not allowed Whisky anymore, it turns me into a violent drunk instead of a sleepy/slurring one, but Dalwhinnie used to be my favourite. I used to have a reliable source of illicit Poteen which I'm told was second to none in quality. Unique in the way you can still get drunk by drinking water the morning after.

I'm very familiar with this partiular set of camera's. If reducing the speed of bikes going over the Cat & Fiddle is their intended purpose then I have to say they have been extremely succesfull. I know that 1 or 2 bikers used to die each year on this stretch but I don't know if any have died since the camera's were installed. Perhaps the scumbag germalists at that arsewipe tabloid MCN would be happy if our £800k had been spent & we were still being fined £1000's for speeding & burying our mates twice a year. Just exactly how do you measure the success of these camera's?

I did an indicated 200mph on a mates (very good mates) Busa on the M1 at 4am. Totally exhilarating experience & I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with a very good mate who's daft enough to lend you one. I once read an article by a 350+mph drag car driver, he described how your eyes don't actually focus on anything trackside, they can't 'cos by the time your eyes have focused, you've passed it. To hit 300mph is on my top 10 list of things to do.

Without wishing to be pedantic take off speed for most airliners is around 165-170 mph. A decent 1 litre+ bike could have it clean till it gets airborne. Knowing a little bit about it, I'd say that approx 250mph is about the maximum speed one of these things could safely achieve while still on the ground.