After a beautiful Good Friday, the rest of the Easter Weekend has proven itself to be a mix of sunshine and showers and the bikes have stayed firmly in the garage. Taking any opportunity to get some sort biking fix, I found a movie called Out of Nothing on my Amazon Prime service. On the cover is a man with a red helmet riding a stretched out Ducati across the Bonneville salt. I was immediately hooked and just had to watch it.

So this is the story of four men from the Pacific Northwest of the United States who venture down to the Bonneville Salt flats to ride their bikes as fast as they can. The premise really is that simple and the movie is wonderful. Its simply told and beautifully shot.
I was watching it knowing that these four guys, were my kind of people and they are no tinpot group of builders, far from it, these four guys are artists and its made me want to go to Bonneville even more. Not to race, just to watch, although I fear that if I go once, I may have to return each and every year afterwards....which could be expensive from over here in the UK.
I urge you to make just 90mins free in your day, hunt down the movie and watch it. Its motorcycling at its purest and its simply, brilliant. You won't be disappointed.

Good Friday, the sun was out and the Ducati is still in the back of a van. So, happy to drive, Carolina and I headed off the Horsham Piazza Italia first thing to enjoy a small piece of Italy in the South of England.
After a really pleasant drive through fairly empty streets we got to Horsham, parked the car and picked up some lovely food just in time to hear a gentleman introduce a variety of Ferraris to the audience. Personally, the Daytonas, Dinos and the early cars are, for me much more interesting than the early eighties and modern Ferraris. Yes they are lovely, but I never had a poster of one on my wall as a child so it doesn't quite resonate.
What I was there to see, however, were the bikes and the Ducati Owners Club GB did a great job of lining up some fine machinery, with four D16 Desmosedicis rattling the windows of nearby shops as they rolled into town. They really are something very special indeed.

It wasn't just about Ducatis though, although they were clearly the dominant bike on show. There were a few Moto Guzzis, some Laverdas, some MVs, Aprilias and a Benelli on show making up the numbers.

Last year was a bit of a bust for the bikes because the weather was pretty grim, but this year it was perfect. Not cold, not hot, just right. 
Once we'd looked at the bikes, Carolina and I wandered around the town, grabbed some food and she made me buy some bits for my kitchen. Oh well, can't buy new tools everyday, but in reality, today was pretty much perfect, even if I didn't ride over.

I had one of those days today. You know the one; it was that one when you're sat behind some hideous car that's belching out acrid diesel fumes on the way home and all you can think is 'I should have taken the bike'.
The forecast was okay and as I was only working two days this week, I was okay with taking the car to work this morning. It didn't help that I woke with a headache, which took half the morning to clear. Despite this, I still wished I'd taken the bike as the day turned out sunny, clear and reasonably warm. How annoying!
To make up for my lack of two wheel action, I booked myself onto the first of the four levels at the California Superbike School in May up at Silverstone. I've been wanting the do the courses for several years now, but funds had been against me beforehand. Not now, now I've made a point to spend the money as I know I'll get a lot out of it.
Last year I didn't get on track at all and I made a promise to myself to avenge that particular error as soon as I could. I'll be using the FireBlade and will need to hire a van to get me to Northamptonshire. To say I'm looking forward to it, is an understatement.

