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We specialize in ural flat twin motorcycles/sidecars from Russia, Dnepr motorbikes/sidecars from the Ukraine, overhead valve and sidevalve versions. Over the years these bikes have been known under various names, cossacks, nevals, urals, uralmoto, dnepr, IMZ, KMZ

So what's this page about, don't know really, tales of happenings in the workshop, phone calls we have had, my view on the world at large. so if you believe in political correction, this is probably not the page for you.

27/07 time for a update,, lots been happening not leaving a lot of time to keep the site as updated as i would have liked,, and as for the emails and phone calls telling me i have not updated this site,, dont you think i know that,, right lets get started,, we had a late invite to the TT this year by duke video,, needed someone to entertain the troops on the prom every evening,, so being allways happy to oblige,, after a mad rush to organise ferrys etc off we went,, took along fatboy as the sidecar monkey to pull the sidecar wheel etc,, now my normal monkey is karl who is probably 8 stone, which even he has a marked effect when he throws himself around in the chair,, BUT 16 STONE of FATBOY BLUBBER,, whoa,, that was hard work,, but I managed,, which is more than we can say about fatboy on our first time out,, couldnt get the chair wheel off,, hopeless,, had to park chair on the side ease the chair wheel and go for a second attempt,, got it that time didnt you FT,, still a good time was had by all rest of the week went okay, we put on a good show,,, tried to run down mike brewer of wheeler dealer fame,, got in the way when i did a high speed reverse into a parking space,, also had his sidekick jane omorogbe in the sidecar whizzing around the prom,, what i didnt know is that she was rio in gladiators,,,,, not that i remember gladiators,, far too young. had a customer call me the other day,, can he bring his dnepr in its misfiring,, we are good at misfires,, big suck in of air through what teeth i have left,, yeah no problem, arrives an hour later,, yup its misfiring tata,, oh all right i will look at it,, now he has a large car battery in the boot of the chair,, which was upside down pissing acid all over the place and shorting out over every bump,, and we let these people on the public highway,, god help us,, named and shamed steve kingham,, or was it deliberate just to get a mention on workshop rambling,,,,,, next big show we did was beaulieu,, rain rain and more rain,, two days of wet feet,, what a write off,,, still we stayed to the bitter end,, our tame scouse git came along to help out at beaulieu, so i got him to ride the sidecar boat and sleeper van down,, he was trying to do overtakes on me on the A34 and i was sitting at 70mph with the large trailer and 3 sidecars on,,,but he wasnt so clever on the way back,, once you have turned onto the A34 its a straight road all the way to the m40,, not if your a scouser got a text to say took a wrong turn,,, i am in basingstoke,, ITS A STRAIGHT ROAD NO TURNS,,,, slowed down to let him catch up, as we turned into the yard, got another text,,, got a problem,,, called him bike spluttered and came to a stop north of weedon,, now i am guessing its no juice,, but he fuelled at oxford,, what he didnt tell me was he only put 7 quid in (tight fisted scouse git) so i ended up offloading three outfits off the trailer, grabbing a can of juice and heading back 20 miles south to find him,, took the trailer just in case we needed to load him,, put juice in fired up,, tarker by this time is drenched through to the skin from the constant rain,, well i could have loaded bike and let him dry out in the car,, not a chance,, finish the ride, when we got to my house he flooded the hallway when he took his kit off,, what a shame, We had a bit of a problem during the show,, just about finished the arena display off loaded karl to do a final two wheel drive doughnut, spun up and bang,,, drive shaft snapped,,

23rd april okay, its been a while did you miss me,,,,,darwin award of the weeks goes to the plonker, who asked one of my customers,,,, how old is your bike?,, reply, two years mate,, how can that be? repy.. because it was built two years ago......... oh yes dont we get them park your outfit anywhere and they crawl out of the woodwork,, now then episode two of the scouse git saga,, so far he has half inched a full tube of toothpaste from the little boys room,, followed by my retaliation of nicking his shower head,,(hes a cleanliness veggy goth scouse git )round one to me i think,, anyway we do a show up at lytham which he came along and helped out at, now scouse git cleans his teeth on average every hour or so,, brings along his little bag with toothbrush and paste,, a bottle of water to swill his shiny pegs in and then spits it all over the floor dirty bastard,,, so more fun to be had here,, got him distracted talking to a biker chick with a good pair up front,, got his little toilet bag and grabbed his toothbrush,, he didnt miss it untill he got home that night, spent 10 minutes searching his bag before the light came on and he realised that mpc has struck again,, so what do we do with his tooth brush,, it needs uralising,,,,,,, so its now the first 12volt fag lighter lead electric tooth brush in order to get it to work you just move brush up and down and sideways whilst plugged into your fag lighter uses no electricity so keeps the green people happy,, has to be a market for the biker with everthing but one of my faglighter toothbrushes,,,,

might stick a couple up on ebay and see what happens,,,, so what else is happening,, the 2007 jumbogb charity run is to twycross zoo this year, details on the events page, we are doing a solo bike run across to france to coincide with victory in europe day on the 8th may, anyone interested give me a call,, we will be doing a ural ride into france probably the first weekend in june,, anyone interested email or call,, we are back into show season again, lytham last sunday, this weekend is stafford and so on, see events page interesting happenings down at the workshop,, take a ride across to find out,,

16th march,, consider your selfs privileged, two updates in 2 days,, you must have seen the write up i have put on the front page,, read it,,, sex on wheels,, love gods of the queens highway,, think alastair might have had a good day,, but more to the point,, he now understands what sidecars are all about,, the reference to love gods is obviously aimed at me,, as we know the name michael is hebrew for he who is like god,, so two and two make 4 on this occasion,, there should be a longer write up on the insidebikes.com site, at some point,, we have a journalist turning up for the off-road day,, lets see what he makes of it,, my position could be elevated higher still,,, decided i need a couple of days off over easter, so ferrys booked and frog land here we come,,(nearly out of golden virgin tabacco and italian bottled beer, good enough excuse) showroom can be opened by appointment,, will leave arnie in charge,, had a gearbox problem in to day,, later 750cc unit, gearlever flopping around,, the return spring inside had failed, but its the first component in and the last out, so full strip down needed three hours for a £2 spring,,,.. last of the 2006 wolfs due out tomorrow, always had a feeling the seat was too soft and curved on those, the new owner of this one, is to say the least,, a far worse bmi to my bmi, the seat was just too soft, so we ripped it apart,, cut and shaped some high density foam to fit altered the curve so you sit further back, what a difference,,, well worth the effort,, so latest aftermarket extra for the wolf, fat git seats,,, so what do we make of the weather,, tee shirts on saturday and now its blowing a hoohly and snowing,, global warming,,, nah,, world confusion more like,, the off-road circuit is looking dodgy for the weekend, its still flooded out, the water is just not draining away, we may have to go to plan B, not sure what that is yet,, toodle pip

14th march yes its been a while,, things to do you know,,,,,,,,why is it that just as i start to lock up the workshop/showrooms, the phone always rings(yes scouse git you are the one)with someone wanting a chat, normally on a night when i need to get home/elsewhere, and its always a long tale of woe/or a story that takes a long time to get to the point....all day we have been available to listen,,,but of course now that YOUR AT HOME, its a good time to phone us,,(i suppose we have to excuse scouse git after all he does have to break into a house to get access to a phone so he cant dictate when the real owners are not going tobe around) now the cma day went well,, loads of people having fun,, hurtling around our private test tracks(read farm/industrial yard) most of them managed to stay in control, but we had several who decided to demolish farmer johnsons barbed wire fences up the drive way, all good fun you know,, no real damage,, so looks like this is a yearly event now,, approx 90 people turned up through the day, my first technical teach-in session went well half a dozen bodies turned up for the session,, we worked through standard servicing and maintenance, with several deviations from the theme, so will try to run one a month on a saturday pm,, with different themes each time,, service/engine/gearbox etc,,, now the other day I had a stupid moment, and i dont have stupid moments, our new to us tyre changer machine was not as we would like it, so repair needed,, sorted out the leaking air from various orifices, but the electric motor that turns the turntable was iffy,, so clean the switches out and you could hear the motor trying but not getting the juice,, without a thought i decided to assist the belt with a push,,, NOT A GOOD IDEA,, I now have a thumb that is going to lose its nail is black and still numb, thumbs dont do well between a drive belt and pulley wheel,, I suppose i could say i was lucky, its still attached, which it shouldnt be,, damm fast those belts,,when you hand start them,, still learnt a lesson,, flesh is softer than metal/rubber,, this last week has been a week of electrical 'things' failing, the compressor burnt its motor out,, still that has worked hard for several years,the tyre changer causing us problems, er-indoors washing machine dumped another set of bearings,, so i gave up on that and said buy a new one,, so off out on sunday to buy a washing machine,,,, according to the missus she needs one NOW,,, so into the washing machine shop,, how many is there,, rows upon rows,, grabs the salesman,, right lets speed this up,, you show me which ones you have in stock, here today that i can take away today,,,, that certainly narrowed it down,, we went from row after row to six,,, right next stage good, bad, sorted that white one,, so from getting in the car at home, to getting back and plugging in new machine 1 hour 30minutes,,, are you reading ladies,, thats how to shop.. so if this hotpoint all singing all dancing machine lasts as long as the two previous zanussi machines i will need to go back to curry in 12 years,,, yep the two previous machines did 12 years a piece,, give or take a few months our new range of sweatshirt are flying off the shelf will have to reorder in the next week or so, now i ordered two XXL for the larger ones amongst us,, I could use them for camping in they are massive,,,, talking of large,, e.r indoors got a little device that you put your weight/height/age and sex into and it tells you your BMI,, ACCORDING TO THAT I AM OVERWEIGHT,, SO WHATS THAT MAKE ALL THE FATTIES,, not certain where this excess weight is,,, but at 11stone 7 its official overweight,, must be all the fry ups,, chocolate,, coffee,, etc,, so all of a sudden i seem to being fed, what would normally be fed to a rabbit... its a good job we have roadside greasy spoons,, lovely.. ta.ta

