The Day we nearly went to London

Meet Jan, she is lovely.

Jayne and Jan in Florence the Camper Van

Now Jan is a good friend of Curious Adventures, she has provided more than a few moments of fun and silliness, so when she told us that she owned a motorcycle and wanted to go to Winchester to get it, we were more than happy to make a day of it... But we did not know what was going to happen then did we?

Concerns are raised over allowing Jayne and her bottom in the van

So we loaded up Florence the Camper Van with cakes, crisps and pies and set off to Hampshire, however Carol quickly vetoed the singing of silly songs and Padre Paul cringed in the front when Jan and I stared singing Cum by arr or however the hell you spell that!

Florence with Padre Paul in the front

Now Padre Paul is not your average run of the mill Vicar, he is in fact something rather special and is in fact ordained by the same church who ordained myself. But it is always fun to head out Vicaring especially when like me, you are a swearing Nun with a motorbike fixation.

Vicar safe with children shocker!

So it was while we were trundling up the Motorway that I, Sister Sweary Jayne decided to play I Spy. My first choice was "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with C!" I was told that no one wanted to play with me because they knew that I was just being rude. So we played twenty Questions and Padre Paul proved to be really rather good at this.

Stopping at Membury Services gave us a chance to use the kitchen in the van and make a cuppa, have a pie and a banana and read a book. Biker Rock Radio DJ The Prof had lent me a book by Dean Koontz and frankly it was really not very good. The prose was poorly composed, the story line although potentially exciting, was badly developed and during the day I managed to read well over one hundred of sixty pages due to the poor nature of the writing.

Blankets and a cuppa make Jayne a happy girl

The Biker Rock Radio Outside Broadcast unit unfolds

We left Membury and continued on our journey into Hampshire and finally arrived at our Destination, the home of Jan's motorcycle, a Suzuki GP100 called Son of Dillon! The bike is blue in colour, with a matching blue top box and it was also running when we arrived. However, it does need a good clean and polish and the exhaust is a little rusty! With the machine quickly loaded into Florence we all piled back in and prepared to leave. The chap who had been looking after Jan's bike was flummoxed by a pile of Vicars and Nuns turning up, talking about Black Metal Festivals and sports bikes and to be honest, that is just how we like it!

The journey back home was cold, really really cold! The van's heater had failed us and all four of us were freezing, Carol and I sat in the back covered in blankets and still we shivered! I managed to continue reading despite darkness thanks to the dim lights in the van and my book was still failing to inspire me though and when I read out some of the poorly written prose, the laughter in the van was entirely justified. Still we ambled along the road, heading home?

The road was long and straight, Jan needed to take a turn off the M3 onto the A34, but while we were chatting, we barely noticed that it was such a long way. A very long way indeed... It was only when Carol looked up and noticed that the coming exit was for Farnborough that we realised that we had gone a little far and were in fact heading to London! So with a quick dash down some dark country lanes, bumpy B roads and forgotten tracks we found our way to Reading and the route back home. A stop for a wee was most definitely needed. But boy was it ever cold!

You never feel the cold when you soul is burning with evil

Vicar warms parishioner shocker

The motorway signs over head on the M4 told us the bad news that parts of the M5 were so heavily clogged that traffic was at a standstill, but still we headed home, joking, laughing and eating doughnuts. Thankfully when we finally hit the M5, it was all but empty and the last few miles home were rolling by. Jan learned how to flash at truck drivers! No, not like that, you dirty minded lot. As the heavily laden van trundled along the road, we would be over taken by trucks and as they went past, Jan would flash her head lights to let them know that they were safely past. Finally, bitterly cold and rather hungry, we rolled back into Weston and stopped outside a lovely Chinese take away before heading over to Jan's to eat the lovely hot food we had just bought.

It was a lovely day out, a day spent with dear friends doing silly things and enjoying being in lovely company. It is just a shame that we were all so cold on the way home! Updates on Dillon the motorcycle will be posted as soon as we can get some good pictures with Jan riding him. 

What a day

You may well have noticed that of late, Curious Adventures have been more curious and less adventurous and there is a reason for this, Jayne (yes OK, me) has a knackered shoulder! A knackered shoulder that makes riding her bike rather hard and painful work, after all think about how your bike steers. With counter steering, as a rider you push the side away from you where you want to go, hence the name of counter steering. Well, for those of you not familiar with the technique, please do not try steering the opposite way you want to go, it will result in you crashing painfully into what ever is not where you want to go! Counter steering is done by placing a gentle pressure upon the bar, not actually turning the bars, it works by effectively changing the push on the front wheel and banking the bike over. Now I am sure that there people reading this who have a far better understanding of the physics of this technique than I do and I would love to read how it really works, but for now that will do. Why did I mention it? Well because I just can’t do it at the moment.

