Mostly lemon based

Category: Bike

Posts related to the MZ collection

  • Dull, dull, dull.

    So, I’ve got the next two days ‘off’; in that time I’ve got several things I need to do:

    • Action plan for essay. Find evidence. Implement plan. Write 2000 word essay.
    • Polish of reviewing those last two papers. Hope the two I’ve ordered are good.
    • Attack the EU Packs a bit.
    • Swim.
    • Find out what I need to have done for Friday’s Uni Day; and do it.

    I’ve rung about the moved goalposts / government forms. I’ve prodded into action the machines that need prodding. Christ knows what’d’ve happened if I’d’ve not rung.

    I also need to:

    • Service my car (in the near future, it’s not desparate yet but the brakes are starting to pull slightly to the left, so I reckon they’re due the service they’ve not had for the last 2 and a bit years…). They tyres need ‘rotating’ – because the front ones are looking a trifle worn. Not at the wear limit, but getting awfully close, so I shall swap them round a bit. Hopefully it might help me track down the hideous shudder. But I really can’t afford to replace them before the end of the placement – and this placement is hard on tyres (all bloody roundabouts and nice-to-drive curvy British roads)
    • Strip my bike’s frame. Someone’s very kindly (incredibly kindly) offered to weld up the frame for me – which I really need done, but I need to strip the bike down to just the frame.

    Excitement is clearly brewing in the House of Elliott ;-) (more…)

  • Où est ma palette ?

    I seem to have wandered into shit creek again. I don’t know if I’ll get away with it this time – there’s no shifts for the whole of August. None. Not one. Left it too damn late.

    The words ‘tighter than a drag queen’s hot pants’ spring to mind.

    On the plus side – I went swimming this fine morning, and managed to actually swim lengths with no float. Killed me, but I did it….

    …and we arranged to go take photos of Brizzy North Baths – before they shut it.

    …and with the help of the Nikkimeister, Claire (the ‘zed) is entirely in bits, and the engine is allllll ready to head londonwards. Now I just need to learn to weld; oh, yes, and have enough money to buy the metal and the gas and the welding wire – yeah. That too. Arse.

  • I love my bike

    I had a what is technically termed ‘a shit shift’. Nothing really went wrong, but it was less fun than standing with your feet in a bucket of camel dung while people throw drawing pins (thumb tacks) at you.

    And I came out and I could feel as I got on my bike the dark omen of the crap ride. I was in a bad mood, my bike was stood (irritatingly) in the patch of oil (it generated yesteday as the sun expanded the two stroke in the very full two-stroke tank) and I just knew, gonna be no fun.

    Pulled out and got stuck behind (oddly enough) a HumVee (or however it’s spelt) which appeared to be capable of a staggering 25 mph on Bath’s twisty little backroads – and I started to mutter darkly.

    The whole ride was a melange of crap or dull.

    And then it happened.

    Some tosser in an unlabeled silver sports car with prestige plates (Jon [+3 numbers]) cut me up, and then shot past to the roundabout… the trafficlight controlled roundabout. I prayed. My prayers were answered, the lights were red. He might have been a shit driver, but he wasn’t out-right stupid, so he stopped. I filtered. We shared the white line space.

    He took off, from the left lane (of 4) he swerved across the traffic to the right lane (of 4), over took a car at the lights on the roundabout and then swerved back to the left lane to shoot up the 2+ lane of the next stretch of dual carriage way.

    I prayed again. please let the lights be red.

    And as I rounded the corner I punched the air, they were red, his brake lights came on and he stopped…. At this junction there’s a bus/bike/taxi lane, so I didn’t even have to filter and I pulled up next to him. My battered, dented, faded, multicoloured MZ unevenly ring-ting-tinging next to his 100k (?) sports car. I prayed again, I’ve never been good at fast pull aways when I’ve been trying, but I needed this one to be perfect. I didn’t want to wheelie, I wanted it to be controlled and leave him in that beautiful cloud of 2 stroke blue.

    The lights changed, and I shot off like a monkey sitting on a fire, and fuck me backwards if I didn’t leave him in the dirt. Of course, he shot past after 50mph, performing another similar manouver to before at the next roundabout… but just to make life that bit more beautiful, the lights changed and he was stuck at them, behind a car, and I filtered my way to the front.

    Oh, the joy of pootling at 45mph in a 50mph zone with a tosser in a sports car desparate to pass you. Having overtaken the car I was not-really-trying-to overtake he again shot past, getting stopped at the next set of lights, where he turned off left. And I must admit, I punched the air again as I pulled up level on my ‘zed.

    I love my bike. I even gave it a hug tonight, it’s made me feel that much less pissed off.

  • That just tired feeling

    So, it’s going to be my second shift on A&E today. I’m shattered. I didn’t get home ’til quarter past 10 (having left in the pissing rain).