19th feb,,, i'm back,,let it be known that on sunday the18th feb,, i had a day off, well that was my plan,, wrong,, why is it that if you sleep in, you feel like crap and tired for the rest of the day, so having been woken at 9.30 by tigger two, attacking my feet (why does she only attack mine,) i was given a list of jobs, by E.R indoors,, things not working, need fixing/cleaning/putting away etc,, right first off cant do none of this without a trip to B and Q,,(thats lost the morning) what is it with people do they spend their life at b&q,, got me list,,,, in pick off shelf out, queue to pay and away we go(haviing to wait to pay really hacks me off its bad enough being there let alone waiting for the privilege of getting through the door.(the sodding spell checker keeps putting squiggles under my words their must be a off button for it) back home and start the list,, well more ignore the list and do what ever comes to mind, detail the kids off to splash preserve on the fence, what ever happened to creosote the new stuff is coloured water, thats going to work well preserve your fences with wonder water in dark oak.. clear the yard throw the junk in the trailer, oh dear, its dark and time for tea,, day over,,, sunday evening,, so its topgear time,, always good for a laugh,, just dont take too seriously... workshop,, we had a siezed engine(more bloody squiggles) seized engine,, i reckon siezed looks better,, still machine cant be wrong,, so a seized engine,, caused by the oil pump gear cap working loose and dumping oil down most of the m6,, now to get a crank out it comes out of a hole smaller than the crank, so the conrods have to be turned inwards and backwards to come out,, conrods seized and wont move,, interesting now what,,,, favorite tool time,, copper and leather hammer to the rescue,,(got two now big one and little one) took some doing but it came out in the end,.. on the picture gallery9 page is a couple of shots of a guy sitting on a ural grinning through his helmet,, anyone who can identify him, apart from who sent the piccys in,, wins a ural mug,, give you a clue,, no bollocks,, no clues,, answer next week okay.. just a small clue,, its probably the slowest outfit he has ever ridden,,yeah but he has got the ural grin,,,, toodle pip

10 feb oh dear,, must be that time of year again, the two pound fifty brigade are crawling back out of the woodwork,, i am not likely to very helpfull, when the conversation starts, i have bought a pair of carbs from russia, can you tell me how to set them up,, i am sure there is a russian word for it but the english is bugger off,,,, buy some bits become a customer and i will spend as much time as possible on the phone with you, but expect me to help when your stuff is bought elsewhere, is looking for a smack in the mouth,,, some one pointed out today that as i had now starred in two tv programmes, does that entitle me to appear on celeb big brother or i am a celebrity get me out of here,,,,, now all of a sudden my back has decided to give me grief which means being a bloke i ignore it and walk round like a hunch back,, it will sort itself out,, just need more coffee and smokes,, talking of smokes how are they going to enforce the new no smoking in public places,, technically our showroom and workshops fall into public places,, well smoking will carry on as per normal, cant have a coffee without a smoke, bookings for the next offroad day are coming in, may even have to put a limit on this one,, i like to keep order in the chaos,, put a date up for the first tech teach in,, saturday pm on the 10th of march,, anyone wishing to attend give me a bell,,i had hoped to have a good session in the workshop today sorting stuff!!!!!! worked until mid afternoon when everyone descended at once, which screwed up the rest of the day,, but such is life,, couple of good write ups in the latest bmridersclub, mag,, ural copies,,,,, boys get a real one, vol 1 issue 4, so you got to be a member to get it,, but we have copies in the showroom for all to read,, snobs,,,,well i have had my one bottle of italian beer, heads spinning so off to the land of slumber,, training again tomorrow,, more sidecarists into the fold,,, toodle pip

7feb yes its been a while since the last posting,, have you missed me,, i have noticed tonight that the website has been out of order for several hours, dont know where the problem was but its back up now,, must be your reading this,,,,gremlins again,,,,,so workshop is still busy, been thinking about holding some how-to sessions on a saturday afternoon,, go through a pdi one week, a service the next, engine rebuild, gearbox rebuild etc if its of any interest to anyone,, send me a email,, right just had half a dozen sidecar training sessions booked in more uraler's into the fold, couple of weddings booked, two more off-road sessions booked, and a full year of shows etc,, just done the donnington show very quiet compared to previous years,, not sure about bothering next year,, but those who did turn up gramp's volker and fat crab tjay, had a good time, talking of volker, for years he has suffered with back problems, tried all the usual remedies,, but it still took him 10 minutes of stretching first thing in the morning before he could stand straight,,, after the off-road day he went home and said to his erindoors,, i am gonna be stiff in the morning,, morning came he leapt out of bed like a young gazelle,, and not a twinge since,, so off-roading in a ural cures back problems, so we heal as well now,,,,, oviously it wouldnt have happened if he had been riding a honda or such like, only a ural cures 25 years of back problems... sent a copy of ultimate biker challenge and the mechannibals episodes down under to members of the british commonwealth (yes you still have our flag in the corner of yours skippy) greetings to the bcozz team,, reports are coming back of vast amounts of mirth all over aussie land,, made in great britain you see,, and yes we can play cricket when we can be bothered,, now my youngest had some homework to do the other night something about researching the meanings and history of names,,, various websites have info do a search,,, names meanings,, imput michael and see what you get,, oh yes,,,,, he who is like god,,,,, i knew it all along but theres the proof,,, several customers are back from the elefenant rally(yes i know its not spelt like that its close) 2000 mile round trip and no problems with the ural outfits,, apart from customer abuse,, roger had a seeping rocker box cover, so when he got back decided to nip it up,,,, and stripped the thread out of the head,, it does look like a defective over short stud,, but if thats the damage for two weeks around europe seems acceptable to me.. one of our newist customers is a teacher at derby uni/college/school whatever,, now he teaches writing fiction,, which seems to me to be equipping our youngsters with the right tools for life,,, writing fiction,,, teach them how to use a screwdriver, would be more usefull,, anyway he has given me 8 out of 10 for my ramblings,, excuse me matey,, this is fact not fiction, but in his defence he does need a soapbox to board a ural outfit,, looks like a 10 year old riding one around,, boys in blue are gonna love him,, high speed pursuits as they chase a ural outfit with small boy on board,, i should keep some id and your driving licence on you jerry,, or we could put a sign on the back of the chair,, this is a adult with a licence driving, so bugger off rozzers,,,,, thats about it for now,, looks like snow tonight,, ural weather,, toodle pip

8jan07 new year, starts here, no rest for the wicked, we had the off-road day on the 30th, and we are just back from the gmex motorbike show in manchester, off to spalding bike show on saturday,,, now then who told er indoors about this page then, talk about earache,,,,so what have we been doing, the off-road day went well, lots of happy smiling mud covered faces,, no breakdowns, and just a couple of indicators broken, two punctures, a tail light and some scratches, the owner of the site was happy with the way we left it so we can do it all again another day, the intention is to run a off-road day every 3 months, next one will be end of march, details when known on the off-road page... loads of pictures have been loaded on gallery 8, including pictures of the raving rev, who apparently was not their on the day,,, so she who must be obeyed ,,,knows now,,,, jay,, After the off-road day, one of my northern customers (aka scouse git) stayed the night and headed back to scouse land on the sunday,, now a couple of days later, i received through the post a small parcel, with loads of bubble wraping and in the centre was a empty(and i will emphasize the word empty) tube of toothpaste, with a note apologizing for picking it up and taking it back with him, now i reckon it was full when he picked it up, and he returns it too us empty, and it cost him a quid to post back,,,, now as we stayed at scouse gits pad whilst at the gmex,(well he claimed it was his, more like he broke in knowing the owners were away, and claimed it was his) revenge had to be taken,, which resulted in my phone bleeping this morning at 7am, with a abusive text, showers are not much use with out a shower head are they scouse git,, so we will give the shower head a name and take it on our travels, taking pictures where ever possible,, if anyone can think of a name for a scouse shower head, email me,,, the gmex show was good, with loads of interest and the usual ,,,,what country are these russian bikes made in questions,, along with lots of pretty girls wanting to sit on the bikes and smile for the cameras,,,now we did have one major incident at gmex,, now bear with me this is worth it,, on the saturday night we all piled into the car to head back to scouse gits digs(never did see him use a key to open the door),, and we were not moving out of the ncp carpark,, traffic was at a standstill, so godfrey(aka eddie), took a walk to see what the hold up was,apparently the barrier, had joined the scousers and refused to work for a living, so godfrey and one other bent it out the way,, and we all streamed out most without paying for the days parking,, so far so good, now on the sunday afternoon, as it was getting quiet, godfrey was approached by two of our finest boys in blue, who had a few questions, in regards to criminal damage of a ncp barrier and that godfrey had been identified by the cctv footage,this must be the first time,godfrey has been silent in years, petrified into silence, he fell for it hook line and sinker,, set up by scouse git to a tee,,did we all laugh,, apart from godfrey, the pictures at the bottom of gallery 8 speak for themselfs,,, we did the annual shell suit count at the gmex,, not many this year, the breed must be dying out, but fatboy nigel was pleased he looked positively anorexic compared to a lot of bodies waddling around the show,, never mind eating more than their fair share,, they have eaten more than many peoples fair share,, thats about it for now,, a few emails to reply too, a bottle of beer and off to my pit,, toodle pip all

