Hairy Bikers and Other Petrol Heads

[simond]

[QUOTE="

I’m reasonably optimistic that the bike can be ready for the Mandello trip in September, I’m less confident that Covid restrictions will permit it.

Hi Simon,

At the Moto Guzzi Club GB camping meet last weekend, the general concensus was that even if the 100th Anniversary bash went ahead, it might be a problem for non-Italians to get home if restrictions came down again in force. The possibility of a 101st "Screaming Eagle" event was suggested!

Susie[/QUOTE]

hi Susie,

you may well be right. We got over to our boat in Brittany last July, but not since. We dashed back then as it was obvious that quarantine was coming. We timed it well, a couple of days to spare, and no stress.

The news this evening was leading on Mutti suggesting that the UK should be quarantined due to the Delta variant, it appears that the tourist destination countries are not so keen on this, I guess it will sort itself out in the next few days.

(I briefly wondered if it was a cynical ploy to get the sunbeds, but I guess that’s just stereotyping

I’ll plough on with the bike - hopefully the last few bits & pieces were ordered today. Gutsibits have done well! I do need to speak to the French embassy to understand how to get a “Crit’air” sticker, as the bike is too old to register on-line, and if it’s possible we’ll go, and if not…. Well, we need to make a call by the beginning of August or we’ll not get our accommodation deposits back. And Madame has enough sense to go by train, so need to cancel that too.

so, we’ll see.

Atb
Simon

MGCGB Kent

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Remember when we had hair............



Col.

 

[oldravendale]

Some of us still have.....

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Some of us still have.....

 

[simond]

Some of us still have.....

yes, my wife, for example.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

We're still hairy but not where you'd expect ..........or maybe you would

 

[Osgood]

I've got just the nameplate for you!

 

[Allen M]

I have a vague recollection of having hair on my head. It was thinning by the time I got my provisional, not much to be seen head on by my 21st and looked like an 'inverted monk' by mid 20s.
Was I surprised? No, I carried on the tradition of my father, grandfather and great grandfather what ever before that.
Had bikes for most of my life, still have my only scooter and a licence 64 years ( aprox first 2 provisional) in 3 weeks time.

Regards
Allen

 

[Eastsidepilot]

I have often wondered why some blokes loose it earlier than some, and others that don't loose it at all. It's always been a standing joke in my family that it was because I lived my life in my crash helmet through my teens and twenties and this was the reason the old thatch started disappearing at an age earlier than my Father lost his. I say lost but it didn't all fall out just went very thin on top.
So is there any proof in the crash helmet theory ? who knows. Having said that I have a cousin on my Mothers side that was totally bald by the age of 30 not that it bothered him, looked a right 'ard nut' at 6'-2" and no one had a go at him

You know the old jokes, I go to the barber and ask him to cut my hair and he says "which one Sir" or my comb has only two teeth, one at each end.
It's the Girl's in my family that make up for it though with both my Wife and Granddaughter with hair hanging down past their waists ! jeez makes yer sick don't it

I can grow a good beard though and I must admit that lately I've stopped going over my head with the no.1 on the shears and said sod it let it do what it wants, but the danger is you can end up looking like either Max Wall or Francis Rossi........preferably the latter rather than the former

Col.

 

[Allen M]

but the danger is you can end up looking like either Max Wall or Francis Rossi........hopefully the latter

I tried to look like Sean Connery after he was voted the sexiest mature man around. I had the right hair stile but not the face and body.

Regards
Allen

 

[Eastsidepilot]

I tried to look like Sean Connery after he was voted the sexiest mature man around. I had the right hair stile but not the face and body.

Regards
Allen

You probably didn't get the accent right .....after me " she shells she shells on the she shore " or " what thieving Shassenach nicked my Ashton Martin "
With apologies to any Scots reading this..but that's what Shawn, sorry Sean sounded like

Col

 

[Allen M]

Col
You could be right. My natural accent is Kidderminster/North Worcestershire but can do a reasonable black country impression. Bostin, ar kid.
Until her premature death I had a friend who originated from the Outer Hebrides. As a child her spoke Gaelic then learnt English at school with out any accent.

Regards
Allen

 

[simond]

I have still got a full head of hair, it’s receded a bit, and definitely thin on top, but it’s still there.

My dear old Dad, he had a Friar Tuck when he got married at the age of 27 or 28.

He had ridden a motorbike, but helmets were an option in those days, I started biking (legally) in ‘74 by when it was not open to debate, unless you could convince the local constabulary that you were Sikh, which wasn’t going to work.

He always claimed that “moss doesn’t grow on a busy street”, and I pointed out he had wavy hair, it was waving goodbye to his head, alternatively, that he was “eggshell blonde”…

 

[Eastsidepilot]

unless you could convince the local constabulary that you were Sikh, which wasn’t going to work.

