Category: Motorcycling

Loving the freedom of the open road. Limited now due to Greyhound adoption.

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Biker’s Night Before Christmas

The Biker’s Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the pad,

There was nada happenin’, now that’s pretty bad.

The woodstove was hung up in that stocking routine,

In hopes that the Fat Boy would soon make the scene.

With our stomachs packed with tacos and beer,

My girl and I crashed on the couch for some cheer.

When out in the yard there arose such a racket,

I ran for the door and pulled on my jacket.

I saw a large bro’ on a ’56 Pan

Wearin’ black leathers, a cap, and boots (cool biker, man).

He hauled up the bars on that bikeful of sacks,

And that Pan hit the roof like it was running on tracks.

I couldn’t help gawking, the old guy had class.

But I had to go in — I was freezing my ass.

Down through the stovepipe he fell with a crash,

And out of the stove he came dragging his stash.

With a smile and some glee he passed out the loot,

A new jacket for her and some parts for my scoot.

He patted her fanny and shook my right hand,

Spun on his heel and up the stovepipe he ran.

From up on the roof came a great deal of thunder,

As that massive V-twin ripped the silence asunder.

With beard in the wind, he roared off in the night,

Shouting, “Have a cool Yule, and to all a good ride!”

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Harry Potter

More snow and a forecast of more to come.   This made us decide to commute to work in the car again.  Not our favourite form of transport for the trip to work.  The journey was accompanied by heavy snowfall so the right decision was definitely made.

After work, we went to a local restaurant for a meal, followed by a short walk in the snow to a good coffee shop.  Cinnamon Latté of course!

Then off to the cinema.  We had been promising ourselves a visit to see the new Harry Potter film since it was released in November, but it was not till tonight we managed to find the time.

Overall a fun film and a nice night out.  As always the film had its good parts and as always for us book lovers, it missed out parts we wanted to see.  A film is always a compromise, certainly I would hate to be a screen writer, but overall it was well worth seeing, and has whet the appetite for the final part of the series.

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Hoar Frost

Another bitterly cold day, the ride to work was -8°C, I don’t even want to think what the wind chill factor was.

It was a foggy ride in, but as the fog cleared it revealed a beautiful view of hoar frost encrusted trees illuminated in golden sunlight from the low winter sun.

With days like this I wish I had more time for photography.  I always seem to book indoor studio shoots during great photography weather and if I am on location the weather is awful.  Thats fate I suppose!

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The Cold Returns

The weather in Lincolnshire has improved massively in the last couple of days, allowing the normal motorcycle commute to recommence.  Yesterday still had icy roads leading to the village leading to an interesting and challenging start to the commute.  Caroline decide to walk down the first road while I slowly road along the ice covered road with my feet down on the ground sliding along.

Once into the village it was an easy commute into town.

This afternoon the cold snap returned and it started to snow, luckily it was not too bad and we got home safe on the motorcycle.

Its been good to get back on the bike, you really miss it, and this has been one of my longest breaks off the bike.

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Snowy Bike Commute

With winter well and truly arrived, this morning saw us pulling on our winter thermals & fleeces to go under our biking outfits.

I took pity on Caroline, and allowed her to wear my BMW heated waistcoat. The full winter gloves and boots also came out for today.

One we had negotiated the first half mile of ice and snow covered back roads to the village centre, it was an easy ride in on clear roads.

That first stretch was the hard part. Not the weather but other road users. One car driver pulled out on us in a situation they could clearly see was not conductive to using the brakes. I was not travelling very fast, less then 10 mph so was able to roll to a halt without risking the brakes on the ice. Less then a minute later they decided to just stop in the middle of the road with no warning, I gently overtook them. The worse the weather the worse some people drive!

Unlike yesterday today was relatively warm, the temperature reached -0.5C. We felt warm and it was an enjoyable commute into work.

Photo taken and blog posted from my iPhone.

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A Motorcyclists Camera – a plea to Camera Makers

As a keen motorcyclist and a keen photographer, I often find the two coming together.

Motorcycle trips have taken us all round Great Britain (Scotland, Wales and England), to France, and even as far as Spain. These great trips often present great photographic moments that have to be captured.

Sometimes a basic compact camera or mobile phone camera is not enough. But lugging a digital SLR and a selection of lens is too much. What I want is a small camera with a big high quality sensor, if possible, interchange lens (also small), it also needs to have direct controls for setting shutter speed and aperture, and lastly a high quality view finder, not just a screen on the back which makes composing in bright sunlight near impossible.