25th dec xmas day. as per usual, threaten the kids with violence if they get up at daft o'clock,, works most years, mad rush down stairs at 730am, dun and dusted by 8am,, more plastic junk strewn around the house crap that no one really in the overall scheme of things has to have to survive, most of which will get stuffed into cupboards and draws never to see the light of day again,,so thats xmas over and done with which leaves a day to make and mend, various jobs to do around the house,, er indoors has given me a list of jobs, which i will ignore, cant do any of them untill i have tidied the garage to find the tools needed .. of course once your in the garage you find lots of justdo's before you can get onto her list,,, so what really usefull things did you get then,, i got a couple of black oak arkansas cd's probably cause she who thinks she must be obeyed,, got rather pissed listening to one cd the whole drive to italy earlier this year, so now i have 3,, what else, a remote controlled dalek,, which wanders around the floor, threatening to exterminate the cats,,, so thats it xmas over apart from watching doctor who tonight,, just the cringeworthy new year bit to avoid now, shaking hands and hugging,, er its a new day thats all,, before i go i had better say thanks to all those who sent us xmas cards, but didnt get one in reply,, the little lady went into meltdown, everyday i was bringing more back from the workshop and the normal response was,, who is that ive not sent them one,, i tried to point out that, not everyone expects one back just cause they have sent one to the workshop, particularly as some were taking the mickey out of various hanger on's at the workshop,,,, and as i dont do cards of any description at any time, your not likely to get one back from me,, in this green world we live in,, all seems a bit hypocritical what a waste of paper,, i didnt even wrap her present this year,, what the point you only unwrap it,, she knew what it was anyway,, i just put it in a bag containing other pressys for her,,, thats good enough,, time to head back to the garage to get the tools to do some jobs indoors,,, but i might just have to do some justdo's before i get around to her list,, tata

evening all, should i be spending time updating the ramblings or doing something more important, probably, but who cares,, phones been ringing, we have been busy, just finished getting the mk4 sleeper ready for the gmex show, we now have curtains, side pockets, electrics, all the comforts of home,,looks good lets hope the buying masses think so, i was accused of ageism this morning, then in the old farts next breath he wanted me to make allowances for his age,, something about having his cake and eating it going on here,, you know who you are arnie, i still reckon we will have to have a crane to winch him off the kneeler outfit we are building his old bones creaking and stuff a few laps and he will have seized up,, started to do a trike conversion on a virago old mans bike that came in p/x lets see what sort of a beast we can turn that into, customer cock ups(no names here but he uses kilnman on the riders forum),, got a phone call rear bearings collapsed on his wolf,, okay bring wheel in,, arrived had a look something not right here bearings in backwards,, oh yes he had took it apart to go for powdercoating then changed his mind put it all back together again, but not the way he took it apart,, so two sets of mashed bearings later,, lesson learned, remember how you took it apart, our two solo's down south in pinewood studios have been seen out and about being filmed, as far as we know it will be called eastern promise,, we will have to see, i got a copy of the finished programme for discovery tv - ultimate biker challenge, its good,,, we have a copy running 24/7 in the showroom,, look like the off-road day on the 30th dec should be fun,, still room for a few more, bring your own outfit, or just bring yourself, plans are well in place for the elephant rally in germany,, a good dozen urals are going from the uk. should be fun, a long ride, just to say we have been and seen,, new prices for 2007,, had to happen, disc brake on front wheel is now standard along with western bearings, seals, and gear trains,, plus a few other bits, but it is a large price hike, rather than increasing year by year we have to accept the fact that the russians dont think like we do,, so whack it all on in one go,, still such is life,, toodle pip for now

no i have not forgotten about this page, but time seems to be against me at the moment, lots to report, we have two solos down at pinewood studios for taking a major role in a new film called eastern promise with naomi watts(no i dont know who she is either) neither do i care much, we have hired a full off-road site for a bit of fun over xmas new year 30th december fancy a bit of mud plugging of tree bashing see the events page, toy run on the 3rd dec from mallory park, very busy at the mo doing version 4 sleeper caravans,lots of new bits and options been added, bikes still arriving by the week from russia, expect to see the firstt2007 spec end dec/early jan

oh dear, more grumblings from the ethernet about not updating the website,,we have been busy, lots to report but cant do it all tonight just opened a bottle of best nastro azzurro, birra superiore, so my typing will start to suffer in a short while, several ural riders came with us for the days filming down near gloucester for discover tv,, a good day was had by all even with all the crashes if i had known before we went how extreme this offroad course was, as just about everyone was a novice offroad we would have had a rethink, but once you are their you may as well have a play,, i think rather than tell the story, you need to wait and see it on discovery next year,,, starts march ish,, the ultimate biker challenge or simular,,,, there is a short video up on youtube if you cant wait that long,,, sent two solos down to pinewood studios for a film thats being made, from what we can gather, the bikes are playing a major role in the film, no title yet but will pass the name on when known, should have gone to austria for the yearly dealer meeting, the other weekend, but i got up on the friday morning at 4am to head off, did i feel rough, got the bug thats floating around, head was spinning, hot cold, just what you need when your about to set out on a two thousand mile round trip on a bike, so i returned to bed for the next 48 hours instead, took the family across to italy to see the relatives, drove across via the st bernard tunnel, bad move, not a route we have used before, got caught speeding, on the spot fine courtesy of the frog wearing the jack boots and gun, 45 euros, so not a big deal, dammed cheek, the only use for france is to drive fast through it to go somewhere else of all the times we have bombed through france at silly speeds on bikes and i get caught slightly over the limit in a car,, italy was okay, spent my time in the local cafe watching the world go by while she who thinks she must be obeyed, went to see the witch she calls a sister, one thing you notice sat in a cafe in tuscany, the difference in the pace of life, if the italians did any less they would stop breathing,, will add some more tomorrow, toodle pip

evening all, been busy uploading videos to www.youtube.com seems like a good idea to me free webspace and you can link straight off your website to it, thus saving my webspace got 7 videos uploaded now with, links off my download page trouble is it becomes rather addictive having to check daily to see how many views you have had and ratings,, so get on their view, rate and comment,,, the four i loaded yesterday already have viewings and ratings,, its all free advertising,, workshop is still busy, with two bikes a week coming from the motherland and the the other stuff cracking off, had the first sunday off yesterday in quite a while, so did the family thing and agreed to take the youngest to his football match,, couple of hours in the afternoon, no problem yeah right,, firstly i was told by she who must be obeyed the match was at kibworth, due east of us about 10 miles,, wrong the match was at kegworth which is 25 miles due north,, so off we trundled to the meeting place in the village for 1245, no one turned up till 1 then its a big discussion as to how to get there, then we set off get to loughborough and some inconsiderate toerag has crashed so the a6 is shut, need a quick reroute,, wifey has map give me a new route says i,, where are we says wifey,, but you have been looking at the map since we left,, stop the car, check the map,, find a new route and off we go, get to the football ground,, noone else has made it yet so more waiting finally everyone is here,, match starts,,the youngest only plays for 15 minutes before he gets pulled off cause hes having a wendy ended up home gone 4 what a waste of a pm,, wont be volunteering for that again,, let them sort them selfs out next time,,got a couple of p/x's up on ebay at the moment having to fend off the idiotic emails,, questions like are you a dealer,, it quite clearly states we took it as p/x the clue is there for all to see,, its a very clean royal enfield,, low miles and mint,, but having taken it for a blast(can you take a royal enfield for a blast) they are very slow,, i have ridden faster 50cc scooters still it will give someone a smile got a 750 honda v4 f up for grabs as well tidy for age, but used runs well will add to stock page in next day or so, right need to do a few bits to my new back up pc, did a microsoft update on it now the speakers dont work so need to roll back the software or something,, tata for now regards mick mpc future pm

okay mr tjay, i am doing a update, happy now,,,,nag nag nag, so whats been cracking off,, i have a couple of days filming to organise with discovery channel for a series next year, need to train the presenter (warren pole) to ride a ural off-road, then put him in a hare and hounds race,, all good fun, we also have a solo in a westend production at the moment the english national opera society are doing a production of jennufa and need a ural to be ridden onto the stage by the lead singer(are opera people singers) good turnout at the jumbogb charity run,, 10 out of the 60 outfits were urals, but we can do better so mark the second sunday in september next year so you dont forget.... the stinkwheel show went well a good turnout, tarka(aka scouse git), tjay(aka fat crab) nigel(aka fat builder) jay (aka raving rev) pete(aka fatboy) and a few others who escape me,, congrats are due to scouse git, who managed to do the round trip without nicking any wheels,,,,while we are on the subject of scouse git,, it has come to my attention that he is a veggie,,, sat on his chair eating turkey substitute sarnies,,,But he eats fish,eggs,milk,cheese, and wears leather on his feet,,seems to me to be a part time veggie,, when it suits him okay to kill a cow so your feet are warm, but not to eat the rest of the dead cow,, bit of a contradiction really and hes a goth,, a scouse git veggie goth ural rider,,,, just updated gallery 7 with a heap of new piccys,, a couple of my eldest getting his 21 birthday treat at work, covered in flour, dog food etc,, now i wonder who reminded them that it was his birthday,, bugger all to do with me,,, most of the rest have been sent in by part time veggie scouse git, seems hes hijacking my gallery pages,, this of course is the same scouse git, who knows what piccys are on which page and line,,,, work it out yourself, needs a life,, the picture of eddies doughnuts has a reason,, next to it is one of my grass dougnuts,, both taken by parttimeveggiescousegit... (ta very much for the shandy, went down very nicely) next show is newton abbot followed by the ural invasion of france,, so loads to do,, receiving a delivery from ural land every week at the moment, and we will have a retro solo in stock end of october sex on wheels,,,, well i have had my two bottles of pop, my favourite tipple italiana lager stuff,, peroni astro azzurro, head is now spinning,, so maybe time to press update and bugger off to bed, got a load of spray painting to do tomorrow, plus finish a sidecar boat off,, power to my revolution vote for me in the next election aaaargh, this pc has just decided to relocate the bar thingy at the bottom to the right hand side,bollucks how did that happen,, not guilty not touched a thing,, toodle pip

just back from the exeter westpoint show,, did we have some fun, four bouts in the arena in front of several thousand spectators each time,, we are pushing the outfit so hard now the tyres are shredding just like a sports bike tyre after a track session, our display in the arena was put right in the middle of the usual wheely, tyre burnout teams, which was quite amusing,, they are all kitted out in proper protective kit with all the sponsership labels etc, and we arrive in the arena wearing pisspot helmets and sweatshirts,,, still the crowd liked us and so the the stunt team guys,, getting to the point now,, where instead of just going in the ring and having a bit of fun, we need to look at a actual order of what we are going to do,,, wow ,,,next they will be paying us to attend,,, our stand at exeter caused much photo taking as per usual, the sidecar boat and caravan must have been the most photo graphed bike their,,, nick sanders stand was next to us his desert ural was there in all its splendour,, he certainly loves his beasty,, tigger from back street heroes was there taking photos of us in the arena, and on the stand so expect a write up in bsh,,, talking of write ups,, a good one is in this months mag magazine,,,, titled my bike written by a customer from rugby,,, have a copy in the workshop,,,,, makes a good read,,one thing i noticed on the way down and from exeter along the m6/m42/m5 every broken down car had a caravan behind it,, dont they ever learn, you cant have your caravan parked up most of the year drag it out and bomb down the highways and byeways, a bit of maintenance before you go dickheads, and you wouldnt be waiting for the recovery services, ban them, all of them shove them all in a big landfill site and if the owners object stick them in as well, of course our little two berth sleepers will be exempt,,,, next show now is the stinkwheel,, but before that we have the jumbogb charity run i expect to see a lot of you their no excuses,,,,,,,i am sat here with a bit of black oak arkansas playing lead singer jim dandy,, never heard of them get yourself a couple of cd's good stuff,,,, the family computer has started to cause me agro again, so this time its down to pc world and get a new one, cant be bothered reformatting it all again,, they really are time wasters, not time savers,,,,, just remembered had one of our customer drop in a while ago with his pop (hi tarka the scouse git) now this is very sad to report but he can tell you which gallery page and which line contains which photo,, now that is sad, go back to nicking car wheel tarka,,, much more your style,,, and if you dont know what tarks looks like he is the one peering up the kilt of michael samson the kilt wearing veggie on picture gallery 6 i think cause i dont know what picture is where,,, toodle pip,, for now

