25/05/05

Looks like it was the battery, Zed fired up immediately this morning, although when I stopped at work it was pissing coolant so I checked tonight and sure enough the bottle was well low. So maybe the lack of water for cooling the engine caused the battery to become overheated allowing some of the fluid to evaporate faster meaning the rest was cooked off in the battery? 

Dunno, but its working fine now so best just to thank my lucky stars and keep an eye on it.

Spammers are still having fun, still haven't found a way to track them. Annoying but at least now it doesn't appear on the site. Still, bit of a bummer.

24/05/05

Tuesday already. Been away for the weekend in Geneva. An interesting place to visit but not a whole lot to do. Was nice to have a break and overall the weather was pretty good. My feet are still killing me - not as used to walking so many miles as they used to be - and need to be for my forthcoming run.

Lots of spam in my guestbook, so glad I took the auto update offline for now. All comments posted are vetted now by me before being sent to the file. Its a shame but its not there to give free advertising/better search ratings/click throughs to anyone.

Had a look at the Zed's battery last night, looks dry so I have bought some ionised water today and it is right now charging up again. We think its just the battery, everything else seems to be doing its bit - fuel/sparks etc.

The brat is behaving pretty well, must be all this unusual attention. It'll get a shock once I've sorted this wee problem out though as the weather is getting better all the time.

17/05/05

It's like having kids really, owning bikes. I had Zed out both on Saturday and Sunday and although I noticed he was a tad sluggish to start on Sunday, nothing untoward. Monday - non-starter, having a bit of a sore head anyway and the weather looking pants I left the baby to sulk and took the brat to work. This morning, still nada so will have to have a play and try and figure out what's going on - or not in this case...

15/05/05pm

Well results at New Malden were pretty poor, assistance was given eventually when asked for, however given the length of time spent purposefully browsing and the number of staff hanging around it was fairly dismal. Needless to say... I didn't spend any money there,.

Good news though in the form of Race 1 results at Mondello, Ben came in ahead of Steve Plater at 13th, with Tristan running in 20th ahead of James Buckingham. Looks like good conditions over there, so fingers crossed for some more points in Race 2 and for Ollie and Aaron in the Superstock Championship.

15/05/05am

I'm going to have a little gripe here - bike shops... many bike shops can be incredibly sexist. If you go in as a couple they are right there to offer assistance in the hopes of making a sale. Go in alone, as a woman, and at many places unless you go and ask for assistance you will not be offered it. Now there could be more than one reason for this, many assistants in bike shops are male and they may feel a little hesitant in approaching a lone female... but that's being overly nice I think. I believe it boils down to simply that they anticipate a sale from the fellas and not from the girls. I visited 3 bike shops yesterday. In No 1 I spent a full 5 mins browsing before trying on a jacket, and was only offered assistance when I asked what other options they could offer me. No 2 ignored me completely even though I was there for getting on for 10 mins. No 3 came up trumps and whilst I didn't buy the boots I went in to look at, I did buy a pair of leather trousers and am considering a very expensive jacket.

No 3 was Heine Gericke in Purley. I must say at this point I have, in general, had a good experience with HG shops. Their branch in Welling was a regular haunt of mine because the staff (all of them) were so friendly and helpful. While HG may not be the cheapest around, their products are good quality and you do get good help and advice from the staff. My only concern with HG is that I know the assistants have sales targets to meet so I wonder occasionally how much they alter their advice to ensure a sale when needed.

I still need boots, so may well pop into J&S in New Malden today and see what kind of reception I get there. Their branch in Greenwich used to be very hit & miss - if you got the right person they were very helpful... if not, well you get the picture.

Having kept an eye on my Vivaldi boys it seems Ollie is best placed to pick up some fantastic points. He's bagged himself the 8th place on the grid, with teammate Aaron directly behind him, two rows back at 16th. Ben & Tristan seemed to struggle more in qualifying and are starting at 23rd & 25th respectively. Both lads are good at working their way forward quickly so I'm not too worried.

14/05/05

Popularity it seems, has it's price. My guestbook has been picked up by spam bots, dumping URLs (websites addresses) into it.. I've been searching the web for easy ways to stop it happening. There aren't many. I've put a long term solution in place which prevents search engines from seeing my guestbook -and, as the whole point of the spamming is to increase the number of links to these sites so that they are higher ranked on search engines, makes spamming me pointless as the engines can't see the links they place and so become useless.

