Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Excellent site, new to me. apparently theres only 922 of mine on the road and 589 Sorn. kinda makes me want to keep both of mine, sorn them both and get one for actual hooning around. then they can be brought out as barn finds in 40 years when I die and there is only a few left.

nah...whilst I am possessive like that I think they would be better off actually getting used by someone that wants them.

My uncle who used to be always buying new bikes bought one over 15 years ago and has kept it ever since.

Wow, I just ran my model (CBR900RR-N) through. There's only 55 on the road and 90 under SORN ... the value can only rise!

oh...that kinda makes a mockery of my numbers.

Whereabouts is that? And what sort of price range are freehold units?

From the quick look I've had its usually car storage that also does motorcycles. Doing a motorcycle + bicycle is an interesting one as you wouldn't need anywhere near the total space you would for cars.

Is anyone doing the DGR on Sunday?

Yup

is bloody miles away though
The first one I did started in the carpark behind dirty burger on kentish town road, much more convenient.

Yeah, the 9am start is putting the pillion off as meant to be going out and having our first lie-in in ages

Did it last year and it was fun, doubt I can this year. Look out for the raucous NORTON girls. Their motorbikes looked and sounded lovely. They looked lovely. Their behaviour was abominable.

Fabulous package, maybe.

Ha - sounds most amusing!

I don't think the set-off is until 11, you've got time for a bit of a lie-in.

Not terrible, just landlords/owners seem to keep hold of the ideal ones (for me) off the market, yet empty and likely they are paying rates on an empty unit, baffles me why#

#well it doesn't, either they want to keep it empty to demonstrate that actually flattening all commercial units that aren't in perfect condition and re zoning the land for housing development is more profitable, or they have other units thry can't shift, so flooding market with every bit of random commercial property doesn't help anyone (who is a property owner looking to get rid)

Sounds awesome. Just the incentive a man needs. Especially when the pillion texts saying she doesn't know if she can make it now.

My prejudices were played with.
The sprayed on shiny leather pants. The big norton motorcycles. The blonde flowing locks. The wanton throttle twisting. The standing on the pegs. The very confident bike handling. The youthfulness of them both. For days after they were in my head. Maybe I'm just getting old.
Must say, the few times I saw them , they had smiles on their faces.

So today i got my first fine, just moved to a new place, first day of having my motorcycle here and went for a little ride to explore everything. Just as i decided to go home i went under a bridge and revved a bit for the nice nice sound, overtook someone in a 2 lane corner and just as i got out of the corner there was a lasergun policeman. Went 86 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, corrected to 83 it will probably cost me 350 euro's.. Fuck me. That was my first month of rent :(. Lesson learned and won't do stupid shit anymore at least, time to sell a bike.

DGR. Disappointed with it this year.
The meeting point was a bit soulless, but more importantly it was too far out of town at the Olympic Park (and not well signposted). The distance meant that the natural flow of traffic had split everyone up by the time we got to the first big landmark of Tower Bridge, and it might as well have been a normal commute. I went over the bridge as normal, filtering up the middle in single file with a little group of bikes. Considering the organisers said there were at least 1200 bikes at the start, there didn't seem to be any atmosphere.
This was my third one and I'm not sure I'll bother again. The previous two have been brilliant, riding three or four abreast in a huge swarm of bikes, but today was underwhelming and just like riding in traffic on any ordinary day. Given that today's weather was fantastic, it would have been much better spent out on some real roads out of town.
To top it all off, I got to embankment and decided I'd had enough, I couldn't see the point of fighting through the traffic to Stratford, only to turn around and come home again. I thought I'd have a five minute breather before heading home, then found that three blown fuses and a flat battery made it impossible to start the bike again.
Waited 2 hours for SOS recovery. Not their fault, but annoying, and a crappy end to a disappointing ride.
I did get headhunted by a proper photographer because of my suit though, so it wasn't all bad.

I did get headhunted by a proper photographer because of my suit though

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Did you see or hear the norton women?

Not specifically Norton women, but there were some very elegantly attired ladies (and gentlemen) about.
Photographer was http://www.fabioaffuso.com, will be in touch...

A lot of bikes were overheating. Driving through town was a bit meh but there were bits where groups were together. Some cracking bikes.. there wasn't really much opportunity to talk except at the very beginning. Popped a few photos on my Instagram feed @philqr

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I drove into the meet up with that bike!

Went out to Pioneer Town yesterday on the XR - the plan was to take the Angeles Crest Highway to Wrightwood then hit the dirt through the corner of the Mojave desert and up into the San Gabriel's behind silver wood and Lake Arrowhead. From there, cut across Big Bear and back down out of the mountains to the Desert Stars festival at Pappy and Harriet's.

It did not go so well...first we set off 3hrs late. We got in 50 or so miles of great flowing sandy and hardpack trails but as it started to get gloomy, we still had a log way to go. Instead off baling for Tarmac that would have required a long diversion, we opted to press on 15 miles or so to make a large shortcut. Big mistake....

The last link up was a quadruple black diamond - the toughest rating and frankly was a huge boulder and Rock strewn clusterfuck. Steep, sandy and incredible hard on a 300lb dual sport bike geared for Baja. After countless tumbles I got to the top to discover the light behind was another rider, not my mate. Cue riding back down in pitch black with a very questionable headlight to dig him out and then slowly battle our way back up. Digging, lifting, wrenching slog fest of the highest order. By this time, we were both drenched with sweat and the temperature was falling fast. We made about another 20 interminable miles off road to Tarmac in the middle
Of nowhere about 15miles outside big bear.

That has to be the coldest 15 miles of my life. When we got there, we were both shivering absolutely uncontrollably and could barely hold the bars. We ended up wrapping ourselves in newspaper before toiling the last 65miles down the mountain and through the desert on the 247 highway. (textbook lonely road and essential a wall of black with a faint white line with my headlight.)

Finally rolled in to Pappy and Harriet's at 10.30, 12 hrs after setting off, caked in filth and like the shell shocked extras from a disaster movie. The festival had finished and we managed 2 beers and a Jameson before getting kicked out for smuggling in a half Bt or Wild Turkey we bought in Big Bear. Basically fear and loathing in the desert.

Proper fucked today....

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Rather you than me, glad to hear you made it back in one piece!

Wow. It sounds epic. What would you have done differently?

Fitted a new rear tyre to my mates bike instead of the part worn he killed by getting repeatedly dug in and left at least 3hrs earlier. Doing that we'd have been Ok. Exhausted but ok.

At 300+ lbs loaded though, neither of those bikes is ideal for that sort of terrain. Most impressed both made it without breakdowns or breakages.

I might look into buying a proper sleeping bag too as mine would have been useless up there had we got stuck.