Oh oh, it's second childhood time again

Sensual or sensuous? My dictionary distinguishes. The more common sensual carries “overtones of sexual desire and pleasure”, the more neutral sensuous covers an appeal “to the senses but without the feeling of self-indulgence and sexiness”. My personal mnemonic will now be a Guardian reader and a Daily Mail reader.

So let’s have examples. Sensual taste (boiled bacon with parsley sauce), smell (Wright’s Coal Tar Soap), sound (Kirsty Young saying anything), touch (my fake silk – but uncrushable – shirt from Exact Tailoring Services), sight (Port Underwood, NZ South Island, at dawn).

We’re missing one sense: movement, not seen but experienced. Alas it’s not available to all, regarded as too terrifying, too vulgar, too laddish. But motorbike riding is right up there. For those who have only driven cars there is a comparative metaphor which, I fear, hinges on birth control methods.

Steering a car is banal: turn the wheel left and you go left, fumble that stick thing and the gearbox responds – in its own good time. With a bike, steering is closer to thinking: in both meanings of the word (ie, leaning and tending to) you incline yourself towards passage through a corner. The foot flicks, the gears change. More speed? You’ve got it. You’re part of cold, real nature. There’s risk and perhaps foolishness; but have you never willingly made a fool of yourself? Definitely sensual.

PUZZLE On November 5 I mentioned a TV programme in which a beautiful woman analysed self-portraits by famous artists. The woman’s beauty proved integral to the programme and I explored this, clumsily, badly. The title of the post was obscure and there were five comments, one of them mine. Stats reveal this has since attracted 43 pageviews. What’s going on out there?

A cold-weather pot-pourri

PROFESSIONALISM Members of Mrs BB’s painting group are concerned about her eye op. One is visiting us this morning “elevenish” and as I left to pick up the paper Mrs BB had started making little cakes. Such casualness

CLICHÉ STUFF The forecasts were gloomy last night: hard frost. It was mild and sunny when I set off for the paper, cold and windy when I returned. The walk lasts six minutes.

BABBLE Deafness. The problem is distinguishing what people are saying against a noisy background. The supermarket check-out for instance.

VALUE Currently the best quality bargains in French wine (ie, in the £8 - £12 bracket) are Coteaux du Languedoc AC. Of those look for villages with their own AC, especially Montpeyroux. Also Faugères and Picpoul de Pinet.

HORRIBLE The first motorbike I owned was a 125 cc BSA Bantam (see pic). Wretched. Note lack of rear suspension and pillion seat - but then it further lacked the power to tote two people.

DQ I’m 48 pages from finishing the 760-page Don Quixote. Would I recommend it? Yes, and for the same reasons I would recommend that every male youth in the UK does military National Service. Now I’ve done mine.

BROS K Plutarch suggested I read The Brothers Karamazov so I’ve bought a second-hand copy via ABE Books. It’s 985 pages. In the past I’ve made three attempts, the most recent failing at page 150.

LONG WAIT I am replacing my car with another of the same make and model. The waiting list was initially three months. Now it’s twenty-two weeks. Various reasons for the delay are offered: rarity of DSG automatic gearboxes and (the much more likely) rarity of RHD.

Why was he born at all?

I’ve had four near-death experiences. Technology was significant in three; absence of technology caused the fourth.
CLOSE KISS ONE Aged six or seven, I caught meningitis. Previously it would have been the Kiss of Death or being left as a vegetable, preferably not an aubergine. Luckily M&B sulfanilamide had just been invented and I lived on, my mental capacities only slightly diminished. Before, I was on course to be a genius.
CLOSE KISS TWO Unable to cure my athlete’s foot, the RAF flew me back from Singapore to Blighty as a CASEVAC (casualty evacuation). We took off in heavy rain from Negombo in what was then Ceylon. At a point close to no-return the pilot knew we weren’t going to make it and slammed on the brakes. The jungle loomed. This was 1957 when planes crashed a lot.
CLOSE KISS THREE Riding my motorbike down a steep hill, with the whole of my LP collection stuffed in the front of my raincoat, I met a car (the make of which I shamefully cannot recall) across the road, hit it amidships, somersaulted over the top, and not an LP was scratched.
CLOSE KISS FOUR I embarked on a solo ascent of a route called Fairy Steps (rated Very Difficult) which I had climbed before. A flake of rock weighing perhaps a ton and which had supported many other climbers over decades, broke off, broke in two and fell with my unroped body into a narrow gulley to form a Bonden sandwich.

OBSERVATIONS (1) No previous-life flashes. (2) No curses. (3) No Arghhhh. (4) I was being saved to write this blog.

PS: My brother, having read this post, sent me a photo of the Fairy Steps climb before the I unwittingly modified the route.

Saving bikers and my pocket

Back from the Peak District national park where they have a problem. On the narrow curvaceous roads motorbike riders have the life expectancy of a second-lieutenant in WW1. To ram this home accident spots are flagged with yellow Biker Crash Zone notices (in one case a mere 15 m apart), reinforced with others saying, typically, “39 bike riders have been killed or injured on this road”. Turn off that road and another notice announces that 22 riders have been turned into mince on the new road.

