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I used to practise balancing on the back wheels of my wheelchair (a bit like a balanced wheelie) until my wife came in the living room unexpectedly. Taken by surprise I went over the back but avoided hitting my head. Lying on the floor I looked to my wife for sympathy but she just looked at me and said ' you stupid man' and walked out

http://colourswheelchair.com/spazz-g/ 2009 was a very good year, 5 stars. Options, Billet soft roll caster wheels, leather trim. Thank God i still have her i can get around the house without having to get up. Im thinking about @boboneleg nerve issues cause mine are sending some sporatic useless data. Ignore function is on high. If i keep her on two wheels can i enter BOTM?

Years ago my mother in law at the time was reading the book “The Exorcist”, she said it was the most evil thing she had ever read and she couldn’t finish it, that day she took the book and threw it in the local canal. I went and bought another copy of the book and soaked it in the bathroom sink then left it on her nightstand. My father in law later recounted that that was the first time he had ever seen his wife soil herself.

After my excitement in the forest on Saturday, I almost forgot about my Friday. Having the two bikes is like having two different personalities. I'll just add them to my collection....? We went for a nice ride on the Hondas up the coastal highway to a Heritage Centre in Egmont, which is at one end of the coast. The centre was closed, but it was still a great place to stop and enjoy the odd items around the place. ? Like this cool old Studebaker! ? The heavy logging equipment was a nice backdrop for the bikes. There was the local fire truck and of course a native totem, as this is the traditional territory of the shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation. ....and there was even a whale on wheels. It is a local symbol of the natives and most likely used in parades and such. It was a great ride and my fastest overall average speed on this stretch of road. It is all Charlotte's fault! I made up a short ride log video for your viewing enjoyment! ?

today, still no leaves on the trees...

The only races i ever managed to get on the podium were in the rain. Up here if you don't race in the rain you are not racing This was at Portland in Oregon. It was a SV cup race and treacherous as hell as half the track was dry and the back half wet. i was slip sliding everywhere. it was funny because the day before the guys that i had a hard time keeping up with were all throwing out the anchor well before me coming into the the first right hander off the straight. most of the fast guys were from California and definitely did not like racing in the rain. here's another one. what do you do at a motard race when your XR650R blows it's rear shock..... remove the re from tard and drag the SV out of the trailer.

Actually the most reliable motor i have seen around here for high mile longevity is the GM LS v8's. The 4.8, 5.3, 6 or the new 6.2 liter ls series is incredibly strongly built stock from the factory. You can easily get well over 350,000 on them with only doing regular maintenance. The bottom ends are incredibly strong, no one else that i know of stock production v8's have 6 bolt main cranks or have as well designed oiling system as the LS series. My own 2006 sierra 1/2 ton 5.3 has 340'000 on it and still runs well. I go from oil change to oil change with out adding a drop of oil and it has had a hard life towing and being used as a contractors work truck. You can easily build LS's using stock blocks into 700 hp+ motors just by bolt on parts. Slap on a supercharger, a set of reworked heads, new cam, performance fuel injector set up and voila you get a very reliable motor with 700+HP for cheap. Try doing that with a modern Ford's v8 or eco boost or any of Chrysler's hemi's and get out your bank card because you are going to spend 15 grand plus to get the same hp out of it. As far as Japanese motors Toyota V6's and their 5.7 V8 are super reliable and good for lots of miles if maintained Their 4 banger not so much Toyota is still having head gasket problems on their 4 bangers in the Tacoma's. any of Nissan's V6 and 4 bangers are also great motors. Mazda still has issues it seems with seals and personally i would stay away from Hyundai along with it's son Kia. They are facing a 12 billion dollar class action lawsuit for early motor failure going back from now to 12 years ago. I have pulled wrenches for 30 plus years in various forms and have personally never seen a high mile Hyundai with out it having motor work done to it at some point.

Well, it is fun, so there's that....

