Richard Hobbs

As the title implies, there’s rather a lot to talk about this time around, so I’ll try to keep each subject relatively short!

In summary, Sarah and I have been to several more steam rallies, I have been to a bike show, I queued up at 5:30am for an iPhone 4 on launch day, I was official photographer at a wedding(!), I’ve spent 2 nights sleeping on a punctured air bed, we’ve bought a caravan and “done it up” and I’m now involved with “Ada”!

First of all, Meldreth Manor Bike Show

Held at Meldreth Manor School, this is a charity event organised by the Royston and District Motorcycle Club. It’s actually the “Royston and District Motorcycle Club Annual Show”, but is known as the “Meldreth Manor Bike Show” to most people.

I wasn’t planning on going to this, mainly because it’s held on a Wednesday evening, but decided to at the last minute. I have to say, I’m very glad I did! Over 3,200 bikes turned up for those 4 hours and it was spectacular!

Photos of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Video of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Somersham Carnival

Sarah and I travelled to Somersham Carnival again this year on the back of the Matchless. The carnival was as enjoyable as ever, with a Mardi Gras theme, and guess what? I won “Best Motorcycle” again!

Photos of Somersham Carnival

iPhone 4

Some of you are going to think I’m crazy, some of you may not, but I queued up outside Lion Yard Shopping Centre (now called the Grand Arcade, I believe!) in Cambridge at 5:30am on iPhone 4 Launch Day to attempt to swap my perfectly good 32GB iPhone 3GS for a brand new 32GB iPhone 4! I was 8th in line.

Did I get my iPhone 4? Yes!

Was it worth paying out my contract with 1 year remaining? Was it worth getting up at 4:30am? Was it worth spending that day with no mobile phone because I had to activate the new one in iTunes before I could use it?

Yes! Well, I think so anyway.

Many people have spoken of reception issues, dropped calls etc… but although I can successfully make the reception indicator bars drop off by holding the phone in the wrong place, I have never suffered a single reception-based issue with the iPhone 4 whatsoever. I do have a case now because I keep dropping it, but I never had an issue for the 2 months before I got the case!

The “Retina” display is amazing, the LED camera flash is excellent as a torch, the speed increase is gratefully received, the camera is of much better quality and the 720p video recording is very good indeed! In summary, I can definitely recommend the iPhone 4 above all other iPhones! There is *no* reason not to upgrade in my opinion!

Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Once again, at the Cambridge Museum of Technology, there was a classic and vintage bike day. It unfortunately clashed with the “World Cup” (something to do with a game called “football” apparently), but there was a very good turnout considering!

There were a few people out the back working on the main steam engine too (unrelated to the bike show, of course), trying to find which one of the boiler tubes was leaking. I must admit, I spent most of my time with the steam engine people discussing the best way to find the leaky tube! Every idea I came up with, though, had either already been attempted or was actually useless! I guess we live and learn!

Photos of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Video of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show

The Hollowell rally is always one of the best rallies of the year in my opinion, with a great variety of exhibits, ranging from giant insects, through Titan the Robot, to the “Dancing Digger” (a JCB with a very skilled driver!). Needless to say, we took the motorbike again and had a thoroughly great time for the entire 3 days! If I remember correctly, the temperature outside was very warm indeed (high 20s, anyway) and helped make the weekend great!

Photos of Hollowell Steam Rall & Heavy Horse Show

Video of Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show 2010

Photographing a wedding!

Another thing I’ve done since the last blog post is be official photographer at some good friends’ wedding! Now, there’s a rather large learning curve to go from photographing stationary steam engines to photographing a wedding, but now that I’ve edited all 1,840 or so photos down to the final set (after a number of weeks!) I think I pulled it off! The photos are far from “professional”, but I’ve learned a lot from the experience and, of course, thoroughly enjoyed the day, as did everyone!

And the main thing? The bride and groom like the photos, so in a way, nothing else matters! The lack of professionalism, the overexposed whites, the underexposed blacks and the bad composition mean nothing now because the people that matter like the photos!

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally

A week or two after Hollowell, the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally at Swavesey happened. This was only the second year for this rally, but with double the number of exhibits from the first year, the event was the best yet! The weather was roasting hot too, which helped bring the crowds in.

Photos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey

Videos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Thurlow Steam Rally

The latest rally was the Thurlow rally. This year it clashed with the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (due to the Jampot rally having been moved forward a few weeks) and although the decision of which one to attend was a difficult one, I’m very glad we decided to go to Thurlow this year! More on that later.