22nd august oh dear its been a while again,, more complaints via email and such about no updates,, so why no updates, cause we have been busy, building trikes, mini campers, boats, and attending shows and such like, the asda charity do at bruntingthorpe was okay, but punters were a bit short due to weather, but hey ho, we had fun on the off road course, lincoln we cancelled due to the weather, what a miserable day that was, i cannot see the point in standing outside in the rain for a day just to answer the same old questions, not so bad if you can do a bit of sun worship at the same time, but bollocks to the rain worship, back to my dippy cousin rachel,, we have given her a new name due to the oil incident below, henceforth she is to be known as RACHOIL,, ,(work it out) what else has been happening, had a couple of days off to take er indoors and the kids to france, nice weather so down the beach at some frog resort,, into the water for a dip and stepped straight onto a weaver fish,, of all the sand for the sodding thing to hide, it chooses the one bit where i am walking,, now for those of you not familiar with the weaver fish, its small and has a fin like a hypodermic needle, which injects venom ,, lovely loads of pain, foot swells and you have spasms,, no antidote, you either survive or die,,, so i now know what to do in the event of,,,, bowl very hot water and turn your foot into a lobster,, after 30 minutes or so it was all over,, but for several days joints kept locking up, so the poison was still in my blood stream,, got back after the holiday and back to work first thing i did, SHOT MYSELF with a air operated staple gun we use on the caravans straight through my finger and shattered the bone, middle finger on my right hand,, did my eyes water,, just one moment of lapse of concentration ,, thought we had the short staples in the gun not two inch long ones, all the way through the piece of wood and there my finger was stapled to a piece of two by one,,,, and to add insult to injury we needed to off load some reliant bodies down the landfill site, loaded the trailer and off we went pushed them off at the land fill, back down to the weigh bridge and through the wheel wash, now this bit is important its a wheel wash, but for bloody great big wheels on lorries,, yup my drivers side window was open,, still the inside of the car needed a wash,, enough of my misfortunes,,, time for someone else to get some stick,, took a phone call the other day, How much for a raven,,, er what,,,, how much for a raven outfit,,, penny drops, you mean the limited production continental sided outfit,, oh is it only available continental sided,, errrr yes,,,, oh whats the price of a retro outfit,,, thats continental sided as well,,,,, oh dont they make any uk handed outfits,,, yes a full range where are you getting your information from,,, off the american website,,,, wouldnt it be wiser to look at a uk website which would show you whats available in the uk,,,, so the retro and ravens not available in the uk then,, well yes if you want one but not uk sided, look at the dalesman on a uk site,,,, at which point i gave up and directed him to one of the competitors website,, let him deal with the numpty,,, now heres a tale of officialdom at its best, we have to send proof of id in with new reg applications,, now according to dvlc acceptable proof of id is,,,, passport, photo driving licence, birth certificate marriage, or divorce cert,,., lots of sense here, passport and phot id have piccys,, birth cert etc no piccys and easy to get duplicates,, one of our customers presented a shotgun licence, which has photo, and all the relevant info, signed by the boys in blue,, acceptable proof you would think, no its not on their list, so application rejected,,,,, next had nick sanders turn up with his desert outfit the other day, for a service i noticed there was no spare wheel, (part of the service check all bits are still attached) so on asking the question, wheres it gone, turns out he did the great northern show, and while its was parked on the stand overnight, some lowlife nicked it, so if you see a ural/dnepr outfit with one pink new wheel i want to know about it there really are some low lifes around, they put pondlife to shame,,,, well its getting late,, time to hit the update button and head for the sack,, its the exeter show this weekend,, maybe see a few of you there,,

17TH JULY oh dear bin a while since i put anything up here,, i have received several emails reminding me to add some literature up here, ,,,,but we have been busy,, 3 weekend shows have been attended,, crowds thrilled with a furry faced balding loonie riding a ural outfit around the arena... thanks to several customers who helped out at the various shows, you know who you are, not too sure about michael samsoms kilt though, and hes a veggie.... kilt wearing veggie michael came down to beaulieu to help out and brought with him some veggie sausages for the bbq that karl was in charge of,,,, yup karl slung them straight into the middle of prime bacon and chicken fillets just to add flavour you understand,,, could never understand why veggies buy food made to look and taste like meat,, misses the point really be happy with your rabbit food... heres a good one,, for any of you female readers,,, dippy blond females, well one in particular my cousin who i wont name to embarrass her, yes i will,,, i only have two cousins so its not hard to work out which one it is,,,,, Rachel,,,,,, she does try to understand and maintain her car all on her own,, but the principles just wash over her on occasions,,, she dropped into sainsburys to fill up with petrol and get some oil to top up the engine(this does burn a bit due to age etc) i then get a phone call from her after shes done half a mile,, asking whats a head gasket cause a guy told her to stop as she would cause more damage if she kept on driving,, whats going on i ask her,, smoke from the exhaust,, lots of,, first reaction filled with diesel,, checked receipt no was petrol,, oh and i did fill up the engine oil, but they didnt have the small containers of oil which she normally used so she got a big one and put it all in like she does with a small container,,,,,, all 5 litres instead of the usual 1 litre,,,,, so red van man to the rescue on the side of the road draining the overfill back out into her nice new 5 litre container,, she had overfilled by 3.5 litres,, got her to follow me back to the unit and after 10 or so miles the exhaust smoke returned to its normal state,, dont you just love the female of the species,,,,,,, what else has been going on,,, 3 trikes building, 3 mini caravans building, 2 boats building, a five seater sidecar building,, and half a dozen urals to prep and hand over to new owners,,, lets talk about tyres,,, the black round things that stop the bikes touching the floor,,, i had to replace a pair on the tonka toy a short while ago, now i have never scrimped on tyres,, its an important piece of kit those and brakes really are the most important pieces of your car/bike whatever,, so into the tyre place, whats your recommendation knowledgeable people avons they say okay stick a pair on,, right from the off these didnt feel right not the same as the dunlops which are oem fitment made the steering feel vague etc,, so i pulled them off the front and onto the rear, putting the dunlops on the front,, much better,, while i was looking at them it occurred to me that they didnt look the same size checke the size and profiles, should be the same,, out with the measuring stick and sure enough the rolling circumference of the avons is one inch less than the dunlops,, even though they are the same quoted size,, intrigued now out with the calculator quick add up and subtract..... for the same wheel revolutions the avons would travel 17yards less per mile of the dunlops, which x by 100 = 1700 yards per 100 miles which is a full (near enough ) mile,,, brains working overtime now,, measure a 19inch russian tyre a 19inch barrum and a 19 inch avon sidecar tyre,, THREE INCHES difference on the rolling circumference between them,,, which means the russian at the largest will travel 100 miles for a given wheel revolution and the avon which was the smallest is 6700 yards behind over 3 miles per100,, thats starting to have effects all over the place speedo, fuel, etc,,, so now you know stick to russian tyres available at mpc,, more miles per revolutions,,,,,,my website host(the one who ball'sd it all up a while a go, was telling me the other day that he could give me statistics right down to which pictures have been clicked on the most, i think i was supposed to be impressed,,,, er no couldnt give a toss geek what about the world cup then,, we the british excused ourselfs early to let some of the lesser known teams have a chance,, it was chaos in our household with the agressive antics of the other half supporting the italians, but i won a few brownie points by buying her a italian flag to wave around,, didnt the aussies do well first time we let them play in years, and they get kicked out straight away, we are not letting you play again if thats the best you can do,,, sodding washing machine packed up again the other day,, previously i had called a guy in who anounced it was the motor brushes did them and buggered off,, lasted a week,, full strip down later,, both bearings failed,, replaced them rebuilt it working but not good,, pull it apart again,, to find half a dozen pokeman discs in the pump,, people not checking pockets before getting to the wash, now i have sorted that i am getting ear ache about the dishwasher, which to be fair we do have three teenagers/young adults all on free board.......... mr nick sanders has now picked up his pink desert dalesman for use in his next filming series,, watch this space,,,, summer is well and truly here, in typical british fashion, everyone is complaining its too hot,,, no its not when its winter you complain, when its summer you complain,,,,, well i have booked a ferrry tonight for the family hols,, not really got the time so this years its reduced to 5 days starting a week tuesday,,, across to sunny brittany,, anyone over there at the same time give me a call and we can meet up,, had a couple of bmw ural copied engined dneprs in recently both suffering clutch problems,, now when the conversions are done, several routes are taken all of which involve mating a bmw to a dnepr gearbox, the two dont like each other too much, clutch baskets are different and involves making a adaptor of one sort or another, well one of these had gone down the route of using a dnepr clutch plate reduced in size to fit the bmw clutch,, bad choice you have to cut off 50 percent of the friction surface to get it to work, which means it wears out quick and often, second one had a bmw friction plate with russian centres which had worn all the teeth smooth,,, still all sorted now and back to their owners,,, till the next time tata

10th june its been a week again since an update, we have 8 or nine bikes in the workshop/showroom waiting to go to new owners, sidecar boats, mini sleepers and trikes to build, new projects to play with, just not enough time, i have just finished preping up nick sanders desert ural outfit ready for him to collect, now nicks a okay bloke, but even with half a dozen voices floating round in his bonce, not one of them is a mechanic, so i have where possible tried to make his outfit, nick proof, various modifications and upgrades all in the aid of me not getting called out to the middle of knowwhere when he forgets to check the tyre pressures,got an email that i have copied a section of below,this is from a ural owner down souf, but he is also a white van man,, be aware be very aware...........

