Friday 27 June 2014
Monday 23 June 2014
A Little Bit of Politics
“When
plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society,
they create for themselves in course of time a legal system that authorises it
and a moral code that glorifies it”
Frédéric Bastiat 1801 - 1850
(Spotted on a bus shelter in the west end of Glasgow)
Vodka
I found this bottle of genuine Russian vodka in the back of a cupboard recently, having forgotten all about it. I bought it when I was in St. Petersburg about seven years ago. If nothing else, it proves that I'm not yet an alcoholic.
Monday 16 June 2014
Applecross 2014
Another motorcycling weekend at Applecross in the Scottish Highlands.
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Pitstop at Achnasheen railway station (and no, that wee building isn't the toilets, they're around the corner!) |
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The Flower Tunnel - minus the cafe-bar |
Bit of a problem this year as the Flower Tunnel café-bar
on the campsite had closed for some reason. When we asked about this the
answers we got didn’t make much sense, to be honest.
However, it meant
rethinking our plans for the weekend as we had been planning on eating there
and avoiding the pub, which gets far too busy in the evenings. The food is excellent, but there's never enough room. So, the pub
it was then.
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Everything is better after a cup of tea |
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Deer foraging on hillside behind the Applecross Inn |
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Taking the Landie lifestyle a bit too seriously |
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Gareth inspects a replica iron-age roundhouse |
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Dutch clogs are called Klompen, much like the noise that they make |
A generally lazy few days, with only
Stuart and Other Terry kitting up and going for a spin on the Saturday
afternoon.
As usual, the weather was a bit unpredictable. Bright and sunny one
minute, drizzly rain the next. Not to
worry, sometimes it’s just good to get away for a few days.
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The view towards Raasay and Skye from the top of the Bealach na Ba |
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The long and winding road |
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"What have the Romans ever done for us?" |
Wednesday 11 June 2014
Tuesday 10 June 2014
One Swallow
This is a Simson KR51 Schwalbe,
produced in the hundreds of thousands at the factory in Suhl in the former DDR.
They've since achieved something of a cult status and I've always somewhat fancied one of these wee 50cc machines, but suspect that
I'd look like a circus clown riding one.
Sunday 8 June 2014
Word of Warning
A quick word of warning for anyone who
has fitted a Motobatt gel battery. Each battery has two multi-position terminals that you fit to suit
the bike it is to be placed in, which is a great idea. However, it seems that the
bolts supplied with the battery are prone to working their way loose and, as the
terminals are themselves threaded you don’t have lock-nuts
fitted.
I was coming home last week and the
Tiger kept stuttering and losing power, although never actually stopping, and
the speedo/rev-counter were going wild. I nursed the bike back home and did a
quick online search fearing the worst, ie. something expensive had gone wrong. First
site I checked suggested that I check the battery connections, another couple
seemed to think that this was a common problem for anyone running this make of gel battery.
So, this morning I took the seat off and
started the bike up. Seemed to be running fine until I jiggled the battery a
bit and the engine cut out. Did the same thing again and once again it cut out.
On closer inspection it turned out that bolts on both terminals were slightly loose. When I jiggled the leads, or when I hit a bump when out on the road, the
battery was being disconnected, if only for a fraction of a second leading to the poor running and the wonky clocks.
I tightened
everything up and it seemed to run just fine, so I went for a long run today
and everything went smoothly.
The answer would seem to be longer
bolts and a couple of lock-nuts. If you've got one fitted I'd give it a quick once over just to be on the safe side. Don’t say that you haven’t been warned.
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