When I was a lad...

All this were fields. That's how it goes isn't it? It's also one of the first things that came out of my mouth unintentionally when I was in a car with my closest friends heading back into the Fenland village I grew up in; Holbeach.
Where to start? In 1986 our family arrived in Holbeach, a small village in the south of Lincolnshire known as South Holland. The heart of the Fens.

See, says so there.
That's not near Holbeach though, that's between Bourne and Spalding but it sets the scene well. Anyway I was 6 years old and actually back not 20 miles from where I had been born.

A true Lincolnshire Yeller Belly. We moved in 1998 8 miles up the road and I finally left the county and the big skies of the Fens in 2002. There may have been some odd looks from the residents of Holbeach as we drove around that wet Saturday afternoon with me jumping out of the car to snap away at apparently random bits of scenery and landscape.
Best start with the road I lived on then. Damgate, also known as Damgate Road and Nobs Road colloquially. Nobs Road due to the posh nobs who lived there, apparently. Notice the absence of the 'k'. Nob was equivalent to Toff, not cock. At the top of the road there's now a small cul-de-sac with a couple of houses in. When I grew up this wall:

wasn't complete at the left end and we could climb up to the top using the broken bricks as steps. There was a tall mesh fence around the rest of it you see. Many afternoons were spent playing den and climbing the tree, still there. On the last day of sixth form I hate to admit but as I got off the school bus, pissed, at half four I absolutely had to take a slash against the wall, around the corner and out of sight of passersby. All that cider had caught up with me.
But away from poor bladder control.
Whilst being the proud owner of my first mountain bike a great mate and I decided to see how late we could brake and how strongly we could do so on our fine machines. Neither of us can remember why we decided to do this heading towards the wall of the Community Centre

On my final attempt (it's always the final one where shit happens) my front brake cable snapped and I went into and up the wall using my face as a brake. Forks bent, face damaged, pride dented. Back home to have my Dad fit a new set of forks. It was not a proud moment.
A little further down the road is the old railway track

now apparently a Private Road...
It used to be the cut through to ride at the local motocross practice track for me. A long straight road to wind my RM80 big wheel up as I got to feel the greatness of motorcycles with my first bike (£80, bought with paper round tips at 14). Neeeeeeeooooooowww.
After a brief culinary intermission at the Chameli Tandoori

where I had my first ever take away curry as part of a Non-veg Thali and also saw in my 18th birthday with something hotter, allow me to share a brief litany of accidents.
First and second occasions of being hit by a car within 50 yards of each other along Boston road.

First time wasn't my fault as a car pulled out from the car garage into my cycling path. The second time definitely was my fault as I ran across the junction on a green light and got collected by a passing light metallic green Ford Fiesta at 30mph. I only know this was the car as I found out afterwards. I don't have any memory of the accident. Only waking up briefly in the ambulance on the way to hospital and then being in hospital for four days.
Hall hill park where I fell out of a tree after a branch broke underneath me and deposited me on the ground from a decent height and also had my head banged against the top bar of the swings after being pushed with a lot of force, but not enough to loop.

Cutting back through from the park was a case of trying to hold breath as you passed the flour mill

and then making sure you didn't swallow any mosquitos down the cut

I found a C90 down there once.
There's many more stories to tell but a trip which I thought was going to be full of negative emotions was actually full of laughter, piss taking and merriment, rounded off with a pint and some great Lincolnshire sausage and chips. Thanks boys.

Thanks also to Lucy for coming along to visit places that were home to me when you were born. It was good having you there all these years late.

What's in the loft?

Had a bit of loft clearance today in order to get a load of insulation down. Anyway, enough DIY. I love going up in the loft as I get to root around through memories.
Bit of a long post this one but bear with me.
First up is my cut-off. Yes, really. I used to wear this over my (already badged up) leather as a youth!

The Ace Cafe pin badge I inherited from my Dad, and the other pin badge is from the European Young Rider of the Year competition in 1999. I came 17th (from memory) in the UK finals. The Paratrooper beret badge was my Great-Uncle Eric's, he didn't make it back from Arnhem. Anyway, it's a bit embarrassing to look at now, but at the time I thought I was the shiznitz.

Next up I found a couple of pages from my sketchbook which I had framed and used to have on the wall way back. Still nice to look at them, even though I never mastered drawing ellipses.
These next pics are of the Dealer brochure for the original Triumph Trident 750. My Dad always wanted one, but never had one. I love the brochure, some real details in it. Anyway, pics.
Cover-
Middle-
Which opens out to reveal-
Next pages have some nice details on the engine-
finally on the rear is the dealer stamp and a nice side panel shot-
So, just a few memories

Youthful trips and bikes pt2

Toy run to Hinchingbrooke Special Care baby unit, summer 97, went down on my CB250RS, along with Tim on his GSX250. I remember being massively pissed, getting our heads shaved for charity, eating a load of fruit cake, and then puking up all the fruit cake.

Really good times

Back row L-R

Debs, Lil, Pat, Gangly Jon, Pink Hansord, Dave,

Front row L-R

Pizza Leg Almey, Pie RIP, Dawlish, Tim, Me, Claire, Kat

Thanks.

Muscle?

AKA my first car.

1975 Chevy Nova with a 350SBC from a '79 Blazer, edelbrock intake manifold, holley carb, velocity stack and pancake filter, tube headers, police over riders front and back.

At 21 this was a whole heap of fun for terrorising Spalding.

Baby steps

Way back in 1997 I was in Holbeach ATC, the year before I'd been up to Horncastle to see the first Youth Bike competition and decided that it would be a good thing to enter. My RM80 big wheel became the donor bike.

Stripped, cleaned and aerosol painted with a ford electric blue (I think) and fluoro yellow. Subframe cut and jacked up and brazed together.

This isn't quite the final version that went to the show, as we put a headlamp on it.

We won first prize 'Most Zany', second place 'Under 125cc' and another that I can't remember.

Good times.

Way back when...

I was a teenage hoodlum in 1999 I built this-

I'd inherited the bike when my Dad had died a year earlier. When he had it it was a relatively clean Yamaha TR1, but he'd already bought the FZR600 wheels and worked out that it needed TZR125 discs for the front wheel to fit into the TR1 calipers and forks. The tank came from Newark autojumble and cost me a stonking £17, and I still have it. The seat is a spare from a CB250RS I had.

The exhaust was my first attempt at making one, before I knew about pre-drawn bends. The engine had been to Edgar Hedley, who was competing a very quick TR1 in Supertwins at the time. The heads were ported and flowed, the carbs were flowed to each head, the cams were Megacycle, the bores were 1st oversize with the pistons ceramic coated, the barrels ad heads were teflon coated, the rods were balanced and polished, and it made a big difference. With changed gearing the bike would pull 140mph.

It's currently in the back of the shed, on the list to be worked on when I've got a few others out of the way. I'm looking forward to it.