h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An electronic highway greeting to a fellow biker!!
(We Brits still ride on the left, don't know about SA though)

Ever since you mentioned the weather it hasn't stopped raining!!!Hailing!!! And thanks for the drizzle, it made a welcome change.

Thought I'd tell you about my oldest bike. A bright yellow (Hey! It was yellow or maroon. It HAD to be yellow!!) Honda 400four F 2. Born in'78, I picked her up in '80 with only 500 miles on the clock.

She's only fallen twice:

Once in the garage. I noticed the carpet (comforts) was creased so I yanked it!! Ooops!! Bike went from side-stand to no stand in what seemed like a scene from the Matrix. One dented tank on an otherwise pristine bike.

Second mishap. Travelling 250 miles(ish) to France, I was way ahead of time (First time, playing safe). Decided to stop for a biffta (smoke) 30 miles short of the ferry.

I didn't notice the gentle doward slope where I'd pulled up!
I didn't notice that I hadn't left the bike in first gear.
I did notice the gravitational effects of the heavy backpack as I also noticed -earth, sky, earth, sky, as I went AOT down the embankment at the side of the road!!!

I checked the bike over. Looked ok. Off to the ferry then.

Get off the ferry in France before the sun wakes up. Turn on headlights and ....Phut!!1 NO electrics!!

The switch gear had just caught the pavement when it fell. Although it didn't severe the wires, it did cut through the sheathing.

Good job I smoked. Foil from packet gets me to a garage. My bad french and a phrase book gets me a head shake and Gaelic shrug. Gets the fuse off, guy grins, gives me a fuse for nowt and calls me a Motard. Turns out he was a biker and Motard is biker.

I won't tell the rest of the trip, it's a long enough tale now.

Catch ya on the flip side!

LH wave back at yer!

We have adopted most of the Best of British in South Africa - we used to be a colony - cricket, rugby, griping and riding on the left side of the road.

My first bike was a Honda XL185 at University. Parking cars was a pain and bikes could park anywhere - no discussion! I rode it for four years and had one wipeout. One morning I played hookey from lectures and went riding offroad - alone! Negotiating a series of ruts in a track, my front wheel took the outer rut and my rear wheel took the inner. I was high-sided and hit a young sapling with my thighs. The effect was to reduce both legs to numb lumps as impacted nerves shut down. I lay there in the blazing sun for twenty minutes before I could move them - wondering whether I would be found before I died of thirst, etc. etc. Tank was slightly dented by the right hand grip and my legs recovered for me to ride back to university.

When I qualified as an Architect, I joined my father's practice and decided to do up the Hond. I stripped her down, carefully packing bits and pieces in boxes in the garden shed. Then my Dad died suddenly, leaving me his share in the practice and a Mercedes. Work pressure stopped me riding - or fixing the Honda. Some years later Lady J pressured me to clear the shed and I sold it "as is" to a young student for R100 (about 8 pounds).

That was it as far as biking was concerned. Then I turned 40 and midlife crisis kicked me in the groin. The lust for life swelled in my loins and an friend of ours (an old girlfriend of mine) said: "When a man turns 40, he either takes a mistress - or he buys a 4x4!" I didn't have the funds to buy a 4x4 - so I guessed that a mistress was called for.
I spotted her in the window at a bike shop down the road from my home and I couldn't resist. Candy is a candy-apple red BMW R80 built in June 1980. When I bought her in 1995 she has 42000k's on the clock - she now has 129000k's and I put them there!

I have had one spill in the local mall parking area when a d*ckhead signalled right and turned left into a parking space right in front of me. Front end slipped on loose stones and down I went. A slight repair to the fibreglass fairing and a respray of the whole bike left her very bright and shiny - almost virgin again.

Since then I haven't dropped her again. She has fallen over twice on the lawn at bike rallies when she drank too much and her main stand pushed into soft ground during an overnight rainstorm in the camping ground in Swaziland. But apart from embarassment at being found wheels-up and her heads dirty, she hasn't had another accident.

She's had a gearbox transplant from a very nice (before the prang) R100RT at about 70000k's when she popped a bearing cage and circulated chunks of metal through the intermeshed cogs and she broke an exhaust valvestem at 82828k's which cost me a bit - I had her rebuilt from the crank out on both sides with 1mm oversize pistons.

Since then she has carried me safely to two of the four extremes of South Africa - the North and East points. She like travelling at 4500rpm all day - tic-tic-tic-tic valvegear which is about 110kph. Now and then she burns up the tarmac to 7000rpm in top - just to show me she can top the ton

Lady J doesn't ride - vertigo or something - but the has never stopped me from riding - just as long as I don't pick up any 38C pillions in tight jeans. I think she likes getting rid of me once in a while for a day or three.

I'm planning a trip around the four extremes of south Africa in September (our Spring). That's 8500k's in three weeks. Our bike club chairman and his wife did it recently (see http://www.bmwclubs.co.za/pretoria/index.html and pick on the story) Browse around the club site and you'll pick up a photo or two of me about - one with a K1200GT at the 2003 Toy Run.

Keep the rubber on the road!
WR

16K bikes at the toy run?

Impressed is I!

We have a local easter egg run for kids in hospital that get circa 5K (biggest in the UK).

The only time i see more bikes is at the TT races on the Isle of Man circa 40K. That too is local for me (20 mins to Liverpool and a ferry to the IoM- then 30 mins to get off whilst all the poor duke owners pick up the rmains of their pride and joy, poor s*ds).

scuzzi......you guys do realise that the heading of this convo could be looked in a different way


Hellooooooo WR!!!!! Nice for me to come across one of YOUR threads for a change!!!!



Oh, it's OK boys - no need to stand up and let me have one of the only 2 seats in the room....I'll stand

HOWZIT VICKI... I didn't mean to wake the whole community...

I trust you are well!?? Are you diagnosed yet and are you getting (even) better all the time?

Of course she's getting better. Just check out the sarcasm, it's back to normal.

And VV, that would be a right handed wave! You going to the New Brighton Egg Run this year?

Unless I'm left-handed...

Don't give her ideas. she's got plenty as it is.

And what a delightful at that too...!
The VV on her homepage looks just like Madonna's famous pointed bra but she maintains she won't fill THOSE cups IRL.





But then I prefer smaller ones, myself...they jiggle better when unrestrained!

Outrider " "!

My fella says - anything more than a handful is a waste


Outrider - as for the Egg Run - only if it isn't raining or freezing cold......and I'll have to stay at the back of the queue as I don't want anyone riding into me!

In addition - New Brighton is always darn cold!