So with a knackered shoulder I have been forced to endure all manner of helpful medical staff from our beloved NHS prodding, poking, pulling or pushing my bits and pieces. Most recently I have endured needles shoved deep into my muscle tissue, intense massage of my neck and exercises involving rubber bands. None of this has worked. The exercises have made it worse, the massage made it worse and as for the needles, do you really need to ask? Oh alright, yes they made it worse. All of which brings me to MRI scans. Magnetic Resonance Imagery is a fantastic science where using a combination of fantastic physics, breath taking biology and a man with a bad hair cut, the medics can have a look about inside your body with out having to slice into it like a crusty loaf!

The down side though is that an MRI scanner costs an absolute fortune and each scan costs a smaller but still significant fortune. So they are not handed out to just anyone and today I had an appointment to see if I justified having a scan. Well, that is supposed to be what today was about.

So Carol and I set off this afternoon at close to half past twelve, giving us an hour to make a journey that should only take twenty minutes. Our first stop was for fuel because my bike was showing a worrying fuel light having driven a pitiful 87 miles since my last fuel stop. With the pump droning away I filled both my and Carol’s bikes and then went and paid up the ridiculous sum wanted for a thimble full of go-go juice. Back outside, when we switched on Noreen  and tried to start the engine, it resolutely sat there refusing to burn the thimble full of petrol we had just dripped into it. We tried again and nothing happened. So we kept on trying, Carol wiggled wires and pushed and pulled switches and buttons, but still nothing. Time was counting down, forty minutes to the appointment.

We looked at each other, Noreen was going no where, Carol shook her head angrily and had a gentle word in the bikes ear. Now let’s be honest here, when Carol has a gentle word in your ear, it is wise that you listen. The bike did just that and with another push of the button, it roared into life, with just a couple of sets of traffic lights and couple of roundabouts to get through before hitting the motorway. That was until we discovered that the A370 was running at speeds only seen by your average snail! We finally got to the motorway, twenty minutes until my appointment. We raced off down the slip way and joined the busy traffic and began to make progress towards Clevedon, half way there, Noreen started to do odd things. 

Her rear light started to flash, but not in a way that is easy to explain. The rear light of the ZRX has two bulbs and they started to flash alternately, one side and then the other. The light then flicked off and relights. It flashes some more and then flashes off again. As we approached the Clevedon exit it became apparent that Noreen also had another problem, her rear tyre had decided to let all of it’s air out. We rolled to the top of the slip way, turned on to the road into the town and headed down to the roundabout, where we discovered that the tyre had totally deflated. Unfortunately, the car behind us was not completely understanding of our predicament and hooted angrily. With no real choice, we rode carefully around the roundabout, Noreen also decided that at that moment it was a perfect time to run on only three cylinders! Ten minutes until my appointment.

Fortunately there is a Shell garage just around the corner from where we pulled over, which is why we made our way there, only to discover that it had closed and was being renovated! The workmen there guided us away to another garage, but we just did not have time. So we limped Noreen, running on three cylinders and a flat tyre to the hospital. Five minutes until my appointment! We arrived, parked up and ran like buggery to get there on time and made it to reception at twenty nine minutes and thirty seconds past the hour.

The medical stuff was dealt with I walked out of the room, tears in my eyes, an intense burning pain in my shoulder and a worried Carol on my arm. Back in the car park, Noreen was sat on a flat tyre. We rolled it down the hill and out of the car park and phoned the RAC. Following a  quick chat with the call centre and we settled down for an afternoon of waiting on the pavement. Carol bought a local newspaper that took us less than ten minutes to read and we sat there, bored. Finally after an hour and twenty minutes we had a phone call from a manger at the RAC call centre who apologised for the long wait that we had enjoyed, but promised faithfully that a truck would be with us as soon as possible.

