Retrograde Mechanica: May 2013

Thursday, 30 May 2013

Razoredge on the bay

This thing is killing it - get your slice of cool here

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

I'm really loving what James from the Kingdom of Kicks is doing with his triumph, love the Stance, the tank artwork, upcoming sissy bar, lights the lot - Think it's time I built another / changed up the bonnie!

Check out their site!

Hope you don't mind me stealing the pics dude!

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Bonnie

Love this bike...more than my others

Monday, 27 May 2013

Honda....

Thinking of trying to get this Cb160 tank to fit, then running a bit of recessed Tuck 'n' Roll into the tank to blend in with a little cafe seat...we'll see.

Sywell Airfield

Took a quick ride out with Terry to see what was going on....not a lot but found a nice old Rover and had a pint so not all bad!

Catch of the Day

Well done Brother

Friday, 24 May 2013

Desert Sleds, Trackers and Scramblers

Still hankering to build one - anyone got a T120 in boxes.....?

NSRA Next Weekend

Always a grand weekend

31st May - 2nd June 2013

Billing Aquadrome

Crow Lane

Great Billing

Northampton

NN3 9DA

http://www.billingaquadrome.com

Craig's Fixie

Craig sent me a few pics of his Fixie - Nice work old bean!

Sunday, 19 May 2013

Lead Loading

The Bonnie can be a harsh vibey ride on a dual carriage way - a bit of roofing lead soon sorted that....well to a degree.

BMW to the grinder

My brother flew into Bournemouth to pick up his new 71 R75/5 and popped in for the night on his long ride back to Dublin to start chopping the things up and rebuild the engine - only two breakdown en-route so all in all not bad....he made it too.

Fixed

Bonnie all up and fixed - 5 minute job which made missing the Bike Shed cc show even more annoying, woke up with a bloody hangover so just hit the cafe to with Mark and Charlotte aka Mouse and caught a couple of nice cars.

Saturday, 18 May 2013

Bugger

So I should have spent my day here......

But instead it was spent here.........Hard shoulder of the M1.........The only spares I didn't have were some electrical connectors, crimps and whatnot.......

So I ended up here.....going in the wrong direction....

Bugger!

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Events

We're hitting them all - are you?

Monday, 6 May 2013

Slippin'

The clutch that is - it overheated badly on todays sunny ride out....so time to give the old girl a birthday, fresh fluids, a bit of slick 50, some new plates....might even give her the once yearly clean....

Also got round to stripping the Bantam down for paint.

Thursday, 2 May 2013

The Italian Shop

No better way to spend a lunch hour then a quick outing on the Bonnie and lunch and a chat with your favourite Italian Deli Owner.

Cheers Adriana - the panani rocked

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

What it's all about!

Sunny evening rides, watching the sun come down and chatting to random strangers about triumphs restored and bobbed.

"Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of a "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself"

"That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind — number three tappet is right on too. One more to go. This had better be it — .I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this...that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes...pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts...all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind! — Ghosts"