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He fixed a bash plate and a crushed downpipe that was stopping the clutch lever releasing. He also turned a metal rectangular tube back into a pannier after it broke into three pieces! He was a bit northern, hence the captions I added to two of the photographs.

First time I heard it it really made me laugh too, so much so that when some of us were treated to a brief visit from animation company that lent all their equipment for us to make a film I used it. I co-wrote the story line about a nuclear power station that was badly built blowing up and the then government all cramming in a van with Bodgit n Scarper written on the side before closing themselves in a shelter and leaving everyone else outside. It was shown at the London film festival amongst others and went down pretty well that these 12 year old kids had made this short. So well that we were made to take it to private schools and show the privileged that pleb school kids did this thing. Unfortunately I hadn’t particularly disguised the politicians faces, just cut them out of the newspaper with a very unflattering outline (Id given Norman Tebbit a particularly sinister cut ?) so they always went the same way- everyone was friendly and pleasant and we were welcomed with tea and cake then the very short film was shown and silence would descend before we left under scowling eyes ? In our own way we’d had to bodge it and scarper ?

Phil did a small video from Sunday....

oh yes they can! insofar as any one individual is concerned ( you in this case) you do what you feel right with and don't go with a trend just because "they can't all be wrong". Unfortunately for me, the adv shape bike is what suits me best physically, always has been so I just have to put up with people assuming I'm just another ADV trend follower... Fuck'em, who cares what the others think ride what suits you.

On another forum I am on they were talking about nuclear energy and I remembered something from my youth and posted this:- In 1983 I went on a spectroscope course somewhere in south west London with a very posh bloke who insisted we call him Baz. Suit, spotted bow tie, biscuit crumbs and a full china tea set. Mad, but a lovely bloke. After a few days of staring at spectrums and being tested on what could be worked out from them I was talking about a previous course I had done where one of my fellow pupils worked at Windscale and who had talked about how they kept changing the name whenever the publicity got bad. Baz said he had been involved with the nuclear industry in the 50s or 60s. He had been asked to find a way to identify an alloy when it was in the form of a tube set into concrete but without cutting a piece off which would have been difficult and would have meant rebuilding the whole thing. These tubes were the roughly the same size as scaffold tubes and there was a suspicion that the contractor may have tried to cut costs!! He made a rod with an electrode on the end, put it down inside the tube and arced it till a residue formed, then brought it back up and arced the residue itself on the carbon wheel of the main spectroscope and in this way identified the alloy. I asked him what it was made of and he said he wasn't allowed to say. Then as he walked away to get out the tea pot and cups he said over his shoulder, "They had to rebuild it of course, frightful shouting match going on as I was leaving!"

Had a gentle trail ride showing one of the new members of the TRF about today, he'd recently been done for riding illegally so wanted to start doing it right so why i was showing him about i haven't a clue . The lanes were really dry which made them a lot easier to ride than normal almost boring in places maybe because I've ridden them so much. Usual photo looking towards my place all new to this guy We are heading over to the wind turbines you can see on the skyline above my bike here We stopped to take this photo when the farmer in the field shouts down to us i thought here we go this lane has a TRO on it prohibiting use after 6pm thought he might be going to tell us about it Turned out him and his farmer buddy were having trouble rounding up his horses and wanted us to help drive them down to the farm with the bikes, Wish i had a Go Pro it was a mad 15 minutes those horses we determined to stay in the field But we got them down once on the track they ran the rest of the way with no encouragement from us at all Good views from the wind farm that's the Bristol channel and Minehead area in the distance We did find a mucky lane i forgot to mention there's a big rock in the middle of it. It's the same place as the photo i put up here last week so i new about it

Day 6 - the big one! We had basically reached the end of paved roads along the east coast, when we got to Bahia. The next stretch was all dirt, 160 miles worth, and no one had been on it in quite some time. Dennis had done it years ago, but things change in Baja. We knew that the rode south along the coast connected several little fishing villages, so we figured the road wouldnt be all that bad. Definitely not like the sand the day before. And, we were right. The start of it was some good gravel, a little thin sand in places, and awesome desert scenery. a Baja superhighway Mandatory FOG pee stop. 2nd FOG pee break A couple of hours of easy gravel and we reached the southerly end of the dirt stretch, near the village of San Francisquito. And, then...... SAND! The thinner stuff Resting after the 3rd drop. The sand lasted about 6 miles or so, then back to good gravel. oh, wait! with hidden sand sections mixed in for when you were just getting comfortable again! ? We eventually reached pavement and at least one guy was relieved.