Another forty minutes passed, Carol and I considered learning to juggle to pass the time, but we were saved from this torture by Martyn, the truck driver, who phoned to ask where we were. It was great news, our Knight in orange overalls was coming, but coming from Gloucester, he had a journey time of another forty minutes. Carol and I sat there, bored, we even considered taking up knitting! Finally though, he arrived and we were able to load Noreen onto the back of the fabulous RAC truck. Martyn himself was a jolly chap and chatted all of the way home, Carol rode Sylvie back home and got the garage ready to receive a poorly Noreen. Jayne got to ride in another fabulous truck and finally at nearly seven in the evening, exhausted, Carol and I walked through our front door and sat down. It had been another curious adventure. 

Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed!

I want my bike back!

No bike looks good on the back of a truck.

The urge to ride her home like that was so hard to ignore.

To oil or not to oil... Now there is a question...

Now for those of you who enjoy riding motorcycles, there is the extra pleasure of home servicing, getting your hands dirty and doing the jobs that your bike needs to stay healthy and happy. But with home servicing there is a down side, what do you do with the used engine oil? With a motorcycle like mine, the engine oil also acts as the gear box oil, it soaks the clutch plates and lines the bores. So as you can imagine, what comes out of the sump plug at the bottom of the engine is not the nice golden silky fluid that is poured in through the filler cap.

Now getting rid of used engine oil is fairly simple, as is joked about in the fabulous film (and book come to that, but I have not read it, so can't be fully sure) Fight Club, used engine makes a great lawn fertilizer! The truth though is that used engine oil is poisonous. The muck that comes out of an engine after a season of hard use is carcinogenic, it contains fragments of metal if you are unlucky and lumps of crank if you are really unlucky. It also contains the microscopic particles worn from your clutch plates and carbon particles from your cylinders, so yeah, it is pretty mucky stuff. On a serious note, really really do not pour this stuff into the environment, it is horribly dangerous to wildlife, it destroys habitats and dumping this muck out there will get you a massive, massive fine if you are caught!

So Carol and I set about an experiment, you see I had read on the internet that it was possible to use used engine oils to lubricate your chain, via the chain oiling mechanism, however with your oil full of nasty impurities who wants to spray that over the drive system of their pride and joy? So I made a filter, on the end of a funnel and we passed half a litre of dirty oil through the filter and then checked it to see what was left behind. The top filter contained the sort of detritus you find in old oil cans, but the bottom filter contained nothing but a soggy bit of oil that had not made it through. 

So the next step was to filter a little more and this is exactly what we did, so we ended up with close to five litres of filter old engine oil in a nice clean bucket! However, fitting in with our recycling ethos, the bucket was recycled too. The top was fitted into place and into this I added a little soap dispenser pump and promptly pumped a small sample out into a specimen bottle. Now you may be wondering why I did this, but lets carry on with what I did first before I explain it.

Taking the specimen bottle, I gave it a damn good shake and made sure that any nasties were held in suspension with in the fluid and then taped a very strong neodymium magnet to the side. I then sat it on its side and left it for a week. By doing this, I could then examine that part of the specimen bottle for ferrous particles by gently tipping it and leaving any bits stuck in the magnetic fields. 

Now you can ask if you have to why I did this? The answer my dears is to look for steel fragments, anything small enough to pass through the filters that could potentially damage my chain. After a week, the magnet was surprising in its complete lack of ferrous particles stuck to it. So that leaves us with a bucket of oil and a fairly clear idea that it is well filtered. 

My next step was to contact our old friends at Tutoro Chain Oilers, and ask their opinion and other than a few suggestions as to what may be useful additives, they say why not give it a try. So that leads me to this point and a question for you folks out there in Curious Adventure land. 

Do you think that used engine oil makes a good chain lube for use in your automatic chain oiler? Have you done it and does it prevent rust and keep your chain healthy or does it just spray a poisonous nasty mess onto you bike? So come on folks, don't be shy. Tell us what you think?

Cheers

Tutoro Auto Chain Oiler as fitted to Sylvie

Tutoro Auto Chain Oiler as fitted to Noreen

Busy bee in September!

Hello dear friends, fear not, you have not been forgotten, I will admit to a general malaise that has made curious adventures few and far between,  but I have a couple here for you gorgeous folks this evening. So let's start with some old nails and swarf... Yes, Phil is a lovely lad and he was down in Bristol recently from "oop Noorf!" when he happened to drop me a text saying hello. Well it would have been rude to ignore it, so we agreed to meet up in Gordano Services, despite the on going problems with my shoulder and have a catch up, having been friends for a long old time, since first meeting on the dark pages of B3ta! Now I know that most of you familiar with B3ta are expecting a child eating sociopath, but the truth is this, Phil is the sort of bloke you really want to know. He can fix anything, but specialises in machines from a more innocent age and despite not being born until after I left school, he has a knowledge of classic bikes that can put a lot of collectors to shame. He is also a thoroughly decent type who did not mind too much my utter failure to arrive on time.