One thing I’d like to say about the Thurlow rally is about the atmosphere. This rally is one of the most relaxing rallies of the entire year and for that reason it is one of my favourites. The larger rallies have to be very organised, with scouts running the car park, army cadets acting as wardens to ensure safe passage of vehicles in and out of the arena, people in yellow jackets everywhere keeping the rally running smoothly, etc… but somehow Thurlow manages to operate pretty much on time, perfectly safely and everything just happens on-site with seemingly no stress whatsoever!

Don’t get me wrong though – i’m sure lots of stress goes into the organisation of the rally each year, but the impression of a lack of stress and panic during the weekend certainly makes for one of my favourite rallies of the year, so thank you for a great rally again Michael!

Photos of Thurlow Steam Rally

Videos of Thurlow Steam Rally (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Caravan

While at the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, there was a problem. Our air bed developed a slow puncture. On my side. During the first night. On a very rough field.

This wasn’t the end of the world, as I can somehow survive on very little sleep if I have to(!), but I could not find the puncture anywhere! If I pumped up the mattress in the morning, by 10pm it would still be up, but 3 hours after I started laying on it, it’d be out of air completely.

At this same rally we were informed by a couple of fellow rally-goers who we know quite well now, that there was a caravan for sale near them for £200. So, the day after we got back from the rally, we headed up there to pop in for a cup of tea and to take a look at the caravan down the road. Needless to say, we drove home with the caravan in tow!

Since we bought it, we’ve actually spent more money on it than it’s worth, but in doing so we’ve made it our own, and in the 1.5 weeks that followed the initial purchase we have completely re-foamed and re-covered the seats, washed the curtains, cleaned and sterilised the inside, washed the outside, re-carpeted it and put all the hinges and door-stops on that weren’t quite screwed in properly! Our aim was to have it read for the Thurlow rally, and that we did!

I have to say, having spent a year going to rallies in a tent, upgrading to a caravan is an infinitely large step up (not literally). For a start, there’s no risk the air bed will go down leaving you sleeping on the grass! When it’s raining, you can still have a cup of tea. You don’t have to sit on a chair leaning forward cooking or boiling the kettle on a stove on the grass. You don’t have to sit in awkward folding camping chairs. The list goes on and on! In summary, upgrading to a caravan was one of the most sensible things we’ve done in relation to rallies and other multi-day events! The only disadvantage is having to do one trip to take the caravan and another to take the motorbike, but I’ll buy a van one day to solve that problem!

Finally, I’ll mention “Ada” (seen below).

As far as I know (at this early stage) Ada is a 105 year old (built in 1905) 10-ton 7 nominal horse power Fowler general purpose steam traction engine. It is owned by David and family, who were after some help with the engine. David currently looks after the maintenance and running of the engine mostly on his own and while I know very little about the mechanical side of steam engines at this stage, I’ve been wanting to get involved with a full-size steam engine for many, many years. This year, at the Thurlow rally, that opportunity came up and I took it!

My involvement with the engine will begin this winter when I’ll start meeting David at the workshop to begin the winter maintenance cycle and will then hopefully continue on through next year’s rally season and beyond! To be honest, it’s a bit of a dream come true, so thank you David for the opportunity and thank you Hugh for introducing me to David and finding me the opportunity!

Photos of “Ada” on Steam Scenes

This post is theoretically going to act as nothing more than a list of events I plan to be at this summer. This will be a way of making you all aware of the existence of such events in case you wish to attend! I’m not going to list everything I’m going to, because not everything I’m going to is for the general public, but the events that the public can attend or have some involvement with I will list!

April

Easter Opening, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 4 & Mon 5 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run (Sun 25 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May

Rushden Cavalcade of Transport & Country Show (Sat 1 – Mon 3 May 2010)

Jampot Spares Limited (JSL) Open Day (Sat 29 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Classic Bike Club Show, Stanford Hall (Sun 30 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 30 & Mon 31 May 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

June

Classic Bike Show, Knebworth (Sun 6 June 2010)

Meldreth Manor Bike Show (Wed 16 June 2010)

VMCC Banbury Run (Sun 20 June 2010)

Classic & Vintage Motorbikes Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology (27 June 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

July

Hollowell Steam & Heavy Horse Show (Sat 3 – Sun 4 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS Anniversary Run, Wolverhampton to Woolwich (Sat 3 July 2010)

Founders Day, Stanford Hall (Sun 18 July 2010)

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (Sat 24 – Sun 25 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August

Thurlow and Haverhill Steam and Country Show (Sat 7 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (Fri 6 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August Bank Holiday Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 29 & Mon 30 August 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Little Gransden Air & Classic Vehicle Show (Sun 29 August 2010)

Wimbotsham Classic Bike Show (Mon 30 August 2010)

September

Haddenham Steam Rally (Sat 11 – Sun 12 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Bedfordshire Steam and Country Show (Sat 18 – Sun 19 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Kettering Vintage Rally and Steam Fair (Sat 25 – Sun 26 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

October

Great Chesterford Steam-Up (Sat 2 October 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Copdock Bike Show, Suffolk (Sun 3 October 2010)

October Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sat 30 & Sun 31 October 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

November

Classic Bike & Car Show, NEC, Birmingham (Fri 12 – Sun 14 November 2010)
Click here for photos of 2008′s event.