This is what a naughty, stubborn, misbehaving bi##h looks like! After all I've done for her as well. I've spent thousands on her, taken her to exotic locations, showered her with love, nice clothes and have made a continued point to ensure she drinks at only the finest establishments that sell the fine expensive stuff. And what do I get in response? I'll tell you what, a blunt refusal to do the simplest of tasks and to cap it off, when she does finally decide to wake up, she blows smoke out of her arse, putting the fear of god into me.
My Ducati and I really have a love/hate relationship at the moment. After a winter in the garage and a brief firing up and rumble around my cul-du-sac at the end of Jan or start of Feb (I can't quite remember), I went back into the garage to see if I could work out why I couldn't get the bike into an electric neutral. 
Some online forum suggestions were to look at the sensor on the back of the engine, but I can't get that out with the tools I have, which is a pain. Whilst I was there I wanted to possibly eliminate the sidestand switch as the culprit, which was another suggestion. So after four or five futile attempts at starting, it put it back on the trickle charger and phoned my buddies at Conquest again.
You may remember, Conquest had her for her rebuild last year and Howard has said he'll pick her up next week, which is great. After the call, I tried once again, sat on the bike, with the sidestand up and she started. Excellent I thought, at least she starts. This contentish feeling was very short lived as I could smell burning and there was white smoke coming from the underside of the bike. Not wanting an inferno directly under my house, I shut her down and had a look.
Thankfully there were no flames so emergency avoided. Now, I don't recall putting any ACF-50 or anti corrosion spray on, but I may have. I could be dust, which is unlikely as I had it under a cover all winter, but I wasn't going to hang around and find out.
I'll let the experts look at it next week, but there's no rush. The Ducati isn't my daily ride any more as that honour falls to the Blade. The only annoying thing is its more bloody money. Maybe I should rename her Ducati £10,098s moneypit and be done with it.
Bloody thing. If I didn't love her so much, I'd had kicked her to the kerb long ago.

Well, the moment so many have been waiting for arrived this weekend. Spring ladies and gentleman, Spring is here...well sort of. Although I didn't get the time to ride as I was out with my girlfriend, I did manage to get a few little jobs done on each bike.
After my Oxford battery charger pretty much ate itself, I picked up a CTEC comfort connector and rigged it up to the Ducati (the FireBlade already has one). With the left side panel already off the 1098s, it took me around ten mins all in. Bonus!

The second job was treating the FireBlade to a wash. After riding all winter without giving it a decent clean, the Blade was filthy. So in the sunshine, there was only one thing I could do. Out came the paddock stands, out came the Muc-Off and on went the hose.

In reality, despite looking nice and shiny, I really need to take the panels off and really scrub her down properly. You're probably asking why didn't I just do that to start with, well, the reason is mainly because its still March. The roads are far from what I'd call clean and there is still a strong possibility that there will still be sub zero nights, with the council spraying road salt everywhere. 
The 'decent' weather looks set to continue through the week though, so although not riding over the weekend, or today for that matter, a ride tomorrow is looking very likely at this point.

With 2016 moving along a quite a pace, we're coming to the end of the Winter. The evenings are getting lighter and the temperature is showing sporadic increases as Winter and Spring fight it out for bragging rights.
Despite the cold and often damp conditions, I've been trying to get out on the bike at least once a week to keep those 'cobwebs' at bay. There is still a real split within the community between those who ride in the winter and those who don't. As we get closer to double figure temperatures and salt free roads, social media chatter is filled with riders proclaiming how they are itching to get back on two wheels. I do get it, I really do. If you enjoy 'proper riding', then why would you want to poodle around getting cold and wet, covering the bike in various levels of road grime? Look, my Ducati is still in the garage under a cover, waiting for the warm weather, so I understand.
Me, I just like riding and I don't care if its cold and wet. As they saying goes 'There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.' Okay, the saying may not actually exist, but you know what I'm getting at.
So with no actual cobwebs to blow away, I was back on the bike yesterday and if I thought that Monday's riding was good, yesterday's was brilliant. To start with though, I have to briefly go back to Wednesday when I was in the car heading to work. The overhead gantry stated the M3 was shut, probably for overnight roadworks, so I turned off and took the A31 to Guildford instead. The road was empty and I got to work quicker than I would do normally. So fast forward again to Thursday and I knew I wanted to take the bike that way instead. 
The morning was chilly, but dry and sunny and the Blade felt great underneath me. With a route filled with fast bends on pretty bumpy tarmac, interspersed with roundabouts, towns and villages, the route was far more interesting than the drudge up the motorway. For the route home I went back to the A29, A272, which is always a great ride. The section on the A272 between Billingshurst and Petworth is possibly my favourite bit of road at the moment.
So after a winter of riding the 'Blade really looks like I've dropped it in a river. It's filthy. I've made the effort to spray her down with the hose when I got home, but all that's really done is remove the loose dirt on the surface. 
She may be dirty, but this winter, she's been as good as gold and I couldn't have wanted a different bike. Lets all give this little 954 a big round of applause. She deserves it.