my name is mwd

It troubles me slightly that one of my favourite pastimes, motorbiking, is not the most green of hobbies to have, even given the relative efficiency of bikes compared to cars. So, I occasionally wonder whether I should setup an electric bike company, as all the interest in realistic electric vehicles has so far been dominated in the car field. However, perhaps Electric Motorsport’s GPR-S (no, not a phone, despite the name) means I don’t have to....

I spotted this picture, which I thought was rather beautiful: You can see the full size version (which does it proper justice) here. It’s from the AdvRider front page photo collection, which I have cycling through on my CODA display on my desk at the moment....

After a forced hiatus form the bike, this weekend it was good to be out and about again. We went for a couple of runs around Newmarket way and up to Wimpole, and the colours of the countryside at this time of year are just magical. Although I miss the hills of home, Cambridgeshire in the Autumn is a beautiful place. The bike seems to match the trees this time of year....

Sometimes the world just amazes. On Saturday Laura and I biked up to West Kirby on the Wirral. West Kirby is on the tip of the Wirral peninsula, facing out over North Wales and into the Irish Sea. They have a nice marina there too, which has it’s own webcam, showing Wales across the water. As we reached West Kirby late Saturday, I could see the sun was just setting, so rather than heading straight to Laura’s parents, I took us to the water front and witnessed a most amazing site of the sun setting over the sea....

I like this quote I discovered from Ted Simon, author of Jupiter’s Travels and Dreaming of Jupiter: “It’s not ‘round the world’, it’s a really long journey, and I just happened to want to get back to where I started!”...

From last week’s Motorcycle News: Racing on wheel rims clearly would have some amount of excitement I guess…...

Ever since I got the Ulysses, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to do some first time off road riding, but the part of England I reside in is unfortunately not really an ideal place for this. There’s not really any unallocated land, and since the law regarding the use of “green lanes” changed a few years ago, there’s hardly anywhere around here at all. I thought I was going to have to wait until I could take a trip to Wales or Scotland on the bike....

Since I’ve learned to ride a motorbike I’ve known that you can’t explain it to people. There’s nothing like that feeling of pulling away on a motorbike with a reasonably sized engine. A former Intel cohort of mine, Rob Ennals, clearly understands this also....

This weekend Laura and I went camping again, only this time, with a spirit of adventure about us, we took the bike rather than the car: This was a bit of an experiment, and I was worried that Laura would suffer at the hands of my biking obsession, but it all seemed to work well. We only missed a couple of items, and those were just forgetfulness rather than lack of space....

As follow on from the BikeSafe article below, I thought I’d mention that next Wednesday, 18th July, is the annual Ride To Work day. The BikeSafe guys are going to be leading one of many groups around the country that are doing a promotional ride in to promote biking as an alternative commuting method. You can find more about the rides here. The real bonus is that for the Cambridge run I gather there’s discount off your bacon roll (or other breakfast) at the Auto Stop Café :)...

This week I went to the first of three lessons by BikeSafe, an initiative ran by Police forces around the UK to educate bikers further about safe driving. The lessons are classroom based; the first one concentrated on the mental aspects of riding safely, with subsequent lessons covering cornering and overtaking in detail. Following the classroom lessons will be a one hour riding session. Hopefully these will fill in some of the bits I felt were missing from my original training, which did a fine job at mastering the bike safely, but I felt left out a lot of the application in real road situations....

Laura all helmeted up, watching an aerial display at Duxford from afar. There was a range of big and small planes from around World War Two doing fancy manoeuvres quite low down. It was quite impressive stuff to see so close; the larger planes seemed to be really on the edge at times, moving in ways that made me feel odd watching them, so I’d imagine it’s worse inside. It’s unusual you get to see such heavy flying machines up close (given their intended purpose, certainly that’s a good thing with regards to these specific planes), and there’s a degree of inspiration that they give, which I think you get less of a feel for now that modern planes are just too fast to see (though Laura correctly pointed out that vertical take off/landing is still quite impressive)....

