I ♥ Wiltshire

Saturday afternoon blat down the fields with my 17 year old nephew to blow the cobwebs out of my CCM in eager anticipation of Rye House (yesterday - which was fantastic). I rode his classic CG125. Frustratingly the law states that now he has passed his test, he will have to wait until he is 19 until he can get a big bike. BP

Dell'Ortos Suck

(in a good way). After a complete carb strip, petrol tank tap off for a de-gunk, and fresh fuel, my CCM now starts as it should, just on the choke. Once warmed up, choke off, the engine runs smoothly through the rev range without coughing. Sweet music.

Stripping the PHM is straightforward, mine is a 40 'ZS1' with no pumper (Dell'Ortos mechanical injector, that my Guzzi, and most older Ducati's, do have - normally sits where the primitive riveted banking plate is).

On the top, there is a mystery tab with the number R-4938 stamped on it. Corsa Italiana raced the bike in its former life as a Supermotard in the '00s, before switching to the much faster Vertemati. Maybe it relates to re-jetting?

Hefty arthritis inducing spring.

Needle is clipped on its lowest of four notches (so sits higher in the bore and gives more fuel). 55 choke jet (45 as standard) cleaned with a fine sewing needle - now with added dayglo cocktail flag so I can add it to my surgical tool kit.

32 idle jet (standard 45 - not sure why one would down-size on that). A very fine hole that only a single strand of copper-core electrical wire was small enough to poke clear. 198 main jet (195 standard).

Also new to my arsenal, kinky Vynatrile gloves. Don't suffer all those nasty chemicals and cruddy nails anymore.
Later today, I'll take the bike to my Mum's farm for a proper shake-down blasting up the rough driveway. BP

Creature From The Black Lagoon

Propping up my shed under a sheet of corrugated plastic with a flower pot capping the end of the silencer was just a quick storage solution for my CCM after last years Dirt Quake. I had hosed off most of the quagmire mud, but I certainly didn't plan to abandon it it for over a year, otherwise I would have at least taken the battery off and drained the fuel - and cocooned it a little better.
Over the weekend I dragged it out of its dank nest in preparation for riding in the last DTRA race of the season, at Rye House this Sunday. It was a sorry cobwebby state. I put the battery on charge but wasn't it expecting it to start. It didn't. It pissed out rain water from the headers. Never a good sign. Taking the plug out and kicking it over produced a proper spurt of water. An even worse sign.

With some transparent rubber hose gaffer tapped to the household Henry hoover, I sucked out a cup-full of water. At least it wasn't rusty water and the engine didn't have any problem turning over with the kicker. But then I heard the echo of waves. Never a good sign. There was even more water in the exhaust. Murky. It's not true that stainless steel doesn't rust.

I'm using a car-type BOSCH starter solenoid instead of the original Denso one, and with a brand new battery the starter was spinning up fine and the engine would fire-up for a second on full choke, no throttle, but then die, as if the main jet was blocked - but normally it runs happily from cold just on the choke, so that doesn't tally. So I cheated and bought some highly flammable Easy Start from Millards the local automotive shop. Sprayed liberally onto the air filter, it did get the engine running on the throttle, but doesn't really solve the problem....

I had already cleaned the float bowl of green gunk, carb filter mesh of pigeon's bogies, and washed the foam air filter of brown toffee,

- oh and there was a Kinder Egg Fantasy ghost (missing his badminton racquet and small section of beach shown here) hiding in the airbox. I suspected problems further afield so sought higher intelligence...

