Sylvie has gone to Motorbike Hospital and Jayne becomes a Vicar!

Sylvie was knocked over and damaged recently while she was parked up outside my place of work. So the Insurance companies have taken over in dealing with the repairs. So far it looks like she is going to be away for a while and I am greatly missing my beautiful girly bike.

While it is hard to take photos that show the damage, we have managed to get a couple.

  

Luckily it was a low speed impact, and damage was minimal, but the lesson learned here is to never rely on just parking sensors alone.

In the mean time, the Insurance company have provided me with a couple of Hire bikes while Sylvie is away. 

The first was another SV, a brand new bike with just enough miles on the clock to justify the first service! She was a beautiful bike, but with the standard clip-ons was murder to ride. Strangely, she felt much smaller than Sylvie, the seat felt lower and the bike actually felt much smaller and lighter. I cannot imagine that there are that many differences between a K3 (Sylvie) and a brand new one (K9), but I did notice an aluminum rear frame. 

Jayne and not Sylvie.

The saddest part of riding her though was not the position, it was the restriction. The SV was restricted via the horrors of a throttle stop, giving the throttle about a third of a turn before it stopped. Just lovely, in a very un-lovely kind of way. If anyone out there wants to restrict their SV, I fully recommend the restricted ECU as opposed to the throttle stop way. The ECU allows full use of the throttle and allows the engine to breath fully, but electronically restricts the bike rev speed. This keeps you legal, but still allows your bike to feel like a big bike. The throttle stop prevents the engine from hitting the power band, so it is always under powered, unless you keep it in lower gears than you would normally use. Then it goes everywhere screaming, which sounds great, but looks pathetic!

The next bike delivered was a Honda CBF600 and I was expecting great things.

Castration is a terrible thing to do to a bike.

The CBF was comfortable, but felt narrow at the bars and overly top heavy. Riding it though revealed that it had been badly castrated by the throttle stop, so badly in fact that it was unable to make it up our local hill, two up, in second gear. 

The ride to Gloucester was a nightmare of struggling to keep up with Carol and Alex on the gorgeous Kawasaki ZRX1100, the Honda was simply outclassed, which is such a shame because I have always held Honda Motorcycles in such high regard. The Honda has a power band starting at about six and a half thousand revolutions of the engine, the throttle stop prevents it getting much past four thousand unless it is again ridden in low gear and thrashed like a loon. Riding the Honda is an experience that in terms of excitement I can only compare with extreme sports such Knitting, embroidery or ironing! For such a good looking bike, it has a terribly bland ride and trying to fit Sylvie's luggage was a disaster because there are so few fitting points. The grab rail is actually a pair of handles that are open ended and do not give a tie down point or easy fitting of a seat pack. Were that not bad enough, while riding it has a disturbing feel to the steering that causes the rider to have to pull the bars back from a turn because it feels like the front wheel wants to fold under the engine. In all, the Honda feels entirely underwhelming and nothing like the Suzuki SV, which is a fire breathing monster in comparison. I miss my dear Sylvie.

So while Sylvie is away I must endure the trials of boredom by Honda and frustration by Insurance Company. Now to be fair, this has very little to do with my Insurance company and I can now fully recommend CIA Insurance (although I am profoundly grateful to not have to be dealing with the incompetent MCE at the moment. God alone knows what kind of a mess they would have made of this!), who have gone out of their way to be helpful with Sylvie. They have passed Sylvie over to a company called Plantec and it is from Plantec that I have had the hire bikes. Now having never heard of Plantec, I was more than a little worried about giving them my bike. Internet feedback seemed poor and advice from trusted people in know like dear old Lozzo from the SV forum made me even more worried. However, armed with good advice from these sources, I was and am still prepared for war. So far though, Plantec have been very good, with regular weekly updates on progress with Sylvie, checking that I am happy with the hire bikes and that I am able to perform pre-ride checks. Their service has so far been very good, I just hope that this remains to be the case and that Sylvie is returned to me very soon, especially as I am not sure that I could survive a long trip on the Honda, I might die of boredom first!

So, that is the ongoing Sylvie story, I feel like I have had a limb removed while she is away, luckily Carol has been a rock and continues to be so. As for my friend who knocked Sylvie over, she continues to be my friend, I just hope that dealings with insurance companies do not mess that up, she was extremely sorry and knowing how much I love my bike, shed a tear or two with me. Bless...

