Chimay and ukrm feckwits (longish)

Hell is not a hot place. Hell is underwater. I know, because I've been
there, on Friday 20 July.

I have never, ever seen sustained rain like it. Five miles from the
Chateau the road was a lake, and a truck coming the other way ploughed
into it at full chat. This wall of water curved up, way over my head.
For a split second I knew how the beach dwellers in Sri Lanka felt when
they saw the tsunami approaching.

Oh.... faaarrkkk..SPLASH.

And the 400 Four ran onto three cylinders. Great only another 200+ miles
to go. Amazingly, it picked up again, and equally amazingly, continued
to run faultlessly on all four through the scene from Waterworld that
was the M25 and M20.

Those of us who hadn't WUN'd out assembled at Dover looking like we'd
been chucked in the harbour. But half-way across the Channel, the sun
came out, and stayed out for most of the weekend. I have a sunburned
hooter.

I rode from Calais to the hotel at Maubeuge in company with Ginge on his
ZRX. He was complaining of a funny smell from the bike, and was
wondering whether a mouse or similar had crawled into it and perished.

The 400 Four kept up a steady 80 on the autoroute, dropping to 75 on the
up inclines and increasing to 90+ on some of the downs. Ginge, dare I
say it, was rather impressed.

about 15 miles from the hotel we stopped for fuel, and as we rejoined
the autoroute, we saw, peeling on from a ramp up ahead, a Ducati ST4S
with two aboard. It had to be Hog and Diana. How do you catch an ST4S in
heavy motorway traffic, when you're on a Honda 400 Four? By riding like
a total twat. A few beeps of the horn, and we were a trio of bikes.

At the hotel Le Patron wanted to know how many people were actually
coming, and I had to say I hadn't a clue because some had WUN'd out, and
others I didn't know about were coming.

He was very phlegmatic about it all. "OK, let's see who arrives.... I
have fifteen people for dinner originally."

Blow me down, we were 15, thanks to the surprise last-minute appearance
of S Packer on his Beemer. The hotel was great: pokey little rooms that
hadn't been decorated in 20 years, but a good menu and a better wine
list. We went down the road for some pre-prandial beers, and had a damn
good dinner. Champ & Ginny arrived late, on the Turbo.

That made Ginge on the ZRX, me on the 400 Four, Champ and Ginny, Martin
Marmoy on his VFR, Platy & Laura on the outfit, Nina on her ZXR, Packer
on the Beemer, Champ and Diana on the Turbo, Niall and Liz on the
VStrom, Higgins on his... whatrever, Brownz in his Cooper S, and one or
two others. Bonwicks on their R1 and ZX10, Sweller on the Gzzi, Dodger
on the Wing, and one or two others joined us at the circuit.

To the circuit, 30 miles away, park up, tents up, and then the beer and
food runs. Panic. It was a Belgian bank holiday and the supermarkets
(and all shops) were closed, so people had to re-cross the French border
to find supplies.

The rest of Saturday was the usual - watch noisy ShiteOldRacers being
ridden *way* faster than you'd believe, drink lots of Chimay, and then
fire up the barbies.

Oh, and it was CIHAGM time with Platy's outfit. I loved it: Champ was
scared witless by it. So it goes.

Highlight of the evening was Andy Bonwick, off his face on Chimay beer,
throwing the keys of his ZX10 to a Frenchman who was as pissed as he
was, and telling him to go and have a play. As the weakling Frogs aren't
to be trusted with anything over about 100bhp by their government, he
was off.

We then watched and listened as he gavce it full beans up and down the
main straight, while Adie had a *major* sense of humour failure, and
Andy protested it was his bike and he could do what he wanted with it.
all to the sound of EEEEEEWWWAAAAAAWAAAIILLLLL! from the circuit behind
us.

Eventually even Andy got worried that this Frog had been out for a
while, and asked said Frog's mates to call him n: "Or I'll fucking torch
the ****'s Ducati...."

Frog came back, swayed off thebike, staggered over to Andy, nearly
weeping, flung his arms round him, gave him a kiss on both cheeks, and
went into a long stream of animated French to his mates about what 85bhp
more than anything he'd ever ridden felt like.

Adie went for a sulk in her tent. "She had a right face on her," said
Dodger, next morning. "I asked her if she was being the sensible one
this weekend, and she just looked at me, and I thought I'd get out of
her way..."

Packer decided we needed firewood, and grabbed the hatchet that Platy
just happened to have packed in the outfit's boot, strapped one of those
head lantern to his bonce, and disappeared into the copse behind us,
before emerging with half of it. He decided that wasn't enough, and
raided some Belgian's wood store while they just looked at this maniac
waving an axe, and wisely decided not to make an issue of it.

I had to leave about 11am Sunday, to get my pix downloaded and captions,
and Ginge came with me. Howling headind, the usual "Where the **** DO
YOU FIND PETROL ON SUNDAY IN THIS COUNTRY? silliness, one heavy shower,
and a decent ride to Calais, where, right by the passport booth, the ZRX
died. He had turned it off, and when he switched it on again, there was
no electricity anywhere.