Spent an hour on the phone with Capt Simon. Who updated me on the evils of modern fuel, whose shortcomings include very short shelf life of 6 weeks (i.e. not a year and a half); very aggressively corrosive chemicals; separation of constituent ingredients creating varnish like gummy residues; water absorption - to the point it's no longer combustible. So tomorrow I will chuck the remaining fuel in the tank and properly strip the Dell'Orto. BP

Gladiators - Amman Valley report 1)

Or was it more 'It's a Knockout'? either way the new Novice Class on only it's second outing was no country amble, especially as all racing on Saturday was rained off, come sunny Sunday we were chomping at the bit. I'd made a point of gentlemanly shaking Jamie's hand at riders briefing in case he didn't realize my dashboard mounted 9 Iron golf club was only a childs plastic toy. But from the off, sparks were flying. Even with only eight riders instead of the big boy's grids of 12, the corners were a ruck. Places were shuffled from start to finish.That's Jason Ramsden out front, who borrowed Skooter Farm Dave's #31 bike, racing for the first time. Cool to the end and effortlessly stole the 3rd place trophy from me. That's not inflatable leathers I'm wearing, I just took a deep breath at the start and held it until the finish. Photo courtesy Team Full Lock or Death.At one point I made a heroic round-the-outside move from 4th to 1st, made some space, only to lose it all to a pathetic low-side crash on the next lap. Jamie on full gas kamikaze mission had also nose dived into the dirt and as he hadn't done his morning yoga as recommended, his foot was unable to sustain a 180˚ back twist and broke. BP

1st Stuart Lovell.........Suzuki CCM
2nd Steve Lane..........Suzuki CCM
3rd Jason Ramsden...Rotax
4th Ben Part.............Rotax CCM
5th Drogo Michie.....Vertimatti
6th Jamie Croyden...XR600 Honda
7th Billy Bull............?
8th Adam Waller......?

Valley Violence!

The Daily Mail is predicting trouble in the valleys tomorrow...
Hey Ben,
Thought I'd better warn you, The Bastard saw your blog about it being uglier than a crack fox and it's out for revenge...
See you in Wales! ;)
Jamie #29Well my friend, let me tell you I will probably be sleeping in my car again (my urine will be carefully bottled for you to sample), and will wake up angry. No amount of yoga will prepare you for the knots I am going to tie you in.
BP #67

Rock Hard

Levering on new tyres on at 9 o'clock at night in the pitch black (I mean even owls were flying into trees black) in the pits at Amann Valley last year was tricky, but successful. Then pumping them up with Dickie CoBuilt's cigarette-lighter powered pump was a laugh; especially because of the pathetic comedy suck-blow-rattle it made, was also successful. But come day break, it turned out that the tyre bead hadn't popped out onto the rim. So I rode the bike illegally to the nearest garage, but it was a Sunday and they weren't open, and there was no airline lying around. Anyway what the hell, it doesn't matter if the tyres are all wonky, the track is all wonky anyway right? And I never bothered sorting them for my few remaining race meets.

But seeing as this week I've been trying to get the bike slightly more race worthy (the rear sub-frame is still cock-eyed after crashing at Stoke), I decided to take the loose wheels down to my local friendly Texaco. They are the only garage I have come across that has a
free air-line, so you can inflate and deflate until the mission is accomplished. Even charged with washing-up liquid I still had to pump the bastards up to 80psi / 5.5 Bar before they seated properly, then letting them back down to 28psi / 1.9Bar, which is still too hard, but I'll wait until I'm trackside before dropping them further to ± 18psi /1.24 Bar. BP

Chasing Daylight

As my shed is still electricity-less, I wheeled the CCM out into the garden to catch a few more minutes of daylight to work by. Apparently some bright spark has invented something called an e-x-t-e-n-s-i-o-n-
c-o-r-d but it all sounds a bit high tech. After much swearing and pacing up and down, it turns out my starter solenoid is shot (the small gold, pot-like thing, ripped out from inside the air-box in the photo - this stage is with half of the spaggetti ripped out of the standard road-bike loom). Sods law, it was the last thing I checked having bought a new battery, stripped down the starter motor and ripped out a few unemployed wires.
Once it was pitch black and holding a torch in my mouth was causing me to dribble to much, I pushed the bike up to the house to work by the back door light. Only problem being it's also right next to the exhaust from the central heating boiler so I had to hold my breath each time it wafted out a big cloud of carbon-monoxide. Come 10 o'clock, and having pruned the dead wood right back - Alan Titchmarsh would be very proud of me, all was in order. I still need a new solenoid but Anthony CoBuilt has a used spare for me - they cost more than £100 new! I might just be ready for Sunday's race at Rye House. BP

How Low Can You Go?