Jayne and Phil

"So what caused this uncharacteristic flaw in Jayne?" I hear you ask. Well, the truth is somewhat embarrassing. You see, I was getting ready to go out and looked at my watch and though that I had plenty of time. However, not wanting to leave the poor chap too long, I hurried along with my getting ready to go out. A short while later I checked my watch again and noticed that hardly any time had passed me by, so I went and got my kit sorted and found my keys. Then I checked my watch again and noticed that in fact no time had passed me by! The damn watch battery had failed me and for over an hour, my watch had been telling the same time. Cue the sudden rush to get going.

This was also the morning that Sylvie, my trusted SV, decided to fail me too. She point blank refused to start and having backed her out of the garage and locked up, she sat on the side of the road coughing like an asthmatic that has swallowed a whole feather pillow (trust me, I used to be asthmatic, so I know how this sounds!) found under a sofa! Yes, my beautiful bike failed me and I was not a happy teddy. Yet, when I mentioned threats of physical violence against my precious bike she leapt into life and we shot of down the street. Thankfully, Phil was a forgiving sort and had a little chuckle at my predicament. 

So after a brief chat, I waved him off as he headed his way back up to Derby and I took a mellow ride back home, sadly an act of necessity rather than an enjoyable bimble. You see my bloody shoulder has been damaged again and I have been pretty much unable to ride for the whole summer. Sylvie had clocked up less miles in three months, than she was clocking up in a week, a situation I am most unhappy about. So now I am waiting for an MRI scan so that they can look inside my shoulder and tell me that I have an impingement. Oh the joy. 

This month also saw the publication of my fabulous new book, House of Hurt and other stories. 

Buy my book, it is awesome!

Yes, I have finally done it. After an awful lot of encouragement, I have finally collated some of my short stories into one volume that you can buy from Amazon.  The work involved in writing a book is unbelievably huge and then converting it to Kindle format takes even longer. However, it was all worth it when the book was finally uploaded and we used one of Carol's amazing photographs for the cover. Yes, that is Alby the owl on there and yes it does have relevance to the book.

September also sees the last Weston Bike Night of 2012. Such a sad event cannot go with out passing comment after a particularly difficult summer (although let's be honest, this year we went straight from spring into autumn!) of rain, cold winds and a low turn out. All was not lost though and this year, Bike Night raised an impressive eight thousand pounds for the Royal British Legion. We would like to think that in our own way, Carol and I helped a little with that. 

Caught on camera once again!

Jackie the Dog dances in the laser show

Huddling for warmth on a summer evening in the UK!

Weston Super Mare in the summer.

So with a fond farewell to Bike Night, we are left wondering what to do on a Thursday evening now and I think that all of us were sad to see it end for another year. A huge thank you must go out to Lyn and Matt who have worked so hard on Bike Night every week organising the event. While a huge round of applause go to the team working with Carol to make Bike Night a fun event with Biker Rock Radio. Yes, I mean you Rich, Ghost, Alex, Doc, Kitty and Cookie. 

Also in September, the Biker Rock Radio trailer failed us. The frame cracked, the sides dropped and door would not shut anymore. So with an empty pocket and a big smile we headed over to see our friend Gareth.

Jayne enjoys watching other people do the work.

Given the sorry state that the trailer had got into, it was refreshing to see it catching fire from welding, but Gareth was able to fix it and together with Carol, the Biker Rock Trailer was back up to good health. Which leads us onto Gareth's skills, he is a fab welder, but never ask if you can enter his competition to beat his bike! It will cost you a pound to enter and that is all I am going to say!

So with September nearly over and October rapidly approaching like a hint of cold air from under the bathroom door, we manage one last weekend of sunshine. Sadly it was not to be spent riding the bikes, it was rather spent in the garage playing with them. Alex's Yamaha DT50 generated the most interest with Alex, Carol, Steve and Gareth all getting their hands dirty, leaving Jayne to work on Sylvie. Sadly for Alex, it seems that clocking up an impressive thousand miles a month on the little bike has come at a price. The piston has given up the job and is now sulking on the coffee table, being battered and abused by bits of piston ring flying about in the cylinder. 