You will notice that on some dates there is a clash of events. In some of these instances, I’m not sure which events I plan on attending yet, and in the others I have already decided. In all instances, however, I have listed all of the events so you can decide which ones you want to attend, if any!

Needless to say, as Summer progresses, I’ll do my best to get photos, videos and blog posts online covering as many events as I can!

To be sure of receiving notification when blog posts are published, feel free to subscribe to my blog’s RSS Feed.

I haven’t managed to write a blog post for quite some time. This is mainly because during weekends I’ve been busy and during evenings I’ve not been able to motivate myself! Anyway, I have a few moments now, and a lot to summarise, so here goes!

Sarah and I have had several enjoyable days (and an evening) out since the last blog post on 29 March 2009! Most of these occasions are summarised below.

AJS & Matchless Owners Club North Weald Section Meet

Every so often, the AJS & Matchless Owners Club has a meeting where various sections of the club meet up to say “Hi” and discuss all things motorcycle-related. This particular one was at North Weald Airfield where we met up with another section or two. I forget which ones though, I’m afraid!

As you can see from the above photo, there were quite a few bikes there – perhaps 80 in total; they’re not all visible in this particular photo though.

All in all, a very enjoyable day! I got to meet lots of new people and was able to sit within feet of the taxiway to the runway in use for that day. I even saw a Spitfire power itself down the taxiway to the end of the runway just before throttling up its wonderful Rolls Royce Merlin Engine and taking off into the distance!

Photos of the North Weald Section Meet can be found here.

Sandringham Arts and Crafts Fair

I don’t really have a general photo to summarise this event, so here’s a rather specific one:

This event was exactly what you would expect from an Arts and Crafts Fair. It had honey, jams, wood turning, wood carving (shown above!), cookery and various other things. We also spent a few hours in Hunstanton after visiting the fair to have Fish and Chips by the sea, which was also quite enjoyable and relaxing!

Photos of Sandringham and Hunstanton can be found here.

Cambridge Museum of Technology Steam-Up Day

For Sarah, I think this day was decidedly average. For me, however, it was great!

I’ve been to the Cambridge Museum of Technology many times, and I can highly recommend it to anyone interested in pumping engines, steam engines, big single-cylinder gas engines and all things industrial. On this particular day, they had the main big boiler fired up and most of the servicable engines running. They also had a model tank club visiting with very accurate scale models of various military vehicles (mostly tanks, of course!) which they were remotely controlling around the site.

Photos of our day at Cambridge Museum of Technology can be found here.

Videos of our day at Cambridge Museum of Technology can be found here.

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run

On 19 April 2009 the Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run took place. This is a charity event raising money for MAGPAS. 400 or so classic and vintage cars, motorcycles, tractors, trucks and military vehicles took place in the road run which went from village to village showing residents and visitors  all the vehicles and also collecting money for MAGPAS, as mentioned above.

As of 20 June 2009, this year’s Road Run had collected £12,000 for MAGPAS, and I’m glad to have contributed at least slightly to something contributing to such a good cause!

Photos of the 2009 Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run can be found here.

Videos of the 2009 Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run can be found here.

FBHVC Old Vehicle Drive It/Ride It Day

The FBHVC Drive it/Ride It Day is not an organised event as such. It’s a day where the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) request that as many historic vehicle owners get their vehicles out on the road for the day to show to the nation that these vehicles exist and are still driveable/rideable!

Sarah and I decided to ride to a pub in a nearby village to have lunch by the river and to then ride home, and I must say, it was another great day!

AJS & Matchless Owners Club Motorcycle Run

Throughout the year, various members of the Fenrunners section of the AJS & Matchless Owners Club organise motorcycle rides around the county (and beyond!), and this ride was no exception. We met at The Chequers Inn at Wrestlingworth before setting off on a 75 mile route, finishing back at the Chequers Inn again! These 75 miles were ridden in one continuous stretch, which, despite being the longest non-stop ride I’ve ever done, was very enjoyable!

6 of us turned up at the pub in the first place, but within 500 yards or so, 2 people had broken down, leaving only 4 of us to take part in the run. Luckily enough, though, despite 2 bikes breaking down within that short distance, they were both up and running again by the time we got back and were both ridden home later that day with no problems!

I have no photos of this event, I’m afraid, but I do have the route as recorded by my GPS if you are interested!

The Nesting Blackbird

This wasn’t an event at all, but it is worth mentioning!

