Progress

Been A Long Time Since I Rock And Rolled

Shropshire

Snowdonia

Summer Two Thousand And Twenty 2

So, Summer 2022 and i'm down to one bike. We needed a new roof on the gaf and since being made redundant i figured it was more important to be waterproof than having a shed full of motorcycles. Ive decided that the FTR is the bike i've been looking for all along, [well, until the next thing comes along] its fast, fun and would like to say frugal but it drinks unleaded like it's going out of fashion. I've spunked £48 on fuel joyriding over the last two days. Admittedly that includes a 210 mile round trip down through North Oxfordshire to meet up with an old mucker but, really? forty-eight quid on fuel, rid-ic-u-lous. Anyway, please note, stock Dunlop tyres now junked and replaced with some Bridgestones, horrible numberplate / indicator / rear tyre cover thing junked and replaced with a MooreSpeed tail tidy mounted in the more traditional under the rear seat location, rear footpegs binned and the lovely but loud IX Race pipes. left the cat on and ran it sans db killers which was fun. for around three minutes. horses bolting, kids screaming at the side of the road, Download Festival at Donington Park phoned me and asked me to turn the bike off as the punters couldn't hear the bands, yup, fucking loud. So, db killers fitted and it's still loud but its not fuelling correctly, nothing major, a little surging in low revs when engaging low gears so need to get the ecu flashed. Dynojet do one which is a nice piece of kit but retails around £450 which gets my goat. Why should you have to spunk that to get your bike running sweetly, absolute bollocks..........

Sweep It Out Of The Shed

My copy of the latest Classic Racer magazine recently dropped through the letterbox and i was fascinated to see that there is a new book about the MZ racers by Manfred Woll. I decided to have a look at the website who were advertising the book for sale, www.79oktan.net a specialist publication about classic German vehicles, so, if like myself the likes of MZ motorcycles or Trabant two-stroke cars floats your boat its well worth a look. This little beauty is unique, being the only MZ rotary motorcycle still running. Apparently, the Zschopau factory developed a rotary engine as a replacement for the traditional piston ported design and was the first rotary engined motorcycle but sadly never got beyond the development stage because of the cost involved with large volume motorcycle production.

God Speed The Plough

 So, a week away in the Cotswolds, packed  the van with supplies , Mrs B, Bob the Dog and my trusty Trek and  off to our secret hideaway, a converted thatchers barn in fourteen acres of private woodland in deepest, darkest Gloucestershire. Many hours spent watching the wildlife, we saw woodpeckers, jays and tree creepers on a daily basis, the squirrels provided endless entertainment trying to get the birds fat-balls out of the metal cages, it didn’t take them very long to suss that they could spin the fat balls against the thin wire cage and shave pieces off and drop down from the bird table and consume their ill-gotten gains from the ground. The balls being suitably reduced in diameter were soon plucked from the cage by greedy little claws and were soon being carried off across the woodland floor in a frantic squealing burst of  stolen treasure hunting celebration.

A lot of walking and exploration included the Isbourne Way along the River Isbourne and various parts of the Cotswolds Way footpath network and three days mountain biking on the various trails and Bridleway which intersect. The area is surprisingly hilly, you tend to think that the Cotswolds are relatively flat compared to Derbyshire but rest assured dear reader, the climb out of Broadway to the tower and the magnificent Cleeve hills had me blowing like Boris receiving his Covid Penalty Notice! 

Of course, me and mountain biking always end up with some injury every time I ride, I am pleased to report that this excursion was no different from the others and I managed to twat a gatepost in spectacular fashion resulting in numerous cuts and contusions to legs, elbows and somehow managing to fill the peak of my helmet with a combination of mud and cow shit. 

I managed to find Cromwell’s Seat, allegedly the place that Cromwell sat and watched the destruction of Hailes Abbey in the valley below, there’s not a lot of information about  the monument but the carved graffiti is certainly a class above the usual shit found in Derby bus station. The ruins of the Abbey are still visible but keep your money in your pocket if visiting as you can see anything worth seeing from the road. I paid to have a look around and felt like I’d had my pants pulled down, very disappointing and not a patch on Tintern Abbey near Chepstow which is a definite to visit in my opinion. 

  Sitting outside the local village pub, watching the sun set and  quaffing a couple of pints of cider was the perfect end to the day, I mean, when in Rome and all that……

Triumph Factory Visit

 Planned a visit to the Triumph Factory over two years ago but due to the pandemic this was put back until a very wet and wintery day recently. I opted for the full, behind the scenes factory tour which I can highly recommend, there were about fifteen people on the tour and once equipped with safety specs, hi-vis and an earpiece, [it’s a working environment so the earpiece is essential to hear the guide talking over the sounds of industry] we made our way through into the factory via the excellent cafe.

This place is huge! The storage racking must be 25mtrs high, full of parts and completed bikes ready to be shipped to dealers both domestic and worldwide, the factory is state of the art, cnc machines whir with relentless efficiency as they produce the crankshafts, the 3D printer produces parts to build a whole bike in plastic during the development stages so any design problems are ironed out before metal is touched with a machine tool. 

All paintwork is carried out in-house even down to hand pinstriping which is an absolute joy to observe, everything is clinically clean and tidy and the whole operation is fascinating to observe, the quality shines through and a few myths were put to rest once and for all. One of the urban legends is that Triumph motorcycles are not built in Britain. They are. Fact. Triumph supply bikes to overseas distributors in kit form as it saves a fortune in tax rather than supplying fully built machines.

Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photographs inside the factory which you can understand from a  business point of view due to rivals seeing the production methods but the museum is well worth a visit and better still it’s free to get in! Yep, you can just rock up, get a coffee and a bite to eat and wander around the museum and poke the new models with a stick Gratis! 

There’s some really interesting bikes in the museum, Guy Martins salt-flat record attempt bike and the original ‘Ceegar’ streamliner, the Bond film bikes, lots of classics including the racers and Triumph factory customs, the factory tour has to be pre-booked and costs £16, excellent value for money and highly recommended. There’s also a shop so you can stock up on some Triumph merch. Must admit I took a shine to a retro styled racing jersey but hastily placed it back on the rack when I saw the price! £145 went a long way to sticking some new rubber on the FTR 1200 instead,  more of which soon…….