The need to wander

Sat in my living room, my bank balance well and truly depleted, the weather not great to go out anywhere on the motorbike, and without the spare time to head off to the hills on my mountain bike!
As well as working unsocial and downright frustrating hours (why can't emergency services be 9-5?) the lingering threat of upcoming Christmas, family visits and a birthday is getting manic and filling my head, my camera's SD card, and of course the monthly statements. All of the above of course are great, I enjoy doing what I do and seeing family is a rare and fantastic opportunity not to be missed.


However......

As a pleasant and fanciful distraction (fantasy?) i have a plan formulating in my head for a motorcycle tour of Europe.

Europe... there isn't much of it on the British mainland, so i plan to head out into the wilderness of the continent!

  

As for where to begin the tour, I think I'm nodding towards catching the ferry form Hull to Rotterdam, and continue from there. To be perfectly honest this is purely designed to avoid France and more accurately, the French!

 From there, I would really like to head down to Germany to have "look" (if my Dad's reading) at the Nurburgring ... if he's not... then I'd like to go have a go round it.

From there it would be rude not to traverse the country to see my very good friend Claudia who lives in Leipzig (near Dresden).

 

Once rested and full of "Echte Deutsche Gastfreundschaft", i will be meandering my way south, through the alps (hopefully making the most of passes an avoiding long drawn out tunnels and motorways).

  

Despite all the voices in my head, and those outside of it also, saying that riding through Italy is a mistake waiting to occur, i still would really like to be able to ride though the northern valleys and past the great lakes, and stopping at my greatly missed friend Lorenzo's, in Piacenza.

From there on... i guess i would be coming home; tired, broke and thoroughly pleased with myself. This road trip ever being completed is only really possible, not really probable. The thing that keeps my passion for motorcycling so strong is that i have never climbed form the bike wishing i hadn't done that last few miles, or that I'd just taken the car. It is a real fear that this trip could make me into the tour-hungry motorcycling I might be inside, filling my soul with the experiences and places viewed form a saddle. Or i could just end up thoroughly fed up, with a snapped chain, sat in the cold rain in some motorway service station where people don't talk English, and certainly don't have spare parts for VFR's for the grumpy Englishman with no money left because he spent it all on a lap of the Nurburgring and wine.

Actually, that sounds great.

The Suzuki Gn250 project

In April I got my hands on a very old Suzuki Gn250 for very little money off a work colleague. The initial idea was to rebuild the bike to standard with new parts replacing the rusted/broken/generally knackered bits.

 Above is how she looked after a clean and wipe down. With a close look, I was quite pleased. the bike was bought initially by Gemma for £50 from a colleague (long story) and was then given to me as a swap for a kitten so i am sure you can imagine my anxiety at the state of it. After a close look, i was pleased to find that it was in relatively good nick.
Rotten/rusted parts:
Exhaust system (absolutely knackered)
Mud guards (rotten through)
Frame (looks like battery has leaked, acid causing cack on the frame)
Handlebars (surface rust and gunk)
Accessories, such as footrests, horn mount, stands, back box frame (which was definately getting slung anyway), indicator stalks, brackets etc
Light rust/ Surface gunk on wheels, headlight

 The more parts that came off, the more rusty/horrible parts i found!

 An ever growing pile of bits.

 See previous comment! frame at powder coaters at this point, wheels done.

 The frame was stripped, and sent to a friends for sand blasting and powder coating. After a little fettling with scrapers and knives it fit together quite nicely!

 Wheels cleaned up using rubbing compound, t-cut and wd-40.

As with most things I start i changed my mind almost immediately when it came to putting it together.

 Some of the smaller parts carefully dumped into a box.... this laissez-faire attitude would come back to bite me.

 The engine, i decided, would look better painted black with the cooling fins sanded/polished.

 The bike with a few of the cleaned up/replaced accessories. This was disappointingly simple. Once the engine was in place, it took less than two hours to fix most of the bits in place. The wiring loom was positioned roughly in situ (cue karmic reprimand for attitude). You should be able to see the new clip-on handlebars fitted, cleaned up brake drum, polished frame/wheels and painted engine.

