Retrograde Mechanica

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

More from Gorden

I love going to Gorden's place - always loads to look at and lust after

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

One of my all time favourite Blogs is by Chemical Candy Customs, not only do they turn out some of the tightest paint around, but they also run a tight ship on their blog too.

Daily Posts covering Chops &; Bobs, Knees in the Breeze, Daily Bread (gorgeous nekid women for all you pervs...& me), and my favourite 'Control' - a series of posts showing what bikes are really there for - to be enjoyed.

Pics from the BackStreet Bucket (Chemical Candy Customs) blog - check it out!

Monday, 17 September 2012

Made me laugh....

...it did too

Gorden's TR5 Outfit

My mate Gorden is putting together this lovely droptank TR5 outfit....sidecars are so bloody cool, and this machine is gorgeous!

0.75cc's....

....well 0.75 to 15cc depending which you look at.

I love anything mechanical, but the internal combustion engine is without a doubt the best invention ever, regardless of size and purpose.

Terry has a collection of model airplane and boat engines - these things are awesome; even more so when you fire them up. Fully functioning engines this small are just fascinating!

Those big ole 15cc engines are all magnesium, so cool!

On ebay now...

Sunday, 16 September 2012

Trip Out 2012

Stolen from Pete's blog

Sunday at Jacks Hill and MadHaters in Dunstable

"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"