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Bentley Drivers’ Day 2010 – Communism meets Capitalism
Absolutely the best event at Silverstone is Bentley Drivers’ Day. There is something jaw-dropping about watching men old enough to know better ragging £250,000-worth of racing lorry (pace, Ettore)...
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Why it takes longer by Ural
You don’t buy a Ural to go fast. Urals are Russian motorcycle combinations, built like tanks (but slightly heavier) and rather slower. Based loosely on the 1930’s design for the BMW R71, they’re still...
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Rotary Nortons, lunch and fifteenth century painting
It’s all Hugh Jaeger’s fault. As are so many things. It’s been mayhem at the office since January. The shells keep coming over. Every day we’ve climbed the fire-step, scrambled over the parapet and –...
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Old watches, old bikes and a bit of soul
It had been quite a day. We’d only ridden just over 160 miles, but through winding, high-banked lanes, over moors and finally down a flaky, clacky shale track that would have given a mountain goat...
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Hanging up your helmet
The days are, finally, lengthening. That seemed as good an excuse as any to drag the Ural from under its cover and clack-zag though the staggered web of lanes to Bibury. At this time of year the coach...
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Spring.
You can tell it’s spring. All the little parking gaps in Stow that are empty in the winter now host Solvol-gleamed motorcycles. The creak of leathers is almost audible as sportsbike riders mix it with...
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The kindness of strangers
The GS has been playing up for a while. Matt and Stuart at North Oxford Garage have been fantastic – and patient – trying to diagnose an intermittent but vicious electrical problem where the bike...
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RAF Kelmscott and summer silence.
I sat in the airless reception area with its cheerful, exhortative corporate posters and thought of communist Russia. Dark wood. Grey, worn carpet. Grey fluorescent lights. Every so often, there would...
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It’s not Urals that are unreliable. It’s their owners.
It was the rain that did it. That, and me buggering off for Christmas, leaving the Ural alone, outside under its cover. By the time I’d got back, half the UK’s annual rainfall had found its way into...
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Slow Train
There’s not been a lot of time for two or three-wheeled ambling recently. Instead, a pretty solid wall of work-borne rush, stress and frustration has kept me off the bikes. So, with an unaccustomed...
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Three wheels on my wagon
Bikes have been part of my life since I first tried a friend’s 50cc Monkeybike at the age of 11. I couldn’t wait to get a licence. In Frome, there was an independent BMW dealer, Difazio’s. I’d walk...
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