Can't remember, might have been something going on I wanted to be at. I didn't tell anyone at home I had no job for about 2 weeks, just went out on my bike in the morning and rode around for the day.

He had it back in April last year. He was hallucinating at one point due to a fever, frightened his missus at the time. It is still affecting him he says, gets breathless easily still etc. He owns a wood in Hertfordshire now, a roman road runs down one side of it and he has his own hives there and makes honey. There are two trees in the middle that have grown to embrace each other. The old owner used to let some 'witches' use it once a year for some ceremony and Dave let them carry on, he was worried about being turned into a frog I expect.

I reckon it was the same thing. It was one step up from the YOP scheme in that I got £39 a week instead of £25. At the end of the year they gave me a permanent job, still on very low wages mind, but a bit more than they paid the labourers. After about 3 years working there (I was about 20) I got called in one Monday morning by the owner, a bloke called Reg Simmonds who always reminded me of Michael Caine, a very nice man. I had forgotten to lock up the petrol saws we used to cut samples of bigger stuff on the Friday and they had been stolen, so I thought I was in for a telling off. But in fact he asked me if I would be interested in taking voluntary redundancy. He was quite upset about it, it was a small firm and he had never made anyone redundant before. I asked if I could leave on Wednesday which took him aback a bit. He said okay, if that was what I wanted I could. As I was leaving I turned and asked why he had asked me? "You looked the unhappiest." he said. When I left I got a small amount of redundancy, plus all my holiday money, plus a £100 from Reg and a £100 from his wife Deirdre. I went back to visit occasionally and the Irish yard foreman kept giving me bank notes, telling me Deirdre had left it for me. Reg sold the firm and did other stuff, especially involving the arts. He did tell me once that when he grew up in the east end of London he wanted to be a writer, but had to go out and earn money to help his family instead. I googled and found a picture of him, see below. He passed away from cancer in about 2012 I heard. The lady with him is his daughter who sometimes worked in the office of the yard during her school holidays, she's a film producer now. Another time I will tell the story of me making my magnesium bomb and him nearly catching me with the thing flaring up like mad and how I covered it up.

No idea, I never saw old Baz again after that. he'll be pushing up the daisies now I suspect, taken his secrets to the grave. The reason I used the spectroscope back then was I worked in a scrap yard in Barking as a sorter. We would identify and separate metals/alloys, mostly using a spectroscope on a trolley, or a smaller hand held version, sometimes with acid from a squeezy bottle (good on a windy day) or just by sparking stuff against a grinding wheel. There were only three of us in the south of England I was told when I started work on a youth opportunity scheme on peasant's wages. All done by computer and X-rays now I hear. I once fund a 40 gallon drum with some metal ingots in it, it was wedged up the back of a very big yard with a very old stock number on it. I brought one back with me and tested it on my spectroscope and didn't recognise any of the lines. Usually you navigated using a horizontally split screen, the bottom screen was the spectrum of a piece of pure iron, the top screen was whatever you were checking. You learnt the iron pattern of glowing lines and knew what other elements were by their position in relation to the iron spectrum. Comparing the brightness of lines on top with the bottom picture would give you an idea of an element's percentage in the mix. You could identify specific grades of stainless steels just by their molybdenum content for instance after first checking the iron/nickel/chrome ratios. No two titanium alloys have the same elements in them, so with those you just had to see what was there/not there. None of the lines I saw matched anything I knew on this strange ingot so I had to go back to basics. Find a good strong line and take a reading off of the spectroscope's dial (the image was so wide you turned a wheel to move it left and right). Each spectroscope had a matching book which made allowances for the lens differences. It told you what the angstrom reading was for any number on the dial. You could look this up in another book. Turned out it was a piece of depleted Uranium!

I wonder how many times I've used that bike park in my misspent youth? My CM125 used to know the road from watton to Norwich on it's own I reckon. The Forum wsn't there in those days though. @Slowlycatchymonkey I was member of the the Norfolk Mountain Rescue team for a short while...

Close... Kajagoogoo !