The (very slowly) decreasing pile of parts. VFR looking neglected with shelving leaning up on the wall, bits and pieces scattered on the floor. Excuse the mess. just before the beginning of the project all my shelves in the garage fell down, luckily my bike was out at the time. As you can see, the bike is competing for spare time with shelves that need putting up!

While all the chucking back together was going on, the tank and side panels were sent to another friends spray shop, where they were painted up. no picture as of yet, but one should be coming over the next week or so (probably longer...)

It is currently at my father's garage, awaiting a new battery, chain and exhaust, then the electrics can have a shake down, make sure it's all working.... then the big one: see if it still runs. it did when i took it to bits, so if it doesn't now, there's only one person to blame! fingers crossed. will update blog when progress is made. don't hold your breath!

Update:

I've been to my father's and done some more fiddling, no chain/battery/etc but bits and bobs of fastening and general cleaning up.

The bike looking rather meek and worthless among dads toys! maybe pictures of them in another post sometime.

feeling guilty, almost 9 months since my last post

There has been a lot happening since my last post in January.

Aunty June lost her short and emotional battle with cancer. The dinner dance was to be the last time we saw each other. She passed on St. Valantines day 2010.

While this event was increadibly distressing and an awful shame, there were good things that came of it. Aunty June was always one to extol the virtues of a close family, expressing her regret that the family had drifted apart somewhat recently. It was with the realisation of the importance of our time that the various branches of the family are once again spending mroe time together and making much more frequent contact.

Early in the spring I was lucky enough to have several days off together where there was no other engagements so Gemma and I drove up to see her grandparents in Gosforth, Cumbria and my Grandma in Wark-on-Tweed, Northumbria. It was great spend some time with them and in the areas we spent much of my youths.

Some scenery in Whitehaven, Cumbria.

 After Diving north to the borders of Scotland, we visited my grandparents church, where my fatrher was married, and my grandpa burried.

 my grandpa's headstone which reads "here lies gordon gorrie, of this parish". Understated, like my grandpa, i found it quite difficult to deal with this, as he was such a powerful person to me, and achieved so muich in life, such as refusing an OBE and war medals, a true gentleman. Missed greatly

 The Town (and republic) of Berwick-on-Tweed.

 Gemma bored while i get my caffeine fix!

 A selection of pictures of interesting aspects from around the town, including the three bridges across the river Tweed.

 This is Carham castle, near my Grandma's house, there is also an AMAZING butcher in the same village :-)

 Gemma and my Grandma in the kitchen

During the summer, i joined my cousin Ian at one of his track days on his motorbikes as his mechanic and cook! We had a great night (despite a leaky tent) and Ian enjoyed a good days racing until an accident in the penultimate session when someone rode into the back of his bike in a corner.

 Ians two Yamaha R6's. the yellow one is an ex superstock race bike. exceedingly fast

January

I decided to buy a camera for myself as my 25th birthday present because the compact I had was great, but I wanted more from my pictures and picture capture experience :-) and it’s another toy.

It was a good decision too because it turned out to be one of the nicest winters I have seen in Lancaster this year, lots of snow and some nice light too. I took a walk from our house up the street.

…to the castle and priory…

… and into the city centre. A view across the city of (notable buildings, front to rear) Lancaster City Town Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Ashton Memorial (Williamson’s Park)…

… and finally the view up a very icy Market St. on the way home!

The next time I brought the came out to play (aside form taking pictures of the living room…

…and the cat)

… was when Gemma and I went to the British Automobile Racing Club (B.A.R.C.) North West centre annual presentation evening and Dinner Dance. It was nice. It is always a good excuse for getting dressed up and having a nice meal with friends and family.

Gemma wore a beautiful bronze sequinned dress and looked great in it.

There was my cousin Steve and his wife Alison,

my Dad and his wife Margaret,

Margaret’s Brother James and his girlfriend

and uncle Eric and aunty June

The night was great fun, there was plenty of wine going around a really good atmosphere, which was really nice because aunty June was really quite ill.

When we got home from the dinner dance, we thought it would be nice to meet up with our friends Mimi and Morely to a cellar pub near us for a roast dinner.