Foggy at Cadwell Park

Just to give you a flavour of how foggy it was on the morning of the last trackday...

The moisture building up on the lens gives a fair idea of what our visors were like, needing a wipe before every corner - nobody likes to decides whether they'd prefer to steer or see.


Foggy at Cadwell Park 14th April '09 from driverchris on Vimeo.

the Guv'Nor

I've got the written quotation for my new bicycle tucked away in a drawer at work - the minute they commence registration this week for the Cyclescheme (tax-free bikes through your employer) I'll be there waving it in my grubby paw. Excited isn't the word - who doesn't like getting a new stuff? Especially if it's transport and tech-porn too!

But isn't it always the way, as soon as you've signed on the dotted line you see another model - different yet equally intriguing... I must confess I have a bit of a pash for the Pashley Guv'Nor.

It just looks so damn fine!
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A beautiful contemporary Edwardian aesthetic - with a touch of the Board Track to my mind as well. As my cycling becomes about pragmatism as much as bragging rights I'm also attracted to the low maintenance drum brakes and three-speed hub - with the correct sprocket on there I can't see myself needing any more.

I think the modern brake levers are a shame, but I reckon you could fix that pretty easily. I love it, and its made by a traditional British firm too - check out their website the loving attention to period detail abounds there too.

Take it to the limit

As a connoisseur of wheeled transport I try and seek out a model that's in good condition, not had too many knocks - it can be annoying and even downright dangerous is the vehicle pulls to one side so I always take a little test run to make sure everything is tracking straight and true.

Although I enjoy taking vehicles to the limit every now and again, I like to think that its set against habits of high maintenance and mechanical sympathy...

...clearly this is not the case for some of my compatriots at my local Tesco store - they've seen fit to add a warning to one of their more high-performance trolleys.

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mad skills

Cadwell Park trackday April 14th

A very pleasant Easter Monday was spent rigging up the bikes and getting then onto the massive trailer, kindly loaned by one of Mike's colleagues. His lovely wife generously indulging our burgeoning trackday habit even provided lashings of coffee and bacon rolls.


A somewhat nerve-shredding drive saw us arrive whilst the Thunderbikes meeting was still in full flow, so we unloaded the bikes and went for a hoon to Skegness, purely to scrub in new tyres and brakes y'understand?

Camp was set up and we wandered off down the now extremely foggy hill to the local pub for a modest amount of delicious beer.

Dawn broke to reveal wet mist and the mournful croaking of crows. Noisy bastards.



Morning sessions were written off due to the thick fog. I'll try and post the footage of our 3 sighting laps from the morning soon - it's hilarious, absolutely zero visibility and wiping your visor every few hundred yards. An astute move by the organisers to show us just how freakin' dangerous it was... disappointed mumbles from the Paddock but no doubt about the sense of it.

Lunchtime saw the fog finally clear and it was game on, all the way through to the end at 5pm so we only lost two sessions in the end. Happy days.


Cadwell Park 14th April '09 from driverchris on Vimeo.

What an amazing track, very much a track of two parts; tight and nadgery but also balls out fast. I barely feel like I've scraped the surface of learning it, I merely know which way it goes from my first visit. But therein lies the attraction - I bet I could spend countless days unlocking speed from it, shaving a second here finding a better line there... I'm smitten. If only it was closer. Although if it was 10 mins from home like Silverstone I could see all my income disappearing very quickly.

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300SL Dullwing

If you're going to revisit the past and give it a fresh new twist here's a free piece of advice: Take something that was flawed and improve upon it, this way success lies. If you take a stone-cold 100% belter and try to improve it you're giving yourself a hard task.

I'm not a knee-jerk conservative who believes in concours perfection and the inviolability of certain marques but A Bathing Ape’s Founder Nigo’s 300SL Gullwing Benz is certainly pushing me in that direction.

Perhaps its just a cynical PR exercise that has already paid off by virtue of the attention it's receiving. Or maybe he actually thinks this is a good thing?! A Bathing Ape as all you fashionable folk know is a fashion label that da yoot wear apparently m'lud, and the vinyl wrap shows one of their distinctive Camo patterns...

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...but for the love of Bob, what the fuck were they thinking with those alloys? Christ on a bike.

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Think of the children

The Guardian reports that the upstanding villagers of Broughton, Buckinghamshire have valiantly defended themselves from the pernicious Google Street View camera car.

Paul Jacobs spotted the Google camera when he glanced out his window on Wednesday, the photographers did not get far. The car was an unmarked black Opel, but the 360-degree camera on the roof was a bit of a giveaway. Jacobs rushed round banging on neighbours' doors, and soon had a posse surrounding the driver. When one of the residents called the police, there was a swift U-turn. Jacobs said there had been three burglaries in the last six weeks: "If our houses are plastered all over Google, it's an invitation for more criminals to strike."

Yes Paul, that's how criminals decide to burgle houses - they look at 6 month old photos taken from the street. A street which immigrants and foreigners are freely allowed to walk along! How much longer will hard-working Britons be expected to endure the dangers of being knife-crimed by foreign types and paedos through the internet?! Thanks Gordon Clown!

As it happens Paul was making preparations for the annual 'Gossamer Wifeling' fayre. The winner is the palest, most slender-wristed and least able to carry a pig on her shoulders. She is drowned.

deathspraycustom

I stumbled upon deathspraycustom via the sideburn blog, showing off some beautiful paint work on tanks for flat trackers and other custom motorbikes, but if you follow their blog it's clear that they are equally passionate about pushbikes and create amazing custom jobs on the most slender of canvases...

I might have to strip back the chrome on the BMX and get it down there...

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