At the beginning of April, Sarah noticed that a blackbird was nesting on top of our water butt, 5 feet off the ground, in the corner between the fence and trellis running down the front edge of the canopy in our back garden, and around 12 feet from out back door, which is used all day every day!

The blackbird didn’t seem to care about Sarah and I going in and out of the back door and using the garden for BBQs etc… or even hanging washing out on the line which was around 4 feet away from her nest! I was also able to setup my tripod and camera behind the trellis pointing into the nest, about 12 inches away, zoomed right in to take some quite impressive photos.

The blackbird then laid 5 eggs!

At this point, Sarah and I looked up various facts about the blackbird and learned that these eggs were going to hatch in around 2 weeks. Before that time, however, roughly 3 weeks after the blackbird started nesting and 1 week after the eggs were laid, the blackbird appeared to have deserted the nest entirely!

After 24 hours of staying away to give her a chance to come back, we realised she wasn’t coming back and upon looking into the nest again, we realised that there were now only 2 eggs remaining.

I would like to add that we really don’t think it was us that scared the blackbird away as we had never attempted to touch the nest or disturb the plants growing around it – the gap in the plants through which the photos were taken was there naturally, and the blackbird had never been bothered by us in the past at all!

A couple of days later, there was only 1 egg left, and it was slightly cracked from the outside, so we figured something had found the nest and taken the eggs, sadly.

Anyway, we do seem to have either the same blackbird, or a different one, nesting in a new spot in the garden now, and this time we’re not going near it, just in case. I guess we’ll see what happens in due course!

More photos of the blackbird, the nest, the eggs and a few other birds in our garden can be found here.

Jampot Spares Limited Open Day

Although this was a very enjoyable day, it did start off badly!

The Open Day at JSL is an event often visited by lots of club members. A lot of these members I know from the club web site as they have helped me get the bike on the road over the last year or so, but I’ve never actually met them. This event was going to be a perfect opportunity for Sarah and I to not only meet these great people, but to turn up on the motorbike so they can actually see the bike they’ve hearing and talking about so much.

However, that, sadly, was not to be. Having wheeled the bike out into the open, started it up and got kitted up, I rolled it off the stand, pulled in the clutch, put it into first gear, and the engine stopped. The exhaust valve had jammed open again, like it did early last year.

We therefore attended the JSL Open Day by car. As I said, it did turn out to be a very enjoyable day, but for the first half an hour or so, before we arrived, I did feel rather annoyed, to say the least!

Photos of the JSL Open Day can be found here.

Videos of the JSL Open Day can be found here.

Classic Bike Show, Stanford Hall

I attended this show by car, as it would have been rather a long and tedious journey by bike! It was another good day with perhaps a hundred or two classic bikes on show, plus another 1,000 or so in the car park field, ranging from vintage pre-war bikes to modern Hondas and Kawasakis.

The Photo above shows the AJS & Matchless Owners Club stand which, as ever, was nicely presented!

I didn’t buy anything other than a mug, pin badge, cleaning cloths and a tube of Autosol on this particular trip, but there were an awful lot of things to buy, ranging from almost complete motorcycles to individual nuts and bolts. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to admire some old bikes and to also spend a couple of hours trawling through the autojumble stalls!

Photos of the Classic Bike Show can be found here.

The Sidestand Spring and The Hurt Finger!

I have known for a very long time that the spring holding the sidestand up on the Matchless was both stretched slightly, and hooked onto the wrong place on the frame.

A fellow club member (thank you, Peter!) kindly donated a new sidestand spring to me and showed me, on his bike, where the holes in the frame should be to hook the spring into, so armed with that information I headed into the garage to fit the spring!

I won’t go into too much detail here, but in summary, the spring is quite tough. Having hooked one end into the frame underneath the bike, I began to pull the spring towards the side stand to hook on the other end. In doing so, the spring slippped out of my grip and the hooked end went into the skin on the bottom of my finger and pulled my hand back under the bike. Having looked under the bike to see what on earth I’d just done, I saw the end of the spring trying to push through the skin on the top of my finger!

I quickly removed the end of the spring (which had gone roughly 15mm into my finger!) and made my way into the kitchen whereupon I cleaned it up and sat down on the sofa for Sarah to kindly bring me a cold glass of water!

Needless to say, I felt rather ill for the next 20 minutes, but there was actually very little pain, almost no bleeding, and 7 days later it was as if it never happened. Very strange…

Souldrop Open Evening & BBQ

A new motorcycle workshop has opened up in Souldrop recently and they decided to have an Open Evening and BBQ, which Sarah and I, of course, attended!

It was a great evening! Roughly 20 people turned up, most of them on two wheels, there was plenty of food, all barbequed by myself ( ) and it was a late, but very enjoyable evening!