Each year camera companies get closer but we are not there yet.
The sigma DP1 was the first that grabbed my attention, it had the big sensor a first for a compact camera.
Then the Olympus PEN, which had interchange lens, and the option for an optical view finder.
Since then the closest has been the Panasonic GF1, with its electronic viewfinder option, I am also waiting for the new Fuji X100, which seems to have the viewfinder right, but does not have interchangeable lens.

I suppose like a lot of photographers, what I want in a small camera was actually solved over 50 years ago. The Leica M range. Unfortunately the M9 is far too expensive to justify as a spare portable camera system, and as a camera system is far too limited for me to give up my Nikon SLR’s and Hasselblad.

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Winter Commute and Photo Inspiration

Yesterday morning was the first cold commute of the year. A steady 0°C (32°F) occasionally hitting -0.5° C.  With the wind chill factured in thats about -11°C (12°F), I will definitely be getting out the thermals soon, but until then a pair of silk under-gloves and the heated grips were enough to keep me warm, together with my BMW Rallye 2 Suite.  This will be my second winter in this suite and while expensive I feel its been well worthwhile

While cold it was a beatiful morning, a clear blue sky, golden sunlight and the farmers fields covered in a white frost.  All very beautiful.

This gave me a few ideas for some photo’s.  Mornings like these are always good for inspiration, even a trip to the local park or just go into your garden, can have images worth capturing, a dew and frost encrusted spidersweb, those bright red berries on a bush.  You don’t need an expensive macro lens for this stuff.  Just dig out that old 50mm prime you never use and give it go.

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Commute – The Trip to Work

Commuting to work by motorcycle, and of course the commute back is generally the highlight of our day.

I find the ride really wakes me up, refreshes me, and sets up my day on a high note, while the other commuters in there cages (sorry cars) get steadily more frustrated.

This morning the weather is less then ideal, high gale force winds, always fun on a motorcycle.  Remember car drivers, please give TWV (Two Wheeled Vehicles) plenty of space, a sudden gust can easily take them into the verge or into the middle of the road.

TWV’s are not positioning themselves in a way to deliberately annoy you, but to maximise there visibilty of the road ahead and for safety.

Have a good commute!

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Visit to the Father in Law: or Have a play with his new Sony A55

Tuesday as usual we visited the father in law, Alan.

Normally its a motorcycle ride straight from work to the village where he lives, but tonight we headed home first to get the car.  It was a cold day and neither of us were packing our thermal undies; it was likely to be late night so rather then face a cold trip home on the Bike, the car sounded a better bet.  It would also give me a chance to grab my laptop, I wanted to have a play with the default blog options my hosting company provides.

The reason for our visit,  just the usual Tuesday night visit, to inflict my cooking on him.  Today, cauliflower and home made cheese sauce.  At least thats what I made for Caroline and Alan, for myself a burger.  I cannot stand cauliflower.

There was another reason for making the visit.  Alan had purchased a new Sony A55, a fun little camera which I can well recommend for a beginner or someone wanting a small body SLR.  Rather a unique camera with its fixed mirror, kind of a hybrid between a EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens Camera) and a normal SLR.

Sony EVIL Hybrid SLR

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that fitness kick

Colds recovered from, we both decided we needed to get fitter, so this month we have hit the gym every week, we also started Pilates (unfortunately theres no Yoga at our gym currently), and Richard has started running three times a week. Only two miles and a very gentle walk/run until he gets back into it.

The 7th July was Barton Upon Humber’s bike night. This was our first ever visit, lots of entertainment, thousands of bikers and all the local pubs had live bands on. We parked up in the grounds of the Catholic Church, and for a Pound we could not only park but they also stored our Crash Helmets, safely in the Church.

 

It was a fun night, not as many visitors as usual, the forecast of rain but a few people off, but luckily it stayed away. We indulged in some junk food, burgers, hotdogs etc, and once we got home treated ourselves to a cold beer.

Mid month and we took a day off, it was likely that I would have to work all weekend, and we both had plenty of hours owed us, so we took a flexi day and visited Gibraltar Point nature reserve.

 

The weather was variable, alternating between hot bright sunshine and shoot periods of extremely heavy rain and high winds. Still a fun day out.