Do remember the arguments about helmet laws and what the hell religion had to do with it, and why should they be exempt etc., as you could still stove yer head in and some poor bugger would have to clear the mess up !
To be honest I was uncomfortable not wearing a crash hat not just from the safety angle but from the bloody shrapnel that was intent on hitting your bonce !

Col.

 

[Focalplane]

Allen,

My parents did their best to rid me of a Brummie accent. First, I was born on the Warwick Road just across the boundary from Birmingham, which makes me a Silhillian. Second, my father deemed it necessary to have me educated in Oswestry because it was where he trained for WWI - good clean air up there, no Brummie smog to encourage the nasal accent! Trouble was I spent most of my time on school holidays in Central Birmingham, wandering about the Jewellery Quarter as well as Snow Hill and New Street, so I can still slip back when I want to.

Bostin, by the way, was never heard in Birmingham in those days. Those Yam Yams really do speak different from us Brummies!

Later on, when I moved to Texas and married a Yellow Rose (which is what they call blondes) I developed a good slow Texas dra'al and was mistaken as an American when visiting the UK. That has mostly gone now but I spell American and my spell check keeps it going.

My father, me and my son all had/have the same balding. None of us rode motor cycles much, in fact my father never learned to drive anything, preferring his bike and the North Warwickshire Line. So I don't think there's a connection at all. It's in the DNA!

Paul

 

[Osgood]

That name plate isn't quite right, is it.
Maybe Intentio can knock one - no, a batch - of these up.....

 

[Allen M]

Hi Paul
As you say Brum, Black country & Worcestershire might as well have been 3 different countries. When I first went to work in Brierley Hill as a 20 year old I could have done with an interpreter.
Thinking of Solihull many years ago Jasper Carrot did a'review' about the A41 starting outside New Street Station, down through Digbeth, etc. trying to convince the listener they lived the next, more up market district out from the center.
Regards
Allen

 

[simond]

Ah, the A41. Starts at the Mersey tunnel, ends at Baker St. Or t’other way about if you’re not a Birkonian.

Some 45 years ago, en route to visit a mate at uni in Oxford in my half-timbered Mini, I was lost somewhere in the aforementioned three countries, but still on (or at least near) the A41. I asked a local the way.

“arr yow take this rowed anny rowed”

“Sorry?”

he repeated himself

I thanked him, and drove on, none the wiser, and no better informed…

 

[simond]

As some will recall, last September, I collected a new BMW R1250 GS, on which I’ve managed a mere 2500 miles so far. It’s a wonderful bit of kit, but it’s a big heavy beast, at least at car park speeds, and rather noisy, and I wondered if I had not been a bit over enthusiastic - having second thoughts, if you will. Is the grass greener?

I know @Nick Dunhill has a MotoGuzzi V85TT, as do a couple of my more local mates, and being a thirty-odd year Guzzisto, and having heard good things, went for a test ride yesterday. Very positive impressions, though the horn is as wimpish & pathetic as the thing fitted originally to the BM. It did a passable impression of a medium sized, slightly startled rodent, which didn’t prevent the blind b******d in the Transit pulling out on me. Happily there was room…. Why do bike makers fit such useless horns? You don’t want to have to use it, but if you need to, you want something with the effect of a Dumbledore spell…

Anyway, the Guzzi handles nicely, is adequately quick, is pretty nimble, and is a pleasure to ride. I didn’t like the dashboard, and it wasn’t quieter than the BM, which is my other gripe. After a very enjoyable hour and a bit, I took it back, having concluded that the grass is not greener, merely a slightly different shade.

think I’ll get some of those fancy made-to-fit earplugs…

ride safe
Simon

 

[Boyblunder]

Back in 1977 just after getting married my wife and I took a trip in our Sprite Mk IV (sitting rusting on my 91 year old father in law’s drive to this day) up to Brum from Cambridge to buy spares for my 1955 Ariel Red Hunter (sleeping quietly in my garage waiting for the wheels to be rebuilt at the moment). There was torrential rain on the M1 which isn’t fun dodging between the Guys and Fodens at wheel nut height. We collected the bits from Harborne then set off for an afternoon in Bridgenorth to have a look at the SVR. Between intermittent heavy showers I got lost in Wolverhampton and asked a local the way, after 2 or 3 minutes of indecipherable discussion during which I gradually tuned in to the local dialect he said “Oh yow mein Bridge NORTH, that’s a long way” and walked off. We found it in the end and enjoyed a very pleasant if slightly damp afternoon. Twenty years later and up to retirement I spent one or 2 days a week working in Birmingham and have no trouble with the varying accents now, the tricky bit in a large office was figuring out which were Villa and which were City supporters , getting it wrong on a bad day could cause mutiny.