Saturday, November 29, 2008
And then
And land for sale
Past Mexicans living in straw huts
Then I walked
Last Day!
could actually walk to it.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Yoga
Even the 79+ year old man who taught
Yoga in Old Arley School where I lived in England looked good. Then
there was the one in California and all the ones at 24 Hour Fitness -
where I have been attending classes for a few weeks.
We started with finger and toe stretches in today's lesson.
Then I went kayaking. It's tough here!
Some pigs
Mayan Ball Game
hands. Played until the first team gets a ball through the hole in
this picture. That was the end of the game and one of the captains was
sacrificed by having his head cut off. It is all shown in carvings
around the "Ballpark"
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sacred Cenote
bottom. Not by me I hasten to add!
Swimming in a Cenote
of Mexico.
It was reasonably warm and I did a few diameters.
Monday, November 24, 2008
It's a hard life!
water from Cuba.
Need the food police here though - everything is icluded in the price
so the temptation is to eat and drink all day.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Step Two
Escape From Thanksgiving
Friday, November 21, 2008
First Four
There was a Honda Dealer just up the road from where I worked in Pennsylvania in a small town called Penn Argyl. One lunchtime this baby caught my eye - a Honda Magna V4 750-cc engine - known as a "muscle bike"and a very successful bike for Honda for many years.
I bought my first brand new motorcycle and it was super-fast - the fastest I ever rode it was 115mph and only for a few seconds. I had always wanted a four cylinder motorcycle and this was, so far, the only one I have owned.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
But Two!
innocent looking things like fir cones but they fragment into dozens
of pieces like drawing pins (push pins in the US) with the spike stuck
through your tyre (tire in the US)
Time for two new tubes I think - maybe Schrader valves this time.
Ultimate Streetcred.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Across the pond
On May 8th 1994 I handed back my company car and B took me to Birmingham Airport with a one-way ticket to the USA.I spent the first several months finding a job and lived for a year without a motorcycle. Summer weather in New Jersey is ideal for motorcycling and I found this baby - a Honda Shadow 500 V twin 500, six speed gearbox, shaft drive with two spark plugs in each cylinderand looking a bit like a Harley Davidson. Of course it was a bargain price.
The love of two wheels with the wind in my face was as strong as ever and millions of miles of new roads to explore.
I used to ride it to work, over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania through the Pocono Mountains as the sun rose behind me - fantastic.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
I'm not saying that steak was tough!
Sunday afternoon ride
this six mile round trip last summer. Well J was carried, but I
noticed it looked like, about MY kind of a mountain bike trail.
It seemed bit steeper on a bike but it was GREAT!
Moots makes mincemeat
View of the Continental Divide
Friday, November 14, 2008
Second Smidgen
Where's my breakfast?
5.30 am
Thursday, November 13, 2008
There's MY baby!
Note the twin discs on the front and the special hatch on the gas tank (which makes it a "Police" model. I was going to bring it with me to the US but it had to comply with the US emissions regulations for the year it was made i.e. 1976 (who knew what that was?) furthermore it was not equipped to use unleaded petrol so I decided to sell it and buy one in the US later.think I paid 500 pounds for it - spent a bit on it and sold it for 1000 pounds
I love the coach lining or as they call it here pin-striping on the mudguards (called fenders here) and on the tank. Gorgeous aluminium rims with stainless steel spokes.
After that I cast my fate - motorcycling, career, housing and many other things to the wind.
Keep looking for the continuing saga.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Twittering
This has been going on for a couple of years now but I only just heard about it.
Twittering is a kind of micro blogging where people send comments to each other just like we seem to in our various blogs without it having to be centered around an epic piece of journalism.
If I may describe our blogs as such!? Sometimes time and mood constraints, as well as concern for privacy, mean we don't blog as often as we would like to (aye B?)
I find the commenting on a string of blogs confusing - the person who does the blog gets an email of comments made but others have to open up the blog and fiddle about reading and making comments. Some family members don't send me emails any more they just post comments on my blog.
Twitter.com is the home of this idea if anyone is interested.
You can twitter comments to live radio shows here - that's where I learned about it.
