Halloween

Spent the whole day putting up a shed so got into the pumpkin carvery a bit late. As I put one on the window, the doorbell rang with the first trick-or-treaters...

Now I got a bowl of pumpkin... gonna look for a pumpkin soup recipe now...

Happy Halloween!

David Lynch on iPhone

A great clip I found of David Lynch explaining his point of view on movies watched on phones...

SA National Off-road Champs

Some news from brother Igor in South Africa:

Herewith some pics of the final round of the S.A. national off-road champs down in the Western Cape.

Was hard season, lots of traveling and loooots of money. Best result was 5th in the senior class which at the end secured me a overall 7th in class for the year. Yaaaaay!

Bloody well done Chief!

Dinky Rads

Been looking for a radiator solution on the Flattracker. The standard rads are too tall for the cool XR flattracker tank I got of Steve of the Redmax Speedshop. Was toying with the idea of a single rad across the front frame (the SV rad looked to fit), but there'd be potential clearance issues with the front wheel.

Then I spotted the tiny KTM 65 rads. The standard bike has only one... so I was looking at cobbing two together. Then I found these:

eBay specials from China. I took a punt (they were cheap!)... and only a week later these bling, blink dinky rads arrived. Shit welding and a little bit too polished for my liking...but if they will hold water... and cool the damn stuff... we'll be in business!

Transparent Aluminium

FYI: 'Transparent Aluminium' Is Now A Reality

As Seen on Star Trek

Stronger than glass, various military and commercial applications for this remarkable material are already being tested (how about an Transparent Aluminium fairing or clutch cover on your next Ducati). What was once used in the science-fiction Star Trek movies, see-through aluminum is now something that - through test mixing with rubies, sapphires and more - is now being tried out in all kinds of ways to create transparency where strength is also required.

For now, it is used in static-free transparent aluminum wrapping for computer parts and other electronics. It is also being tested in otherwise-conventional see-through soda cans and military shielding for vehicles where windows once were. At over ten dollars per square inch, however, it is still not cheap enough for mainstream everyday use - but may be someday soon.

Transparent aluminium is a state of aluminium achieved by bombarding a thin (50 nm) Al foil with soft X-ray laser radiation (wavelength 13.5 nm). The short laser pulse knocks out a core L-shell electron from every aluminium atom without breaking the crystalline structure of the metal making it transparent to soft X-rays of the same wavelength. This phenomenon is called saturable absorption. The thus produced transient state of aluminium is as dense as ordinary matter but can only exist for an extremely short period of time, as the energy required to maintain the high temperature which would be necessary to hold it in this state would be enormous. To create transparent aluminium, more power than is used by an entire city had to be focused into a dot with a diameter of less than one-twentieth the thickness of a human hair, and then could only maintain the transparent state for 40 femtoseconds.


Thanks DucCutters for the article, pics and some cool bikes

Flattrack Rained Off... but Still On!

The final round of ShorttrackUK championship that was to be run on Sunday at Scunthorpe was rained off. Brilliant job from Pete and organizers to be able to get it rescheduled for this Saturday!
:-)

Unfortunately... I cannot attend due to previous commitments. :-(

To all going: Have a good one doods!

Flattrack Not On!

Today is the last round of the ShorttrackUK championship at Scunthorpe. We've had awful weather the last week... hasn't stopped raining the last few days.

Prepped the Flattracker yesterday, packed and left this morning in the rain. Got 10 miles up the road and decided to turn back. I'll gladly go short-circuit road racing in the rain - my best results have been in the rain. I'll gladly do enduros in the rain. But flattracking? Nah. I didn't have fun at Amman Valley when it was soggy.

Couldn't be arsed to drive 3 hours to a muddy paddock to slip and slide around a dirttrack. Besides... got quite a bit of work to finish off. The thought of being in my warm, dry house finishing some pressing work sounded a much better proposition. I do this flattrackin' malarkey for fun and if I ain't having fun, there's no point is there?

Anyways... here's a cool Husqvarna streettracker from Krook Street Racing:

Thanks Sideblog for the link. This is what I want the KTM to look like by the springtime. Got a lot of work to do!