Photos of the Souldrop Open Evening & BBQ can be found here.

AJS & Matchless Owners Club Crosskeys Pub Inter-Section Meet

Similar to the North Weald Section Meet mentioned earlier in this post, this event took place at The Cross Keys in Norfolk.

It was an incredibly sunny, and rather warm, day and in total I rode 134 miles! We met some more new people, spent a few hours chatting about motorcycles, had a great pub lunch and then rode home!

I must say though, 134 miles in one day, with the last 65 of them being non-stop, is quite tiring, especially at an average speed of 30 mph with a top speed of 45-50 mph! The last 65 miles, for example, took 1 hour, 54 minutes!

It was thoroughly enjoyable though, so I’m not complaining!

Photos of the Crosskeys Section Meet can be found here.

Somersham Carnival

As of the day this blog post was published, the last event we’d been to was Somersham Carnival.

I’ve been to Somersham Carnival nearly every year of my life, which isn’t so strange considering I grew up in the village!

There’s not a lot to say about the carnival really. It’s exactly what you would expect from a village carnival; classic cars, floats, a parade around the village, Somersham Town Band, an arena in the field in which various displays occur and a generally good day out for adults and children alike!

This year, however, I took along the motorbike for the first time ever. The bike itself has been in the parade and displayed in the field before, perhaps 15 or so years ago, when my Grandad still owned it, but this time it was my turn.

The other thing to mention is that I won the “Best Motorcycle” award, as shown below!

It is important to note, however, that my motorcycle was the only one there, so you could argue that my bike was also the worst bike!

Anyway, as a few people have already said, an award is an award, regardless of how it was won!

Photos of Somersham Carnival can be found here.

Before I get onto the situation with the Matchless, I’ll start with Fallout 3 (mentioned in my previous post) and my Xbox’s new blog!

First of all, Fallout 3… I’ve finished it!

In the end, it took just over 75 hours from start to finish and I’m glad to say I kept “good karma” throughout the game and instead of making my companion enter the highly radiated room in the last moments in order to activate the purifier, I went in myself, thereby paying the ultimate price for the greater good.

This is, of course, still a game, so no price was paid at all. I even borrowed the game from a friend, so literally no price has been paid at all!

I also stick with my previous statement that this is a game I strongly suggest you get hold of if you have the equipment necessary to play it!

So… onto the Xbox’s blog!

There is a site called 360voice.com which acts as a way for your Xbox 360 games console to write it’s own blog posts every day about your gaming habits, achievements gained and other aspects of gameplay.

In actual fact, the games console itself has nothing to do with writing the blog posts (as you may have worked out already!). 360voice.com simply looks at your stats each night and generates a blog post based on that information, which looks suspiciously like it was written by the Xbox itself. It’s kinda funny, and a novelty to have, so here’s a link if you want to have a read: http://360voice.gamerdna.com/tag/fishsponge

Right… now it’s time to talk about the Matchless…

After yesterday’s post, you will know that the piston rings were worn out on the motorbike and needed to be replaced, so this morning I took all the parts to Bill’s house where, after cleaning the valves, re-grinding the valve seats, putting the cylinder head back together, finding and manufacturing an alternative solution to the broken sleeve nut, removing the old piston rings and cleaning out the grooves we went to put in the new piston rings!

Upon putting in both parts of the oil control ring, we discovered it wasn’t rotating as freely as we’d like, so Bill took the ring off and we went to examine the groove a little closer.

It was at this point Bill informed me that the piston appeared to be cracked.

Upon hearing this news, I realised that this was something of a disaster. It’s good that we found it because a cracked piston could disintegrate in the cylinder, destroying large chunks of the engine in the process, but it’s bad that it was cracked because original pistons for a 1966 Matchless G3 350cc short stroke are phenominally hard to find.

I coincidentally inquired at the Spares Scheme while I was there the other day to see if they had any, and the answer was, not surprisingly, “no”!

So anyway, Bill phoned a friend of his to see if he could give any leads as to where to obtain one, and believe it or not, he had a brand new one, in a box, never used, with all the rings, the gudgeon pin a the various other bits you need to install a new piston!

This was unbelievable!

So… this kind chap is going to post the piston to me, I’ll post a cheque to him and hopefully, with a bit of luck, I’ll be up and running soon!

The one thing to note, however, is that with a brand new piston etc… it has to be run in, which involves riding 500 miles no faster than 35mph. Given that the first motorbike run of the season is at the end of March, that gives me around 4 weeks to achieve 500 miles at 35mph or slower if i’m going to make that first run!

Providing the weather holds out, the evenings aren’t too dark, and the bike goes back together as well as I hope it does, that is just achievable in my opinion. A relatively tall order, but just about achievable.