Yes, Bless her. In my newly acquired official capacity as a Reverend, I can bless her, I am just not sure as what Deity, if any, I should choose to bless her with!

Burn, you sinners!

Not being the overly religious type, not really believing in God and not liking religion makes it hard to be a Vicar in this modern world, but I do not see why only men who wear dresses (and possibly harm children) are allowed to perform such duties! After all, I am very well educated woman, I have an excellent vocabulary (although it is littered with filthy words and vile terms!) and I am able to listen to people while providing a kind and sympathetic ear. 

Now I feel that I have to explain my actions a little, after all I would not want you thinking that I am something of a hypocrite. I have a very strong and profound belief in something very dear. It is not in a deity, for in truth I am not sure that there is room in our universe for such a being, however my faith if you want to call it that is in something far more tangible. My faith dear reader is in you. I have faith that you as a human being are capable of many great things and many great acts of kindness and courage. If you take away the spooky stuff from religion, you are left with a moral code, if you remove the political nastiness from that moral code, you are left with some pretty basic good stuff. Be nice to each other, don't murder each other and enjoy life.

So ladies and gentlemen of my flock, this is my sermon to you.

Go forth and enjoy your lives, show kindness to those about you, hug those you care for, do something that promotes human rights and most of all, watch out when reversing your car near my bike!

Bless you, now go and have some great sex with someone of the same or opposite gender to yourself!

Love each other and listen to lots of brutal black metal!

The first Bike Night of 2011.

So after a hugely busy few days, bike night hits us in the eyes and we both ended up sprinting down there on Sylvie. Agnes is still poorly and Rosie has no wheels at the moment.

In case you missed it, this is what it was like.

Do you remember your first time?

It felt slightly dirty, a little bit taboo and then it made me squeal with ecstasy, the chap who took my cherry chatted to me for a while as the heat of excitement dissipated and then we did it again. 

Yeah, my first ever ride on a bike was with a dear friend of mine on the back of his CB250 Super Dream. The bike was slow, heavy and under powered, but it was a bike and we were free to ride where ever we wanted. We clocked up hundreds of miles and even attended a rally together. That was nearly twenty years ago and I had forgotten about it until very recently.

What reminded me was something that happened to me on Friday, or rather happened to some one else with me. I was working in a small town near Bristol and took a ride over on the SV due to the Yam still being a paper weight in the garage.

The support worker I was teamed with on this day was a young woman called Rosie, just into her twenties and she is lovely, very gentle and brilliant with our lad. However, upon telling her that I was going to offer her a lift home, she squealed and danced around the house, which made our lad smile and laugh, before giving her a hug.

So at the end of our day, having enjoyed some great art and even some cooking, Rosie started to get ready to go. I gave her some spare gear that I had brought with me, which only just fitted her due to me being tall and chubby and her being shorter and a lot thinner, the joy of age and then we were ready to go.

Now I am not averse to nubile young women holding onto me, but I will admit that this was cool for a different reason. She giggled and laughed as she got comfortable on the pillion pad before I pressed the go buttons. I swear to you that she screamed all the way down the drive way and giggled all the way to the first turn. I was being very gentle and was giving her time to get used to how a bike feels. All I could hear was excited giggling as we gently headed up the road.

Our first stop was where she phoned the home of her next client. she told them to look out for her on my bike. The client was not amused, she wanted a go on the bike too! So we headed off into the hills and made our way to the clients house. At one point we entered a section of road that has national speed limit signs and the car in front of us was travelling at barely 40. It just required a little over take and so I nipped out and back in again making progress past the slow moving car. My friend on the back was giggling and whooping as we ambled past.

Finally we arrived at the clients house, a young woman who we both know well and really enjoy working with. Technically I was finished for the day, Rosie was about to start a night shift, but just going back home seemed boring. Our clients was a little jealous of Rosie because she has been desperate for a ride on the bike ever since she first met me, how could I refuse?

Working with adults who have learning difficulties and physical disabilities is both very challenging and very rewarding work, but it is work I really enjoy. My friend and I helped our client put on her bike gear and checked her new helmet before going outside and starting the bike. She climbed on the back and we both made sure that she knew how to tell me to stop if she needed to get off. Then I pulled away and very gently performed a full circle on the road outside her house, thank the town planner for the extra wide vehicle turning area.

