We Leave today

Whoooooah! What a week!

My brother arrived from South Africa on Monday. Been balls to the wall since then.

Mike's wee monster is ready to rock 'n roll. The BAMF? Well... there have been a few 'issues' during the week.

Got the 57mm throttle bodies on and all ready for the PowerCommnader and Dyno. The only folks I could find to do this were HM Racing - an hour's drive away.

So I bust my ass to get it to them Tuesday afternoon. I tell them "If there are any problems - please call me.". So of course there were problems. Basically it "didn't work". They tell me this on Wednesday afternoon when I'm about to come over and collect the bike. Apparently, one of the problems was the dyno was indicating 80% throttle. The Dyno guy asked me when I arrived: " Have you checked the throttle butterflies are opening fully?". Uuuummm... "Gee... I dunno... mabe you could have lifted the tank and checked?". Thsi is a 10 second job on the BAMF. He couldn't be bothered to even lift the tank and look. They just connected the Power Commander up (I even had to help with this), downloaded a fuel map and gues what? It didn't work.

I guess if you have a standard yapanese bike, HM Racing could fit a PowerCommander, download a fuel map, give a dyno run, print a power curve and charge you 4 hours. It seems that's all they're capable of - anything remotely challenging they cannot do. Fitters!

Nay worries. Managed to put the old 50mm throttle bodies back on last night and get her running sweet again. Then spent the rest of the night packing and organizing. We managed to shoehorn 3 bikes onto the 2-bike trailer. The Chevy is going to be packed to the rafters! I'm a bit concerned about the overloading on it's lowered sport suspension... but nothing can stop us now!

Some bits haven't arrived yet (custom brake disc, air ducts, vinyl lettering...) - disappointing, but these aren't showstoppers and we're good to go.

In a few hours we leave for Liverpool to catch the 19:30 ferry to Douglas. I just want to be on that ferry now!

Oh... the mysterious third bike?

A 1970 BSA A65 Thunderbolt that's been custommized into a street tracker:

My first piece of brit iron.

After seeing the puddle of oil under it after the first ride I had some buyers remorse... but it's coooool. I'm sure she'll be fine to do laps of the TT Course on.

Next posts will be from the Isle.