Full Power, full speed ahead!

Two years ago this week I passed my Motorcycle test, on Henry my plucky little CG125, resulting in my first real ride of Sylvie, my lovely Suzuki SV650 in her restricted form. Two years on and I have been riding around on a restricted bike, been touring with full panniers and have taken many friends for a blast up the road.

So how is it to ride a full power SV650S with a handle bar conversion?

Can I start the engine now please?

There is only one word that fits Sylvie in her unrestricted form, beautiful! I am however once again back on the learning curve and this time it is a little easier. Well it was, then Carol said those word that involve great power... "Have a go on Noreen!" she said...

Right a bit, left a bit... Eek, too much power!

Riding a full power muscle bike is a revelation, but what really shines out is that there is a sense of menace with a bike this powerful, the sort of menace that lurks deep inside, the sort that wants to twist that throttle hard and sprint down the road at super speed... Me naughty? Never!

A perfect track stand, utterly still, the rider in perfect balance with machine!

So with the full power ECU back in place and the 33BHP unit sat in an envelope ready to post off to a person on the SV forum, it was time for a ride. Shame it was so damn cold.

OK, but I am not riding your bike back home!

Yes, good old Sand Bay here in Weston, a place we came when we brought Sylvie to her new home for the very first time, back in the days when a 125cc Bike scared the life out of me.

Through the mists of time, we can see Jayne in 2008!

I can nearly ride a bike me!

Now with us both on full power bikes at last, Carol no longer has to hang around at the back waiting for me to catch up. Although, in all fairness to the fabulous Sylvie, even restricted she was able to make good time on her trips out. So now I have to start learning again how to ride my bike and as a full power bike she is just awesome. So for a training ride with the wife, we headed out to Blagdon to buy some food for Alby the Barnowl. With two frozen chicks strapped to the back of Noreen, we got ready to ride home and then the heavens opened.

Got there safe, time to buy some Alby dinner.

Here comes the rain

Jayne enjoying British spring time

The ride home was awesome and watching Carol disappear into the distance reminds of just how far I have come and how far I still want to achieve. Learning to ride a bike well is not something that can be rushed with a five day training course, it is about learning skills, building experience and getting through the mistakes. Riding well takes practice and it takes training, so if I had to do my time again, I would still do it the same way. If you are about to start riding a bike, do it my way and really enjoy the learning. Every bike I have ridden so far has been an awesome place to be sat, be it Henry the Honda CG125, Agnes the Yamaha XJ400 or My dear Sylvie the Suzuki SV650S. Maybe one day when my skills are a little more refined I can enjoy the experience of taking Noreen the Kawasaki ZRX1100 for a ride, but that wont happen until I am ready and for that there is no rush.

Thank you Carol for all of your patience, training and advice, all of it was greatly appreciated. 

Agnes, an addition to our stable.

Part One:- Road Chaos and desperation.

Have you ever sat on E-Bay, watching intently the item you really want, the seconds are counting down and you have made your final bid, the one that pips every one else and then some bugger beats you by twenty quid?  Yeah, happened to us too last week. Yet this turned out to be a good thing.

You see, we sold Henry the Honda 125cc training bike to a nice lady who is going to use him for what I used him, learning to ride and passing her tests. Henry was faithful and loyal friend who gave us several hundred fun filled miles. He also gave us moments of worry when we though he was going to cost us a lot of money, but he always came through for us and he always just kept going, even when his tank was on reserve.  Henry had charm and with in minutes of his leaving, I missed having his happy little headlight in the garage. I also badly needed a bike I could use to commute to work on, because although Sylvie is a fabulous bike, commuting on her on a daily basis, will ruin her.

Sylvie and Henry out playing in Cheddar.

So Carol and I scoured E-bay and with the money we got from selling Henry, plus some more from a settlement against a school I used to work at, we found a few nice little 250cc bikes I could use. Now, I passed my test in April this year and am on a restricted bike for two years, which suits me fine. I must admit that I find that a restricted Sylvie is still an awful lot of bike for me and I do find her a little scary some times. So any bike I ride has to be thirty three BHP or less. Now I was thinking that a 250 or 300 cc bike would be about right, but Carol was less than convinced.

So while looking at 250cc bikes, we found a really interesting Z250 Hardtail chop and it looked with in our budget. So we sat there watching, the last few seconds came up and I placed my bid, only to be beaten by some other lucky bidder. Feeling a little despondent I looked through the other things that we had on our watch list, nothing really sang out as nice or reliable. Until Carol had an idea, a little research and she finds a lovely 400cc Yamaha XJ. Thinking that it was unlikely to be my power rating, I almost dismissed it, until Carol found on line power ratings. This could be our bike. We began watching with a couple of days to go.