My new pillion hugged me tightly from behind and was looking over my right shoulder to see where we were going, I knew that she was a little scared, but she would never show it to her housemate or us support workers. So at gentle pace we set off for a short ride around town. She loved it. As we were coming home and coming across the motorway fly over, we watched a black unmarked Police Car, come racing up the slip way with blue flashing lights and tare off in pursuit of a badly driven Landrover Disco!

Once back home our client jumped off, she was in a completely different mood to the quiet, with drawn mood that we found her in. Her face was all smiles, she was bouncing along and filled with joy, just like my friend Rosie. Two very different women, with very different places in the world, now joined in a common experience of adventure.

Rosie will be having a lift again when we work together next, she loved the bike and maybe one day she will get a bike of her own. Our client though is another story, she will never be allowed to ride her own bike on the roads due to her disability, but I do not see why this should stop her having fun. So once we hit summer and the local bike nights start up again, I will be picking her up and bringing her over, so she can have a proper ride out, she can see lots of other bikes and she can meet other bikers. I know that she wants to do this and I know that she is hugely excited by the idea.

Damn, I love my job and I love riding my bike, I love it even more when the two things are combined. So folks, if any of you happen to bump into me at a bike event and I have a young woman in my care, don't be shy or dismissive of her because of her disability, she is just as much a biker as the rest of us.

Bike Night with Carley

Where to begin with this new entry to our world of Blogging.

Well first of all, welcome dear readers, thank you for showing interest in our little lives and do please leave comments on our blog if you want to, nice ones will be cherished and if any one compares us to Hitler, well we can live with that too. We are big and hard after all.

Two adventures for you this month, one by Bike and one by Car.

Weston Bike night again this week and sadly Carol was working and I was stuck at home packing for our Devon trip. However, a new friend to us, the delightful Carley, has recently been very poorly and has spent some time in Hospital, luckily she is mending now and is almost ready to get back on her bike and get on with passing her big bike test. Carley is also quite brave and agreed to a trip out on the back of Sylvie before pulling up on the sea front for Bike night. Now as you can imagine, with me on the front and Carol in work, this was going to be an interesting trip.

Getting her ready

The first thing to do was find her and we agreed a pick up point close to somewhere I could actually find. Sure enough, she was there and I got a little lost and then stuck in traffic. However, the engine roar was appreciated as we pulled up and Carley and Sylvie got to know each other. Once geared up and with the bike intercom in place, we set off and I promptly took a wrong turn and ended up in the Car park for McDonalds! I quickly found a way out and headed the right way and towards the motorway.

Carley had not been on the motorway before and also going on the back of the SV for the first time was a bit of a new experience too. Unfortunately the cross winds were horrible and on one occasion the gust was so strong it blew us across our lane and almost in the next. It was only the use of counter steering and black magic that stopped us, the black magic being the grip from out excellent tyres on the road.

We took the exit for Brent Knoll and turned on to the main road to head back towards Weston, slowing some what for the heavy traffic. The whole journey felt to me to be slow and stop start traffic, we managed to filter past some slow moving cars and eventually made it to the faster sections of road before taking the roundabout turning onto the A370 to Weston. Here the road speeds up for about two hundred metres before dropping back to a forty zone. The Speed camera has finally been removed, but road conditions were making it a slow twenty five to thirty miles per hour speed limit. Once the road opened up, we blasted out and past a line of slow moving cars to catch up the one that was going thirty in a national speed limit (if that was you driving like that, you are rude and dangerous) and shot past into a nice big gap, closely followed by a 900 Hornet.

A quick blast at sixty brought us close to home again and sadly the traffic started to bunch up again as we enter a fifty zone, the Hornet behind us was trying to get past us, but we in turn we stopped by oncoming cars and trucks. Eventually he saw a gap that his bike could make, but Sylvie in restricted two up mode would struggle with. He shot past and pulled in three cars ahead to avoid a truck, before slowly skipping one car at a time homewards.

