A Story

[carvell]

There I was telling a lovely story about a ride today in IRC, when Mark chirps up:

22:58| (MarJay) Post stories on forum. Make interesting posts
22:58| (MarJay) make BCF not dull any more

I haven't derestricted my TZR, I don't want more speed out of my 50cc and I don't have a new CDI, I'm just going to tell a wee story!

I'm at Bath Uni at the moment, and a member of the motorcycle club. Thursday is our 'go out for a bean' day, where we just ride around back rounds and find a nice pub to have a few pints at. My bike is still sitting at home, so I generally go pillion, which is what I was doing today. We were riding around the country lanes, I was on the back of an FJR1200, we were hitting around 100mph, quite nippy! We were quite happily going along, came to a roundabout, turned right, and hardly anyone followed us, so we went back to see where everyone had got to. Someone we know pulled up alongside us, shouted "lou's binned it!". The rider just says "SHIT!" and executes a u-turn around a traffic island, I'm thinking "oh god he's gonna go bloody quick" and he did. Later he told me that we were taking country lanes at around 120mph - trees on country lanes move VERY fast at that speed.

We get to lou, my heart beating at 400bpm, after getting the FJR stuck in the mud and pulling it back out, we go over and see how she is. She is fine, standing up, talking, bike is up, sigh of relief! We check the bike over, clocks have been pushed back a long way and the front fairing is just generally bent about (the bike is an FZR). No visible damage to frame or anything vital, so that's ok. She took a corner a bit too quick and ran out of road, taking out one of the reflective markers as she went (which is now sitting in her room).

All of this is happening on a pretty blind corner, so traffic has to be negociated around us all as we bump started the bike up the road. It started fine, which is good. Now lou, understandibly, didn't want to ride the bike, she went in a car that was following us to the pub. I was the only extra person with a licence, so we did a bit of poking around and decided that I would ride the bros (650cc - powah!) of one of the more experianced guys, and he would ride the crash damaged bike.

We set off again, me on the bros, other guy on the fzr, riding quite quick to the nearest pub! The bros took a bit of getting used to, the gear change lever I had to literally lift my leg up and push down to change down, and pull my foot right off the peg to change up, and the clutch biting point was literally 1mm after moving it from touching the grip, but it was easy enough to get used to.

We get to the pub, have a few drinks and a laugh, me and the guy now riding the fzr head to someones garage to put the fzr away, then we both head back to Uni on the bros, "oh oh it's the bros squad!" being shouted as we arrived.

All in all, a fun, and lucky evening!
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Yamaha TDM 850