Mr Wiggy

Check out the Side-Bike Zeus outfit. Peugeot EW-10 1.990 litre 4 cylinder motor with a modest 137BHP with a total cost of around 30000€ There is another neat outfit soon to be launched onto the market built by two of the worlds best chassis builders, Rolf Billand and Mike Krauser, very tasty.

Hi Dog. That sounds as though it could be the one, yes, I should have said the it is a Peugeot car engine and transmission and all the disc brakes are Peugeot too.

I have only seen one once and have been trying to find out about this marvelous piece of engineering, I beleive that it's made in either La Rochelle or La Roche sur Yon. Can anyone come up with the name of this machine? S.D.

Hi to all. In this modern day you would have thought that it would be possible for a manufacturer as big as Honda to produce a machine capable of both a reasonable MPG without the loss of too many horses, seem the only place a Hornet and others of this ilk should be used is on a race track. They would certainly be no good for endurance racing. To do any serious riding on these boy racer machines is going to be a drain on the old back pocket; I think that I will stick with my Flying Briquette, (BMW K75s) with its 21 litre tank that has a range of 200 mls. It may only be a sports tourer but it’s certainly P.D.Q enough for me and I certainly do not hang about.

Thanks Very much Cathy. This will certainly keep me busy for many an evening whilst quaffing a glass or two of Spritza. Mr W.

On a recent meeting with my bank manageress regarding the updating my insurances, mainly insurance for my credit card as I became the victim of a cloned bank card so health and house cover was also discussed, she asked if I had any environmental installation in my house i.e. Double Glazing, Insulation, which I have, she asked, “Had I anything else”? “No” said I “Basically because of the proximity of the church to my house, it’s less than the statutory 500Mtrs from the church, and I would like to install solar panels on my roof.” She then said something that came as a big surprise; she said that there are plans to rescind this piece of legislation. Has anyone heard of this being the case?

Hi to All, again. When I signed the contract to open an account with the Crédit Mutuel there was no mention on that contract or from the then manager of any insurance for my card, it was only when I spoke with the present manager that any mention of card insurance ever arose, he had asked me, “did I have any insurance for the card.” And that’s what put the fear of Jaker’s into me. Yesterday afternoon I had a phone call from a very good friend of mine all the way from the UK, and would you believe it but S.D. is on the ball even when he’s having a free ride on the footplate of a steam engine. He certainly put my mind to rest and reassured me that I had done everything correctly and was not liable as I had reported it to the bank and agreed to make a signed statement to the Gendarmerie. He has taken a load from my shoulders as understandably I was very concerned about this problem which not of my making, so a big thanks to Dave.

Hi All. I have recently been the victim of credit card cloning; despite having all the necessary security and using only secure sites for any purchases, yet still had my card cloned. Unfortunately it appears that I didn’t have the card insured and as a result, any payments that I receive are taken (stolen) by the bank to cover the losses incurred, which were over 3000€. I have also made a signed statement to the local Gendarmerie as is required but still feel persecuted by the bank. This has now left me feeling very angry at the banks attitude, as they have now placed me in the ridiculous state of being in a permanent overdraft situation. I also cannot understand why the bank allowed my overdraft limit to be exceeded many times over and not stop the card; I did question them about this but didn’t get a very good answer. Despite being the victim in this situation, I feel as though I am being treated as the perpetrator of this crime. If anything can be learned from this situation, it is make sure you have your card insured as I am now paying the price.

Hi Fellow Old git. I happened upon, Delcampe.fr it's a collector's site and has an abundance of cartes postale going back to the very early 1900s, and I am sure you will find something there. Hope this helps.

The Dominator Saga.   The Norton Villiers Triumph group, which also consisted of AJS and Matchless motor cycles ran into trouble in the 70s. The group was then taken over by the Manganese Bronze Holdings Company, from Coventry in the early 1980s. The only 2 surviving names are Triumph, now based at Hinckley and owned by John Bloor and of course as previously stated the Norton plant at Lichfield Staffs. I don’t know very much about Norton yet, but the name had always belonged to the above company, so No Honda do not own the name of Norton.

Norton is alive and well and being produced in small quantities at a small unit at Lichfield Staffs.

On a slightly different track, Several months ago in my Orange e-mail section, completely out of the blue, I started to have a cretinous little character pop  up and  inform me that I must identify myself before I am permitted access my private and personal e-mails. Now I am the sole user and owner of this computer, there is no-one else in the house only myself. How they have had the gall's to have installed this odious little character into my private e-mail section without my authority, just beggars belief. I have left messages on the technical section many many times, to no avail. Article 8 of the H.R.A. the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence. Respect is certainly not, being confronted by an idiotic dwarf telling you to identify yourself before you are allowed to read your own mail. No way Pedro.

I will probably get an ear wiging for this but, pop over to Ango-Info, they have a business list of all types so you should not have any problem sorting one out. Good hunting. 

I must completely agree with sid AGV are very good and if you are stuck you can download all the security you need at no charge.