I throttled off a little and just enjoyed a pootle, although the wind gusts were so strong that I had to keep on correcting our road position. Finally we passed the Weston sign and the Blue Hornet was still in sight just ahead. It looked like he too was heading to Bike night. Cruising down the sea front with a laughing Carley on the back is one of the coolest things I have ever done, giving some one else the ability to enjoy bikes just by taking them for a ride out is a brilliant thing to do.

We pulled up and paid our pound towards the Royal British Legion, a charity that cares for ex British forces troops, so it is a pound well spent. The Sea front was filling up rapidly with bikes and we weaved our way through the crowd to a parking spot, before stripping off the hot and humid bike gear and going for a wander to see who had turned up.

Bikes continued to pour into the parking area and it looked like there were hundreds, if not thousands of bikers and bikes. As we wandered a local Council worker tried in vain to communicate with us, but being a local and having several missing teeth, she found using language a bit of a struggle. As it turned out she was concerned about why there were a lot of bikes turning up and parking on the Sea Front, so we just smiled and left her to her cursing.

After a while the wind dropped and the heat started to disperse, leaving Carley and I with a wish to sit down and watch the world of bikes pass us by. Carley kindly bought me a cuppa and we sat and talked bikes for a while before going for one last wander around. By this time, the line of bikes was three time longer than it had been on our arrival and it was also parked up in four rows. This was a lot of bikes and even a few trikes. As always, the unbaffled exhausts of the Harleys sounded mean and aggressive, but just managed to “put put” through the crowd to the road way and river barge turn onto the road. It saddens me that a bike with three or more times the capacity of my little Sylvie can actually produce only slightly more that her restricted engine.

We geared up and Carley started Sylvie who purred into life, a passer by remarked that she was “just an old SV”, yet he was a passer by who did not know her well. She may well be the first of the pointies, but she has the heart and soul of a lioness, proud and ferocious. Even with her quiet pipe, she sounds lovely and that is how I want to keep her for now.

We weaved through the crowd towards the road, people stepping out of our way as I practiced my slow control, only one guy failed to notice us, but the small child he was pushing into our path sure did. Come on parents, if you are a holiday maker and you are walking through a crowd of bikers, don’t push you kids about with out looking, they might get squashed!

The road to Kewstoke takes in the Sea front and it is finally open, at last. We blasted along and looked so cool, the gentle sea breeze now nothing more aggressive than the occasional gentle gust and we entered the Toll Road. The sweeping curves would be awesome at speed, but the signs tell us that a lot of folks have had horrible, horrible accidents along there, so the limit is reduced to a snail like twenty five. Even at this speed Sylvie feels lovely though.

Passing through Kewstoke we were moving at a steady twenty five when a car pulled up to a junction, I watched the young girl driver look to her left and just pull out as we approached. She crossed our path and turned right, heading to where we had come. I pulled my brakes hard and Sylvie’s nose dived, her new repositioned horn let the girl know that we were not pleased at her dangerous move and I was livid. As she passed us by the girl looked at us and laughed. I despair at the state of the world when a driver can nearly cause an accident and think it is funny.

I dropped Carley off and turned Sylvie around, before opening her up and slipping the clutch slightly to get her roaring as I pulled away waving, Carley now safely home and ready for a restful evening.

The following morning was the next big adventure, a trip to North Devon and Hazel and Dom’s wedding…

To be continued.

Faster, faster, faster

Well there is so much to tell you since we last spoke.

First of all, congratulations to our friend Luke who passed his bike test last Thursday. He was finally able to join us on his lovely Honda Hornet for Weston Bike Night, his first as a big bike rider. It was really nice to see him on his bike and enjoying it, although Carol picked us both up for getting excited and forgetting our life saver looks. Oops...




This weeks event started with an argument between Carol and I. Who was going to ride the Honda CG? As a dyed in the wool biker, it would not look good for Carol to turn up to bike night on a ratty training bike, however, whose Suzuki is it? So after a game of paper, scissors, stone, Carol just thumped me and I learned my place! Actually, Carol is my lass and she looks great on the SV. I can hardly show her off if she is on the little bike, it also gives my neck a chance to recover from riding the Suzuki's clip on bars.

