Tired and filthy

Wait - just wait - I know what you're thinking but it ain't like that at all.

In case anyone out there noticed that I'd disappeared for a while, that was down to the thunder storm we had last week, which fried my modem (painful eh!). After a series of calls to the Orange helpline they eventually agreed to send a new one, but with the weekend and a bank holiday getting in the way, it only arrived yesterday.

So back to bike business. The issue of a flat battery was solved by a few friends and some dodgy wiring (from me of course) and soon I had a nice new battery filled up with acid and sporting matching spade terminals. Inevitably, I suppose you could say, blood was shed while I was wielding a knife and chopping bits of wire up, but I'm tough and it didn't stop me. What did make me pause though was the fact that when I'd hooked the battery up and tried the horn and lights, nothing worked. Fetching the multimeter wotsit and checking that the battery was charged didn't help, cos it was charged. Time for a sit down and think. Thought. Ping! Check the fuse - blown. Rush indoors, hunt for a 15amp which luckily was on the table in the spare room with my MZ stuff. Brilliant, a couple of kicks later Cubbie was back to life.

The next task was the liquid metal treatment on Saturday, because I'm fed up with the primary chain case spewing oil out all over the place. Not only does it go all over the rear wheel (which makes for fun cornering) but whenever I'm doing any form of maintenance on the bike (yes, I do occasionally), I get covered in black smelly oil. So I thought I'd try some JB Weld and wodge it in all the gaps - yes, there are many! A simple enough job but one that required 15hours to dry thoroughly. Oops, how many hours between Saturday 5pm and early Sunday morning when I had to set off on the VMCC Relay Rally....hehe, not quite enough but never mind.

Sunday morning dawned and Bob and Alan were going to set off at 9.30am, heading over to Dufftown then up to Culloden for their first checkpoint, and back to Captain Bill's place for the second one. I still had to apply the silicon sealer to the chain case and tweak a few other bits, so opted to head to Bill's, meeting up with Vic on the way. A good time to test my new digital speedo out, Vic went first and I followed, looking for his signal at 45mph. I hit 40 when he was at 45, so not too far out.

Riteo, so we're first at Bill's place after a lovely ride to Foggie, Bridge of Marnoch and across to Grange. While Bill and Mrs Bikerchick (who had volunteered to help with the refreshments) debated some rather boring issues (probably the meaning of life and the universe, or something), Vic decided to strip Cubbie's clutch - luckily I just happened to have the Allen key for the primary case, the correct spanners to remove the footrest and brake lever, oh and some silicon to seal it all up again after....what a stroke of luck.... I have been concerned for some time that the whole clutch assembly wiggles to the side and top and bottom, but apart from tightening the centre nut up (to manly standards I might add) which didn't solve it, there seems to be nothing amiss. Half way through, two chaps from Wales (I think) turned up, said that the clutch is supposed to wiggle like that, had some road kill soup and cake, then headed off to the next checkpoint at Pitlochry. Next to arrive were Bob and Alan, after a gruelling ride around most of Scotland, apparently, followed by a guy from Elgin on a yella Norton of some sort. More on this in the mag some time soon.

Right, so that was sunny Sunday, and the bank hol Monday was set aside for CONCRETING. Tricky arrived a little later than planned to help set up the mixer and make sure I knew what to do, and the first load was poured about 11am. After lunch I realised I wasn't going to be ready to go to work at 4pm, so a couple of quick calls had my schedule changed, although that means I now have to work on Saturday to make up for it, humbug. Still, I'm pleased to say that after Tricky left to pick up wife and daughter, I turned up the pace and completed the first section - a whole third of the area. Man, by 7pm I was soooo tired and filthy like you couldn't imagine, with cement dust everywhere and aches and pains from my toe nails to finger tips. A hot bath just seems to make things hurt even more - especially the sun burn! Don't think I could have picked a hotter day, must have been about 20degrees out there and numpty here was rushing around shovelling sand and stones! Still, good drying weather for it though.

Wednesday - time to do some more CONCRETING, but only after dropping off some trophies at the engraver in Turra - a nice little run on the MZ for that one. Work cancelled, sun out, get that mixer going. Only half a third this time though, due to time constraints...but it's a bigger third than the next one, so I'm leaving a smaller bit for last.

There were a few issues, such as bulging shuttering and those blimmin' stones in the sandy ballast are so big that it makes smoothing it out a bit difficult. The tamping down and see-sawing is kinda awkward on one's own, but I managed (well I had to 'cos Mrs BC was planting peas). Upon inspection today it looks perfectly good enough for a shed floor, complete with cat and dog paw prints across it. So sad am I that I'm off to Endinburgh next week so won't be able to do any more for a week or two...perhaps that'll give the old bones time to recover. Enjoy the piccies.

Jeepers! How could I forget to blog the latest Grampian Classic club meeting! If I'm not careful I'll get the sack....t'was a super night out to the MacDuff boatyard, looking around all the workshops and sheds, seeing below deck on the boats that were being fitted and generally going behind the scenes. Thanks to Vic for sorting that one for us.