hi Mick, read the workshop rambles with much mirth. Have to agree on the jap sportsbike twin headlamp thing, I drive commercial vehicles- hgvs, vans, cars, bikes etc etc, ..like you 40`000 miles a year plus, and I`ve had the same experience on occasion, twin headlights on a bike 200 yds away looks just like a 4 wheeler 600 yds away in poor visability... watch out sporty folks, us bikers may twig what you are, but joe average won`t! not that they use they`re fucking mirrors much anyway... Got a caution once for rideing alongside one of the flat cap brigade and hammering on the roof with my fist because they nearly killed me.. (did`nt see the copper in the hideaway watching me.. ho hum!) ........... we seem to be building up quite a customer base of postmen as customers, could this be why the post is getting slower,couse they are all riding urals, we also have a large customer base of hgv and white van drivers,, is it our fault that the uk is slowing down on the roads, so many people used to riding urals at a leisurely pace, that when they go to work, they are all driving as though riding a ural,,,, cats,,, we have three,, sisters all different and all have their own idea as to who they belong to, tigger 2 seems to be mine, but a big question how does she know,,, whenever i am sat on the throne upstairs, she appears pushes through the door and sits and watches, why,,, when i have a shower, shes there watching through the shower screen, as soon as i am out the bathroom, shes gone, back to doing what ever cats do when they disappear

6th june morning all,, whats been happening since my last ramble,, spent all sunday at the workshop trying to clear some jobs,, trouble was people kept turning up,, just on the offchance plus it was a nice day for a ride...quote of the week from a browser in the showroom,, these russian bikes have come on a long way, where are they made now ?,,, errr Russia, to which he seemed to take exception and decided to leave, we had one of my old demonstrators come back in for a bit of work, you couldnt remove the front wheel as the shaft seemed to be seized solid, nothing would shift it, so we made up a tool to sit over the front of the shaft with a bolt through the central hole welded to a long pipe first heave on the pole and it made a distinct loud cracking noise and started to unscrew out, jobs a good-un, as the bike belonged to pete, who had overtightened the shaft we have named the tool petes-tool...ooh yes we now have a part carpeted showroom,, cant get to the kettle unless we take our boots off now,, well that will last for a day or two,,, summer seems to have arrived,, time to get the shorts and flipflops out,, put the overalls away until the winter ..the eldest boy has announced he is getting engaged, good soon have a room to rent out. .

30th may evening all, familys inside watching the footy so no interruptions for the next hour or so, whats been happening, stanford hall show got called off due to waterlogged site,, bit of a shame but there you go, Beaulieu motorcycle world show in june have given us a pitch on condition i make a fool of myself in the arena, seems fair to me,, nick sanders pink africa dalesman gear-up landed outside the unit today, so need to get that ready to rock and roll, he is collecting around the 15th june i expect he will bring books and dvds with him if anyone wants a signed copy.. will advise of exact date when known,, had to pick a bike up from south london on sunday,, yup back down the M1, so just to keep myself amused on the journey i thought i would make a note of all crap/stupid/middlelane drivers,, reg numbers, well after 5 minutes i had run out of memory so scrapped that idea if i had kept it up the tally would have been about 10,000 by the time i hit the M25, where are they all going on a bank holiday sunday, do they get this idea lets just go for a drive up and down the M1, in the middle land and if we are really lucky we might crash into something for a bit of excitement, must have passed half a dozen crashes each way, all avoidable if people had brains, too busy arguing with the satnav,, Broken bikes, workshop full of stuff to sort,, couple of quads in to play on,, they work very well on two wheels far more entertaining than running them around on 4 wheels, had a strange problem on a wolf which had been lovingly prepared by one of our competitors only done 340km which is just as well dropped a rocker cover off to check the tappets, and instead of the normal dribble of oil on the floor it was a rocker cover full, further investigation showed that the head gasket was on backwards, covering the oil return hole, lovely, had a 650cc ural which we took in as p/x one careful owner from new, got caught out there didnt i, should have been one careful mechanically challenged owner,, took it for a blast and a mot, things felt very wrong,, started with the forks,, been reassembled incorrectly, gearbox rear case bolts not tight oil just went straight through, gearbox had been reassembled with bits in the wrong order, missing a few useful parts took several rebuilds to sort it all out, and finally low on compression on the left, inlet valve burnt out, wrong oil ring on piston,, so its now had three days work on it, so should be good for a long time now,, took another bike for its mot, and noticed a strange clanging noise coming from the forks,, getting good at this fork strip and rebuild now,, next one we get we are going to do it blindfolded, turned out the previous owner had beefed them up by compressing the springs with extra spacers, problem was the springs were no longer attached at the top hence the clanging apart from that it goes like a rocket ship, time to put the kettle on so toodle pip

23rd may oh dear we really were not listening were we, had to go and pick a bike up yesterday from down south, set off when i had shut the showroom about 6pm, phoned up the missus to let her know i was going tobe late and just to check she hadnt planned a 10 course meal for my birthday, told her i would be back about 8.00pm (so read that as closer to 9.30pm) and off i went, got a call off the little lady at 830 wanting to know how long i would be,,, well about 9.30 seems good,, thought she might be keeping the youngsters up until i got back for the pressey opening bit, you know the score. try to look enthusiastic,,, so got back at 9.30 did a check of cars on the road, just in case of nasty surprises, no cars that i could recognise, opened the front door in a dash for the loo, followed by kettle, just out of the loo heading for the kettle when lots of happy birthday noise, smoke from 45 candles and the family, plus our friends matt and sarah(mechanibals fame, sarah was the test pilot in the machine) yeah yeah yeah, very funny now bugger off, still i got a new watch out of it, i have been devoid of a watch since my last one had a strap failure whilst doing silly speeds down the m1,, never to be seen again, now this new watch is rather trick,, it has a compass, so you always know which way is north, you have to press lots of buttons to find out the time, but you know which way is north,,, onto bikes had a customer phone up from the bmf with a breakdown,, loss of power, farting and banging,, now he was telling me where he thought the problem was whilst at the same time asking me where i thought it was, I knew where it was,, its the interruptor,,, watch my lips its the interruptor,, so him and the rac guy ignored my advice and messed around with the electronic ignition, that lasted for five miles, its the interruptor,,,,, he phoned me up monday asking to bring in the electronic ignition for testing,,, still not listening are we its the interruptor,,,,, bring that in as well,, sure enough in he comes rather shame faced, with the interruptor, which was doing what i said it was doing,,,, motto of the story if your going to ask for advice, bloody listen,, off to the unit now using my super dooper watch as a navigation aid ,, who needs a gps unit, when you have a compass watch,,, tata

may 22nd,, stop press, looks like i have a fan base spreading far and wide, all wanting to read about the world according to mpc lastest fans are in the British penal colonies down under, hows skippy and kylie, and birthday cards have been dropping through the letter box, not listening are we,, even my cousin remembered this year, and she only normally has thoughts for her horse(walking tins of dogfood), must have moved up a notch or two or she needs something fixing,,, more likely, for some strange reason i sat down with erindoors and watched the start of big brother, now not having seen this before it was done for research purposes you understand,, why do people watch this crap, are their lives that devoid of social stimulation......

21st may, been a couple of weeks since my last verbal outburst, lack of time, away in france, blah blah blah, apparently i am 45 tomorrow, now the last thing i want to be reminded of is that i have yet another year less to live, so any mention of birthdays tomorrow will result in a ear full of verbal... so whats been happening down the workshop, loads, new projects are taking shape, new bikes and preused are going out quicker than we can get them in, just acquired a tidy soviet knight which we have spent a day sorting out off for an mot on monday, which i think we will be keeping for a while, been doing a lot of training still more outfit riders joining the gang, had a couple of old boys turn up for a nosey on friday, one had got a bsa 650cc that he wanted to trade in for a ural outfit, problem was he was using a white walking stick, his mate who drove him in was apparently going to be the rider of this outfit, when questioned, he had not ridden a bike for 40 years and was now 81, i dont think he will find an insurance company willing to cover him, but if he does i am quite happy to train him to ride a chair, not that they are ever going to do many miles, talking of insurance there has been a thread running on sidecarsuk about insurance companys not willing to take on new outfit riders due to the high incidence of claims for crash damage in the first 6 months of ownership, as we insist on novice riders doing a days course before we let them loose on the highways and byways of the uk, i think we have done all we can, the rest is upto the riders, fortunately we only have two recorded instances of crash damage from loss of control, the rest have been due to brain dead 4 wheelers, we have now approached some of the insurance companys to get our course recognised,, we will see what happens,, other subjects, thumbs up to finland, for dragging the euro song contest out the 18th century and sweeping the board winning with a bit of heavy metal, now where have i heard that tune before, its very familiar,,, had a phone call yesterday about 5.30pm a guy in leicester in a panic trying to get hold of a jet for some quady bike thing, told him we would hang on untill he got to us, turned up just after 6 pm,, with a carb which looked like a copy of a delorto, he showed me the jet he needed, this turned out tobe the float valve needle, not a jet, there is a motto here, if you dont know what your doing, leave it alone,, had a rash of quads in for repair this week, all chinese copy versions, talk about being made with monkey metal, and in one instance being ridden by a class one monkey,, the term you get what you pay for applies i think, 3 of these quads were little 50cc kiddie things used by a guy at shows to give little kids a ride at £3 a go,, so they all have restrictors on dont get thrashed (we are taking 6 year olds here)and they were falling to bits, one had never had acid put in the battery and he wanted to know why it wouldnt start on the electric button,, the other two, the pull start mechanisms had just worn themselves to bits, still i got all three up and running with the suggestion that more routine maintenance would help them survive a bit longer. the next quad we had to look at started up okay and everthing worked, BUT when started it revved its nuts off, as though a throttle cable was jammed,,, talking to the owner it suddenly started this according to him, so he had pulled the carb apart and rebuilt it but still revving to the limit, yes i love them, so you have been inside cant sort it so last resort take it elsewhere,, first job check what he has messed with, yep carb slider in backwards,,, throttle cable adjuster at its limit, turn slider around back off throttle cable, and voila it all works fine,, smack owner around head and suggest he dont mess with stuff he dosent understand,,, still got two in for repair, one was fine until he deep watered it on a off road course, coughed and died not worked since,, what a surprise, six inches of mud everywhere including the ignition pick up rotor,,,, other one just died, could be something todo with the pet tap vacuum pipe coming off no juice no run enough of quads,,,, so glad i didnt go the bmf this weekend, its going tobe a swamp,, re our run in france last weekend good fun had by all most amusing memory was fatboy edge trying to streamline himself behind the tiny flyscreen on his cb750 you cannot get 17stone of blubber behind a piece of perspex 9inch square his poor honda had never been hammered so much, we covered a thousand miles over the weekend which included a lot of 100 mile per hour cruising. we had one small off,, low speed around a corner approaching a roundabout, road covered in gravel, back end of my bike went sideways, managed to correct and recover, fat boy edge lost his front wheel and recovered but lee on his diversion just fell off, minor damage and off we went again, why is it doing 700 miles through france we had no near misses with 4 wheeler drivers, back in the uk several in a few miles,, i will tell you why, uk car drivers are crap,,,, full stop, take care out there, tata