I’ll keep you updated!

I have been playing games on my Xbox 360 a lot since Christmas, mainly because it’s winter and there’s not a lot else to do indoors that’s quite as much fun!

Other than Forza Motorsport 2, Pure and A Kingdom for Keflings I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 3. I’m over 60 hours into the game now and estimate that I have somewhere between 5 and 10 hours remaining before I reach the end.

For those who don’t know, Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game which takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game’s world in an alternate post-WW2 timeline. It’s not a particularly cheerful theme, but it works really well as an action RPG.

The trailer for Fallout 3 is below.

I can’t get rid of the advert that appears after 12 seconds, I’m afraid, but if you click the small grey “x” on the right hand side of the advert when it appears, it should disappear

NOTE: If you can’t see the video above, click here

So anyway, this is a truly excellent game in my opinion and I strongly suggest that if you have the equipment to be able to play such games (a half-decent PC, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3) you get hold of this one!

So anyway, onto the Matchless…

Although I have been riding the motorbike throughout winter (on dry days, after the salt has been washed off the road) ever since last summer the piston rings have been worn out.

More specifically, the bike was burning oil, and both valves were perfectly OK (as per the post “It does appear to be working, but now there’s rain!“), so that leaves only the piston rings!

On Monday this week, I started to take the top of the engine off again, on Tuesday the local expert and friend of mine, Bill, came over to lend a hand and to examine the piston rings, the piston itself and the cylinder and we determined that the piston rings certainly needed replacing. In fact, the scraper ring (which is supposed to keep the oil below the piston) looked like it wasn’t doing anything at all, so there was certainly a problem.

So, off to Kettering I went, on Tuesday afternoon, to speak to John about a sleeve nut (which I’ll come to in a minute), Rick about a new set of piston rings and Jim about a gasket set, which I’ll need to put the bike back together, of course!

Well… I got the gasket set, there’s no such sleeve nut as the one I need, and Rick was at home!

Not to worry though… John phoned Rick, who happened to have the piston rings I needed at home (thanks, Rick!) and was willing to have me pop over on my way home to pick them up!

Rick Edwards, by the way, aka “Piston Ring King” has his own blog here if you are interested, and his knowledge and piston ring collection are like none other, so get in touch if you need anything!

Anyway, regarding the sleeve nut, there is a bracket on top of the engine that secures the top of the engine to the frame, and this bracket is held on with 2 nuts that go on the tops of the double-ended bolts that go into the top of the rocker box, and another nut and bolt that goes through the frame itself.

However, the rear nut was stuck fast when I came to remove it, and was already rounded off due to many years of attempted removal in the past, and to cut a long story short(ish), I had to take a drill to it in order to remove it.

This, unfortunately, left the sleeve nut ruined:

You can’t really tell from this angle, but the washer is stuck fast to the underside of the head, and the head is completely trashed, so basically, I need a new one.

The trouble is, the combination of parts that this sleeve nut is part of seem to be non-standard and therefore impossible to replace, so an alternative solution is required (which Bill and I will hopefully figure out tomorrow)!

So there we go… that’s about all I have to write about at the moment, so I’ll leave you to go and read and bookmark Rick’s blog!

I shall post another update once the bike is back together again.

I’ve not posted for a couple of weeks, mainly due to lack of time, but nevertheless, here I am again to report on a pair of very enjoyable weekends!

First of all though, I would like to state something that surprised me yesterday… the lead up is as follows; my Grandad, when he owned the Matchless, rode an average of around 120 miles per year (between 1989 and 1999 anyway). When he left the bike to me, it stayed in my parents’ garage for 8 or 9 years doing 0 miles per year. In April this year (2008), I brought the bike home and at the MOT that followed at the beginning of July, the odometer read 31666 miles.

The thing that surprised me is that 11 weeks later (today, roughly), the odometer reads 32440 miles, meaning I’ve ridden 774 miles in 11 weeks! I hadn’t realised quite how much I was enjoying the bike until I realised that!

Anyway… onto the weekends… it started on Sunday 14 September, with a bike meeting at the Silver Ball Café at Reed.

This is one of the first events (albeit an incredibly minor event, bordering on not being an “event” at all due to the fact that it’s not organised by anyone in particular, and is actually just a collection of like minded individuals who all happen to be at the same place at the same time) that I’ve been able to take the motorbike to, so I was very pleased about this!

One of the guys from the AJS & Matchless Owners Club and I rode down together from Huntingdon and met up with several other AJS & Matchless owners when we got there. We ended up having a few cups of tea, a few full English breakfasts between us and a lot of talk about bike mechanics – what could be better? Photos of the Silver Ball bike meeting can be found here: Silver Ball Café Bike Meeting Photos

Someone then mentioned that there was supposedly a bike show on in Meldreth at the same time, so we all decided, when we’d finished our cups of tea, to ride there and try to get in with the bikes. This, we managed, although not without a little negotiation with the guy manning the gate!