Reading up on it shows what a huge problem it is. I found an article about a bloke who makes a mint from doing it - its so weird that you could make a living like that. It also shows that these people are not the mindless freaks that many people imagine, they are actually very clever, creating new code constantly to find new ways in and around various forms of protection. Its just a shame that they couldn't use their talents to a more constructive end.

Traveled to Peterborough on Thursday, strictly business - went to our other office. Spent a long time at 20 mph in first gear making my way round the M25, the usual accidents holding things up nicely. Coming home was much quicker and much faster although there was a strong side wind to contend with making passing high sides vehicles - and there were plenty - an exciting experience.

Took the Geep, or the Brat as I came up with on my way to work - the Zed being my beautiful baby, the Geep is definitely the less well behaved and not as pretty sibling - to work on Friday, to keep it in good working order. Need to get some prices from Chasbikes for some bits n bobs, including the new chain.

The Vivaldi boys are over the water this weekend for Round 5 at Mondello Park. Fingers crossed for highly places finishes for them all!

09/05/05

It was a 24mm and my local chap had it. Tightened the Geeps' chain that night - made a massive difference, still needs a new one but at least I can put it off for a bit longer now.

Its official - web stats are addictive! Saudi Arabia, Jamaica & Australia are among today's 188 hits. I just find it so fascinating how we have managed to make it so easy to reach around the world and communicate with every kind of people everywhere (if we so wish).

Got out on Sunday for a wee while - just a run out to Bury Hill with a few bods after meeting up at Box.

The weather is definitely heading the right way but is still cooler than it looks out there.

04/05/05

So 23mm I said... um, maybe not. Found me a 23mm socket from a wee shop near work - ordered it in for me especially. Doesn't fit. Guess it's a 24mm... oh well - least now I know where to go!

Just been looking at my website statistics - am a little taken aback... I average about a hundred hits a day - 10,693 in April. I'm a bit surprised at that. This week alone I've had visitors from Poland, from Portugal, the US and of course ol Blighty! This year I've had visitors from all over the world - Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Belgium, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, the UAE, Ukraine, Switzerland, Sweden, Morocco, Lebanon, Korea, Argentina, the Czech Republic...I really am surprised! "Girls on bikes" seems to be the search that brings most people here... guess most of them are guys then.

Well whoever you are, wherever you are: Welcome! I hope you stop by again soon.

later...

just found this whilst looking for correct tyre pressures for the Geep... made me laugh

	Overall Warnings:
	Motorcycle riding is an inherently dangerous activity that can result in serious injury or death. We recommend that you seek proper training and equipment before attempting this activity.

here's the link, there were some good tips in there and some funny ones!

02/05/05

And all too soon the weekend is over, even with the extra day. Can't seem to find a 23mm socket - odd size says Halfords, are you sure you measured it right, says Mikey. Yup, least I think so... so that's this weeks challenge in between work.

As we are one of the very few households left which do not have terrestrial or satellite TV we've had only net coverage of the BSB round. We did think about the pub and their big screens... however as usual some ball sport was center screen. It's rare I ever even think about watching something on the box, the last time being after the KillSpills rally in September last year, so it's not like its a big deal and certainly not like it would be worth paying an annual license and a subscription!

01/05/05

Finally got round to some bike maintenance; did the rear caliper on the ZZR, which wasn't too bad and didn't make as much difference as I'd hoped but more importantly did the front caliper on the Geep, which was horrendous with both dust seals forced out of the pot with a good 1/2 cm of salt encrusted around the pistons. Both pistons need replacing really but at least if I keep on top of them it'll be a start. Funny how I hadn't even noticed that the Geep only has one caliper and one brake disc... just goes to show what I look at when I buy a bike - still I AM a girl!

In spite of the efforts of Chasbikes the Geep retains its weird starting problems, to make matters worse the brake light has decided to stop working when the front brake is used. As I only ever brake with both or just the rear I'm not too worried but it'll have to work by MOT time.... does the list ever end?

Keeping an eye on the Vivaldi boys progress at Oulton Park, things don't really seem to be going their way this weekend. All my fingers and toes are crossed however and lets face it, the big day is tomorrow.

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Revised: 07 Jul 2012 11:45:20 .