Now for something completely different
This is not actually the one but it is very close - even the garage full of junk around it looks like mine.
I bought it from and old man in Nuneaton who had bought it from an auction of police bikes - he knew the cop who had ridden this one and apparently the cops took their bike home at night. The mileage was quite high but the constant maintenance in the police workshop meant everything was spot on.
I will try to find some photos of my actual one but the differences are small - mine had two disc brakes on the front which was a huge asset.
This was the first bike I really loved loved loved - 1976 - one of the first Police Beemers imported to England.
Flat horizontally opposed twin, shaft driven and it also had a fairing - which I took off and put back on several times. Fairings (wind protection for legs and body and a wind shield) are nice on long journeys and for touring. I took this baby to France on the ferry for some touring in Brittany and Normandy with the faring on.
This was made in the days before bikes were sold with manufacturer-installed fairings.
For riding around near home the un-cumbersome feel of the unfaired bike was always preferable for me.
This baby was smooth, the faster you went the smoother it became, beautifully built, very good looking and I kept it from around 1985 until I emigrated to the US in 1994. Selling it, once again, without losing much money on it.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Meanwhile back on two wheels
Realizing I couldn't or didn't want to live without a motorcycle I found one of these which had been stolen and recovered. A not too distant relative of the blue 250 Honda I showed you a few blogs ago. Like all motorcycles I loved it - despite its diminutive proportions. I kept this one AS WELL as a car for a while.
By this time electric start had become the norm and kick-starters were not even fitted anymore. There was little to set this bike apart except that it was clean with a low mileage and a bargain price.Biker Interrupted
After the BSA Combination I actually thought I had grown up and my motorcycling days were over. I did not own any for about a year. I should say, at this point, that I never lost a significant amount of money on any motorcycle I bought and sold.I bought one of these at a time when W and B could still be strapped into one seat.
This was the first convertible I ever went in and so began another lifelong love - or was it an itch. That itch was finally scratched, never to irritate again when I bought my current convertible.
But this blog is about, for the time being anyway, motorcycles.
Watch this space for the continuing saga.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
GREAT NEWS!
This was the third US election for me and I finally picked a winner.
I hope Barack Obama will change the world's image of America and begin to welcome the next generation of electors and elected.
People who, hopefully, do not see the future as something which arises from war and conflict.
The problem with democracy is that it depends on leaders and leaders are not common.We have not only found one but we have elected him.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Pig Roast!
Roast Pork Belly
most amazing part for my American readers is that this pork still has
the skin on it. Normal in England but here you have to find an
obscure Oriental Supermarket to by belly pork with the skin on.
Score the skin deeply and rub in coarse salt stuff with sage and onion
(sage, breadcrumbs butter and egg) roast slowly at 325 F for four
hours. You then need to broil (grill if you're English) the skin -
which Brits call crackling. It pops like corn and tastes even better.
Served here with roasted fingerling potatoes.
More Motorcycles
As the family grew it became necessary to accommodate two boys, a wife and a dog. This was the perceived solution - what the British call a Motorcycle Combination - a gorgeous 500 cc twin motorcycle tethered to an asymmetrical receptacle for passengers. The result is unbelievable bad handling and the braking capacity of a large oil tanker.
The suspension on the bike is called Plunger suspension and you can see the plungers above the center of the back wheel. This invention followed the rigid rear end with a sprung seat found on older bikes. The amount of movement was small compared to the yet-to-be invented swinging arm because the chain tension would vary to much as the suspension compressed. By having the swinging arm pivot close to the drive sprocket at the front end of the chain the wheel and swinging arm could move up and down while maintaining chain tension.
This was the first motorcycle I did not enjoy riding - that is until I took the sidecar off and rode the bike "solo".
With the sidecar attached there were none of the advantages of motorcycles, i.e. leaning into curves so you don't get thrown around on the seat when you take corners, no parking in narrow slots, no pushing it backwards easily with your feet.
Added to this the cornering to one side involved riding the bike around the sidecar, and risking having it lift it's wheel off the road and to the other side pulling the sidecar round the bike - a completely different experience.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Last of the summer rides
