19 days to go.

Well, its Monday 23rd May and I only have 19 days till I'm off on my trip, where has the time gone!

My new tyres are on the bike and they are now bedded in after a wet trip to the Northwest 200 road races in Northern Ireland. What a weekend that was. Wall to wall rain, cannot remember the last time I got so wet doing nothing.

We started off by spending an hour sheltering under the grandstand trying to keep a little bit dry before we moved up to our seats in the grandstand.

Rain eased for a bit and they managed to get race 1 off and and running, however, just before the start of race 2, and with the rider on the grid, there was a bomb scare in the paddock and everyone in the paddock was evacuated to a field for nearly an hour whilst the Police made searches. In the meantime further rains came over which meant more sheltering.

Nothing was found during the search so eventually race 2 was able to commence, however just before the end of lap 1, Ryan Farquhar's bike engine blew, spreading oil all over a section of the circuit along the coast road....further delays whilst oil cleared up, and yes, further rain.

Eventually the rider went out for another stab at starting race 2 but it was decided that, following a sighting lap, the circuit was still too slippy where the oil had gone down, so further delays whilst they made further attempts to clear up, and yes, more rain!!

In the end the organisers decided it was unsafe to hold further races, so meeting abandoned, and yes, it rained all the way back to the B and B.

So all in all the weekend consisted of 1 shortened race and 1 further lap, hope next year is a bit better.

TT starts on Saturday so fingers crossed for a nice dry 2 weeks.

As you can see from the picture above, Jed is getting all excited about his trip and is busy planning his route out. He says that he is really looking forward to it and has been busy practising the many languages that he will need in order to communicate for us both. He also promises plenty of photos providing he can find Wi-fi set ups.

My baby feels the pain!

Well, last week I was told that the bloke I was going to see in Norfolk, in order to sort out the loom of my blackbird, has packed in doing servicing etc to concentrate on his business selling bike spares. So, to a degree, I was in a bit of a fix, as I really need the wiring loom sorting as failing to do so would lead to all sorts of trouble in the future.

In his wisdom, Mr Honda, on building the Blackbird, put a connecting block in part of the loom in order to carry out tests when new, the problem being, that when the bike is completed, this block is not used again so is just taped over. However, the block is just behind the foot peg, so at some point, water will find its way into the block and start a slow process of shorting systems out. At this stage things get VERY expensive. On speaking to John in Norfolk, he told me that the job was easy and just involved cutting off the connector block and soldering the 10 wires that went into it together, and that was it, problem sorted.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, my soldering is crap, there I've said it. The upshot is that Rob spoke to a mate named Brian, who said, "No problem, I'm on my way round to sort it."

At this stage I was about 1 hr from going to work, so, rush into garage to move Blackie from winter hibernation, and strip the rear bodywork off in order to get at the block. BUT, in my haste, I let Blackie hit the door frame - result - a 4" crack in the nose cone. Oh No!!!

Well, Brian duly turned up and within 30 mins the job was done, block off and wires soldered and bike back together. A trip to Norfolk saved and outlay, nothing.

Next day, a trip to the repair and paint shop with Blackie...cost of repair to nosecone...£150.00, gulp!

Blackie going in on Monday for her nose job, hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me.

I promise that I will look after her, and pamper her from now on, she knows I love her to bits.

Plans are made

Can you believe that it is 2 1/2yrs since I made my trip across the states! Where has the time gone? I certainly do not know.

Last year my mate Rob and myself decided we should take on a trip across Europe in 2011 and planned quite an extensive route. In the meantime we took a trip to France last year, this was when I found out that I really do not like the high summer temperatures!!

On a couple of days the temperature rose to around 40 degrees C, and this was far, far too hot for me. Riding the bike was a chore as I found that I could not concentrate to the level that I knew I should, so, after some discussion it was decided that the 2011 trip would still be taken but that Rob would head off to the med as he likes the sun, and that I would head north to cooler climes. So that is now the plan.

So, it was out with the maps and on with the computer and google maps and a route has been born. A 5 week trip covering around 3,500 miles, myself and Rob have also combined routes for the last week so that we can ride back to Zeebrugge together. At this point Rob will make his way up to Amsterdam as he has tickets for Take That ---- Well it does take all sorts I suppose.

My trip will be undertaken on my beautiful Silver/Grey Blackbird and Rob will be riding the Blue Blackbird that carried me across the States. You may well remember that I got knocked off that one when I returned to the Isle of Man and it was written off by the insurance company but Rob bought it off me and she was repaired and she also looks the part. (however the blue bikes are not as fast as the silver ones - Ha!!)

So what route have I decided on, lets take a look shall we.