tuesday 9th may, not had time to add to ramblings for a while, two shows have been and gone, both were very busy, our stand at stafford was flooded with bodies for the two days, with all the usual questions being asked,, so in order to prevent some of the obvious questions, we had signs on each bike saying ''its a ural made in russia'' plus we flew a large russian red flag, but still the ''where's it made question came rolling in. but the best has to be,,,, wheres it made 'in russia' what in the ukraine 'no in russia' are you sure its not made in the ukraine 'yes which is why i said in russia and not in the ukraine which is a seperate country'' second best went to.... wheres it made 'in russia' yes i know but where in russia 'in irbit are you any the wiser for that' no not really.... we then did the thundersprint for the first time, stand was in the wrong position, but the right position if you get my meaning, good position for body flow and watching the entertainment, but the wrong position for noise, right next to the start of the timed circuits, nearly blew godfreys hearing aid to bits, it was noisy, still we had a good day, with loads of often repeated questions, like wheres the machine gun mount, 'your fingers in it dipstick' love em to bits next show now is stanford hall classic bike club show on the 28th may i have now got the info for hollowell steam rally anyone intending to camp email me for the forms,, we have started on a couple of new projects watch the specials page,, now i am off for a blast around france this weekend the workshop will be manned by slow eddie(godfrey), so please remember he is old, deaf and blind, so it takes him a while to find the phone, paper, pen, etc and you will have to repeat yourself slowly for him to understand,, dont spend too long on the phone or he will need to spend a penny due to his weak bladder,, talking of old people, i have one aunt who has been ill recently with an unknown problem, so on thursday the nhs found her a bed, took her in and then proceeded to do nothing because it was the weekend,,, nothing happened untill yesterday monday, she may as well have stayed at home untill yesterday, but if she had her bed would have gone to someone else, why cant we get our health system right, the waste of time, labour and money must be beyond our comprehension i know the frontline people do their best, but the overpaid managers all want shooting. different subject, insurance there has been a thread running on sidecarsuk about certain insurance companys not wanting to take on new sidecar owners due to the high claim rate in the first 6 months,, this is a known problem which we have allways tried to address with the training day, sidecars are different and most of the crash damage we have seen is new owners getting it wrong, we have only seen 3 instances of 3rd party damage caused by cars pulling out etc, i am approaching the insurance companys to see about getting our course recognised.. we now have far better prices for outfits on the ferry so a ural invasion of france on sidecars is happening weekend of the 6rh october ferry costs should be £100 or less, all interested email or call,, right better go and open the shop, keep the faith,, tata

LISTEN UP CHECK YOUR SIX saturday was yet again a busy day, i had a full days training to do, we also had a 650cc ural outfit to sort and get out, plus various lookers turning up, fat boy edge turned up midday via the chip shop (he is learning) with dinner, my trainee (paul) was doing well between interruptions, but was rather surprised by how much there is to learn, still he had a strained smile all day, he was fine down on the tracks but we had a bit of a scare once we hit the highway,, still nothing unexpected,,( I am now training three new outfit riders a week on average so our numbers keep on rising)the outfit we were working on, was living proof of the sort of abuse urals will take, this had been driven across from dublin,, looked like something out of mad max... I leapt on it to ride it iinto the workshop, and drove straight into the far wall, NO brakes, loose wheel bearings, overheating engine, tight valves, smouldering electrics, bad tracking and a slipping clutch,, but it still managed the 240 miles from hollyhead, took us untill 9.30 saturday night to sort it but it was a transformed bike when it went out.. we also recently had a ural in with sparks coming out the electric starter cover, this was the flywheel oscallating, which we thought was due to a collapsed rear bearing, but no the crank was cracked still running but now banana shaped,,now some of you will know we have 3 cats all sisters and all distinctly different in character, now tigger2(yes we previously had a cat called tiger for 21 years)tigger2 does not consider herself to be a cat, open car doors are an invitation fo jump in and go for a ride or a scratch of the upholstery, well someone parked up an open top new sports car outside our house, straight in she was lovely new leather, just needs a few scratches, we also had a car park across our driveway with the driver still sitting in it, straight on the bonnet peering into the windscreen she was, you can just see her say bugger off and park elsewhere, so he thought to get her off use the windscreen washer and wiper blades, not a chance, play time now, she started attacking the blades, and she quite likes water,, she only got off when he started to move off,,, she has also worked out that in the morning if clawing my feet under the duvet doesnt work then she now heads downstairs, leaps onto the window by the front door and triggers the hall sensor, which gets me out of bed,so i have now had to over ride the hall sensor, i am now waiting for her latest scheme, talking of cats,, i have hidden on the website a adult only page, with some more mature pictures,,, anybody wishing to donate any email them to me, anyone wanting the location, either work it out or email me.. With us working late saturday night i missed doctor who, now er indoors taped it, but its not the same as watching it live,,,,,,, had to do our bit of granny watching yesterday, picked her up, now at 91 she still has it all together, can walk a distance etc, she even managed to pull her self up into the 4x4 so we fed and watered her, then thought we would take her out for a few hours to a garden centre or such out we all troop in the car, well bugger me everywhere is shut,,,, new sunday trading laws, who are they to say when i can shop or when they can open,,,, time for my revolution is getting very close... back to the grindstone tomorrow, kids are still off so, got to find them some jobs up the workshop to keep them busy. ANYONE ELSE WISHING TO COME ALONG ON OUR FRANCE TRIP,, GIVE ME A CALL THIS IS NOW A SOLO RIDE ON NON RUSSIAN BIKES, a ural trip to france will be held later in the year when i have managed to get some price concessions of the ferrys,, right time to put kettle on so keep the faith all of you out there,

11th april okay why have i just spent the day sidecar training in torrential rain, then at wrap up time around 5.30 pm out comes the sun,,,, yeah yeah yeah, very funny....i ve got another two days training this week, it had better not pee it down on me again, my beloved er indoors, tells me its easter this weekend,, well we are open as per usual on friday, and saturday, not sure about monday yet, not playing sunday as i have been detailed off for family stuff, got to pick granny up for the day, i daresay i am going to have to come up with somewhere to take the family for the afternoon,,, right i had better clear off and search the interweb for ferry prices for our trip to frog land in may tata

monday 10th a good turnout for the easter egg run, tjay and len came down from the frozen north(doncaster ish) edge came along from leamington spa(on a jap bike shame on you) the raving rev jay, and another turned up so we had a total of 5 urals leading the convoy it was a nice morning sunny not too chilly,, all went well on the run, got to the vic, clouds went black and it pee'd down with hail, so being hard ural riders we stood outside in it, expecting it to pass, not on your life, after 30 minutes of hail came the rain, which we ended up driving back in, bloody freezing, got home bite to eat and back upto the workshop and its snowing its april....been yet another busy day, phone ringing seemed to stop me getting what i wanted done, another of the calls you love, Have you got a piston for a ural, YES WHICH ONE DO YOU NEED, 4 ring 3 ring long skirt short skirt, etc,,, after the conversation carried on, alarm bells are ringing, THIS does have cast iron barrels, er no aly HOW old 1976 further investigation on the end of the phone, yes its a dnepr,,,,,,,love em,,, three days of sidecar training this week already, lets see how the novices do,, always good for a giggle, the look on their faces when they start to get it right, is worth all the pain.. had a invite to put a display on at the streetfighters show again this year its moved to santa pod, but it confilcts with thundersprint, so dont know which to do now,, toodle pip

8th april 2006 only 3 days since my last update, must be feeling enthusiastic, so whats been going on, had a phone call tonight to go and collect the middle lad, who had decided to chuck up around his mates house, looked fine when we got there, probably just wanted a lift home, I nearly took out a motorcyclist the other day in the van, and yes i had seen him, BUT, now listen up this is important, it was dark i had to do a right turn, I could see a set of lights approaching but they appeared to be a way off due to the closeness of the headlights, Wrong, its a jap bike with those twin dip lights, which look like a car in the distance and was in fact only a couple of hundred yards away, not the quarter of a mile it appeared to be, so if you ride a bike with twin dips/mains, be aware you appear to be a car and the side of my van is red and very hard.......next had to take a 650cc outfit for a test run this afternoon after some service and repair work, threw on my pisspot, gloves and yellow jacket, to fly up and down the A5 for a few miles, get out on the road and it chucks it down with rain mixed with hail, sodding freezing by the time I got back and godfrey hadnt even had the decency to put the kettle on, he was talking to himself when i left and was still talking to himself when i got back. Now i have been spending a lot of time in the van recently delivering and collecting, driving gives you time to contemplate the world, why we are here, etc etc, so i have drawn some conclusions from my thoughts,,,,, stupid people are put on this planet to make the rest of us look less stupid. eternal youth, forget all your creams and exercise, plastic surgery etc, i have the answer, surround yourself with older people that way you will always be younger. are we alone in this universe, judging by the morons i see on the road, most of them are living on another world so, no we cant be alone, If you believe the theory on how it all started, with a big bang, nothing before, big bang and it all starts, what caused the big bang, who pressed the button..... now it has come to my attention that all the old people out there, have forgotten the rules, you are only allowed to drive on the public highways on saturday and sunday thus allowing all the workers to go about their business without being slowed down by old people with noses glued to windscreens peering down through their specs trying to see where they are going at 20 mph everytime i go out on the road there are old people cluttering up the highways and byways it used to be worse at a weekend but now its all week, i blame the pubs and food houses that do special oap deals midday, dont you realise it takes them all morning to get to the pub and all afternoon to get home, that a lot of hours cluttering up the roads, bring back meals on wheels keep em in their homes, talking of old people its jay phelps easter egg run tomorrow, i expect some of you will be there, dont forget the jumbo gb run in september, we want a big turnout for that. Arrived home last night to find a empty house, which is fine, but what about my tea, then i remembered that leicester were playing at home and the family all have season tickets and had gone to see leicester either 1. lose or 2. draw, which seems tobe about the best they do, now i am not into footyball, but it does seem to me looking at the leicester team names, there are not many players that are either english or from leicester, wouldnt it be far more entertaining if all these teams had to have players, born or raised in the county/area of the team they play for, after all the national teams run that way this would also help in that they could actually talk to each other about tactics and stuff.would it make any difference or would leicester still be crap, anyway tea was sorted when er indoors got back or perhaps i should have called it supper, its truly amazing what those white things in the kitchen can produce, and the big object with flames shooting out, cooks things..... well the kettle is calling, so will close for now and leave you with a quiz whats this say

