I love bikes. I have ridden a bike for last 17 years. I ride into London to  work (30 miles each way) everyday as long as there is not snow on the ground. Here are some pictures of some of the bikes I have owned in that time together with some information about them. (Note: this is only from memory and not guaranteed to be accurate!)

Ducati 916 - sex on two wheels....absolutely gorgeous.

BMW K1100RT - Great weather protection, and anti-lock brakes :)

Harley-Davidson Sportster - A legend on two wheels, looks good, sounds better.

Any Triumph - Got to be a bit patriotic eh?

My brother had just bought a Yamaha RD350 YPVS, a real lightweight sports bike, with stunning performance. He foolishly let me have a brief ride. "Treat it gently, its a bit lively" he said...There is a piece of road not far from me, three quarters of a mile long, dead straight, little traffic. It has traffic lights at both ends. Gave it full throttle when lights changed, front wheel pawing air on each gear change up to fourth, reached an indicated 120 MPH before having to brake hard for lights at end of road. Turned it round and came home....."What do you think?" he said, "It's OK I replied"......

It was a winters evening in December 1982. My girlfriend (now my wife) and I had been Ten-Pin Bowling. When we came out of the bowling alley it was a full blown thunder storm. Huge crashes of thunder and lightning that lit up the area brighter than daylight. We waited for about fifteen minutes but it got no better so we decided to go for it. It was only about five miles home. We were less than half a mile from home. The final road before the one in which my wife's parents live is lined with trees. There were cars parked all along the left-hand side of the road. Another car turned in at the opposite end of the road and flashed his lights to let me through. I am not really sure what happened next, but my memory is of thinking "Where has the road gone?" and then hitting the brakes HARD. We then hit the tree!!! A very large tree had been struck by lightning less than 50 foot in front of me. It fell squarely across the road, through the roof and first floor of the house opposite. We picked ourselves up as people came rushing out of all the neighbouring houses. Amazingly no one was seriously hurt. We only suffered cuts and bruises, and the family in the house were all in the back room watching TV. The most serious casualty was my poor Suzuki GSX400, it never did go in a straight line again. It still gives me the creeps to drive down that road, and see the gap where the tree used to be. If we had waited two seconds outside the bowling alley, I don't think I would be typing this today.

On my way to work on 18 March 1997 the front wheel bearing on my GT550 decided that it had had enough of life and in a fit of rage tore itself into little pieces... The rest of the bike was not that happy with this and the resulting partially locked front wheel caused me to re-discover the joys of sliding down the road on my side. As the bike went down it also kindly decided to trap my right foot under it and drag me along with it and although the bike managed to avoid hitting anything other than the ground, I didn't. I hit the back of a van with my chest and head. Somehow through a combination of incredibly good luck and wearing the right protective gear (thanks Bellstaff), I managed to walk away from this incident with just bruising. The bike was not so lucky..Damn missed a good photo opportunity I'm afraid. Anyway my sincere thanks to Steve of L&S Motorcycles (Tel: Grays Thurrock (01375) 390910) who came out and collected the machine within 3 hours, and who managed to have it back on the road in 3 days.

If you have never ridden a reasonably powerful bike then it is totally impossible for you to understand just how fast they accelerate. The XJ900 is finally run-in and with some trepidation I let it have its head today..

Ok - this is how its goes......

Standstill.. Slip clutch at around 3000 rpm.. One second later the ref counter is burying itself into the redzone you are doing 50 mph and looking desperately for second. Prod the gear lever up a notch and the acceleration does not diminish it just get faster, around a second and a half later you are back at 9500 rpm with 75mph showing, another quick lift on the gear lever with your toe and you are in third, two seconds later you are looking for 4th and now travelling at over 100mph total elapsed time around 4.5 seconds.. and can I have my arms back please? This is where desecration got the better part of me.. and I just closed the throttle and shifted into  5th and let the speed drop off. And remember this is not an outright sports machine, they can get much quicker than this one!

Page last revised 21st April 1998