A BSA called Marge

By now quite a few of us will have been back into Brooklands. I’m very lucky in that I’ve stayed fit and well, and I’m not quite into the vulnerable age category, so I’ve taken advantage of what’s been on offer. As I said last week I did some gardening duties on the start – finish straight (hopefully that’s it for the year) and this week I attended one of the Volunteer Induction days. On the survey that was sent round I was enthusiastic about this approach and felt it was worth supporting the initiative as well as familiarising myself with the new set-up. We will all have views on the organisational upheavals that have taken place, often with sad consequences, but I have to say that all the staff I met with were extremely positive and helpful. For our Motor Cycle Team it must be in our best interests to do our best to help to make the museum re-opening successful as the alternatives are not good. From a simple self-interested point of view, a lot of emphasis seems to be placed...

A shorter one this week as I’ve been in at Brooklands, having managed to get myself onto the volunteer team this Wednesday. That was the fun bit. After the initial excitement of going back into the place, along with a dozen others, we were assigned the task of “weeding” the top half of the finish straight and the first part of the banking. Its probably a good way to examine the track surface and all I can say is that as we skid off on the loose gravel we can now all be confident that we won’t get green stains on our white overalls. I guess the good news is that they sound enthusiastic about running vehicles on the finish straight as a regular feature. Apart from us lot it was very quiet, but I did manage a sneak view into the Campbell Shed and everything looks in order. One thing I’m learning as I write this blog, is that being a bit full of myself one week often has the effect of coming back and biting me the next. Last week I went on about my procedure for changing tyres and...

I’m getting there slowly! I’ve run a lot of marathons in my time (my other passion) and can equate this last stage of the build with that feeling I always have in the last mile, flogging along the Thames Embankment with only the right turn into Parliament Square, up Birdcage Walk past St James’s Park and the sweeping right hand bend in front of Her Maj’s pad to get within sight of the finish. It always seems to take forever to get across that finish line. However, I’ve been able to list the last few jobs for Marge on a sticky note, a couple of missing parts to buy and hopefully…. I have been trying to get out on my other bikes a bit more regularly though, as I’ve got a nice safe route sorted, have filled my five gallon jerry can with Premium unleaded, and can head off to the Surrey Hills for an hour or two of social isolation. It was the BSA C15T’s turn a few weeks ago so you can imagine my horror when as the petrol went in the top, a drip – more than a drip to be honest – starte...

Last week I was still making up fabrications for the BSA and I’m not a lot further ahead at this point having had a few days away. Unfortunately, this also meant I couldn’t do the track day at Castle Coombe but looking at the weather outside I wasn’t too disappointed. My 60 th birthday present from Jane was a track day at Brands Hatch on my Ducati, and again it was cold and raining. They say it’s good for developing riding ability but give me dry and sunny any time. The Ducati being out of action at this time I had planned on taking my BMW Café Racer to Castle Coombe, so I’ll talk about that instead. My “day job” is running training courses for clients in the oil and gas business. Anyone else in this industry knows that when the oil price drops projects are put on hold and people are laid off, which is what happened in late 2015. I’m self-employed and went from being too busy to zero more or less overnight. My fill-in activity was working on bikes and if possible making a few ...