As for Bike Night, what an evening out that was. I had heard from a few folks on the SV forum that they were going to take a ride over and come and say hello. Leading the pack would be Gruntygiggles and her other half Stretchie. Not having met these people before, I was a little shy as always, but they were both really lovely people. Tagged along with them were half of the South West area SV owners, ( Squirrel Hunter, Beenz, BaP, BrisRob and a load whose names I can't remember) and old faithfuls Dan, (aka Metalhead), Stu (aka Nemesis) with his new and very noisy can and finally Lloyd, on his lovely Fireblade. After a brief stop on the sea front, we headed over to Scallys and just made it in time for the last of the Hog Roast. Well I say Hog Roast, when we got there, there was a pigs head on the cooker! Being a recent convert back to a carnivore life style, a pigs head was a little too much for me and I settled for a nice burger instead.

For those of you not familiar with Scallys, it is Weston's premier biker friendly pub and on Bike Night it is a great place to sit and chill after the heat and the chaos that is the sea front. It is also a place where Carol can catch up with old mates and swap gossip, the funny thing about a group of bikers like this is that although they look dead hard and a bit scary, in club patches and leathers, they are actually a lot of fun and rather sweet.

Carol deserted me at the pub and wandered off to chat to her mates, but I did not mind because I was with my new friends from the SV forum and we chatted until late into the evening. I was a little sorry to hear that one of the lads had had an off on the way over, but he was OK and the damage was minimal to his bike. Being a new rider myself, I can understand the fear of loose corners while going a touch too fast. After a while though, they all had to head back home to Wiltshire and when Gruntygiggles started her little Blade, there were appreciative comments the locals in the pub. It sounded like a Blade should, a steady growl that you knew would turn into a howl on the faster roads. Having waved them off, I went to find Carol and found her in a gaggle of bikers discussing the merits of a 33BHP restriction, yeah she blew my cover again and had told a load of hard bikers that actually, I am a little girly with a half power bike... Thanks for that Babe!

The trip home was refreshingly cool after the days heat and One of Carol's mates had a lift on the back of Sylvie to enjoy some toasted home made bread and a nice cuppa. It is so nice to see Carol with her old mates, she tends to shine when she is happy, and tonight she was glowing.

Thursday night rolled over into Friday morning and I had long since retired to bed. A bit of bad news dropped through the letter box, but it was nothing that could not be sorted by a ride out on the bikes. I prepped Sylvie and got Henry ready while Carol got the filming equipment sorted out. With one camera mounted on the front of Sylvie and another mounted on the rear of Henry, we could film each other riding to Cheddar and up the gorge. Well, that was the plan.

Henry was poorly. He would cough and splutter and then he cut out. Carol pulled over and gave him a check over and he spluttered back to life. Half a mile down the road, he was poorly again and once again Carol had to pull over. This time she drained the Carb, thinking that there was contaminated fuel. The liquid, splashed out and steamed away on the hot engine. Funny, it did not look too much like petrol to me. After that Henry started, roared and Carol shot off down the road like a race horse at full gallop. Even on Sylvie, I found it hard to catch up. Following Carol is brilliant, even on a 125CC bike, she is fast and smooth. Following her lines on the road makes the bike feel like a thoroughbred and I will admit that I got a little scared. Even at road legal speeds, Sylvie can feel a little too much for me and I had to back off. Yes, I am a wimp for not keeping up with a Honda CG125, but with Carol piloting, Henry is a road racer.

The rest of the trip to Cheddar was smooth and easy, however riding the clip ons was getting to a stage where my right hand went numb, we have a plan to sort this out with a bar conversion, but until we can afford the new brake lines, Sylvie will just have to make do with standard bars. Our arrival in Cheddar took us to the chip shop and we picked up lunch before loading it into Sylvies pack and then riding off up the gorge. Cheddar Gorge is beautiful and as a rider, one really must concentrate on the road and not the surrounding cliffs. As a Climber, all I wanted to do was pull over and get some serious climbing done, but since taking up motorcycling, climbing is on a back burner for me for a while, due to needing hundreds of pounds of new equipment. The quality of the road though more than made up for wanting to go climbing and some of those twisty sections were lovely.




Well pulled off the main drag and headed over to a place called Velvet Bottom, the road looked like it was made of loose gravel, which worried me slightly and I slowed right down again. Sylvie may have big wide tyres, but that is of little use when the surface is moving about. Thankfully, it all seemed to be solid and I was able to find my rhythm again and could get back up to speed. Turning around at the top though was a moment and I had little choice but to mount the grass verge due to a narrow road. Sylvie was impeccably well mannered about it all and showed little signs of slipping on the mud and grass. We parked up in a layby and wandered off to enjoy our chips.