Re Laverda Handling. In the late 70s I allowed my Moto- Guzzi 850T3 to participated in a tyre comparison testing session organised by Dunlop at the Moira test track. As it suggests, all makes of machines shod with different makes of tyres took part in the testing, my T3 was the only bike to have the Avon Road Runners fitted . Roger Slater had supplied Pete Davies Jota. When this monster was put on the test track I was fortunate enough to be in the pace car, a police spec 3.5 Rover complete with dual calibrated speedo's. The bike was incredibly fast down the straight 130+,  BUT every lap of the track as it came off the banking onto the straight it would go into an incredible tank slapper, from the pace car it looked incredibly scary.  My Guzzi on the other hand went around the curcuit at125mph as though on rails, this puzzled the technicians who though that it might be the tyres, so they asked if they could remove my Avons and fit a set of the new Red Arrows, I agreed with a proviso that I could keep my Avons, this they agreed so then quickly scrubbed the tyres put the wheel back on the bike and out they went again, to thier dismay the bike performed exactly as before, a   s though on rails. I ended up being the first owner of a machine shod with a set of 18 inch Dunlop Red Arrows. I did however have to give a progress report to Dunlop, after just 4 weeks I had completely worn out the rear tyre only 4000mls, 2 weeks later the front was then replaced at 6000mls.Durability rubbish but boy they were very sticky. I also recieved a letter from Comerfords the importers of the Ducati and Guzzi marques asking what I had done to make my T3 so quick? as it was actually clocked with my consent at an incredible 128mph and I was in the pace car to witness this speed.My reply the the importer's, I ranit in as per  instructions.

I have just seen that picture of a heavenly MACHINE, a pucka racing machine, No the chain is not slack as the bike is on a stand, therefore the shock is at full extent.

With reference to Big Macs KH 250 Kwaka, I’m showing my age a little now, I am guessing that the tyres in question that he was referring to are possibly the japannes answer to the Dunlop marque, the Bridgestones, the ultimate NON stick tyre ever manufactured in the early 70s, they would have been ideal for frying pans. These tyres where nothing short of being lethal, I did ride a bike fitted with these Bridgestones and believe me they were very scarey and this was in the dry, in the wet they were very dangerous. In fact some friends and I made up a song to the tune of the Teddy bears picnic, If you go out in the wet today your in for a big surprise, Bum Bum because that’s were you would end up, on your backside. These Bridgestones where the very first batch of tyres from this company and I believe that because of the bad publicity they had received, they were withdrawn from the market. In those days the road race fraternity used 100% rubber tyres and it’s only now within the last ten years that they have really started to experiment with the composite tyre.

Bit of a BONE SHAKER if you ask me!!

A Blunder, I said that I thought Metisse built a chassis for Mike the Bike’s Honda six, not true, it was actually Rob North who built the chassis for his Honda six and for all the works BSA and Triumph 3s for the Trasatlantic series.Rob is still building the replica 3s from his place in Calafornia.As for the best handling bike of that ilk, it has to be the Norton Feather bed.

The Metisse was probably the first of many marques built in the Uk in the mid-late sixties mainly for the road racing fraternity because the Honda’s and Yamaha’s racing chassis were made of rubber.Mike Halwood had a chassis built, but don’t quote me on this , by Don Rickman (Metisse) for his 500 six. Who still build the best chassis now for both sidecar and solo road racing ? The British.

The actions of this individual is nothing more than being competely wreckless and irisponsable, considering the fact that he has his son on the pillion. To put it in a nut shell, he’s bloody stupid ! !

Couldn’t really call it 100% original with all the modern H-T leads & plug cap’s, fuel & oil taps, and all the neoprene fuel pipes and jubilee hose clips.

I think that the majority of avid riders would, as a matter of course perform their own checks on their vehicles. It’s simply called preventive maintenance, and this I would imagine is what most responsible riders would automatically do. Even from a very early age I was trained in the principles of maintenance and have always maintained and built all of my own bikes although I’m not the best when it comes to cleaning them, (ask SD) but do know if something is not 100% and I think that is is a big part of the discussion, the accomplished rider would certainly know if things were not right and automatically correct the problem.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about, there have been diesel bikes for quite some time.There’s a guy in Coalvile Leicestshire,Charnwood Classic Restorations, an ex sidecar road racer who has been importing the Indian Enfield Bullet for close on 20 years, he then pulls out the Enfield engine an installs in it’s place a 350cc Hatz deisel engine, originally a stationary engine, they also have manufactured a five gallon tank for this machine. The performance is quite breath taking, max 9BHP @ 3.800 rpm 0-60 mph in 15 minutes with a max speed of 60 mph, on the plus side the fuel consumption is fantastic, it has a claimed 170 mpg. On the down side, it does suffer from terrible noise polution. A friend of mine, who is even after 40 odd years still a out and out Extrovert and an Extravagant Plonker, puchased one of these new machines in 2004 and the following year rode it from his home in Wedmore Somerset to here at my place and achieved 160 mpg with a riding time of 48 hours. Going out for a ride proved to be very embarrassing being anywhere near him you could see the people grimacing in pain with the noise, even his wife would keep her distance on her BM 850 gs and park away from him when stopped. Needless to say that machine is now hidden away in the back of his 3 (at the last count full of bikes) covered in a dust sheet.

I  believe this event was originally started by the B.M.C.C The Birmingham Motor Cycle Club originally known as the Birmingham Motor Car Clubs founder member, no less than Sir Herbert Austin of the Austin Motor Company. The guys from the Motor Cycle Club used to take the Kids from what used to be The Marston Green Mental Hospital for Summer day out to places like Drayton Manor Park in Tamworth, Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire, Great Billing aqua Drome in Northamptonshire, to name but three. .As the event grew the sidecar riders would come from all over europe and even a few Canadians and Americans would turn up to the event. unfortunately it became too successful and eventually was abandonded By the A.C.U as the cost of a police escort was proving to be very expensive.