Babe of the Day

:-)

... got lost somewhere...

One Cool Guzzi

Thanks Church of Choppers for the pic

Norton Commando Babe

One cool lookin' Norton

Santa was here

Santa was here and left this present outside my house.

Got all the bits - lookin' sweet and soundin' sweet...

He left a sheet that says 75bhp at the wheel... that's at least 20 more than the wee monster.

30% more ponies... should be able to hussle around the Isle quicker than 92mph.

She's tucked away, warm in the garage for the winter now. No more ice or salt (she was covered in it from the journey home) for this girl. Will break her out after March for a bit of testing/development and will see if she cooks as well as she looks.

Merry Christmas!

(thanks Gary at SDC Performance for the great build)

Hot legs

Flat Tracker back to DD

Done a bit of work on the old wrist-smashing Monster flat-tracker...

Converting her back to the race-winning Desmo-Due machine that she is.

Just need to sort the mullered quick-action throttle, the crash bung and fit the new tank. New tyres, a bit of trusty MD Racing suspension setup and she's good to go win more races!

Got a soft-spot for the old girl... going to hang onto her for now. Mabe a few rounds of the Desmo-Due championship for her in the new year?

We'll see.

Babe of the Day

2010 Race Licence

Got my 2010 Race Licence through the post...

You just to to tick the boxes for the different licences - same price... value!

No idea what "Track Racing Solo Rider" is for... sounded interesting when filling out the form.

MiniTwin is Happening

An update on the MiniTwin build...

Looking sweet!
I still feel like a bit of a sell-out... going Yapanese... and having someone else build my race bike for me. But... at least it's a twin...

I'll see how I feel when I take delivery of it.

Workshop Babe

This babe got loose...

To the Dark Side

After the running Mike's wee monster at this year's Manx GP successfully, but only as fast as the modest 60bhp would allow us, I asked the Manx MCC to make allowances for air-cooled twins in the Ultralightweight class and allow me to run a 696 or 800cc monster at next year's Manx GP (similar bhp to a 'Minitwin' Suzuki SV650). This request was turned down. Looks like as with the TT, the organizers make the rules to suit cookie-cutter racing... this of course makes it all easier for them to organise and police. Yep, another-fuckin-jix-ah-thou.

So... if you can't beat 'em. Join 'em.

Not having the time to build another race bike (I'm working away from home 5 days a week and have a flat-tracker project coming up...) I started looking for an SV race bike two weeks ago. It turns out that SDC Performance were building a couple... so I jumped.

Speaking to Gary at SDC on teh phone, it felt a bit weird 'ordering' your race bike. Engine tune... rear shock... frame color... wheel color... bodywork. Felt like I was in the garage on 'Need for Speed' scrolling through options and hitting the 'Select' button on bling go-fast doodabs... some just because they're cool.

Only 10 days ago the deposit was made and the build began.

Starting with pulling apart an el cheapo 2001 road bike...

Clean and prep all the bits. Full engine service, comp check, shim clearances...

Give it a lick of paint...

And then put it all back together again...

Some tasty custom SDC parts like front and rear subframes...

So far lookin' good. Got some updated pics from Gary today that I'll post later.

Feels strange that I'm burning the midnight oil over it in my garage. Like it's not really happening... like I'm reading some blokes blog about their bike build.

"Equilibrio precario"

News of the Ouroboros project on Sideburn.

Marco Belli stylin' it up!

One sweet looking machine!

Graziano Rossi: "We call it, in Italian, "Equilibrio precario". When you are drifting, you are in the corner and don't know if you live or not. It's a fantastic emotion."

Some of the folks involved in the Ousoboros development.

Thanks to Alberto Narduzzi for the pics and Gary Inman (Sideburn) for the G.Rossi words (article in Performance Bikes)