5th april 2006 so where has the year disappeared to so far then,,,not had time to do an update on here for a while so will have to delve deep to remember what i was going to put down here.firstly will be updated top downwards save all you lazy people from scrolling down....lots of bikes have gone out recently and we have not had a day off for a couple of months,, every sunday we have either been at a show or delivering had a few problems with new bikes going out, some customer induced others russian quality issues,, firstly had a bike ran fine upto 40mph then wouldnt go any faster, was fine from new, suggested he check carb float bowl for water, turned out he had been too enthusiastic with the sponge,soap and pressure washer the air filter was soaked, night in the airing cupboard and alls well, next we had a issue with a bike fine for a couple of miles and then dropped to one cylinder,, checked and changed the usual ht leads plugs etc, seemed to run fine, sent him on his way after a good test round the local lanes, got as far as coventry and fault returns, he got back to us and we scratched heads and poked around with no ideas, pulled the inlet pipes to look at the carbs and one carb slide had no "chuff" pulled the top off and the diaphram was not fitted correctly from new, problem solved. another problem that surfaced was another bike running on one cylinder, no spark one side, turned out the new silicon ht lead had come adrift and burnt out the coil with the spark jumping, new coil and copper ht leads jobs a good un,,,, phone calls, why me,, had a call the other day first words were,,, do you sell enfields, NO do you do finance for enfields ER NO CAUSE WE DONT SELL ENFIELDS, what do you do finance for, URALS, how much, WELL THAT DEPENDS ON DEPOSIT CREDIT RATING, AND WHICH BIKE YOU WANT so you dont do enfields then, NO,,,, me thinks too much wacky baccy,,, the rev jay phelps came down to have the first machined timing interruptor fitted (as he is the main culprit for breaking them)and guess what broke on the m1 on his way down, you guessed, so after he phoned us we shoved the trailer on the back of the van to go and pick him up,, we arrived and loaded the trailer with his outfit and he still hadnt noticed we were there, too busy choppsing on his phone down the embankment .we had to go and get him,, we have just done the bikesafe show in gloucestershire at cheltenham two days organised by the local plod, now if you are a low life by nature ie a criminal, i reckon that every copper for 50 miles was at the bikesafe show, so you could have had a field day, couldnt have been any traffic cops on the road judging by the sea of florescent yellow floating around and we had a full detachment of cso people patrolling around the site, nothing was going to get nicked here then, now the downside of doing shows is having to get a large trailer home afterwards, which on a sunday means the motorways are full of grey haired old people doing 40mph in the middle lanes, bugger off out of my way, the previous weekend we had done a 675 mile round trip dropping and collecting bikes with the big trailer on the back, now i normally forget to put a number plate on, it has to be removed again to pull ramps out, and we were just commenting on not seeing a jam sandwich and guess what was tucked around a corner as we sailed by, he was out and up my botty quicker than when its getting close to watch change over, pulled me for no number plate, when i explained that we have to remove to get ramps out and had just forgotten to refix, i was told to put back on and be on my way, motto of the story always carry a trailer plate in the back of each vehicle..... got to go and do the family thing of acting as a taxi service till next time..

To start off a report about the open Sunday we had organized for a bunch of sky pilots (the bikers with the white cross on their backs), they had organized a days sidecar training for one of their members, so we decided to turn it into a days fun they brought with them a hotpot stew butties tea and coffee, we laid on several outfits and the trike for all to have a play on. Now I might be missing something here, but as one of them is a practicing vicar and the rest are Christians shouldn't they be somewhere else on a Sunday.. anyway the day went well, lots of fun had by everyone, until late in the day when the raving rev jay phelps (who as he rides a sidecar should know better) appeared to forget that trikes have three wheels two of which are at the back and further apart than the front one, slammed it into our gear-up but being russian damage was minimal with only the trike british made mudguard taking the worst of the damage, jay of course will not be allowed to forget this incident for at least the next 10 years........we have just returned from two days at the donnington classic jap bike show(we show them how bikes should be made) entertaining couple of days, forgotten how many times we have had to say these are New bikes not refurbs they are Urals made in Russia. why is it that we put up nice signs for them to read and they just ignore them...had a customer phone up a while ago, saying his headlight had ceased functioning,, talked him through checking the obvious, bulb, fuse, switches, wires still not working so he took a ride up, rolled in on his dnepr, got off and we shoved a cup of coffee in his hand, whilst he was having a slurp, i went and had a look at his bike went through the normal switch on procedure and moved the light switch to the on position, now it wasnt moving fully across as a set of clamp on mirrors were stopping the switch so i moved the mirror a quarter of an inch and hey presto ilummination went back into see him and Its fixed mate,,,, he had spent hours trying to find the fault and all the time it was the mirror clamp....... he knows who he is, works as a mod plod (ministry of defence copper) Toodle pip

feb19th been another busy week, finished rebuilding and improving a early rhino wolf trike, added reversing light, fog light and hazards, fitted our improved propshaft and adaptor plate, eddie rode it down for its mot, passed with flying colours and proved it has a good turn of speed on the way back, ready to go back to its owner now. Last saturday was an eventful day, we had a 4th owner project phoenix trike dropped off, with the instructions to redesign, do a dry build, followed by a full strip paint and finish, will this be first time in its life it actually gets finished and used on the road, second event on saturday was a major diasaster, we had a couple of demo rides on the trike booked, now we have a large area of road/tracks which means we dont need to hit the highway, plus if things go pear shaped there is not a lot to hit..... famous last words, first demo rider(he knows who he is) was given the normal pre ride instructions..... control positions no need to rev engine pull away smoothly using the clutch etc including the usual it has two wheels at the back which are two foot either side of the front wheel, dont cut too close on corners... he managed to get 100yds before wrapping the back wheel around the biggest stone on the side of the track he could find, followed by smacking the front forks into the next largest, bending the forks, smashing the front disc, holing the rear tyre and coming to rest on its side, giving him a large gravel rash on his arse(justice served) after recovering the trike we spent monday sorting it and its back on the road again,well our customer hasnt been put off trikes and has ordered a trike and caravan combo. we have had a few problems with the later keihin carbs recently, with the diaphrams failing, now these carbs are factory fitted standards, but ural dont list any spares,for them nor do they seem interested in getting any. but keihins are used by several jap bikes as well, so you would have thought they are available,, £60 for a diaphram,,, we have now found a source and will have stocks in a week or so at £35 each, best we can do.. Ferry companys,,,,, doing a bit of research into charges for sidecars, it would appear that brittany ferries are treating sidecars as cars,, and if you book as a solo and turn up with a chair you will be charged the car rate before being let on, condor ferries charge at 75% of car rate, not sure on p+o's charges this seems grossly unfair given the size and weight of a standard bike and chair,, am investigating further,, well as i have supped a bottle of italian beer, and not being a drinker its gone to my head so i am going to update this and hit the sack toodle pip

26th feb 2006. Another busy week, where does the time go, bikes to get out, stuff to build, new ideas brewing. had a mate of mine phone up re his daughters 50cc two stroke scooter thing, poor starting and running,, he had replaced the brain, starter unit and carb, still no joy, i told him its the piston rings, he just wouldnt have it until we pulled it apart barrels scored, rings worn, stuck a new piston and rings it honed the barrel and bobs your uncle away it went. Now in the various parts catalogues we have, they all list replacement cranks,pistons,barrels for these little 50cc whizz bangs, which tends to suggest they fail, otherwise there wouldnt be a market for them..... had another guy phone up asking us to look at his boys 125cc bike, poor running etc, as soon as he started to tell me the full saga, it starts to fall into place,,,,, his lad had replaced the valves, new chain and sprockets, etc, now it dosent run very well....his lad is a trainee car mechanic(is there such a thing now or are they just part changers) anyway after having a look and a listen, we decided he had got the camchain a cog out, move the cog one tooth and away it went,,,,, after we had adjusted the chain, replaced a few missing bolts, and advised that having the white thread of the tyres showing is not a good idea.. ......Several of the usual phone calls this week from the I have got a ural brigade do you do spares, (it then turns out to be dnepr) well my mate told me its a ural!!!!....... Now on thursday night I took her indoors, down to stanstead airport to get a flight back to her motherland (italy) for a few days as its the motherinlaw (chief witch) 80th birthday. Which leaves me at home with the 3 boys. so being of HM services background I soon had all three of them detailed off with various jobs over the next few days untill She who thinks she should be obeyed gets back. this has included the eldest lads girlfriend moving in to do the kitchen stuff (its a mystery to me what goes on in the kitchen I know where the kettle, clean cups and coffee is) everything is running smoothly apart from our three cats, who have taken her absence very badly and are wandering around looking lost, which must be proof of what i have always believed about the missus being a witch. On the subject of being a taxi service, pet hates on the road,,, old people who have all day to get where they are going,, I dont so bugger off out the way, blind people driving, this seems to account for a good 50 percent of road users,, middle lane warriors, get a life you tossers, now i do on average 50,000 miles a year on various means of transport, fast solos, outfits, trikes, vans, 4x4s, quite often with big trailers, carrying ural outfits, am i a good driver, well looking at how crap everyone else is YES.... but one thing that really bugs me when pulling a trailer is how few other drivers know what my speed restrictions are,, or how much extra room i need to turn, stop etc, do they give us the needed space, NO the other problem we face when pulling the trailer loaded with outfits is, gawkers,, they pull alongside as we are tootling down the motorway looking at the loaded trailer, but as i am indicating to pull out to overtake, they just sit there and we end up losing speed and the ability to overtake without another run up,, as soon as we are ready to overtake again, another gawker, bugger off out the way.. back to middle lane warriers,, i have a trailer on you morons, i cannot use the outside lane, get out of the way.. rant over till next time...

