Sunday 26 April 2009 at 9:07 pm
Just a quick note to say that the ZXR sailed through its MOT on Friday afternoon. I celebrated by heading out for a gentle bimble (hah) around with a few of the East Mids based members of the
PB Magazine forum. Turns out that thrashing a sportsbike round the countryside is bloody good fun. Who'd have thought it?
I had the quite pleasant experience earlier of having to decide which bike to take to work tomorrow. The ZXR won this time.
Wednesday 22 April 2009 at 5:21 pm
As if any more excuse was needed to get out there and ride, a new study has shown that
riding motorcycles helps keep drivers young by invigorating their brains".
The study in question was carried out by none other than Dr Kawashima (of the Nintendo 'Brain Training' series of games). Apparently,
"The driver's brain gets activated by riding motorbikes".
He carries on to say:
"In a convenient and easy environment, the human mind and body get used to setting the hurdle low,"
Sounds like the average car-driving commuter to me.
Tuesday 07 April 2009 at 12:57 pm
Since I last posted an update on the ZXR400 I've managed to make a reasonable amount of progress. The engine has a new head gasket and camchain, the best 16 followers I could find between my two engines, and freshly adjusted valve clearances, and it's back in the bike. The front and rear subframes are coming together, despite me 'designing' them as I went along - and hence changing my mind every five minutes about how they should be laid out.
Unfortunately, as of tomorrow, I will have exactly one calendar month before the bike is due out on track at Anglesey. As if that wasn't tight enough, I'm away for the next two weekends. Hence the one step back...
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Wednesday 01 April 2009 at 9:54 pm
Shortly after doing my CBT back in January 2002, I bought a red CG125 BR-J from a bloke somewhere in the wilds of Gloucestershire. I rode it around for the next nine months, regularly taking on the three hour flat out ride between Birmingham (home) and Bath (uni), and eventually used it to pass my test, when I bought a 1978 Suzuki GS400, and the CG ended up sat in my parents garage for the next couple of years.
Roll forward to February 2004, and I finally got round to putting it through an MOT and selling it to
a lovely young lady from Devon. In fact she was sufficiently lovely that two weeks later we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and three and a half years later became husband and wife. So the trusty CG never quite left my life. When Sarah passed her test in late 2005 and bought a GPZ500S, I was still using it to commute on until it failed its MOT in early 2006 and was pushed to the back of the garage for want of enough time to fix it.
Roll forward again to the present day, and it's moved house twice in pieces, and is still shoved in a corner of the garage. I need to get it back together and sold to free up some space. Simple huh? So what's the problem?
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