Tank off

More bits off

One buggered piston

Hopefully, a new piston and a bit of fettling will see the proud little bike back on the road very soon. Just in time for another harsh winter.

As for Sylvie, things were also pretty buggered. The engine fault had manifested into a "only firing on one" problem and then as I lifted the tank to work on her, the heavy fuel tank took a dive to the road, bounced on the Tarmac and got scratched. I was mortified, but Alex was there like a shot and helped to pick up the bits and pieces. Sadly, it has now become apparent just how badly the tank was resprayed following the accident last year when the biggest problem that the tank has is that the paint it so deep, it has been gouged, like furrow in a field. 

However, the running fault was quickly identified and two new spark plugs were rammed into place and then came the TPS or throttle position sensor check. A huge thank you here to the online community that is the Org. Having trawled through there for information, I was able to perform the adjustment with perfect ease and soon had her running like she should and pulling away with a new found vigor. Jolly good stuff in my book, I should say. Once again, Carol and her fabulous photography skills come to the rescue. 

The Culprit with shiny new bolts

The little dash before the C indicates that the TPS is wrong.

Better, but not quite there yet.

So that was our September and in a strange kind of way that you could almost call curious, we had some adventures. See you soon. 

A family day out

Oh yes, but how do you have a family day out if you are a Biker family?

A family of bikers

Well, you jump on your bikes and go for a ride. Sadly ever since Alex took delivery of his 2005 Yamaha DT50 as his first ever bike, it has had problem after problem and has infuriatingly refused to start! So before he gave up completely and threw the bike in the sea, he gave it one last chance, with Carol and her fabulous tool box.

We ordered some new bits and waited patiently for them to arrive. Luckily for us E-Bay proved to be a worth while place to shop, until the company involved told us that the part we had ordered and paid for was not one that they even had in stock, despite them advertising it! So after a few cross e-mails, they special ordered one and shipped it out.

Carol fitted it and we kicked the bike over, at long last, it fired in to life and sat there purring away, like a tiger with a head ache! Alex was overjoyed and arrived in time to put it back together with a little help from Carol and I. Nothing like the irritating mechanical inefficiency of a machine to bond a family unit!

Alex then jumped on his bike and took it for a spin around the block, at first he was a little nervous, having learned the hard way that bikes that break down mid corner tend to fall over! However, after a couple of laps of the street, he was looking as cool as a polar bear on a particularly cold Tuesday!

Alex on Yoshi, the Yamaha DT50

So it was then off down to Sand Bay, the test track of the masses. However once safely there we were accosted by the Rozzers! They pulled over to chat about bikes and wish Alex a safe and fun riding career, however Jayne joking that she did not have a license caused a gleeful Policeman to rub his hands together and start looking forwards to impounding her bike and riding it back to the cop shop!

Riding back home in the dark with Alex was one of the proudest moments in Carol’s life and Jayne was sat at the back of the queue smiling like a loony on Largactyl! Alex however was riding like a road god and his exhaust was spitting out orange sparks as the engine raced! The sound and smell of burning two stroke oil and the little clouds of exhaust smoke made riding at the back a similar experience to riding across Dartmoor when the beast is about on a foggy night!

Bikes and Rozzers

So what do we do now, we chat to the Rozzers!

 So, this post is about Alex, well done to him for starting out on his biking career. Alex is joining the next generation of bikers and we need them to keep the memories of what biking is about alive and also create new ones in the future. Keep on Biking. 

Alex on Carol's bike

Oh what a Gig...

Bloodstock, Metal to the Masses Battle of the Bands.

Bristol Final. Thursday 12^th July

Bands playing were       :- Fever Sea

                        :- Seprevation

                        :- Control the Storm

                        :- Somnus

The premise behind this gig was that the many bands in Bristol were competing for a place on the Bloodstock stage and even being sent out to Waken. With such a prize, was it any wonder that some very talented bands tried to get to the place?

Carol and I were invited to the final of the events by the organiser Lawrence and frankly it was not a disappointment. Every band that played showed a level of professionalism unsurpassed by many actually signed bands. Not every band was to my personal taste, but it was not possible to fault them for effort, talent or showmanship. Frankly, having four bands of this quality on one stage in the same night is just spoiling the appreciative fans.

