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Continue reading →: Slow Train
There’s not been a lot of time for two or three-wheeled ambling recently. Instead, a pretty solid wall of work-borne rush, stress and frustration has kept me off the bikes. So, with an unaccustomed free Sunday afternoon and some sun, I decided to stop beating my head against it, hoiked…
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Continue reading →: MMC Musings in Cotswold Life
When I popped an e-mail over to Cotswold Life offering them a few snaps and some airfieldy musings, I didn’t really think they’d publish them. But they have. May edition and a whole double page spread too. I’m delighted. It’s so good to see some of these old WWII bases…
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Continue reading →: A spring evening’s bimble, being scared and perspective.
I fancied a ride this evening. It’s spring. It’s light. It’s Wednesday. It’s been a bitch of a day in the office. That’s good enough for me. I had to drop our entry fee for the Village Quiz in at a neighbour’s house so thought I’d call by on the…
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Continue reading →: It’s not Urals that are unreliable. It’s their owners.
It was the rain that did it. That, and me buggering off for Christmas, leaving the Ural alone, outside under its cover. By the time I’d got back, half the UK’s annual rainfall had found its way into the carburettors. The Ural has two, one for each cylinder. Most of…
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Continue reading →: The past. Very much present.
All across the Cotswolds, if you stop for just a few minutes on hilltops, you can find strips of broken concrete, grass growing in the jumbled cracks. Red brick buildings with peeling, grey render and steel framed, glassless windows. Today, they’re derelict, but these World War II RAF bases were…
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Continue reading →: The smell of coffee, jasmine and two-stroke oil.
As I sit here, waiting for my molten-hot Turkish coffee to cool to a temperature that won’t induce third degree burns, I’m watching my teenage years ride past. More accurately, it’s the smell of the passing two-wheeled scenery in the fluorescent lights from the restaurants that’s most evocative. Mingled with…
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Continue reading →: Talking Turkey with a Vespa.
It’s 30 degrees in the shade here in Turkey, and they don’t ride in leathers. They don’t ride much in the way of big bikes either. The largest I’ve seen has been a lone R1200GS. The rest? Much, much smaller. 125 is the norm, with everything from obscure Chinese reverse-engineered…
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Continue reading →: RAF Kelmscott and summer silence.
The airless reception area with its cheerful, exhortative corporate posters made me think of communist Russia. Dark wood. Grey, worn carpet. Grey fluorescent lights. Every so often, there would be a sharp, electronic bleep and the door would get pushed open. A grey-suited figure would scuttle past and the door,…
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Continue reading →: The kindness of strangers
The GS has been playing up for a while. Matt and Stuart at North Oxford Garage have been fantastic – and patient – trying to diagnose an intermittent but vicious electrical problem where the bike simply refuses to start. It’ll crank – for hours – but won’t fire. It’s been…
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Continue reading →: Spring.
You can tell it’s spring. All the little parking gaps in Stow that are empty in the winter now host Solvol-gleamed motorcycles. The creak of leathers is almost audible as sportsbike riders mix it with the righteous Harley brethren in the mean streets and tea shops. Today, I headed up…
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Thanks for dropping in. There’s all sorts of stuff here, from reviews of watches to thoughts on driving and riding. And you’re welcome whether you agree with any of it or not.
MMC Musings 