kickingtyres

It’s been a long time since I did any updates here, so thought it was about time I poked my head above the parapet again and kept things going. It’s a long and rambling post, covering many aspects, but it just serves to keep things up-to-date.

Since June, there’s been various highlights, events and general goings on.

Spent our first weekend sailing Eala Bhan ourselves, and had a fantastic 7knot blast across from Largs, up to the Kyles of Bute. It was somewhat surreal, and a little depressing, to wake up on Sunday morning in the beautiful calm of An Caladh harbour, with the seagulls, sun and rhododendrons to going to bed, back home in Cambs.

At the begining of July, we spent almost 3 weeks in France, with friends in Normandy, then touring about by ourselves and finally a few days with my folks at their place. Despite having holidayed in France as a kid on many occasions, and visited many places, this was the first time that I’d actually traveled about the country by myself. Touring about, seeing the different landscapes and weather, villages and towns and even industry and agriculture only served to reinforce my love of the country. I feel France is, in many ways, how a country should be with a genuine national pride, not misplaced patriotism; common sense and applying the spirit, not letter of the law; respect for themselves and each other which is expected not demanded. I recognise France has, like any country, it’s own flaws, but in general I feel the quality of life, from food and drink to roads and services, is far better than we get in the UK. Something that I know Gayle reconised too.

We were originally planning to do the trip on the FJR, but even although I put her into wheelfit with 3 or 4 weeks to spare to get the work done, it wasn’t until the middle of July that she was finally sorted. While the FJR are known for seizing some of the suspension linkages, I hadn’t realised how bad it was in this case. Rather than the spindle seizing in the bearing, and turning in the shock’s mounting point, it had seized in the bearing and shock, and the bearing was turning in the linkage, wearing the aluminium oval. In the end, in addition to the new shock that was due to be replaced, all the suspension linkages, bearings and bolts ended up being replaced too. However, add that to a new shock, new front mudguard, full engine service, new forkseals and fork oil, and it’s like getting a new bike again. Anyway, we could fit far more wine and cheese in the boot of the Alfa than we could in any top-box.

Since coming back from France, we realised that the annual Ixion@Cadwell was looming, and the FZR hadn’t really been touched for quite some time. Some manic last minute fettling saw the bike prepped as best we could, with a new throttle cable, a patched exhaust, some new rearsets lifted from the Thunderace and modified to fit and a new paintjob, the bike was as ready as it could be in the time we had. I also invested in a 6X3 “party tent”, generator and other bits and pieces to make the time spent in the paddock as comfortable as possible. As it happens, it was just as well, after the headers fractured at the manifold, and the little 400 wasn’t allowed out any more as it was just too loud. She was also suffering intermittent starting and running problems, which is somewhat annoying. Once going, she’s fine and as long as she’s kept on the boil she runs beautifully, but I can’t afford to have it stall or die like that if I ever get on the grid.

The plan is to get the bike properly sorted between now and the start of next season and I’m off to a flying start with some new headers that were collected from MHP on Saturday. They are modified headers from an R6 which should also give a bit more tuning potential, being a little more free-er flowing. I also plan on rebuilding the “spare” engine, blueprinting it, and replacing all bearings and seals to at least get it back up to it’s original power output.
But to be honest, I’m looking at the diary and wondering when the hell I’ll actually have the time to do anything.

Still, there’s a bit more space in the garage now, having passed the Firestorm onto a friend (We will come round and finish that engine rebuild soon!) and installing the “new” shelves that have been lying on the drive for 2 years. That being said, the new space was quickly taken up by moving the M20 in there, as I really was getting upset seeing it out in the rain, even under a cover. I know there’s a lot of rubbish in the garage, and I’ve got my eye on a lathe and milling machine combination too, so I think I’m going to spend a free Saturday having a clearout and see how much space I can actually make.

On the business side, Craftspeed is now pretty much up-and-running, and there we now have rolls of fabric, that are bigger than Gayle, getting in the way, so we’ll need to work out how to store the stock. Plentymore LLP is still progressing, having launched a Bingo site “plentymorebingo”. We’re also in the process of starting development of an iPhone application, but I’ll just ask you to “watch this space” regarding that.

Start-up Bee pledges ‘affordable’ British e-car • Register Hardware.

http://www.beeautomobiles.com/

It may still only be “vapourware”, but the Bee One is an interesting and possibly viable electric car for thoe of us who have, up till now, not been able to see quite how electric vehicles would ever replace petrol power, at least in the near future.

Two of the reasons I’d not consider an electric car yet are range and charge-time.
With removeable battery backs like this, it could pretty much address those issues.  Granted, you’re still looking at 1/2 the range of an ICE powered car, at around 200 miles, but being able to carry a spare, charged cell and swap it quickly, as well as being able to swap out cells at “petrol stations” would pretty much cure these shortcomings.

It does bring another issue to the fore, however.  Should all electric car manufactures settle on a standardised form-factor for power cells, such that they are common to all makes? And how does Bee and the like plan on encouraging fuelling stations to start accepting stocks of cells, when it’s taking money away from their main business of selling fossil fuels?

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Google streetview has come to the UK, covering most of the major towns and cities.

Here’s a few to get you started:

Kings College Cambridge

Covent Garden, London

George Square, Glasgow

Even my old street is there

Enjoy.

BBC NEWS | UK | GB rail fares ‘more than Europe’.

Passenger Focus said “turn up and go” fares to London from elsewhere in the UK generally cost more than similar journeys in other European countries.

On average, fares were 50% higher in Britain than on the continent.

….

For example, in Britain long-distance turn-up-and-go fully flexible day-return fares to the principal city (London) were 87% more expensive than in the next most expensive country surveyed – Germany.

I commute daily from my home in Cambridgeshire to our office, 2 minutes walk from Latimer Road tube station.  The annual season ticket costs £4880, but the commute takes (on those rare occasions everything runs on time) around 90 minutes, which is quicker than many Londoners.

I think the £4880 is expensive, but taking into account property prices between Cambridgeshire and London, I can’t really complain.  Also, living 10 minutes walk from the railway station would make it seem, on the face of it, a viable alternative to the car.

That being said, my fiancee and I have family in Kent, Gloucestershire and Scotland and friends in Cornwall.  To make an impromptu journey by train to any of these destinations would cost far more than taking the car, and in most cases, isn’t any quicker. For example, to get to St Austell would be £90 per person return, and a 6 1/2 hour journey, more than an hour longer than driving and around twice the cost of fuel.

Add to that, that the trains are often late, are overcrowded and either overheated or cold, and it doesn’t make rail-travel a very attractive alternative to private transport.

I’ve often taken the train in France, both the TGV (on the Atlantique and Reseau lines) and and the slower regional trains (running up the West coast from Niort to Paris), and found them to be cheaper, quicker, more reliable, cleaner and better value than their British counterparts.

Even if British rail transport cost the SAME as that of France, I think it would still be unlikely that it met their quality and standards of service.

I recognise that France has far more land for roughly the same population, and so has the space to develop new road and rail networks from scratch, but the differences are SO great that I find it hard to believe that lack of space is the only issue.  There is, in my opinion, a lot to be said for transport infrastructure to be a properly managed public service, and not a for-profit system, but the key is the “properly managed” bit, and that’s where our government seems to fall down every time.