Small and perfectly formed.....

I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts, and one of my favourites is Front End Chatter, by Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitzgibbons. I was listening to the FECers on my commute home in the horrible rain and darkness of the A379 and they were talking about riding a small bike fast, rather than say an S1000RR or R1 slowly (as far as the bike goes anyway) and it came to me that what would be great would be a lightweight 250 or 350cc cafe racer with a single seat and all that - really light. Best of all would be one I made myself, but an SRX250 or Suzuki Goose would fit the bill just as well. It would never replace the Breva for serious miles, but for a sunny short ride on a twisty local road - great fun.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Italy part 3 - The Alps make an appearance

Image
Vohrenback to Malles - 224 Miles  - 7th July The theme of this day was that we would be aiming to get to Mandello. During the night the rain had hammered down so ferociously we had both woken up. Fortunately by the time we were ready to go, the roads had substantially dried. After an excellent breakfast we set off - but only about a mile up the road my left pannier came off at about 50 miles an hour. I had rushed leaving and forgot to fasten it properly. It had burst open and all my clothes were spread over the road for all the world to see! Thanks to Mr Hepco and Mr Becker, there was no serious damage and I just stuffed it all back in, locked the pannier to the bike as I usually do, and set off again. Heading south through the Black Forest the riding was great - roads were a smooth as a bowling green and very grippy. Quite a lot of bikes seen, not surprisingly many were big GS Beemers, but also the Africa Twin seems popular. A wrong turn was taken which involved us going along sin
Read more

Italy Part 8 - the final few days....

Image
                           Overlooking the French plain from the edges of the Black Forest. Todtmoos to Miesenthal - total miles 155 - 12 July Not a great deal to say apart from we were sad to be leaving the Black Forest, and heading down onto the plain. I took one last photo of Jeff standing out on a rock looking towards France, and then we descended onto the plain, and it just got rather hot again. The traffic was intense, fiddly, and bloody annoying, and at one stage we were both dehydrated I am sure. Finally we managed to enter the Vosges National Park and the riding got a little more fun and we chilled out a bit. Not before me getting stuck in an irrigation ditch just after an al fresco lunch after crossing a river, possibly the Rhine (again). It just sort of symbolised the day up to that point so far. We eventually found a hotel, rather posh really in Miesenthal and got cleaned up and came down for dinner. To a dining room that was a touch more posh than most
Read more

Dad, Motorcycles, and Me; a complicated relationship

 My father hated me riding motorcycles on the road. Which is odd because he was the first person to sit me on one.  And Dad was a rider. When I got a little 250 to learn on in 1985, his opinion was that I woud kill myself within months. It turned out I did not, however I did give up road riding after a year following a disasterous trip out west where another person in the group convinced me I was not up to riding on the road. I believed him, and gave up, turning back to off road riding a few years later, competing in trials. Dad was most pleased with this turn of events. Then when I finally got my bike license after a year on a 250 in 1995, he wanted to come along when I did the test ride. He passed his opinion, I bought the bike, and rode it home in the rain. His verdict was the same - "you'll kill yourself".  Dad was born in 1932 and it seems from a pretty early age he had an affinity for internal combustion engines, so he rode bikes and as was the custom of the day, wo
Read more