www.chuffster.co.uk

[Chuffster]

Hoorah, and fantastic - I have my SV back from Steve Jordan motorcycles and its as good as ready to turn a wheel or two in anger. It now sports an Arta exhaust system, which looks the part and sounds ok. It is a bit lower than the old hindle system, so the dodgy bracket I use to support the can has had to be lengthened. Personally, I don't like the mounting now, so I will have to work on getting something else to hold it all together. The bike now produces just shy of the 72 BHP it is allowed, its up virtually 2 BHP from last year, doesn't sound a lot, but I am sure that it will make a difference. I am now waiting for some exhaust bandage to turn up so that I can mount the fairing tight on the exhaust again, that hopefully will turn up this week. Once I know its all ready, I shall book some track time and go see what this thing is like again.

Unfortunately, due to a massive headache on Sunday morning, I never made it to Snetterton to watch the Bemsee club meet. When I finally got myself going, we decided to go round the corner to Brands Hatch and watch some club racing that was on there. I wanted to exercise the camera with its new lens, and hopefully find some good points to take snaps from around the indy circuit.

I arrived while warm up/qualifying was still running, just intime for the Lansdowne classics. Some very old bikes being put through their paces, lots and lots of noise, a great spectacle. The F2 sidecars were also out for the start of the British championship, some lovely looking outfits and some top racing entertainment. Shame they only had the one race. We also had Ducatti Desmodue A and B races, the KTM Bracken's, a lovely 21 lap race of 40 250 strokers, probably one of the best races of the day. There was an open race as well, for a cup, 4 races over the weekend and combined times counted. This was very fiercely competed at the front end, after 3 races there were only six seconds between the top 3 and everything to race for. It turned out to be a great days entertainment in the lovely sunshine. Brands was very quiet, so it was easy to get around and try taking pictures from different places.

On the Bandit front, life continues, despite its old age etc. The new head bearings have made a huge difference, not so sure about the forks though, they are way to solid and seem to cause braking issues now. I am going to return the bike to the garage and get them to check the work, I suspect that there is way too much fork oil in there. I have got a new set of bars to try as well, the princely sum of £1 secured them off ebay, so they will go on and I shall try them out.

The Ninja is back, and flying like it should. A few cosmetics still to do. I have ridden it 2 up a couple of times now. Pushing it that bit harder on Saturday, I discovered that it tank slaps, not very nice at the best of times, 2 up, even worse. Rode through it as you do, but chief was not so happy at the situation. I have shown her some of what the bike is capable of, and thats 2 up, now to get her out there and build her confidence.