Or Long?! Sadly missed a chance to practice at Rye House yesterday, but decided to have a concerted fiddle to make-up. The neglect is embarrassing (that's not rust on the chain its red clay from my last outing). Meant to give my conversion project some lovin' over the winter but it didn't happen. CCM added a long swing arm to their Supermotard to give it better road manners, but it's not ideal for hooking it up on the dirt. What's more the way the WP monoshock is mounted with a fat brace just in front of the rear tyre means this swing arm can't really be shortend.As for the ride height (ignoring the sky scraping rear sub-frame), The WP shock is 34cm between the eyes so taking it off and using a trolley-jack I lowered the bike to see what it could be dropped to. Anybody know what shorter shock might fit? At 32cm (as in the top photo) both swing-arm and engine are a similar angle of dangle to Guy's new CoBuilt - but consequently the front forks have increased rake which aint good. BP

Rye House practice

Thanks to Mike Ryan for organizing another Rye House practice on Friday - and fixing the weather.
Had to jump-start my CCM off my Citroën as although the battery was reading 12 volts it wasn't getting through the wiring loom due to the earth cable which is just too poxy and had partially burnt through. Thanks to Steve Red Max and Anthony Co Built for making up for my lack of brain cells. Went for a spin on Rollerball Stevie's frisky Honda CRF450. It's like taking a 19 year old out on the razz. Guy's EXC KTM is very do-able too; made my CCM seem like an Austin Allegro. But honor of honors, tried Steve's mighty H-D XR750. It's as Sherman tank-like as I thought it would be, with as much GRUNT at any revs. On such a short circuit you can just pull off in 2nd keep it there riding straight through/over any obstacles/countries that may get in your way. I kept it rubber side down but Steve binned it on the last session - hope you get it patched up for Sunday's racing mate. BP

CALLING ALL LONDONITES THIS IS THE CLOSEST CIRCUIT
TO LONDON (±50 MINUTES) COME AND HAVE A GANDER!
RACING STARTS AT 1PM

UPDATE:
My middle-aged body takes a few days if not weeks to recover after such exertions, but this time I felt completely fine and flexy. Until the day after, when already having unloaded the bike from my car some hours earlier, I mysteriously put my back out with excruciating consequences. Now I'm on a Dr's prescription cocktail of Diazepam (fabled by the Happy Mondays) and Codeine. Sprinkled with a little Space Dust (which is now called Fizz Wiz due to a fear it would be associated with Angel Dust by school children) I now feel ready to steal the Short Track UK title having come last in every race entered so far - if I don't fall asleep before I cross the finishing line. BP

Right, I'm warning you

Seeing this photo of Ben and Steve teaching the CCM a lesson, and Skooter Farm Dave waiting to get in on the action with the 6ft scaffold pole, reminds me of this clip below.

I have a bunch more photos from Stoke coming soon. GI

Man Overboard!

Stoke, Thunderbike heat-race 1, lap 2, turn 2, BAM! The tea & crumpet went flying. Not one of those slow motion crashes you can analyze as your body floats through the air before the uncomfortable contortion and crunch to follow, but a instantaneous low-side slap, with the bike then flipping over to cause further damage. Bent rear sub-frame and silencer, throttle and clutch lever sheered off. But no body parts broken. Jackie had my new official shatter-proof number board at the ready, and with thanks to some New Delhi back street engineering in the pits, we somehow managed to get the bike bent back into a rideable state just in time for my next heat-race.Skooter Farm's senior management gets busy with a scaffold pole stuffed in the silencer to straighten out the mullered back-end.