Now as a reviewer, I am looking to be critical, offer my opinion and let you know if I think that seeing these bands is worth while, but you know what? You need to check out these bands yourselves, if you get the chance, do so. You will not be disappointed because each one of them was awesome.

The intro by Simon from Bloodstock was fun and informative, seeing that metal is alive and well in the UK was obviously a boost for him and seeing the fans responding to his comments and free t-shirts was pretty cool. He then told the crowd that tonights winner was going to Bloodstock. You could feel the excitement in the air.

The first band was my personal favourite, which is one hell of a statement given the impressive display that was about to commence. So Fever Sea, a band so heavy that they have their own gravity! If you want to categorise them, imagine a band made up of six parts Neurosis and four parts Isis. With elements of evil and pain, the sound that came from these guys was bleak and dark. Frankly, it was beautiful. I could feel every blast beat in my heart, physically and metaphorically. The music is punishing, angry and aggressive and just when you thought that the torment on stage could not get worse, the singer starts hitting himself with the mic. It symbolises the pain of the music and the show is utterly epic.

Fever Sea

The singers vocals are mixed between the guttural despairing howls of a dying animal and the clean crisp sound of a man who knows how to use his voice to touch the heart of Gods. This band are the sort of band that you want to spend time listening too, this is not a band to have in the back ground when you have friends over, this is a band that want you to feel the emotion of every song and I think that they are right. I want to hear them on an album because it think that they have the sort of sound that can pull in light. A thirty minute set was not enough.

As Fever Sea left the stage, the change over crew hit it running and the next band started to set up.  Carol popped outside for a fag and I watched the crowd sudden swell, including a couple who were clearly the parents of one of the bands members.

Seprevation were all smiles, innocent smiles and Iron Maiden patches. Nothing indicated that we were about to be battered about the head with some brutal Thrash Metal! The lead singer is everything that is good about Old School Thrash, he has the smile that screams out loudly “I love what I fucking do!”  He has the gurns needed to front a band like this and he works his face as hard as he works his Bass. Kids this young throwing out Thrash of this quality cannot be a bad thing, the roots of the scene can be heard in there, but this is all original and the crowd are clearly and rightly on their side.

Seprevation

One word of warning though, if you go and see this band, make an appointment with your spinal unit for the next day! Head Banging that hard must cause damage! Fuck me, they went for it and you can see the allegiance to the scene in their denim cut offs and band shirts.

Now I have stated that you can hear the influences in the sound and this is not a bad thing, I could hear the old school being channelled by this band, bands I have not listened to or thought about since I was in my late teens. This is a band that will be worshipped in modern German Thrash circles and we all know how mad German Thrash fans can be for the music. The pace is typical of thrash, it gallops along, no that is not right, this is beyond gallop, This is the equivalent of a drag bike on a quarter mile, damn they are fast!

The vocals came through loud and clear, clearly enjoying his singing and yet bashing away at that bass, which leads me to a question. How the fuck does a guy like this head bang like a loon, continue to play his guitar like it is a tactical weapon and sing like that, all at the same time! I would hazard that this guy can rub his tummy, pat his head and juggle chainsaws at the same time!

The energy coming from the stage is huge, you could have run a city on the power produced, these kids are energised with a love of thrash and the influence is so clear it pats them on the back with gratitude for keeping the scene alive. The Slayer influenced solos are accomplished and expertly executed, have these guys done anything else in their youth other than listen to the best musicians out there? I knew that they would be successful, but at the end of the night when they were announced as winners, I do not think that they believed it. Well done lads, Bloodstock and Waken will love you.

The third band to hit the stage were Control the Storm, a six piece band with a woman vocalist, a manic keyboardist and a lead guitarist who has probably been intimate with that guitar! Now let me state for the record, I am not a fan of power metal for any of it’s dramatic solos and squawking vocals, but even I can see when a band is worthy of respect. Sadly for the first couple of songs, the sound levels were somewhat out and the singers vocals were buried in the guitars along with the keyboard. However, once this was sorted, a talented and exceptional band rocked through the sort of set that makes men in kilts want to quaff ale and rampage!

Control the Storm

When I saw them hit the stage I had horrible fears of a Nightwish clone, but this is actually a long way from the reality. This band are a disciplined, practiced and relentless force to be reckoned with. Carol the photographer looked at me and gave me her biggest smile of the night, her thumbs up only added to the message. This band was Carol’s band of the night and I am pretty sure that she would have been happy to just see this band all evening. Knowing that I am a nasty cow who loves black metal she has told me that I have to tell you how much she enjoyed their performance.

