Chimay

Back from Chimay.

Bloody marvellous. Especially Platypus turning his Drifter upside-down.

More to follow.

 

Piccys?
--
Mike

SV650
UKRMMA#22
email: remove the DOT Skype: muddycat

 

deliberately?

 

Over compensating for the lack of side-car?

 

On the grass where we were camping. He gave it too much welly, and it
highsided. God only knows how, but it rolled completely over and stopped
inverted, resting on wide bars and seat.

Champ saw it happen - I just heard his yell of amused disbelief and
turned to see this inverted Drifter and Platty kicking it. He then
pushed it onto its side and hauled it upright.

Damage to Drifter - slight dent in tank, bust mirrors and one indicator,
and bent bars.

Damage to Platypus' reputation - immense. The piss-taking went on and
on.

 

I fucking hope nobody tried any tomfoolery with my 400 Four.

Quite right too.

 

mike bothe was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

About 200, including empty track, unrecogniseable vaguely motorbike
shaped things and lots of rear wheels.

I'll try to pick a few palateable ones and stick them on my website in
the next couple of days.

 

Heh. No. It attracted a lot of admiring glances. There was a yellow one
out on the track, too.

No reason for it to stop now, of course.

 

indeed. However, there's an element of "let he who is without sin..." and I
reckon most of us have done equally silly things in the past and more than
likely will do so again.

 

I just looked down and thought "is the headlight normally that close
to the ground" before spotting the wheels in the air. "Funny" doesn't
begin to describe it.

Far to quick with it, he was. He got it back up before I'd even had a
chance to take a picture. And then he wouldn't do it again. Bloody
spoilsport.

Nope. I had to start it up (on the kickstarter, of course, which it
did first time) and have a listen, but mostly, as TOG says, it was
just looked at.

Which got me thinking - do you need a race licence to take part in the
"parade" event, d'you reckon?

**** that. If, or rather when, I do something anywhere near as daft
I'd expect the scorn to be without end.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

I have never, ever seen anyone park a motorcycle upside down in an open
field. It's a tragedy that nobody got it on video.

 

I have some lovely ones. 200MB worth, so give me a day or two.

There were some *gorgeous* Ducati singles racing. And some lovely old
Aermacchis.

And those BSA Rocket Threes.

And the biggest gridful of TZ250s since the 1970s, I reckon. There must
have been well over 40 bikes on the grid. Champ called up Lozzo, and
held his phone out so he got the full sound effect, and I swear I saw
drool leaking out of the handset.

And then Champ asked: "We think one of them is actually a 350. Can you
confirm?"

 

The Older Gentleman wrote

Immense??

<fx: considers known data regarding monotremes and reputation>

So that will be a very light tarnishing then?

 

Oh, I agree with you there.


OK, what's the silliest and most embarrassing stunt you've achieved on a
bike?

One of mine springs to mind: trying to U-turn a Z440LTD on a too-narrow
steep hill. came to a stop with the front wheel against the kerb, sideways
on, and then the bike tipped over in the down-hill direction. I didn't
*actually* drop it, but was left in a very silly pose with the bike nearly
horizontal. Fortunately, embarrassment provides the body and mind with the
necessary stimulus to sort such things out PDQ.

 

Thus spake Austin Shackles unto the assembled multitudes:

Several, but this was the most embarrassing:

Summer 1977, at a traffic light in the streets of Brighton, me trying to
look dead cool in my Levi's on my Triumph Tiger 650, with some mates on
their various Japanese twostrokes. Lights change, they whizz off and stop
at a pub just across from the lights. I stall. In attempting to
kick-restart, foot slips, I lose balance and me and the bike fall over in
an ungainly heap. Roars of laughter from three blokes in a Transit
directly behind me. Roars of laughter from mates when they see what has
happened. Much piss-taking in the pub. Bastards.

 

Austin Shackles says...

Very very late one extremely wintery night my mate Gus suggested we go
trailie riding in the snow. It was the winter of 1982/83 and lots of
snow was covering the ground. I had a KE175D and he had an XL250S. Gus
lived on Mallard Hill in Brickhill, Bedford, which in itself isn't that
steep but there's a link road that goes off it at 90 degres that leads
to garages between two rows of houses and another road full of houses
at the bottom. That link road is steep, fucking steep.

I set off on the KE, but Gus couldn't start the XL, so I waited for him
at the top of the link road. I saw him approach so started moving off
but the bike slid as I did so. I caught the slide but stalled the bike
and went to put my right foot down which slipped on the ice, the bike
slid away and started going down the link road sideways with me hanging
onto the bars for all I was worth hoping to 'get it back', like you do
when you are younger and even more stupid. It picked up some speed,
going down that hill, and I didn't let go until it reached the bottom
and slammed into what used to be the kerb of the road below, whereupon
it flipped over and we became disengaged from each other. I landed
uninjured in deep snow and the bike was undamaged.

 

The Older Gentleman says...

They sounded glorious, I so wanted to be there.

You wouldn't be far wrong there

The one with the larger pistons of course!

 

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 20:46:26 +0100,

It was. I loved every minute of it, except for my midnight visit to
the portaloo last night. Dante's Inferno had nothing on the spectacle
my torch illuminated.

Top memories:

Those shite *very* old Nortons, especially the fat bloke in the red
leathers, who didn't seem to shut off ever - even when doing a
passable impression of a rodeo rider.

The proximity of the viewing areas to the action - truly exhilarating.

The beer. Especially that Bleu stuff.

The weather.

Darsy's performance on the 400-Four; including nearly getting smeared
along a farmyard wall on the way home.

Putting 480 trouble-free miles on the CBX.
Oh, the noise. Ohh! the brakes. Aaargh! the fuel consumption.[1]

Watching Phil Read show that the really good never seem to lose it.

Complaining about the rock under my tent which made sleep
uncomfortable, only to find as I packed up, that I had been sleeping
on my "missing" bag of tent pegs.

Having a Merc saloon[2] punted into my lane by a very late breaking
Clio on the way there. The tyre marks were still visible today. Missed
it by about a foot, at around 70.

The six hectic miles it took to catch up with Simon and darsy after
getting stuck in traffic this afternoon.

The look on that six-year-old's face in Cambrai, as he peered up the
silencer of the Guzzi when Simon started it.

darsy leaving the left indicator on for 17 miles.

He was looking *very* secondhand this morning, the poor lamb.

[1] 26-27 mpg
[2] Sat, waiting to turn left across us. Simon and darsy went past,
the I thought "what's all that smoke behind that Merc?" That would be
the Clio's tyres, that would.

--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SE-V/CBR1100XX-X/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..75939.../...19198.../..30836.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 PM#5 WG*
'^' RBR Clues: 24 Pts: 400 Miles: 1589

 

["Followup-To:" header set to uk.rec.motorcycles.classic.]
Timo Geusch was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

Right, as threatened^Wpromised, the first batch is on:

http://www.unixconsult.co.uk/bike/chimay-2005.html

 

YM "tentative". I was being a bit girly about slinging El Comfo about on
the wet grass. Pleasant bimble home, except for pissing rain between M3 and
Reading services, and the left-hand end of the handlebars didn't break off
at all, which was good considering I spent most of the afternoon with the
throttle on the stop.