I’ve been known to complain about the amount of bugs that I end up covered with when out on the bike – both my helmet and bike end up covered after an evening run. But I feel having seen this picture that I’m probably lucky: Taken from AdvRider, where they have various picture threads, which usually have a reasonably high quality of shots from around the world. The above one came from here, but there’s others about such as this one....

The trailer from Touratech’s 2006 kit test run – going from Canada to Mexico with the rule that you can only use roads when there’s no other choice. Just incase you thought I’d forgotten that I was bike obsessive…...

I’m sure most people that care know, but just in case, the team that did the Long Way Round, are about to embark on another adventure, the Long Way Down. This time they’re biking from John O’Groats in Scotland down to Capetown in South Africa (if you register at the web site there’s a short video explaining what they’re about to embark on). Having found the original both enjoyable and inspirational I’m looking forward to their next adventure....

Today I took the bike out for its last outing before it hit the magic one thousand miles – it’s now all grown up, and goes in for its first service on Tuesday. I have to say that nothing has me made me regret opting for the Uly. It handles wonderfully, both when I’m out on my own the bike stripped down, like I was today, and with a passanger and a full set of loaded luggage....

On another nice weekend, having done our various Sunday chores, we headed out to Ickworth House, which is just past Bury St Edmonds. Ickworth is set in very nice grounds, but interestingly it’s very nice inside. Usually I don’t get very excited by looking inside old houses, finding them very uninspiring, but Ickworth was a noteable exception to this. This is probably due to the Bristol family, who had the house built and owned it until recently, all seemingly being slightly eccentric (to put it politely)....

Whilst out shopping earlier today Laura and I spotted this neat looking vehicle: It’s a Scorpian III – a three wheeled custom car made around a 1200cc engine from a BMW K series motorbike (the shaft drive which gives it away is just out of shot). Very pretty, and looks great fun. We chatted to the owner who seemed quite pleased, even with no reverse gear (he had to push it out of the parking space)....

Failed attempts to be artistic Number 1203:...

In an effort to do our bit for the environment and remain Culturally Neutral after seeing Twelfth Night, we went to see Wild Hogs last night. I assume Laura wanted to see the film, a daft affair following four middle aged men who decide to try and get some adventure back into their lives by going on a road trip across the US on their Harleys, to see if she could work out how best she might deal with me or what tendancies I might pick up over the years :)...

Today I took the Uly up to Norfolk, first following Laura and her parents up to Oxburgh Hall then Laura and I drove up to Brancaster beach, where it was quite blustery and cold, but it was a beach. On the way home, seeing as we were at the coast we decided to stop for fish and chips at Hunstanton. Normally I avoid /Hunstanton as it’s usually too busy, but today it wasn’t too bad....

As promised, some more pics of the bike and me – though most aren’t that brilliant, as my camera phone is a bit picky about when it likes to be sharp and when it doesn’t....

No new bike for me yet, most frustratingly. I was hoping to have it by Saturday (yesterday), but between the bike being delivered at the garage a day late and the insurance company messing up sending out the documents (required for vehicle registration with the DVLA) I’ll be lucky if I see it before next weekend at this rate....

Will, I’ve put a deposit on the Buell, so fingers crossed I’ll have a usable bike soon! The one I’ve ordered, when tooled up, should look a little like this....

I worry that Laura thinks this’ll be a permerment placement in the garage: Though I have to confess, I have the same worry. The Ducati has not been a well bike of late. The electrics are playing up again and now the oil gauge has stopped working, so I thought it was out of oil and then over filled it. Now I’m trying to find the right tool to let me drain it out again....

As a relatively new biker I’m still exploring the advantages of the bike. On Friday I had to dash to King’s College in town, and parking in town can be a bit of a pain at times in the car. The Backs (the bit of land that backs onto the main colleges in the town centre) is usually okay, but assuming you have change to hand, and at 50p per 20 minutes it’s not cheap....

So, it was bound to happen I guess, but I had my first bike mishap. Before you get all worried, it happened whilst stationary, off the road. Just the kind of moment I guess when you feel it’s okay to be rushed and less cautious. Doesn’t mean I feel any less of an utter fool however. I was parking up at the Lab, and I was in a bit of a hurry....