For me, I can admit that they know their stuff, but I would ask that they sutbly change their mix a little so that the vocals, keyboard and backing vocals are a little higher in the mix. The drumming and guitar though are mesmerising and played with an honest intent and brutality that is refreshing in the power metal scene. Each song is performed with an honest integrity, this band earnestly want you to believe in them as mush as they do themselves and to be honest it is not hard to be drawn along, even if you are a jaded Black Metal fan like me. The fan that climbed the support beams that hold up the ceiling just so that he could rock out is a clear sign that these guys know what they are doing and when they get you in their sights, they absolutely shine. Power Metal is pure escapist fun and if that is your thing, you will love this band, but maybe not as much as Carol did!

The last band of the night was Somnus, and as soon as I saw the Bass player, I knew that I would enjoy the music about to start. You see as every one in the metal scene knows, when you see a man with his head on upside down, it is going to get heavy! Yes, the ubiquitous Heavy Metal Beard and shaved head look is an indicator that the next band mean serious business. The Anthrax shirt on the guitarist suggests that they know what heavy stuff is and then the painfully sharp witted singer comes forward. Noise annihilates the crowd, the screamed vocals brutalise the room. Oh fuck yes…

Somnus

Somnus bring you the Death strike. I stood there watching that stage and I knew that this band were going to hurt us, but it was ok, they had to do so! When Simon introduced them he warned us that they were going to rip our faces off and he played it down. Musically they are deeply intense, it comes at you wave after wave of brutality, clearly a professional band, doing what is encoded in their genes, this is the terminator of death metal, they just do not stop! The first two tracks decimate the room, the suddenly enlarged crown worship them for doing so. The vocalist is terrifying in his intensity, this is not a band you want to face when you are in the wrong, they will flatten you with a look.

In terms of delivery, this band is by a head, above the other bands that played, yet the political side to them makes them a difficult pill for the fun loving metal heads to swallow. Do not listen to this band if you like songs about riding on freight trains, roses with thorns or girls who are poison. Do listen to this band if you are mature enough to understand that the world is shit, to know that capitalism is eating the soul of humanity and that fascism is not the way ahead for a thinking society. This band are making a point and it is nailed on to their performance with integrity and anger and hatred of injustice. I knew this after three songs and then he said it, “This song is about my desire to punch Simon Cowell in the face… with Jason’s (Bass player) cock!”

Leaping into the crowds and surfing over the hands of those who adore them while still managing to brutalise the crowd with evil vocals is a skill that this man has mastered, their stage presence is intimidating and yet loving. There is a feral quality to them, like a hungry tiger, you want to approach, but worry that you may get eaten! With the last song played, I was reminded of Ripley in Aliens. We were just Nuked from Orbit! What a gig.

Through out the night, the biggest problem was the sound levels, given the difficulties of the room, it was impressively handled, but it was there for almost every act. The final speech from Bloodstock Simon was heartfelt and earnest. Heavy metal music is about passion and the scene is alive and well despite what the mainstream wants you to believe. I have been lucky in that I have seen some great bands in the last couple of weeks, but the message is important here. You must absolutely support the new up and coming bands, give them a place to play, congratulate them when they succeed and don’t hold a grudge if they need to practice a little more. With out the musicians and fans, there is no scene, yet with out the scene, you will be drip fed the sort of music that Simon Cowell believes is right for you. Say no to manufactured Pop Music, organised number ones that put the latest radio friendly shite in the sales lists. Say no to this bollocks and embrace your local scene. There are bands out there who are blowing peoples minds and at this gig I saw four of them.

Support your local scene and have your mind blown, you will not regret it and send the corporate music machine this message. FUCK YOU!

 We would like to give a big Thank you to Lawrence from Megalith Pro Motions for the tickets and warm welcome at the venue. Folks, you need to keep your eye on these guys, because they have some good stuff on the books and they support the scene. Keep it real guys, we need more promoters like you at Megalith Pro Motions to make brilliant events like this work as well as this one.

Riding a motorcycle is not about the pursuit of speed, it is about the pursuit of a moment of perfect beauty

This thought struck me as I rode my bike through the beautiful Somerset countryside, on a day where the sky was blue and the air cool. The road tearing past below my wheels was dry and my tyres were sticking perfectly in every corner. Yet as I blasted along, I thought not about the road ahead or the country side around me, but rather about why I did this peculiar thing for fun?