    So the shift was cool, I started off terrified, but by the end was starting to feel that I at least had a vague notion where things were and the kind of order of things. I’ve just twigged how the cases are sorted… I think… which I didn’t realise yesterday.

    And I kept doing half-arsed jobs of things, because I’d not used the documentatino before I was entirely unsure of where things went in it, which bits I needed to do, but by the end I was getting the hang of that a bit too.

    I was knackered though, by finishing time. When they sent me home….

    ….and I wandered out to my motorcycle…

    you know when you do something odd for no obvious reason and it turns out to be fantastically lucky? Well, instead of riding home the usual way I decided to come back the long-more-well-lit way.

    And about halfway though brizzy my gearlever fell off. I realised this as I came up to the next set of traffic lights, in 4th, and went “ring-ning-ning-ning………CLUTCH IN! FUCK! Where’s my gearlever!”

    I then had to do a U-turn, in 4th, on a hill, get to near the top and find that the lights were at red. Whimper. Do a hill start in 4th. Trundle (as much as is possible on a two stroke) in 4th searching the road surface for my gearlever.

    Hop off at the last place I remembered changing gear; turn the bike round [clutch in]; waddle astride bike to get it going enough to pull away; ride back towards home.

    Just at that stage inbetween quitting and actually stopping looking, there it was, in the centre of the lane. So I braked and indicated that I was pulling over, aimed a hefty kick at it and pulled over. Whereupon an arsehole in a BMW drove over it, beeping at me at the same time.

    Having retrieved it from the road (and obviously stalled the bike) I did a little dance on it to bend it into a shape where I could use it, re-attached it and headed home. I could have done without that really!

    Nyah.

  • Partial successes

    …which sounds better than big stinking failure; which is how I felt, or sort of half feel.

    I managed to change the rear shocks/springs, and the new ones are *lush*; and changing them was dead easy. Putting on the new exhaust was easy peasy. Then there was the front forks….
    (more…)

  • Frustrate-a-kate

    Stress!

    Today I found another bill which had managed to escape unpaid. By found, I mean we got the debt-collection-warning-bill. 80 quid on the debit card and that at least is avoided, but I’m beginning to think we need some different method of bill payment. 78 quid also seems a bit steep for uh, 1 month. I’d go check the reading, but I don’t have a fucking bill. Grrr.

    (more…)

  • Future imperfect

    It’s a bit of a scary time at the moment. Scary, frustrating, good, fun, bad stressful….

    With the money situation, I suppose, actually having remained static – insofar as I worked for half my bloody holiday just so that I could…. spend it all on repairing Rebecca. So, my attempt to get back into credit with Lauren failed somewhat (I had hoped that I’d end up paying her rent in advance, not in arrears, as I seem to constantly be).

    I had kinda hoped to buy the paint to do up my bike, and maybe the gear to get the welding done. But nooo.

    Noooo.

    (more…)

  • MZ ETZ 251R

    MZ ETZ 251R

    Is it wrong to covet someone elses MZ? I have MZ envy.

    Oh, and watch the film. The film’s not wildly, wildly exciting (but it does feature an MZ) but the music is terribly terribly cool.

  • Sooo Cold.

    It’s not actually cold you understand, just cool.

    But if you spend an hour and a half washing 2 cars and a bike then suddenly it really does become quite cold. Distressingly Lauren’s Fiat, which I gave a quick wash (all the washes were really a lick and a promise (which doesn’t mean much coming from me…. when it comes to washing cars…. not a reliable person)) came up really nice and shiny, wheras Rebecca, well, she looks barely like she’s been washed. ‘cept the wheels.

    Although that’s partially my desire to leave the coating of oil on any parts coated with oil, and my lack of-botheredness about washing the wings which are due for replacement more than just a wipe with the sponge.

    The bike however was a nightmare. It’s not been washed for… more than a year. Possibly more like 2 years. The rear alloy wheel, which was once silver was black. Completely black. Black like the night. The exhaust, which is chrome, in places, was black. Everything was filthy, really filthy, or very very dirty.

    Despite my best efforts, the fact that it was really really cold when you got wet meant that after about 2/3s of the rear wheel I gave up on that. I think I need some alloy wheel cleaner. Scratch that, I *know* I need some alloy wheel cleaner. A hell of a lot of it. But she looks a lot better. The top box is also somewhat filthy still, the oil seems to be nicely ground in to it. Still, if I locate some enthusiasm and give it another wash in the near future I should be able to work towards cleanliness in stages :-)

  • The big old V-day

    So, uh, been a little while since I posted….

    A week, actually. During which I’ve… been sick. I’ve actually been way better, the day after the 37.7 deg temperature I started to feel better, not like ‘going back to work’ better, but significantly better. I guess it’s like most fevers, they hit a peak of awful and then you start to feel better.

    (more…)