2nd march, my mobile phone started playing up last thursday, so i struggled along with it for a day or so, before coming to the conclusion it was bolluxed, it kept turning itself off, wouldnt turn on, when it rang it powered down, its had a good life 2 to 3 years i suppose, so phone up the nice people at o2, this is where the fun starts, fight your way through the various press button options,,,,, to be told my phone is not with o2, bollocks its been the same number since 1988 when it was cellnet.. a little trick with these automatic brain dead call centre systems, dont press any numbers and you default to a operator,,,, who then decides maybe i am with o2, good, can i have a new phone please mine is bolluxed, you had a new one last august, no i didnt, you asked if i would like one and as mine was still working i didnt upgrade yes you did, no i didnt, etc etc, up a level to a supervisor,, where did you buy your phone, this one,. yes i didnt you sent it to me 3 years ago, are you certain,,,,, yessssss,, can i have a new phone please mine dont work no more, the system shows yours is working, no my sim card is in a spare phone, and so it goes on eventurly they decide that i am entitled to a new phone,,, now it gets complicated, options options options, can i have one that rings i can answer and make a call out, yes but what about internet, blue tooth and wap, dont want to ring them, just normal phone numbers,,, end of tale got my new phone today,,, 3 hours reading the instruction manual i can now take photos, video stuff, talk to blue tooth,wap and the internet, but it takes twice as long to make a phone call, press this press that what was wrong with name list send,,,, and as for the crap ring tones, eldest informs me i can download all sorts of ring tones, but not one that goes ring ring,,,, you can even record noises convert to some file and use that as a ring tone, that will confuse us in the workshop, record a unsilenced ural revving and use that, what else has been happening,, aaaah yes the female of the species,,,, put on this planet for our amusement or to make our lives hell, take your pick, got a phone call off my cousin rachel just as i was sitting down to watch stargate on sky dont like recording it to watch not the same as watching it live,,,,,, back to the plot, shes sat in her car outside a grave yard with her friend who had collected her cat from the vets, and between the vets and the car, 50yds had let the cat escape from a locked catbox, the cat quite rightly pissed off at being prodded by the vet legged it up the nearest high tree, and had spent 4 hours sat up in the tree admiring the view whist its owner slowly froze at the bottom of the tree, at which point she called rachel, looking for ideas, rachel called me and i shoved a long set of ladders on the van, grabbed hold of my eldest boy,a torch and some thick welders gloves and we went to have a butchers, pitch black, high tree and a cat with no intention of coming down, in a graveyard next to a spiked railing, anyway i got up the tree, near enough to grab the cat, but its owner was worried i might hurt it grabbing it and she decided to leave it up there for the night my suggestion of a high pressure hose didnt seem to go down very well we tried, as far as i know the cats still there, Now being where we are we get quite a few people pop their heads through the door to see what we are doing,, mainly out of interest, but sometimes you think they are just doing it cause they have no where else to go, so we always try to appear welcoming, but it can be difficult,, it goes like this, they are nice refurbs, no they are new, did you refurbish them, no they are new, they come from the factory like this, do you paint them here, no they are done in the factory, are you sure they are new,,,,,,,,,, no we refurbish them here, they are all secondhand, yes its a bmw, some times its easier to let them believe what they want to believe rather than get through to their grey matter,, now some of you have met eddie, eddies okay if your more deaf than he is, cause then you dont have to listen to the bollux he talks, however he is nearly blind as well as being bald toothless and deaf, i was trying to show him a drawing the other day, and he decided he needed his glasses on, whilst he was putting them on i turned the sheet over to the blank side,,, it took a good couple of minutes before he realised he was looking at a blank piece of paper, methinks stronger glasses needed,,, talking of blind people, why do all the blind people drive around at night,, you have seen them 30 mph in a 60 not changing between dip and main beam cause they cant see the switches, touching the brakes every ten yards, get off the bloody roads,...i parked my van up in leicester a few years ago next to a disabled zone(i was correctly in the loading bay before you start) and a car parked up in the disabled bay, with a disabled sticker on, out of the drivers side got a guy with a white walking stick, who walked off waggling his white stick down the pavement,, this guy had been driving.... talking of driving have you tried to get through to dvla on the phone, their auto option system has more submenus than any other system i have used, it must have been 15 sub menus options before i got one that said dial 0 for a real person. i suppose i ought to talk about motorbikes as this is a bike website, we had a very noisy poorly wolf trike in a short while ago,, the owner had changed the alternator and adjusted it to the quietest running, trouble was the cam gear had high spots and decided to break up, chewing up the crank bearing cages at the same time, now this engine was still running with a lopsided crank due to the balls in the bearing all collecting on one side, a knackered cam cog with teeth broken and lots of metal floating around, so full engine strip and rebuild, replace the wobbly prop with one of our heavy duty props, and the old beast flys now, was sat at 90 on the m1 during the required take it for a spin to check everything is okay,plus of course its dinner time and its a round 100 miles to the chip shop and back, now a while ago i had a shitty cold/flu whatever which took a while to shake, then came back and went again, took a phone call off a mate on tuesday, you sound better now, got rid of that cold, yup, ..... twenty minutes later, streaming again, next time he phones i am not talking to him, probably end up with the plague,,been lots on the various media recently about the generation of obese children growing up, social workers etc, all sticking their oars in and telling us why,,, they all seem to miss the point, they eat too much and sit on their fat buttocks doing nothing, problem solved wire their traps shut, rope em all together and attach to rear of moving vehicle(i was gonna say train, but its that time of year again, snow, leaves,water on the lines all trains stopped) thats it for tonight, press the update to the big interweb button, check email to see how many willy enlargement pills i have been offered,a couple more pints of caffine, tabbaco intake and head down,, if anyone actually reads these ramblings, send me an email cause im everso lonely,, that includes you mr crane the one who has to carry large water containers in the sidecar to stop it tipping over when you get on,,,,,,,, the world knows now,,,,

8th march, time to report in again,, i have received a complaint (only one which is a surprise) now apparently, some of my readers are of the older generation and struggle to read this because of the font size, well the obvious solution is for you to get some glasses that work,(she knows who she is, never seems to have any problems when your sticking pins into effigies) or to have someone of the younger generation(i.e. my generation) to read it to you. or i could bin the complaint or i could write in a larger font the bin seems most likely. I am still ignoring the coldy flu thing that i have got, cause i am hard, and dont do the wussy thing, which normally means it lasts twice as long, we had a fairly quiet day down at the ace cafe on sunday there was a few trikes and bikes worth a look, but only one or two were of more than a few seconds glance, it was pretty cold after five hours of standing around,, been a bit of snow around here, but it soon disappears once the snow or rain gets on it, is it me or are the seasons moving winter is now feb/mar not dec/jan is this the result of global warming or have the governments been nicking a day each year that we dont know about and its slowly moved around the months. Is it me or do all white goods decided to pack up together in some form of conspiracy apparently we have a dishwasher(i thought that is what children are for) and a washing machine which have both gone on strike together,, the washing machine was a simple fix, motor brushes knackered, dishwasher programmer not moving on, so its now a question of tracking down a new one... or let the kids do the washing up.. workshops been busy again this week, trying to get some jobs done and dusted, we had a early 650cc ural in needing some tlc this arrived on the back of a trailer,, it was standing when they left, but on its side when it arrived,,, when are people going to learn you cannot strap a bike by running one long strap right over and down the other side....., there is nothing to stop it moving.. you must strap each side, we always use at least two on each side, working on the principle that one can fail and it will still stand, we never use the centre stand either all ways stand on the wheels if you can strap the wheels fore and aft.. proper job.. back to this ural a few things needed doing not charging, bald tyre service etc,, first job to sort the charging out, had been uprated to 12 volts, which the dynamos can cope with no probs, but it had a pack of gel filled batts fitted now a lot of people are moving onto gelpacks, which can be fine But, when discharged they require a hard hit to start recharging, not too bad with an alternator, but not good on a dynamo,, so one melted dynamo, buggered regulator and new battery later,, wiiggly bits now getting to the battery,, pull the rear wheel to shove a new tyre on, brake shoes are non existant just rivets left (no i didnt count them) pull the front wheel clean and adjust the brakes and we are just about ready to go, timing was way out, balance pipe between the carbs was sucking air, and the carb throttle cables were pulling at different speeds tappets were loose and tight,,, sounded and felt like a different bike when we had finished.... till next time toodle pip

9th march emailed complaints,, you can only get to this page from the front page, correct, i will alter when i can be bothered...... website of interest for you all http://kalecoauto.com i particularly like the passenger noise reducer you do need to look closely, another website of interest, its a site which can tell you how often your motor has been caught by speed cameras and what speed have a look www.e-database.co.uk below is a recent piccy of eddie sent in by p+j seems there is a new bug floating around headachy/yukky etc, my two youngest and er indoors are suffering with it, whos going to sort out my tea now then.. frozen pizza again, bloody children, do they ever leave home. the eldest returned home this evening with blood pouring out of his left hand, from all his knuckles, apparently he had finished working at 9pm to night and before they all left to go home had a kick around with a football in the carpark the ball was kicked high and he turned to punch it back into play with his left fist, but some ones car was in the way and he took out the rear window with his fist,, so thats an expensive 10 minutes of footy,, he owes me for 5 plasters and he has to replace the rear window on his mates car........ spent the best part of today re organising the stores department, making a list of new ural spares that we are running short on, and making some sort of order out of all the pre used ural/dnepr parts we have i seem to have ended up with more on the floor than when i started it didnt help that we had a few customers in buying what i had just nicely arranged on the shelves and spoiling my display they could have purchased what was still on the floor........ toodle pip

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Unit B4/B5 Elms farm ind est, Ullesthorpe Rd, Bitteswell, Nr Lutterworth, Leicestershire England LE17 4LR (Approx. 3 miles from Jct. 20 M1)

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