Why do I enjoy riding Sylvie, my precious motorcycle?

My life is grey, a flat tyre on the trailer of existence.

Because it is fun would be the simple answer, but why is it fun? What is it about riding a motorcycle along the road that fills the heart with joy?

Now, before you vanish to think about this and also because I am both thinking about and  writing this, I am going to try to answer my own question. Firstly let’s break this down, is riding my motorcycle to work fun? For me, yes it is because it is a way of relaxing before the stresses of the day. Riding home is a way of removing that very same stress once I leave. Is riding in the rain fun? Again for me, it can be and it requires a very different skill set depending type of rain or how long it was since it last rained. OK, so when is it not fun?

It is not fun when I do not enjoy the riding experience and those times are when I have a migraine because the impairment to my functioning makes it too dangerous to enjoy the bike, also throwing up in my helmet every time I see a bright light or hit a bump really can be horribly irritating. I don’t like riding when I am afraid, on those moments of fear when I have made a mistake, misjudged a corner or some one else has impacted on my experience by being dangerous on the road.

Riding when cold is no fun and riding when tired can be just plain dangerous; combine these and you are in for one bad ride. I rode in snow after a hard day at work once and this is something I never intend to repeat. Heavy traffic can really spoil a ride too, if you hit standing traffic and have to spend an hour threading through it all can be fun, until you get stuck or hit a dog lead from the idiot who thought that they can walk their dog on the hard shoulder from their car while stopped!

So there is an inherent quality to the experience that we are looking for here, the difference between a good ride and a bad ride. Now if you want to read a book that talks about quality and its use in motorcycling as a hobby, go and read Zen and the art of Motorcyclemaintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (which I shall add, that although I read it over ten years ago, remains a fantastic read). I however am not going to discuss the definition of quality here, save for this. I am looking for the delicate qualities that make a good ride great.

So when do all of the factors that come together give a quality ride that makes my heart soar with exhilaration? Now I know that it is not just speed, but maybe speed (as in motion, not amphetamine!)  helps? Think about it, do you enjoy riding fast, I mean ride really, really fast? For a thought experiment, imagine an empty road through the countryside. This road has no speed restriction, it is long and wide and has sweeping curves that can be taken at terrific speed. It has the grip of a racetrack and the surface is perfect. In this experiment, you my dear reader, stand at the start and no matter how fast you ride, it is going to take an hour to reach the end. So what ever speed you go, you have an hour of riding ahead of you to reach the café at the other end that serves the best cuppa in the known universe!

You and I set out on this journey, you have your bike and I have my precious Sylvie on this mythical road, together we are blasting along the perfect tarmac, fully maxed out, sixth gear, just below the redline, engine screaming and reaching the top speed of the bikes. Is this Great fun? Undoubtedly, riding fast with a friend is always fun

The next day, you stand at the start once more, alone his time and set out once again, hitting that silky smooth sixth gear and hold her steady at eighty miles per hour again through the sweeping bends, is it as much fun at eighty miles per hour as it is at one hundred and eighty?

Well, if that mythical road were to exist and if I rode it every day, in the end I would get bored of it and it's perfectly smooth curves. That road would not be the same amount of fun anymore, having lost many of the good qualities that it once had.

Now imagine a different road. A road that is twisty and turny, it has you constantly shifting up and down the gear box, moving your weight around the bike as you guide her through the curves, this is a road of total involvement that will always require your concentration because if you stop thinking about it, you risk coming off of it. There are small dips and rises and this road will have changeable conditions, every day will have you going along it subtly differently in style. Now this is the perfect type of road

So what makes a quality ride? It is those collections of moments where I as the rider am in perfect harmonious synchronicity with my bike, those beautiful seconds where I don’t feel my hands on the bars or my feet on the pegs, but I feel the road under my wheels the pull of gyroscopic effect on my motion. It is those beautiful moments where the border between bike and rider shift. In short, it is those moments when I feel connected to my bike and these moments are the ones that are truly the most beautiful.

So that is now my aim when I am riding my bike, it is not the speed, it is not the prefect road and it is not the café at the end. My aim is to find those moments of perfect beauty, they come for fractions of a second and last in the memory for ever. I ask you dear reader, can you think about a moment when you truly enjoyed riding your bike? Was it like mine, a moment of beauty?

OK, so this is a penny farthing, but it still has that momentary beauty.