I want this one please

The bike was described as a little tatty, but otherwise reliable and one of the photo’s clearly showed a bright young woman with the bike at a wedding. We checked out the photos and examined the bike as well as we could and hoped that we would not be pipped at the post. However, the bids were going up slowly and it was soon looking like we were going to lose out. Finally the day came and we sat down with our dinner and watched the minutes tick down. With a few seconds to go, we entered our bid, confirmed it and hoped for the best.

A few minutes later, we were scanning Google Earth, looking for a place called Leighton Buzzard, the home of our newly won motorcycle. Now this place just happens to be very near the home of a couple of dear friends of ours, Xander and Boff, two of the nicest and most gentle people you could ever ask to meet and also conveniently married to each other, so seeing them both is nice and simple. The plan was to leave our place nice and early with the car and trailer, drive to see Xander and Boff and then go and pick up the bike. Nice and simple you would think, would you not?

The truth though is much darker, this journey was plagued by accidents and problems, starting before we even got on the road. Carol had to rewire the trailer board because the lights stopped working. She made them work and then they just stopped working again. They continued to be unreliable for the whole of the journey and Carol went through a pack of spare bulbs, just to stay legal. Finally on the road, we were heading out of town when a girl was hurt in a traffic accident. The road was blocked and we sat delayed in traffic whiling away the time looking at the places around us, as we slowly crept passed them. We were running approximately ninety minutes late by now.

The motorway was nice clear and we had a good run, although the chance of making up time is not really there when the car is restricted to 60 miles per hour because we chose to have a trailer. Things were moving along well though until we hit the M6. I hate the M6 now, it is a horrible motorway. A large lorry carrying several tonnes of gravel had crashed into another large lorry and the resulting mess closed two lanes of the motorway, leaving every one, trying very hard to get passed in a single lane. We waited for another ninety minutes, while the car slowly moved in a speed measured using snails as relative markers! Finally, we got to the accident site, just in time to see them sweeping up several tonnes of gravel with one of those road cleaning trucks, no wonder the place was blocked, there was gravel every where!

So once more we began to travel at a speed more appropriate for a motor car and with in two minutes had left the motorway, heading for Xander and Boff. By now our plan was seriously delayed and even if we stayed for only a minute, we would be late to get the bike. Just before we got to the village where our lovely friends lived though, a car towing a large caravan left the road and spun into a bank! The Police were on their way and we managed to avoid being caught up in any more traffic jams.

What can I tell you about Xander and Boff? Well, they are both lovely, Boff is quiet, gentle and as sharp as a tack. She has been married to Xander for awhile now and they seem really happy. What ever you do though, never use her real name, she will kill you! Xander is one of those friends who feels more like a little brother, although not because he is an inch shorter than me! He is another quiet gentle type and he and Boff are a lovely couple. Best of all though, they are also bikers and have a bike each, although I prefer Boff’s bike even if it is huge and terrifying.

Your author with Cat, Xander and Boff.

These two also have a small menagerie of pets, so we were able to see the two beautiful kittens that we gave them last year. Our boy cat Maccie brought home a little queen and they produced two litters of kittens, the two here are from the first litter and look almost identical to their father. I managed a quick cuddle with each one before they turned into wriggling ginger monsters and shot away into the hedge.

Last time I held this one, he sat in the palm of my hand.

Sadly almost as soon as we got there, we were back on the road and this time with company. Boff took the Sat Nav off of her bike and with Xander driving; they lead the way to where the bike was, a journey that took us another hour and  then we knew that we had the right place as soon as we pulled up, sat outside a nice new house was a black lowrider factory custom bike with a tool roll mounted on the forks. It looked good and finally after being on the road for eight and a half hours, we had finally made it to our new bike. Blessed relief at long last.

The sellers of the bike were a lovely couple called Karen and Amanda and the wedding photo in the E-Bay advert had been theirs. I think that they were glad that we arrived at last because they were due to head out that very night and waiting for us had kept them at home. I had most of the money for the bike, but the winning price had been £490.30. Yes, you read that right. Four hundred and ninety pounds and thirty pence. In my purse was £490 only. Carol had the thirty pence, an evil glint entered my eye…

Turning to the lovely woman selling us the bike I carefully informed her that we had a small problem with the money. She looked crest fallen, I informed her that she needed to talk to Carol to get the thirty pence and that I had the rest! Xander laughed and then told me off for being a nasty evil witch! Karen bless her laughed and breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that very soon these odd people would be out of her house.

We then began the difficult process of loading the bike into the trailer and finally after much swearing, cursing and stamping of feet in the cold, we were loaded up and ready to head homewards. Although a quick stop for food and a chat with our friends was also very much needed. Laughing with Xander and Boff as we stood outside the Milton Keynes KFC by the football ground is one the nicest things I have done for ages. However, I was a little insulted that the smokers of our group (every one except me) walked away from me because I happened to have farted rather loudly and petulantly!

