West Wales

Ceridigion coast path

Holiday in West Wales.
Cliff walks, Kayaking, Go Carting and wild swimming in blue lagoon.

Blue Lagoon
The venue will be used in the red bull cliff diving world series in september.
The quarry was being surveyed for water depth. A gantry will be erected on top of the cliff for the event.

Triton

 Triton T120. Owner: Guy Nicholls.

Metal Malarkey st/ st reverse cone silencer. Polished aluminium end piece. Absorption baffle arrangement.
We were required to design and fit a silencer to compliment cafe racer styling.

Metal Malarkey "Featherbed" style frame

The std featherbed frame is not suitable for larger powered applications where a permanent steep headstock top tube is used. This was proven when we had our Metisse frame type approved.
We design with a "six tube" headstock - the two top tubes running back to meet the start of top loop.
Frame built using high tensile tube, Bronze welded.

Metal Malarkey Italian Cafe Racer

Owner: Dave Gregory

Our latest project nearing completion - Motor Guzzi California 1100, Cafe racer.
Wheel base 3 inch shorter than standard.
Rake angle 2.5 degrees less than standard.
Resulting reduced trail has meant much sharper steering characteristics.
All superfluous bracketry removed. Petrol tank and Imolar tail piece alloy, wheels replaced with Borrani
(alloy rims, stainless spokes)
Stainless exhaust system - Metal Malarkey

Riding this bike gives a huge grin factor!

Festival of a thousand bikes

Mallory Park

The first visit to the track since racing school in early 90s. The track has been tamed somewhat but still great to be a spectator sitting on a bank above Devil's Elbow supping a pint of cider.

Spent hours wandering around paddocks viewing a vast array of class machinery. Saw the Peregrine stroker in the flesh - we had machined the yokes and provided electrical components.

 Australian built Vincent

 Rickman Triumph roadrace Metisse

 Peregrine road or race 130mph 392cc

Metal Malarkey yokes - machined by Phil

Loton Park Hill Climb

The paddock, at a recent
Loton Park Hill Climb

Trials

Shropshire MCC Trial,
5 turnings, South Shropshire.

Steve Richards, on his recently acquired TY Yamaha 250.

Bonneville 2013

Recently got involved with team Rooster Booster to run a couple of Bantam D1s at the Bonneville speed week.

Vintage and Sportster
Harley Davidson Ralley
Powys Arms, S Shrops.

Patrick's Supercharged
flat head sportster Ran
at Bonneville 2011.

Pre '56 2 stroke gasoline special.
Cycle parts we intend to use.

Music - gigs

Killing Joke. Wulfrun, Wolverhampton.
Dark, industrial rock. Still with the anti establishment message. Took a while to get going but then really got into it. Loads of crazies there - punks, goths, metalheads - like going back 30 years.
Still relevant? The same week as at least 14 emo kids stoned to death in Baghdad and two of the Riot Pussy girls arrested in Moscow, facing up to seven years.

The Road.

Collected a bike from a pal who lives near Barmouth. Lee was one time singer with the mighty One Way System. True British punk, they toured extensively and some great videos made. Check out One way system, believe yourself, Japan.

We took a walk over Barmouth railway bridge that crosses the estuary.It was designed originally for a section to swivel and let the tall boats through. A single track railway, with pedestrian walkway and allows bikes across for £2.00 - Mad.

Films

Watched a couple of good films and one not so great recently.

Nosferatu - part of Bishop's Castle arts festival. The original silent Dracula film made in 1922. Screened in an old chapel, candles up in the stained glass windows - Whitby we can do Goth as well.
The much copied and hugely influential film was directed by FW Murnau. His next film a couple of years later won the very first oscar, not to be repeated for a silent film till now with the great " The Artist".
 All original copies were ordered by the Bram Stoker estate to be destroyed for copywrite reasons. Thankfully a copy remained in the USA.
Local musicians provided an improvised soundtrack together with wine and Three Tuns beer made a great start to the evening.