After lunch we pulled our bike gear back on despite the heat and headed back down to Cheddar for a cuppa and an Ice Cream. The road back down was even more fun than riding up it, mainly because I had got used to the strange surface, I could still not keep up with Carol though and eventually we pulled into the Car Park in the village centre. As is the way with Carol, she immediately started chatting to the other bikers parked up and once again started to talk about learner riders. Once again I was outed for being on a half power bike and my street cred and cool oozed away. Thanks again Babe! It is a good job that I don't ride bikes to look cool, I ride bikes because I love to do so. The Scottish couple were on a long tour and loving every moment of the open road and the Guy with the Ducati was a local to Weston. after our Ice cream and cuppa, we decided to head home, both of us tired from the riding and the heat.

After a day out like this, what was required was a nice session of skinny dipping in a nice cool clean river, sadly the River in Cheddar is a little open to public view so we had to make do with going home and having a nice shower instead. What a great couple of days out though, beautiful views, great roads and meeting some really lovely people, I doubt it can get better than that, although a big bike for Carol would be one way. If any friendly Kawasaki Dealers would like to donate a bike to her for our adventures, we would love you forever.

Weston Bike Night on the Sea Front in glorious errr... over cast skies.

I spent two hours cleaning and waxing Sylvie, I even got out the chrome polish and gave the exhaust a good going over and when I was finished she was shiny, looked as good as new and her paint was silky smooth to the touch. She would gleam in the sun shine, if there were some.

Why did I do this I hear you ask?

"Because you are an bloody idiot Jayne!" is the wrong answer from you at the back!

I did this for the First Weston Bike Night of 2010, a weekly event that is in place to raise Money for the Royal British Legion. All I had to do was wait for Carol to get home from work and get changed into her bike gear, for those of you who know Carol well, you will know that she cannot function unless she has a cup of tea in her hand, white, one and half sugars and not too strong. She knows how she likes her tea and it is almost certainly PG Tips. Anyway, as soon as she was through the door, I pushed her tea into her hand and she went and got changed. I checked Henry's oil level, knowing that he burns oil because he is old, worn and a bit of a banger.

Carol rode Sylvie down and I took Henry, well as a senior Instructor, she has a lot of credibility to uphold and no one cares if I ride a crappy old 125. Well, nearly no one. Just before my part one test, we hired a local Instructor called Matt to train me up in the new test procedures. Matt is a brilliant instructor, working for Motag and with his good natured instruction, I passed first time. Well, when Matt saw me still on the 125, he had a word.

"I trained you up to ride that bike over there (Sylvie), not that crappy 125. You should make Carol ride that one!"

When Matt was a learner rider, his Instructor was a hard nosed local with a lot of years under her belt. Yes, he was Carol's former student and he was now doing her old job. His comments were taken as they were meant and Carol had a good laugh.

So the time passed and more and more bikes turned up, but there was little sign of fellow Orger (a member of the web forum sv650.org) Nemesis, a nice young man who brought his bike over a while ago for us to repair and service. Finally his line of friends pulled in and found a place to park at the far end of the huge amount of bikes parked up. His face was not that of a happy chap, in fact none of the lads looked particularly happy, but then being pulled for speeding is never a happy occasion.

Big commiserations to you guys, but three points and a sixty quid fine is not so bad when one is cruising at those hero speeds. Cue much stamping of feet and groaning. I do believe though, that I heard a muttering of an offer to pay Nemesis's fine by his kind and considerate cousin. Now that was rather thoughtful of him in my opinion and that instantly puts him up to the level of "Jolly decent chap" in the Jayne book of chaps!

After a nice cuppa and a few more chats with various bikers, maniacs and patch club locals we all decided that the cold spring air was about to send us all home to our warm beds and blankets. Henry started again, with out the difficulty experienced earlier that evening and as always Sylvie purred into life. A final wave to Matt and we headed home for a nice bath and a pot of strawberry bio yogurt. Yes folks, I can reveal that while sat in a magma hot bath, there is nothing quite as soothing as sharing a chilled pot of yogurt with a beautiful naked woman.