Then with a sad feeling I hugged my dear friends good bye and we went our separate ways, vowing to return on the bikes when we could. The rest of the journey home was gentle and quiet. The chaos of he day on the roads was no more, only truck drivers and the occasional boy racer were on the motorway now and we cruised homeward and into the early hours of the morning. Once home we unpacked and put the bike away to bed with Sylvie and retired ourselves. It was four in the morning and I was knackered.

Part 2:- Agnes

Sunday morning should be spent in bed, reading the papers, maybe even a light mid morning breakfast before spending the day wrapped in PVC tape and having electric shocks applied to ones nipples!

However, our Sunday was spent up to our elbows in oil, grease and motorcycles, namely our new bike. First job of the day was to make the engine start, for which we needed a power supply from Sylvie and her battery. Attaching jump leads between the two bikes gave us the magic fire that makes the engine run. The engine coughed and spluttered before firing into life and roaring thanks to a hole in the exhaust, but nothing we couldn’t fix. The bike warmed up, slowly the battery charged up and pretty soon we disconnected the two bikes from each other, while waiting to see if the new bike could run on its own. She purred, or rather growled as the engine gently ran on its own. A quick test ride was now needed and Carol being the brave soul that she is, volunteered to go for the first ride.

Peter Fonda has nothing on this lass.

I can happily report dear readers that the trip was fine and Carol is both safe and well, her trip around the block proved that the little bike has a good engine and will pull well from a standing start. The brakes though are another story; the rear is hugely powerful while the front feels like it could stop a battle tank!

Having ensured that the mechanicals were fine and anything not fine was fixed, it became apparent that both bikes could really do with a wash. Sylvie was still covered in the road grime from Pride in Bristol and the new bike was just dirty from being left in storage for ages. So with a bucket of soapy water and a selection of fine cleaning products, I donned my marigolds and set to work. Washing, polishing and waxing the paint work and chrome of both bikes.

Wash me!

 My first ride on the new bike was something to laugh at, not knowing how to use a manual choke, not knowing how to take it off of the centre stand and not knowing how to start a bike with stale fuel was enough to cause the strongest of instructors to shake their heads in despair and retire. Luckily for me Carol is very patient and before you can say “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch” I was on the road to success.

Now this is the first time I have ridden an IL4, or In Line Four for those of you not down with the kids. You see, Sylvie is a lovely V- Twin and Henry was a single. Of course I am referring to the number of cylinders in the engine, Sylvie has a ninety degree v-twin which gives her lots of power and torque for a small engine size. She is a fantastic bike to ride, but her power comes in big meaty lumps and boy does she know how to gallop. Even when restricted to thirty three BHP, she can still give me a good ride out. Do not be fooled, 33BHP is not a wimps choice and DAS is not always the best way to go.

So I jumped on the new bike and tried to make sense of the controls, the lights have to be switched on, the choke is manual and the handle bars are just weird in that they are in front of you and do not require acrobatic agility to use. This bike is already winning me over. The engine though is a little sweetheart, it purrs and then screams and although it is not doing very much, it feels like it is very busy while it does it. There is a lot going on in an In Line Four, four pistons leaping up and down, four carburettors breathing vital life into the engine and four exhaust pipes all screaming their burnt gasses down into one single end can. It feels busy, it feels like it needs to go for a long hard thrash so it can tell me everything it can do, but until we can sort out the MOT, Tax and Insurance, once around a private carpark will have to do.

I worked out this much though, it may be a thirty year old bike, but it is pretty nippy. So friends, welcome a new chum to the stable. Internet folks I present Agnes, she may not be Sleeping beauty, but she most certainly will not be missing out on the ball.

Even Carol's Mum had a go

 By the way, it was Carol who named our new bike Agnes. I think it fits. 

Training Wheels

Since passing my tests in April, my trusty rusty CG125 has pretty much sat in the garage, getting in the way and doing nothing. It has tax and MOT until January 2011 and has been a fun and faithful bike. He has seen better days paint wise, but he has had some work done on him to keep him on the road, such as fork seals, regular oil changes, wheels serviced and even a strip down and clean. £300 would get him out of my way and into the capable hands of a budding new Biker.

It has taken several days to decide to do this to Henry, he has been a friend and a companion to me since starting my motorcycling career and it has not been an easy decision to make, he is after all one of the family. But some times a person has to make a harsh decision, after all, he is not a living thing and he is somewhat battered. 

But what of my plans to chop him I hear you ask? Well, they are on hold for the seed of an idea that is currently in my head. I want a winter hack bike, a cute little 250 or 400 twin that I can ride in the filthy weather, not worry about dropping and be easy and cheap to run. 

So keep you eyes peeled for a nice old Kwak or Honda for me. As for Sylvie, she will soon be getting the much needed bar conversion that she needs to be a fast and comfortable sports bike. Her days as a standard bike are coming to an end and her future as a kick arse streetfighter is almost upon us.

We will keep you posted! 

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.