Unlike the very professional Chippy Wood I am unable to multi-task on such days; racing and taking photos, so we will update with readers photos as they come in. It was a great days racing. BP

#67R

It's official. My ACU racing license came through today. New, olde style, AMA number plates are on back order with Red Max Speed Shop, in the mean time a melamine tea tray from Oxfam will do just fine. BP

CCM tracker up-date

After much umm'ing and ahh'ing, I've decided on a Seeley Commando Mk3 hump from Ragged', for my on-going CCM tracker conversion - I basically don't want an XR750 look-a-likey body kit. It's going to need some customizing to mate nicely with my Sprite tank. Chunky arse with rounded tank combination sounds all wrong, but I figure it works suprisingly well on the Seeley, so why not suck it and see? BP.A Seeley Commando earlier today.

The First Cut

The 7 liter CCM petrol tank (the black thing bellow) has to be the most hideous vessel ever to grace a motorcycle, it looks like a Stealth bomber that ate a few too many donuts. So the tunnel section of the svelte Sprite tank above, was cut out with a Makita fitted with an extra thin disc meant for cutting stainless steel, so as not to make too much evil dust (a pro would use a smaller disc on an air powered grinder). Actually the whole of the bottom section needed to come out to make it fit on the oil-in-frame CCM top tube, even then it's going to need widening by 2cm otherwise there will be just no fuel capacity. Finally it should be sitting a little lower than in the bottom photo, but it's always a knock-on effect, as then the oil filler will look like a snorkel and need cutting shorter too. BP

Sex Change

Work in progress ideas for my CCM. BP

UPDATE: Mick Jansen of the Dutch-Brothers team, suggested I might want to take about a meter out of the hill-climb style swing-arm. (CCM made them this length to stop their wheelie tendency at highstreet traffic lights).

Euro Trash

No embarrassing 'action' photos have yet surfaced in the media, but here are a few statics of the CCM complete. A heinous creature at this stage before it goes for a full sex change when time and funds permit, but it does go and it is fun. As GI has pointed out, the arse in the sky back-end is probably more just a matter of modifying the rear sub-frame rather than the need for any radical suspension changes.
No modifications to the machine will make it faster, only my ball size is holding me back. Thanks to all those who held my hand at Ammanford. BP
NB above photo is a deceptive as there is a tie-down inbetween axle and handlebar, squashing the front end to get it in the car

Go Pony

No show pony. Lee Peck of the extended CoBuilt clan, has done an amazing job making up one-off axles in EN24T steel + one-off ali spacers and external over-size bearing carriers for my BMW snowflake wheels. Followed by a one-off stem to mate Yamaha R6 Forks to Anthony designed Mk2 CoBuilt yokes. And all at a lightning turn-around of just 3 days. Lanyard will be fitted tomorrow, and cast-off tyres from GI trackside in Wales. Ride 'em cowboy. BP

CoBuilt The Inner Sanctum

Like not so many before me, I was honored to gain access to Anthony's lair yesterday. But not only that, after a few further secret handshakes, I was introduced to other members of the CoBuilt ring who all have their part to play in completing the jigsaw of trackerizing my CCM. I'd bought Jake Bowie along as technical translator, so that when they started speaking in tongues, he could explain using simple words, and finger paintings.
When the machinist who is making your wheel spindles also makes machine guns for Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, it's probably better not to argue over the price.To complete the induction, Anthony also recommended that we go introduce ourselves to Cecile as she just so happens to live in the next village to Jake. A retired lady motorhead. When we rolled up unannounced in matching sombreros, she was cleaning her Norton 500T with a toothbrush in the garden and immediately offered us tea. It was the bike she learnt to ride on and had obviously seen action in a few wars.In conversation I mentioned that I was looking for a British peanut tank (ideally a Norton HiRider/SS), whereupon her son dug out a 1967 Sprite trails tank from their Aladdin's cave of side-car oddities. The top-rail tunnel is way to narrow for the square section oil-in-frame of the CCM but the external shape and size is perfect. And so here's to yet more modification. BP