Festival of 1000 Bikes

This bike deserves a post of its own -its a copy of the one that powered George Formby around the Isle of Man in the 1935 film No Limit.

Festival of 1000 Bikes

The event was over three days and held at Mallory Park - I opted to go on the Saturday which was for classic road bikes. There was a good turnout and the weather was fantastic with long periods of sunshine. There were some great classic machines on display with some truly odd machines. As ever I will be placing images on the main website but here are some examples.

I also gave the camera on my HTC Desire a tryout and I was quite pleased with the results, details on the forum.

Motorsport Images Forum

I started the forum on the main website a week ago, I intend it to concentrate on motorsports photography but anything automotive/motorsports is ok. However its been a tough start, not helped by redesigning the website and changing the default domain extension resulting in the sites page rank plummeting to 1.
So far theres only a small handful of registered members. The forum categories have been kept to a minimum and will be expanded as the forum hopefully develops. There is plenty of work to do and all ideas or suggestions are welcome. So when you've finished reading this why not visit the forum, register and try it out, if its not for you nothings been lost?

Honda VFR400 NC24

Nearly there! Just a couple of brackets to make and also fit an R6 regulator rectifier. The original Honda unit is fitted and working ok but they are notoriously unreliable and the R6 unit is a popular mod. Currently looking out for a suitable connector and plug so that I can wire it into the existing harness without cutting it.
Pleased to say that it fired up after a little persuasion and sounds absolutely fine. Shouldn't be too long before its on the road now.

Honda VFR400 NC24

The NC24 is nearly finished!! The wheels, frame, engine covers, calipers etc have been powder coated and I have replaced most of the nuts and bolts which were badly corroded.The clutch has been converted from cable to a hydraulic system using a NC21 slave cylinder unit, push rod, sprocket cover and a VFR 750 master cylinder and lever.

A new link pipe and carbon end can was obtained from Performance Racing Parts in Louth for a good price. The mudguard, panels, tank and fairing have been resprayed in the Lucky Strike endurance colours by Dream Machine and I'm expecting delivery very soon.

Honda VFR400

Can't believe its a year since I last posted. The Husaberg is nearing completion and shouldn’t take too much time to complete – the engine has been rebuilt by Taffy (Berg enthusiasts will know!) and the remaining work is easy enough.

Now I've got myself another project – a Honda VFR400 (NC24). I saw it advertised in my local corner shop and a day later it was in my garage.

The Honda has been a little neglected and has stood for around 8 months. A quick check revealed a badly corroded collector box, a bent subframe and the usual peeling paint, corroded nuts, bolts etc.

Removing the engine without any help was a real challenge. Fortunately I found a step by step guide on one of the VFR400 enthusiast websites – Duncan's Web Pages. Basically the procedure involved a wooden trestle, a pair of folding ladders in an A configuration over the bike, a trolley jack and ratchet tie-down straps.

I’m now in the process of sourcing the necessary bits and pieces and have already come to the conclusion that finding a decent exhaust collector box is going to be the greatest challenge.

750 Motor Club, 20 July 2008

This has to be one of the best clubs for close racing and Sundays event did not disappoint. Redgate proved a challenge for many competitors with a number of cars taking a trip through the gravel - although no one got beached. As ever pictures will shortly be on the main website at Motorsport Images