Loads o' wine, some explorin and a crash.

I've been up to a fair amount of stuff recently. HB, Kirst and Ben and Fast Morton went exploring a few local hidden places. I can't give away the location of these places in case loads of folk find them. Here's some pics, I'm sure some folk will recognise the locations, one is an Royal Observer Corps bunker and the other in an underground room in an ancient castle.

Fast Morton at the Tower

The underground hall.

This tunnel comes off the hall.

Next up was the ROC post. Fast Morton and Ben went down for a look. I took the pics inside the bunker on a prievious visit. I was balancing on a bucket to avoid the flooded floor, hence how the pictures are a bit on the piss.

Morton goes down the ladder.

While we were at the ROC post a big Hercules flew over.

HB and I have aso been to a wine tasting event. Holy shit.
A room full of wine and a few beers and I tried them all.
This resulted in me getting completely fucked and I ended up hurting my ankle in a hilarious drunken fall. Top day out though.

Loads of wine to try.

HB at the beer table. That guy loved his beer.

This was the best wine there. You couldn't drink too much though at 16% and £28 a bottle.

The fitness is still coming on despite all this drinking. I went out the other evening after a day of heavy rain. I fell of twice in about three metres. I lost the front on some wet roots on a steep slow downhill. I should have known better. Its times like these I wish I had a helmet cam. Still good fun though!

HB took this pic on my return. Bleck.

1919 Douglas

My Uncle Greaser is known for his bike restoring and repairing. A guy he knows has asked him to show his 1919 Douglas. The bike is in its original condition but wasn't running. Greaser has cleaned it up and got it going again.

Its a 500cc flat twin that's mounted transversely, with one cylinder pointing forwards and the other pointing backwards. Its got two gears, low and high, and no clutch. You have to pump the engine oil by hand and the brakes are pretty similar to cantilever brakes off a bicycle. It has a belt drive. The chain you can see in the picture is the primary drive.

Douglas W.D 1919 WD stands for War Department.

You have to bump start it with a gid shove. Once its going you control it using the levers in the bars. On the right you have the black one which controls the fuel and the brown coppery looking one which controls the airflow. The one on the left advances and retards the ignition.

The black lever selects the gears and the brass nob is the manual oil pump.

Greaser explains about the lights.

You open the front to light the lamp.

The lights aren't working at the moment, but when they did they ran on gas. The gas came from the big can on mounted on the bars. You can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbide_lamp.

You can monitor your oil flow is the wee glass cylinder in front of the pump.

I help Greaser start it by shoving it down a hill....

DUFF

DUFFF

DUF DUF

DUF DUF DUF

DUFDUFDUFDUFDUFDUFDUFDUFDUF

BBBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Greaser puts the Douglas through its paces.

It sounds really good, real old sounding, and it smells great, they should make insence that smell like this. Its pretty loud too. It was great watching Greaser running up and down on it. He says it takes some getting used too, but he had a book on how it works so it was fine. The hardest thing to do on it is slow speed turns, if you stall it you're pretty much fucked, unless you've got someone close by to give you a shove or you're on a hill.

Greaser tells me what it like to ride it.

The 1919 Douglas should have a top speed of around 50mph. I wouldn't fancy trying to stop from 50 with those rim brakes. Thats about the same top end as my C90! The dispatch riders who rode these things around back in the day must have been off their heids.

Fitness, Skills, and becoming Jakeproof....

I've not really been up to much over the past few days, still trying to get out on the push bike as much as possible. My fitness is definitely improving, but I'm hungry all the time now though and eating like a fucking horse! I bet I'll be the only person who starts cycling and ends up putting on weight. my skills are improving too as you can see in the picture of me popping a wheelie in my Mum's hall. The pinnacle of mountain biking!



Yo. Check out the skillz.



Jake and Brian are still getting used to each other and I've had to Jakeproof Brian's house. I don't think Jake was trying to abuse Brian's space (by taking a shit in his house) but he kept on jumping in and lying under Brian's heat lamp. Brian didn't really appreciate this so I've made a mesh to go over his house, only time will tell if it's really Jakeproof. My other problem with the C90's headlight being a bit faulty has also been fixed by spraying the switch with WD40 as advised by Fuzz. So thanks to him and all the folk at http://www.c90club.co.uk/

The last thing I have to tell folk about is Aaron has finally got a car that's economical to run. Check the grin on his big hairy face! He's well chuffed. So chuffed that he wanted me to take a picture to put up on the blog! Posing bastard eh? So here it is.



" It'll dae 400 tae the gallon!"

Stuff I still need to do.

1. Get away camping on the GS one last time before it gets cold.
2. Go to Glentress on the pushbike.
3. Fill the raised beds.
4. Service my car.
5. Service HB's car.
6. Get the greenhouse of Treeman (we might have to wait a few months for this due to the greenhouse being surrounded by a jungle of weeds)
7. Make more homebrew.
8. Service the GS and get new tyres on it.

I'm really looking forward to getting the greenhouse and growing some stuff from here http://www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk/

Sore Arse and Wet Feet.

I've still been cycling and trying to get fit. This week I cycled to Haddington, trying to keep as close to the river Tyne as possible, then up the Garleton hills. Sticking as close to the river as possible resulted in me having to cross the fucking thing twice. First crossing went real smooth, with me crossing the river quickly, choosing the right line and negotiating the slippery rocks (nearly) effortlessly.

I fucked up the second crossing resulting in me getting wet feet.
Shite.
I had to cut through farmer's fields and got chased by a bunch of coos before nearly having a heart attack climbing up the Garleton hills.

fucked.

The Monument, The Law and The Rock

I also bumped into Treeman on his constant fish catching mission. Me and Treeman have a bet. If he catches ten or more fish from the Tyne I'll buy him beers. If he fails to catch ten or more the beers are mine. He's got around six weeks left to get four fish. I think I might have won the bet...

Treeman casting.

I've been getting some cycling in after work as well, all this cycling hasn't left me feeling any fitter, but my arse is very fucking sore.

No pain no gain?

Get Fit or Die Tryin'

Got my new wheels, and On One 456!!! The engine on its a bit fucked (and the brakes could be better) but hopefully I'll be able to tune it up in no time. It runs on beer, fajitas and loads of other fuel. Awesome!

I went on a wee cycle close to my home. On the return leg I bumped into the local yoofs who were grabbing some "sick air" at the local jump spot. Here's the pics.

Saltoun Estate

fire wood anyone?

Saltoun Wids.

Not how the colour of the bike matches my puss.

Got a bit lost here, took me a few minutes to figure out where I was.

Extreme.