The far west of the Yonne department., and the last of the cardinal points. Lovely spring day so after lunch, I took the thermal liners out of jacket and trousers, togged up and headed west to the D14 between Rogny Les Sept Ecluses and Fleury at 47:43'24"N, 02:50'56"E Still no leaves on the trees yet, but the hawthorn is flowering in the hedgerows and some of the smaller flowers are starting to appear nice little country cottage Due to the nice weather there were more people about than normal and Rogny Les Sept Ecluses being a popular historical landmark there were plenty cyclists, walkers, dog walkers, horse riders and even Bikers ( there was even some froggy twat on a harley complete with cut off full of badges, some fictional mc logo and rockers on the back along with a confederate flag... I know some people in the UK who would not have hesitated to tear a strip off a knob like that... I decided I couldn't deal with people and decided to just ride on and out to the very western edge of the departement 5 kilometres further on here I wouldn't want to have to ride this road after dark at the moment, the curned up earth along the verge by the bike is wild boar damage and it looks like there was half a herd of them somebody told me that wild boars eyes dont reflect light like a deer's do and they being black, you don't see them 'till you hit them and they weigh like 80 to 110kilos so you'd know if you hit one! I managed to grab a pic of the seven lock flight ( les sept écluses) at Rogny on the way back but as I didn't have my camera ( todays shots on I-phone only) it came out shitcos I was trying to avoid people so had to zoom in and had the sun in my eyes. I wanted a pic just so's I could make a cap joke about "Lockdown" but the pic is too crappy to support further ridicule. 150km all round and ended up at the jet wash for a hose down.

It was 20C today and blue skies, so I took the Beemer on the trails around San Clemente reservoir for the first time! The Beemer was a lot easier to manoeuvre than the Strom obviously! Which I was particularly glad of at one point when I missed the turn round spot and ended up literally at the water's edge with no way forward! You can see the place in the vid where the trail leads straight into the reservoir......that's Death and Dismemberment for sure! Or even worse......getting your bike wet! So here we go....no Dark Motorcycling......and no ruins or devastation! Which was a bit of a let down......but I got through it!

Fraid so Chris.....I'll have to get counselling now!

@XTreme you mean you got DIRT on those tyres Pete... ? Good job! ?

I caNT BREATHé! Look how close you came to that water haZard! ???????

Cool, just ticked buy it now on some red led's for the wheel horse garden tractor, light parade here i come ?

I'd forgotten that the bike clock was still on BST from last year, so arrived home an hour earlier than needed.

Thanks! ? So true, the Himalayan has good bendy bits....?

We finally got mum an appointment for her first shot, at the local CVS drug store. I never wanted to take her to those mass vax sites, she cant sit for hours like some did, that was crazy. Thank God she isnt living in an old peoples home, so many around here died in them from this chit.

they are mostly, it's not holiday season yet and, in theory at least, the departments to the north, west and northeast are in lockdown so only locals around, even at the weekends, and no body plays the tourist in their own back yard... c'ept thee 'n' me Rogny Les Sept Ecluses is usually heaving with Paris-ites and foreign camping cars but today was only locals as far as I could make out. I also spend the vast majority of my time seeking out the quieter backroads, which may falsify somewhat the general impression ?

It does always film 360, then in editing you have to choose the angle, the magnification, the flow from one scene to another, etc.... A bit extra work, but I enjoy it all very much, so it is fun for me. ? Thanks for asking.

It is a 360 GoPro camera on the handle bars. I really like how it captures the whole surroundings, but some people get annoyed by the perspective. I like it, but it does require additional steps when editing the footage. ?

SO TRUE!!!

Nice one Pete, some proper off-roading right there ? BOTM contender.............

No lie in 2008 someone called the cops cause i was wheelieing in the middle of my street in my chair, Two showed up, dint know what to do, refused to give me a ticket, and left. ?

Hold on, got to write something important on the internet! Lemon cake is a cure all! ???????

Tammy wanted me to sell it once, good thing she is 6'6" tall, i just acted like what she said went over my head. ???????

It's in our nature to hoard things. Good move.

I think if my memory serves me correctly it was around here.