Senna - the movie. Flicks in the Sticks, Chapel Lawn village hall.
A very well made film / documentary about a racing genius and remarkable man. Recently winning a bafta it's not just for petrolheads. It gives a small part of Grand Prix history when racing was arguably at its most interesting.

Superbiker - Shrewsbury. The story of the dramatic British Superbike series last year. Apart from the final race the film was a poor imitation of TT 3D. But the Ulster man Michael Laverty who was riding for swan Yamaha was sitting a couple of rows in front ! Oh and the film score was by Dave Vanian, so it could have been worse.

Elephant ralley - 2012

From Susl and Mac,

Stuttgart area, Germany.

Elephant meeting in Loh Thurmansbang Bavaria Germany last weekend in January.

Hi Mal,

want to make envious and tell you a bit about the elephant meeting last weekend in Bavaria. Everything was covered in snow, the hills, the tents, the motorbikes. Ideal weather, sunny and quite cold….which was good, because no mood.

A good idea was to arrive there on the Wednesday before the weekend in order to get one of the popular flat pieces of campground because the area is very steep. We took Macs good old Eastgerman twostroke MZ bikes, a single ETZ 251 and a sidecar ETZ 250 towing a trailer made in 1949. We had loads of luggage, especially Mac,  because he wanted to make my first trip there as cosy as possible. For him, it was the 14^th time since 1985. Beside the ordinary camping stuff we took a chainsaw, a snowshovel and a 3feet- barbeque. Gascookers don’t work properly at a temperature of 10 degrees below zero. It’s always good to have a little bottle of snaps, because normally most other drinks freeze…..but not in our tent, because as well we had the world greatest gas heating.

You can buy wood and straw there, so you don’t have to sleep on the frozen ground and we could warm up feet and beers at our fires. Also little snacks were offered, but most people did there own cooking.

Everything was very well organized, but without any party tents, bands or such stuff. Maybe the toilet situation could be improved…… But prizes were given to for example the farest visitor. So: British bikers could have a chance for getting famous. People from whole Europe were there, from Russia to Spain.

50% were sidecars. An interesting point was the technical customizing. Snowchains, Skis under the tyres, handwarmers, threewheelers with mobile loos.

Hey, it was really great fun! It was my first, but not my last time. Hope to see you British folks there next year….especially other women……

Music

The Black Keys. Retro-Groove-Rock. All we seem to be listening to at the moment

Shows

Telford Twin Shock, Classic & Road Racing Show.
8th - 9th February.
Highly recommended in a first class venue.
Classic bikes for competition use - stripped down no nonsense, can't get much purer than these.

Music

Was given the c.d. "Nine types of light" by my lads for a Xmas present. The band are TV on the Radio - a black art rock band from New York. They mix a fusion of jazz, funk, soul and disco into some great rock tunes. Check them out on You Tube.

Books

 Went to  a talk by Simon Gandolfi last week, he was a guest speaker organised by S Shrop's vintage motorcycle club. He wrote the book "Old Man on a Motorcycle" in which he rode from Central America down to the tip of Argentina on a Honda 125. He was in his mid 70's but still had a boyish enthusiasm for life. And rather than just observing he was a participant, and speaking Spanish he would naturally converse with just about anyone.
A 125? 120 mpg, a tank range of 300 ml's and spares he could get anywhere. Dropping it wasn't an issue and it can cruise at 55 - 60 mph all day. Makes a lot of sense.
  He has since rode back up to New York, around India and now aims to ride around the world - he's 80 next birthday. As he says "it's never too late"
 The venue was The Inn on the Green, Wentnor, S Shropshire. A really friendly bustling pub, offering accomodation and a campsite next to a small river All under the Long Mynd with some of the best biking roads in the country. Highly recommended!

Another lesson

Today Mal had another lesson on creating blogg entries....

No excuses Mal...GET BLOGGING!

[DRU..]