ferguzzi

Oh typical, up to 5 days ago the plan was for me to head over to Van on Monday, for two weeks, so I'd have def. made the show. But, as the beaver says,the dam work's been building up, so I gotta stay home while the Mrs. gets to go over alone. Bugger.

Yes of course it would be rude to say marzochi bits are shite. Silly boy. And I've been to some of those biker bars you talk of, and it seems having an IQ over a hundred will get you into trouble anyway. Especially if you're not riding a harley ferguson, and truth be told that's one of the main things I dislike about them. In the end of the day, it shouldn't matter if your on an mz or a moto guzzi. I go with what Ogri says: "Any bike's a good'un".

Well, i suppose I should quantify what i said earlier. I've never ridden what I would consider a decent harley. Brakes are dire. suspension is not what I'm used to, but nothing particularly wrong with that. the big ones,ie electra glides, feel well dodgy when slow, unlike,say bmws. They break. a lot. Which , for a tractor, isn't really excusable. And I ride a guzzi! The whole imaga thing is a put off, and a lot of harley riders don't help their cause. Mostly, they are vastly underpowered. that's the bike. I don't know about the riders. Mind you.... Buells are a riot, but I think, ugly. would't stop me buying one, though. The newer non aircooled street rod jobbies are quite pretty, and apparently are not bad to ride, but i haven't had a go yet. Those xr thingies look quite cute, but I've never seen one. Anyway, where do you fit the tassles. During the summer,I spent a couple of weeks riding around the us midwest on an electra glide. God, I still have nightmares. Anyway, I stopped in a gas station in Tuba city, arizona, and went in to pay. A guy in the queue, noticed i was wearing my v11lemans.com t shirt, and follwed me out to the bike without saying anything. Then he started laughing. he was expecting me to hop on to something Italian, but wasn't at all impressed with what I was actually on. Can't say I blamed him. I explained, about it being a rental, and what my normal steed was. We chatted for about 5 minutes, and it turns out he'd had a collection of Italian and brit bikes over the years and still did.Then he hopped into his (very clean) soft top jag e type, and took off. I reckon he was in his 60's. The last thing he said was to get back on my guzzi as quickly as possible. I know what he meant.

I've tried lots, and their all shite. Was that a little rude?!

It's worse then that, they even wear protection for their faces now too! I played hurling when I was a kid, and a quarter of the kids in my class had no front teeth, for that very reason. My parents insisted I at least wore a helmet, and the closest we could get was a conoeing thing. That was 25 years ago. To be fair, it's a very exciting(and tough) game, fully amateur but taken very seriously, and it's also the fastest field game sport in the world. That why I wasn't going to mention it in the silly sports section. Personally I prefer Gaelic football, which is our other national sport, still 15 aside but no sticks, it's like rugby with a round ball, and it's where Aussie rules comes from.

Ah yes,cricket, a girl's game if ever there was one. I flew into Sydney a couple of weeks ago, and the air traffic controllers made a wise crack about how badly the English were doing. I w ork for a British airline, and they hadn't recognised the dulcet tones of my Irish accent. I simply mentioned that I knew nothing about cricket, but that the Irish had thrashed the Aussies in the rugby 32-15 the week before, and I was really looking forward to the world cup next year. Things got awful quiet after that....

I think this subject is getting a little more cuddly then originally intended, but here goes. I'm not actually a big greasy biker rocker dude all the time. like everyone else here. When I'm wearing my dork hat, I'm actually chairman of the alaskan malamute association of Ireland. This might sound incredibly impressive,(and rightly so!) but there's actually only 15 mals in the country, and we own two, Kody and Cara. There's about 200 in the uk, so all in all they're a fairly rare sight in these parts. I hate to admit it, but we even show the poor things, and are regulars at Crufts, the biggest dog show in the world, held in England every year. They are a difficult dog to own,For lots of the reasons you had with you're guy, and they are really closer to wolves then any other dog out there, but I reckon it's worth it. We're moving to the country soon and loath though I am to say it, there might even be a third in our future. And no, we don't have time for kids! I think this subject is getting a little more cuddly then originally intended, but here goes. I'm not actually a big greasy biker rocker dude all the time. like everyone else here. When I'm wearing my dork hat, I'm actually chairman of the alaskan malamute association of Ireland. This might sound incredibly impressive,(and rightly so!) but there's actually only 15 mals in the country, and we own two, Kody and Cara. There's about 200 in the uk, so all in all they're a fairly rare sight in these parts. I hate to admit it, but we even show the poor things, and are regulars at Crufts, the biggest dog show in the world, held in England every year. They are a difficult dog to own,For lots of the reasons you had with you're guy, and they are really closer to wolves then any other dog out there, but I reckon it's worth it. We're moving to the country soon and loath though I am to say it, there might even be a third in our future. And no, we don't have time for kids! I think this subject is getting a little more cuddly then originally intended, but here goes. I'm not actually a big greasy biker rocker dude all the time. like everyone else here. When I'm wearing my dork hat, I'm actually chairman of the alaskan malamute association of Ireland. This might sound incredibly impressive,(and rightly so!) but there's actually only 15 mals in the country, and we own two, Kody and Cara. There's about 200 in the uk, so all in all they're a fairly rare sight in these parts. I hate to admit it, but we even show the poor things, and are regulars at Crufts, the biggest dog show in the world, held in England every year. They are a difficult dog to own,For lots of the reasons you had with you're guy, and they are really closer to wolves then any other dog out there, but I reckon it's worth it. We're moving to the country soon and loath though I am to say it, there might even be a third in our future. And no, we don't have time for kids! I'm not really sure why my computer decided to repeat that 3 times, but obviously it was a point worth making! God I hate computers.