We then stayed at the car & bike show for a couple of hours, drinking more tea, eating cake, and talking about more bike mechanics mixed in with all aspects of old vehicles! Photos of the Car & Bike Show at Meldreth can be found here: Car & Bike Show, Meldreth Photos

I arrived home at 5pm that afternoon having had a great day out with the motorbike!

Now on to the weekend just gone…

On Saturday, Sarah and I attended the Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre at Cranford.

We arrived on site at around 09:30, whereupon I had my first experience of riding on damp, long grass with a passenger! Thankfully, it wasn’t difficult and the bike stayed shiny side up for the entire trip across the field! All 200 yards of it! We then settled up at the bike display area until 2pm when it was the motorbikes’ turn to ride around the arena and have their owners tell everyone about their bikes! Thankfully, this went well too:

After a grand total of 5 laps of the arena, I rode the bike back to the display area and Sarah and I then left just before 5pm after a very enjoyable, although hot due to biking gear, day! Photos of the Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre can be found here: Kettering Vintage Rally & Steam Fayre 2008 Photos

I had originally planned to go back to the rally on Sunday to (a) go through the same experience as I had on Saturday and (b) to collect my brass plaque that all exhibitors receive for being so kind as to bring along a vehicle of some sort (The plaques were only being given out on the second day at this particular rally), but on Saturday evening I heard a knock at the door – it was one of the guys from the AJS & Matchless Owners Club cursing me for being ex-directory and also inviting me to another run to the Silver Ball Café at Reed with some other AJS & Matchless owners!

I decided to phone up the organisers of the Kettering rally and see if they would be so kind as to post my brass plaque to me, and having received the answer “yes”, I decided that another day out with the AJS & Matchless people would be much more fun than another day at the rally! It’s not that the rally wasn’t enjoyable, far from it – it was great actually, but two days in a row, spending 7 hours on-site each day is quite a commitment, and although the people there are great to talk to, I could never turn down a day out with my fellow AJS & Matchless owners!

So anyway, overall, it’s been an eventful and enjoyable pair of weekends! I just want summer to stay with us now! Riding isn’t so much fun in winter, unfortunately!

We had two events planned for this weekend – Haddenham Steam Rally on Saturday (which I wasn’t taking the Matchless to) and the 3rd Legion Bike Show on Sunday (which I was taking the Matchless to). Both events took place and we attended both of them. However, neither day ended up being quite as we had expected (and hoped)!

I shall start with Haddenham Steam Rally…

This rally is supposedly one of the largest in the area, if not the country, with vehicles and stalls from all around the country, but sadly the Met Office had predicted “Heavy rain” from 07:00 until at least 19:00 and as a result, only around two thirds of the steam engines turned up, perhaps a third of the motorbikes, half of the other vehicles and even some of the stalls had failed to show, not to mention the noticeable lack of actual visitors/spectators etc.

However, there wasn’t a single spot of rain until around 16:30, which is when Sarah and I left anyway, so it ended up being quite a nice, albeit windy, day!

The lack of vehicles wasn’t so bad either – it just made the rally a little more “normal” as opposed to “huge” like it normally is and the lack of visitors made it possible for me to take lots of good photos without people getting in the way! Click here to view the photos of Haddenham Steam Rally 2008!

So basically, Haddenham Steam Rally still ended up being a fun day out, which is great!

Now onto the 3rd Legion Bike Show at Histon…

Overall, this turned out to be a fun day out too, but not in the way we had originally planned!

The original plan was that Sarah and I would set off on the Matchless at around 10:00 to meet up with the rest of the Fenrunners section of the AJS & Matchless Owners Club so we could all go on a nice long run before turning up en-masse at the Bike Show! The forecast for Sunday, by the way, was considerably better than the forecast for Saturday and the sky looked fine when we woke up!

So… Sarah and I set off as planned and almost half way to the meeting point we hit what felt like a torrential downpour! Being on the A14, we had to keep riding until we could pull off the dual carriageway into some shelter, which is exactly what we did at the Hand Car Wash place just past “Cambridge Services”. By the time we got there, though, the bike was drenched, Sarah’s jeans were soaked and despite me wearing full motorbike gear, I was soaked in places too! Fortunately, my efforts to waterproof the electrics on the motorbike paid off so far because it was still running fine!

By the time the rain had subsided, we had clearly missed our opportunity to meet the rest of the Fenrunners for our motorbike run, so we decided to see how the weather was along the next stretch of road and decide at the next junction whether to ride home and visit the show by car (in case the electrics weren’t as waterproof as I had hoped) or to continue on straight to the show (and arrive several hours early!). The downpour started as soon as we left the shelter, but again, being the A14, there was no turning back, so we rode the rest of the way to Bar Hill, turned around and rode straight home!