Long time ago (pre Ewen and Charlie), saw an article in Trail Bike Magazine that said big trail bikes not a problem there, as no mud to speak of (they didn't mention the ice), desperate to try it, talked three other people on big bikes (750AT, 600TA, 900Triumph Tiger) into going, two dropped out (lost job and divorce proceedings), remaining bloke invited his brother, I said yes as long as he had a big lumpy bike as well, they both bought matching second hand 750 Africa Twins. Then a 4th from my work invited himself and drove us all mad (we talked of killing him and hiding the body at one point), but to be fair his CCM was light enough to check out some tricky trails which had become streams/washed away and he fixed one bike using large rocks and gaffer tape after a crash. Took about 4 weeks, got my only puncture half a mile from home on the way back, local travelling people had burnt a pallet on a green lane I thought I would do whilst I still had knobbly tyres on and I copped one of the screws.

I took Izal to the Sahara, I thought it would be more resistant to damp weather stashed away in my throw overs. I brought it back unopened (it was in a flat square box). I'll bet it is still in my camping gear somewhere. It isn't easy to get, I had to call in a favour from a girl who's dad had the sort of 'sell everything' shop and who still had some stashed away.

Dunno what these are but they where nice enough for me to take a photo back in 2018 at the Haynes museum. Loved the solidity of them. The quality of the materials and the pure luxury of the interiors, like they were excited to craft something exceptional.

Did your school ever have that toilet paper that you could use as tracing paper ?

to be fair though, that's not just women...

I'll send you mine, please PM address...?

Blouse. Definitely blouse. Smashing blouse.

It’s pretty telling that Bruce cannot keep a friend even by giving him a motorcycle. Perhaps next time he gives something to someone he should just leave it in a prearranged place to save the recipient the trauma of actually meeting the twat. Clive was probably counting the days until he was outed for the blowjob.

So, let's see where was I? Oh, yes. We all made it to Bahia de Los Angeles, and found accommodations. I'll start off with a lodging picture, just to make you jelly. The hotel had 2 bed, 3 bed and 4 bed rooms available, so we spent about 15 mins doing Common Core Math in order to figure out the room combination that worked. I had it worked out, cause I is college edumacated. It fell apart because 15 type A personalities, you know. Given there was only one other room taken, we commandeered all the facilities and proceeded to cook dinner. (actually, the gracious host gave us his truck keys and said go shopping in town and you can use the outdoor kitchen (left in picture above). We ate well. with full bellies and beat riders, what was left to do? well, sitting around the fire, drinking and telling each other how great we were and how much the others sucked that day! You have to have really thick skins to ride with these idjits. Just keep in mind, however, they have your back. You will just hear about it afterwards ? Did i mention drinking was involved? Nothing better than arm wrassling on beat up wood tables. Plans were made for an early fishing trip, with our own boat fleet. Plans were made, but plans werent followed. Drinking late into the night and waking up after fighting sand and gravel the day before makes one revisit ambitious, drunk-induced activities. No one got up early enough to catch the boats. So, we headed off for a good gring-style breakfast, mixed with Mexican entrees. Then, we took a little ride around the village, ending up back at the hotel where more sitting and more drinking was called for. The trip itinerary had two days in this general area, so had no great need to head further south. The comfort of the beds, convenience of the cooking facilities, proximity of stores, etc, made us abandon the goal to camp along the beach. I wasnt that upset. Mexican covid masking. Dennis had heard enough "suggestions" so he hit up a little village swap meet and bought this for his bike. Guesses on what it means? 4 star eatery. Well, for Baja it is

It was the invention of a sick mind. Bastard sharp if you weren’t careful too ??

Yep, ours had Bristol Corporation printed on it , slid all over your arse and cleaned nothing ?

oh, yes. and coming after 3 hrs on the road, already, made it even more fun. Well, the next day it seemed like we had had fun

That would be great but my father never wore any

I'm a stone heavier after reading that

I want to know why Phil's GS is disguised as a honda... red white and blue striping, gold anodised rims... ?

My father only ever used that stuff, for as long as i can remember there were two bog roll holders in my parents bathroom one for that stuff and one for everyone who wanted their ass hole intact after a couple of wipes. When he couldn't get the stuff anymore he was devastated

CRF 300L!

Ok now I’m finding myself thinking along Xtremes lines cos deliberately seeking out that stuff for your delicates isn’t right! I just stored normal bog paper in a waterproof pouch... like a normal person would... What’s this about the Sahara? Pics? Thread? What were you doing there and all that jazz?