vw golf??? gimme a brake! Well done jaap. It's a 1981 gsx1100s Suzuki Katana. About when I started actually reading my brother's bike magazines, as oppose to looking at the cartoons and maybe admiring the scantily clad women, the fastest thing on the road was the Katana. I believe Laverda claimed more mph, but apparently their speedos were way optimistic. Anyway , the katana could do 140 in a straight line, and was overthrown in 1983 by, I think, the Kawa gpz900. Big bikes have always been a bit of a rarity in the republic, and I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the flesh until quite recently, in Vancouver. But I've always lusted after one, and now it seems I'll have room, why not? So thats 2 on my top 5 wishlist. And the only Jap. It's a start! my_Katana.doc

Yeah, that was a little difficult, even for a bunch of geniuses like yourselves. It is, shock, horror, japanese though...

In the spirit of things being bought (it's that time of year), I 've just got myself a new toy! We're moving house soon ,to a place in the country with room for more bikes, so I've just invested. It's not new. It's not Italian. (boo!) It was apparently designed by a German.... It's got 4 cylinders... It's a .........?

In an intesive test, it was discovered that the one armed section of moto guuzi engineering only took 10000 man hours to create a bike.

It's gonna be a funny one this year, as I'm on standby for May, so any thing could happen work wise. I'm determined to make the Irish rally, especially as I'm in the (very) slow process of moving house ,so it's all a bit up in ther air.(Aren't I hilarious..I'm a pilot, see...up in the air.. oh , forget it). I'm moving to county Clare, just a bit north of Limerick city so if anybody needs a reststop with a warm bed and cool beers,you're more then welcome. The Scottish trip I'll have to play by ear because I have no idea what I'll be doing. I didn't know about the unpleasantness last year. Seems a shame, as it was very good natured the year before.

I'll be flying on christmas night, so I'll keep a sharp eye out for corpulent old men with beards flying a sleigh. I'm spending the day in Bombay(oh, ok, Mumbai), with my better half. That's gonna be surreal. Then home on Stephen's day( that's boxing day to you heathens). Here's a thing. Irish people say "Happy Christmas" ,and not "merry Christmas". Does anyone else? Surely this must count as the vacuous question of the day. I'm obviously bored. And not even pissed. Yet.

I'm sitting here in front of my computer, trying to decide exactly how dumb would it be to phone a guy in the UK and buy his bike, when i'm in the middle of buying a new house, and selling my own. And as the nature of these things go, nothing is going smoothly! I'll not say what I'm getting yet though. Keep y'all in suspense.

God, alll this talk of avatars, so I had to get me my own. This better work. Let me introduce you to Kody, master of all he surveys, terror of all felines, semi-professional garden digger,terror of suburban Dublin, urine accurate to within 3 feet. He howls a lot too.

Bravo Antonio! Happy birthday, ye old buggers!

That's very cool. Thanks for the info.

It would be a shame to lose someone who was prepared to make educated, coherant, inteligent and mature comments on the real world. On the other hand, Lovers of that murederer Bush, people who think that a "war on terror" is actually possible (nevermind believable), and right wing flag wavers, should all be shot with balls of their own shite. Of course, I'm not pointing fingers. You see, I tend not to get too involved in the political stuff because I can't really type fast enough, and anyway I keep getting too much saliva on the computer screen. Shame we can't meet in a pub somewhere. Or maybe not....

just jeajousy of course. sad really!!!

Jeez, that's bad news, sorry to hear it, and get well soon. @#!#$# all use saying it, but I suppose it could have been worse. I might give you a private shout about some of your bits and pieces. cheers.

That's a very sad story,Crooz, and you have my sympathies. I'm trying to rack my brains to see if I've ever been in a similar situation, and I don't think I have. I've never served in combat, and unlike people like Martin Barrett, I'm not in the kind of job where that sort of situation can be almost routine. My Sister's a doctor, and she deals with death all the time. I don't know how she does it. Just a thought. After experiencing that, it's quite possible you may have been suffering slightly from shock.And without sounding too dramatic, you may now have a slight case of post traumatic stress disorder.So take it easy, have a beer, and maybe talk to someone about it. Don't give up the bikes though,I don't know of a better way off getting rid of stress, Cheers, Fergal.

I'm definetly, definetly ,definetly going this time.

Like that. As I'm sure would Cara and Kody, my two Alaskan Malamutes, if they weren't ,as I speak, in the back garden, howling they're heads off, and generally scaring the neighbours kids.

boy, that was confusing.

Umm, personally I'm voting for 1970. I might be missing something here.