Thankfully, we made it and I must say, despite arriving home completely soaked, slightly cold, and with a 42 year old motorbike absolutely covered in water, we were still in good spirits and unbelievably glad that the motorbike survived! At least I now know it’ll be OK in the rain!

We then got changed and headed off to the biike show by car. It turns out that instead of 20 or so AJS & Matchless owners taking part in the run, there were just two, but we met them there in the end and had a relaxing and enjoyable day! Click here to view the photos of the 3rd Legion Bike Show!

Thank you again to the organisers of the run… sorry we couldn’t make it, but we did try, and it was still great to see you at the show anyway!

There were two events this weekend – my Birthday on Saturday and the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Fenrunners 2008 Motorbike run on Sunday (today), and fortunately, both have been a complete success!

My birthday on Saturday was a quiet day… but I received gifts that I like (mostly from my Wishlist!) and generally had a very nice day with Sarah!

Then, today (Sunday), Sarah and I took part in the “2008 Fenrunners Ride” organised by the AJS & Matchless Owners Club, and again - had a thoroughly good day!

The weather didn’t look too good initially, with “Thunder showers” forecast for the afternoon up to 24 hours beforehand (which would have meant we simply couldn’t go), but having woken up on the day to a foggy, but otherwise calm morning, the forecast got better as the day went on and in the end probably only 100 spots of rain hit my visor all day long!

The run consisted of two “legs”… one of 38 miles and another of 28 miles, so together with the “getting there” and “getting back”, we rode 108 miles today! Our legs ache, my arms ache, my back aches slightly, but the bike performed wonderfully and we loved it! We cruised between 45 and 50 mph all day long, and the bike didn’t shudder or backfire once! The routes can be found on my Motorcycle Routes page… they are labelled as the “Fenrunners Ride 2008″ routes, in case you are interested to see where we rode.

I have also been able to figure out that today I obtained around 62 miles per gallon, which isn’t quite as great as I had expected from a 350cc single-cylinder motorbike, but considering we were going through villages, up and down gentle slopes and I had two people on the bike, I don’t think it’s too bad. Time will tell what mpg I’m getting on average… if you are interested in keeping an eye on the mpg, take a look at my Mileage page – this will be added to as time progresses, and when I have enough values in there it’ll produce a nice graph like it does with the other vehicles!

Anyway – one of the better weekends of the year overall!

Just looking forward to next weekend now – Haddenham Steam Rally on Saturday and another AJS & Matchless Owners Club bike run ending at the 3rd Legion Bike Show in Histon on Sunday!

Things do seem to be running OK on the motorbike at the moment, touch-wood!

After making our way to the Thurlow & Haverhill Steam and Country Show by car due to the rain, we ended up still having a great day! When I’m not taking the bike, I am taking the tripod, so some photos of the event can be found here: Thurlow & Haverhill Steam Rally Photos.

Since then, I have successfully made it to the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Fenrunners meeting near Cambridge (despite a few drops of rain en-route) for all local members of the club to have a look at it and good old chat…

When the meeting came to an end, however, I set off for my first ever ride in the dark (of nearly 20 miles, along the notorious A14) only to find, 50 yards down the road, that my tail light didn’t work, and neither did the brake light!

So, I set off back to the meeting place whereupon we decided it was too much to fix that night, and we simply stuck a torch in the red casing and strapped the whole lot to the luggage rack, and I then successfully made it home, thankfully!

Since then, I’ve managed to fix the brake light by soldering one of the wires back together that looked like it had been either cut or pinched - I suspect the chain caught it, given it’s previous route up to the battery! The tail light will come later, but given that I’m not riding in the dark again for at least 4 weeks, I have some time to fix that yet.

I have also been out this afternoon for a nice ride from Huntingdon to Ramsey and back, across the fens, totalling around 20 miles, round trip. It was quite a nice route actually – not many cars, lots of corners, excellent visibility – click here for the route on Google Maps!

So, as mentioned earlier, touch-wood, things seem to be ok at the moment! Let’s hope they stay that way…

Well, after taking the cylinder head off twice, replacing the exhaust valve and valve guide, and by correcting the badly-cut valve seat and face, the bike does now appear to be working… touch-wood!

I managed 50 miles or so yesterday – 20 miles to work in the morning, 20 miles to my parents house in the evening, and 10 miles home after that. It was great

Only thing is… i was gearing up for the Thurlow & Haverhill Steam & Country Show, but it seems there’s a possibility of rain, which means i will have to leave the bike at home and go by car

How disappointing…