Isle of Wight a few years ago whilst on a bike rally. 2nd picture was also the IOW. Couldn't believe my luck at that car parking there. I tried to turn into a painting on the PC but it didn't work out too well. Not sure where the original photograph is

There you go

you neve know your luck in a raffle

This is cool, i now fit in my 16 inch wide fold up wheelchar i never used because it was to small! ??

I enjoy having a usual ride, there is something good about riding a well known road that you still enjoy, you don't think too much about it and it's sort of calming. Mine's not muddy, though

I agree the Himalayan is fine in some mud, but the weight is too much for just playing around on the single track or some muddy overgrown two track. At least for what I would like to do. Not a replacement for the Himalayan, just something smaller and lighter for other rides. ?

With the right tyres the Himalayan its fantastic in mud. Yes just sometimes the ground clearance is an issue but it’s more than made up for by the rest of the ride the bike gives you. Being able to tap your foot down or the bike being weighted low down means a lot.

Dry is boring!?! Ban hammer, bad influence, probably a perve, likes mud.

But it's really nice for about 2 months a year! ?

You dont have to pack a gun to be strong. You dont even have to be physically stacked to be strong. I guarantee you these things from experience ? Sorry some of you have had poor experiences of women. Won’t bore you with womens poor experiences of men. There are wankers of every breed n creed. And there are good folk. Let’s not let the twats spoil things for the good folk. We are the good folk, gender really is irrelevant here.

I had to the forum owner was bulling me and I've had to ignore umpteen imaginary PM's telling me off

In the morning we had a little but very tasty breakfast, said goodbye, and off we went in search of the Desert Let's go to Guelmim! Schools are usually the most colorful buildings you'll ever see Heading from there to Guelmim we had one of this trip's best memories. We finally felt like being close to the Sahara as I imagined from reading books, it had just gotten proper hot and I decided to stop and drink some water, when a few camels appeared, and then continued to appear, must have been over 50 all scattered into smaller herds, it was pretty great. Guelmim, perfect mix of desert frontier city with developed world, never had I seen so many old Land Rovers as here and from here on south. We got here during the afternoon having had no lunch. Very hot and sweaty, we weren't hungry but each drank a full bottle of water and a couple of very cold orange juices. Made our way to our very nice hotel, and had some more water there, after diving head first into the swimming pool. We slept in a very comfy bed, feeling like a million bucks. I was very excited to go to Tan Tan, gateway to the desert.

So, waking up excited for a ride, and realizing it's not raining again is a great feeling. We put both cases on the bike and go for breakfast, I remember plenty of fruit and a big cup of coffee. From near Midelt, we left for Er-Rich ... Nothing really special about it, just a sort of outpost place surrounded by lots of space, but also very typical down to the shop style carpentry, give it a look as Maria navigates us out of there in 20 seconds after I've been ending up at the same dead end for the third time and thus started a great ride, from there to the Gorges du Todra. First stretch is as flat as flat gets My face is already dry, even though we didn't face lots of heat in this trip, so as the sun starts to come out Maria makes me stop to put sunscreen off. I take the chance to document something very weird that happens in Morocco. In medium to big towns, in a country where "nobody" drinks alcohol, there is this circle of broken beer and whiskey bottles surrounding said towns. Magic, aliens must ditch their booze bottles here. This plateau eventually leeds to the most scenic and bucolic stretch of road ever I'm so happy to be here that when one girl out of a group of kids fails to slap my hand as we ride by, I stop, backtrack, and go for a second run, everyone thought it was funny and both we and the kids got a real kick out of it, that made my day. She's wearing the red shorts/pants in this picture, just look at her smile: Backtracking and going for the second run: And this mini ninja almost took my hand off on the second run And just like that we are out of that magic little canyon/valley ... Happy days: We spot some squirrel like creature, spot it in the next three pictures: A brief stop at the canyon touristy spot, would be rude not to A short stop a few miles on just before the canyon ends and we face the heat while making a dash for the dunes, to our special place. I don't remember why, but I ended up tasting one of those leaves ... it was awful.... Quick enough, and we're there with sand under our feet! This might be repetitive, but it is an amazing place ... Most of the ride that day was from places where we had been before, to places where we had been before, and yet we were surprised at how amazing the ride was.