I noticed the clock on my CRF was an hour fast when i warmed it up a couple of weeks ago, that's how long it hasn't turned a wheel its correct again now. Going to tax it on the 1st April so i can start using it again ?

I had a look at the TET route and couldn't see where it went down near Bridport so thought you were on a lane not on the TET. Just say it was a test for Bob and he passed

Excellent Michelle!

I had to put sliders on my handlebar ends on my KLR, in my dreams...lol

3rd part of the Cardinal points of the Yonne department attainable by road. The Southen most road accessible point in the department was always going to be fun because it is obviously in the heart of the Morvan Natural Parc which is a riding nirvana at any time and though not particularly warm today, around 10 or 12 degreesm the sun was shining so I early lunched and headed out. Southern most point is on the D10 between Quarré Les Tombes and Dun Les Places, right in the heart of the Forét du Duc at 47: 18'41"N 04:0'13"E. I was more than a little surprised to discover an Island... finally got there, to within a few yards turned around, and rode home along here a little bit of dirt I nearly fell off when I saw this, anybody read ( or seen the film) "Into the Wild" ? I thin kit's actually being, or has been used as a hunting cabin, but I didn't hang around too long cos I could faintly hear Banjo's tuning up...? Thought I'd throw in a Chateau for those from the new world who like that sort of thing 205km all told, and it went something like this

You do have a point there. However she has terrible taste.

I don’t know where to start.

Nice one Chris, I’ll go for a ride to Devizes and take a photo of the flight of locks on the Kennet & Avon when I get the chance

The way I look at it is that if we have to be under some form of lockdown......then where we currently are is a hell of a sight better place to be locked in than where we came from.

Excellent Chris......roads look very quiet in your shots?

does it film 360 all the time and then you edit it, or does it turn, randomly or otherwise? It's certainly interesting but some of the angles are a bit odd, at one point it looks like you're riding sideways somehow, which I can see would bother some people. always good to play with different stuff though ?

I'd forgotten all about that site Bob, used to use it a lot years ago

nice! there wer some strange camera angles in the vid though, how do you pilot that camera whilst riding?

The video was put together very well.

Just over 220,000. The Toyota 3.0 ~3.5 liter v6's have a flaw in their design. The oil gallery return holes in the heads are a bit small and tend to plug up with gunk when they get higher miles on them. They can literally pump all their oil out of the pan and starve the crank. That's what i suspect happened here. I always change my oil at 4500 k but since it had 90,000 miles on it when i bought it i suspect that it was well on its way to being gunked up by then. Apart from that they are a great v6 capable of half a million or more if service regularly. if i wasn't such a lazy ass back yard mechanic and replaced the timing belt at the required 200,000 miles this wouldn't have happened. I would have caught it and could have cleaned all the goop out then. It's my own fault really but i have an excuse... Getting the rear head off in the sienna van is a real nightmare, especially if it has a rear heater and a/c option like mine had. Toyota allows 12 hours for re and re in their service book but i have seen it take way longer if there are any issues getting all the fuel rail plumbing and intake off or with stuck hardware on the exhaust manifold. so i spun the wheel and took my chances................BOOM! guess that's why i don't gamble

Glad all the limbs are in tact ? They say something along the lines of “if you don’t fall you weren’t trying hard enough” don’t they, I’d stick with that ? Another plus of the Himalayan- stuff bends back without snapping, sometimes if you’re me multiple times without snapping on the same ride ?

@demon Unsurprisingly I agree Somerset is beautiful. When you live in it all the time you forget though and then you go somewhere else and think it’s not that great because the bars already been set high ?

You look so naughty here like your sabotaging the bike for the rider

Found last years cancer study pic they do on me every year, the life i save, might be Bruce's! You owe me buddy! You should donate your butt's rash to GoldBond™

I have never felt the need to drag my knees ( though I've been dragging knuckles for years) and can see no point in doing so (other than on a race track). given that I imagine only about 1 or 2 % of riders will ever ride on a circuit, and probably only about half of those competitively, I struggle to see how any of the above information could possibly be considered something " Every rider should know" or am I just being pedantic?