We realised what the smell had been - a boiled dry battery. Oh dear.

I said that if it had been boiled dry, that probably meant the reg/rec
was fucked, and only then did Ginge own up to having left the bike
parked, unused, with the alarm on, for six months. "It took two days on
the Optimate before I got anything out of the batter...." Muppet.

So we (We? I!) pushed-started the thing. And it ran. And we got to the
queue for the boat, and phone Timo, to see if he could locate a battery
at short notice, and text is with a yea or a nay.

We were called to board the boat. And Ginge, the ****, stalled it again,
on the apron.

"Ginge, FOR ****'S SAKE, turn the steering so it's pointing DOWNHILL
when I'm pushing instead of UP THE FUCKING LOADING RAMP!!!!"

I swear, I thought I was going to have a coronary.

OK, onto the boat, away, and Timo came thorugh with the news that he'd
located a brand new battery at Hein Gericke in Maidstone, and it would
be waiting at the Schloss. Top man.

Off at Dover, after another push-start on the boat, and Ginge stalled
the bloody thing *again* in the queue for Customs......

And then the 400 ran onto reserve just outside Dover, and 20 miles from
the Schloss, with no filling stations in sight. By slipstreaming a bus
for most of the way we made it, and the new battery was fitted, the
charging system checked and pronounced fighting fit, and Ginge was
berated (again) for being a Battery Muppet. Timo, you're a star.

Who needs the RAC when you have ukrm?

Next year - the racing will be on the old full circuit, six miles in
distance. I can't wait.

And the 400 Four? Everyone who chased it around the countryside was
surprised at just how well it goes, when wound up. I utterly adore it.
You get the feeling that when they built it, the engineers and
developers put just a bit extra into the project. They went the extra
mile, and built something exceptional. And with soul.

It's 30 years old, and it still copes happily with modern roads, modern
traffic, and can make bigger bikes work a little bit harder than they
thought they'd have to, to keep it in sight. It's truly one of Japan's
finest designs.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Does Hog know about this?

np, happy to help.

Obviously, when you want to break down discreetly without everybody
taking the piss.

And I can help to notice that you fail to mention a certain brake
fettle that was going on simultaneously to Ginge & myself fiddling with
his bike...

Yep. And I happen to have one for sale, but the cunts ain't biting at
the moment.

 

finest designs.

That was almost as good as Harry Potter ......

 

What is all this crap about floods and raining and stuff? We had a
light shower on Friday morning but other than that it has been the usual
boring old blue skies and fluffy clouds.

 

Top weekend, aggreeable cunts, nice beer, great food at L 'otel, superb
atmosphere, fun camping.

Glad to act as the support vehicle ;-)

Lets do it again next year (when I'll have special glasses for spotting the
ol gendarmerie sitting on bridges).

 

It bloody rained in SE London - my garage got flooded. :-(

View of the road from a couple of houses down:

http://mfile.akamai.com/26673/wmv/anm1.download.akamai.com/18142/3rdparty/flood2.asx


Not exactly Noah levels of rain, I grant you.....

 

<Snip>

Great write-up, wish I was there. Mebbe next year.

I want mine back.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

Buy mine instead.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, AW

Ooh fook. Are all those nice SOBs OK?

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Falling apart) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Honda ST1100 wiv trailer Norton 850 Commando

 

Aye. It's a bit damp on the floor in there currently but the water
just flowed out again once it had stopped raining. There's a thin
muddy layer I'll have to sweep out when it dries.

The house is a bit musty as the water didn't really get in but went
through the airbricks so it's all smelling a bit musty ATM.

 

Ah. Forgot about that....

 

It's overpriced, over-Timoed and over there.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

Since purchasing a GPS for the bike, I've discovered that Kawasaki
speedos[0] are incredibly optimistic once over 70mph.

What I thought was a nice comfortable cruise of 100mph turns out to be
just over 90mph; no wonder it seemed comfortable. 110mph on the clock
barely breaks the ton in real life; and so on, up through the dial.
Hardly surprising, mind.

I think I may have upset a few people on my way home, mind.


[0] Well, maybe not all of them, but the one on the 9R anyway.

 

Another one sold then.

Sounds like a good trip, bar the swimming lesson at the start. Good to
see that everyone who set out to the place got to the place.

 

Groovy sandals.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Tevas, I have a pair too.

 

We've always managed it, although there have been some close calls....

And Ginge only *just* managed to get back. His battery was so fucked
that on the last 25-mile stage to Timo's, when he used the indicators,
the engine cut out and he got a killswitch backfire with every flash.

 

No. He produced a steak half the size of a buffalo, but he did actually
cook it this time.

Good question.

 

Brownz (Mobile) wrote:

You got nicked?

 

That wasn't a dead mouse. Do a search for phenylketonuria and "mousy smell"
and check out some of the other symptoms.

D.