Very laudable. Bikers are more sinned against than sinning and always come off worst in a car/bike symbiosis. Regard them as a threatened species. But there are limits. When it doesn’t rain the Peak District is beautiful if austere territory. The frequency of these proclamations detracts from what one sees. Of course the scenery could become so yellow-spotted bikers won’t be tempted to go there.

TOO MUCH, I SAY Following a post about the irritations – financial and dermatological – of shaving, Avus put me right and I shall continue with the swivel-head Bic he recommended. However, in a gesture parallel to Christ being tempted by the Devil, my daughter bought me, inter alia, a Gillette Fusion Power for my birthday. This not only has a five-blade head and a trimmer for the bit under my nose but is also battery powered so that it jiggles across my face.

It has one big advantage – it requires almost no pressure and I finish shaving without feeling flayed. But I shall eventually discard it. The blades cost £2.40 each! I do not – could not – love my face that much.

An ageist bike and a new mag

I drive an old man’s car – ie, with an automatic gearbox. However it is a car for old men who appreciate technology. The auto-box is light-years away from the power-hungry “slush pumps” of yesteryear and incorporates two conventional clutches which ensure very speedy changes up and down the six gears. If I flick the lever sideways I can change (and hold) gears manually, useful when travelling down steep winding roads.

Amazingly Honda now offer such a box for their heavier touring bikes. I admire Honda but this may be a step too far. An important feature of bike-riding, apart from a willingness to fall off every now and then, is the speed and ease with which one can change gear. A veritably sensual experience which even old men should not be denied. I foresee a mouth-foaming reaction from one biker who isn’t even old – Avus, are you there?

NEW TITLE Wired is a successful American magazine devoted to technology (plus Ideas, Culture, Business, according to the strapline). Now there’s a UK edition which, most recently, tests slim laptops, the ultimate chair, and “lawn mowers vs. sheep”. Major features include the search for dark matter, the physics of skateboarding, trials riding and free running, and an explanation of synthetic biology. Another major feature – which I avoided – explored Richard Branson’s greenness.

I like it because it slots in underneath pure science for which I lack the education. But I worry about its sustainability. The emphasis is cutting edge and I’m not sure there’s enough of that to go around. I hope it doesn’t lurch into history or repetition. A Christmas present?

Welcome to an alien world

I pondered treating this subject in verse because of the wonder.

This a 200 bhp Kawasaki ZX14 bike engine. Not a cutaway drawing but a photograph of an engine where metal has been removed to expose the innards. Cutaways have had a powerful, almost mystical, effect on me ever since childhood. Sounds pretentiously goofy, but just reflect.

Dismantling a mechanical device does not really reveal its secrets. One ends up with parts; the relationships between them are lost. But cutting down like this takes you into places where a human being has no right to be. Inside the cylinder head where temperatures may exceed 600 deg C. Down into the crankcase where the shaft rotates a hundred times a second. And a ringside view of how the shaft's rotation is converted into an up-and-down action to open and close the valves.

OK, none of these things will happen because of the surgery inflicted on this engine. But they're only an imaginary step away. Roller bearings, for instance, even out loads and reduce friction, preventing the engine from destroying itself. On their own they are simple, unexceptional metal cylinders. On a cutaway engine, however, I may see and touch them, set in their cages, their function obvious.

This little world is compact, purposeful, precise and shorn of unnecessary detail. Engines themselves are commonplace but their function is a series of interlinked actions that to a lay person are - or should be - minor miracles. And the cutaway allows us to look into this world as it is. It's not magic, it's real!

Calling all aesthetes

Been swimming in uncharted water. Poetry is undoubtedly exhilarating but I’m returning for an inflatable life jacket. By which I’m assuming my role as John the Baptist for metal things, for operating systems, for power tools and for the unconsidered technical minutiae of the kitchen. With Avus drinking tinnies in Western Australia I am resurrecting a subject certain to generate a blogwide storm of apathy. Motorbikes.

Except they’re only the jumping-off point. The game is really aesthetics and started with a TV commercial. I am not a lover of these noisy intrusions and since 1984, when I first acquired a remote control, I have always pressed the Mute button when they appear. But there is no button to suppress, temporarily, the images.

In a lengthy commercial charting Honda’s contributions to powered travel a tantalising five or six seconds show a close-up of a Honda racing bike (ca. 1967) followed by a helicopter shot of that bike at speed on a dead-straight road flanked on both sides by lethal trees. My mind clicked up: “racing bike” and “beauty”.

Above is champion racer Jim Redman aboard a six-cylinder Honda 250 cc machine. The thrill for me lies in the sinuous side view of the fairing which starts at the transparent top forming Jim’s “windscreen”, draws backward awhile, rushes forward to accommodate the tips of the handlebars and then sweeps majestically back again – a curve that achingly proclaims velocity – to be unsatisfactorily resolved in two straight bits accommodating Jim’s knees and feet. No other bike has ever quite duplicated this line of beauty. Just thought you’d like to know.

Casters - as under your old armchair

ONLY FOR OUT-AND-OUT NERDISTS. It was like meeting someone who normally wears a uniform now dressed in mufti; or a West Riding troglodyte walking down Regent Street. The mind was forced to change gear.

World economics suggest I should stick with my present car rather than replace it. But it will shortly be three years old which means an MOT, or examination of roadworthiness. I knew the tyres needed renewing since they were original and had done a remarkable 26,000 miles. Irregular wear at the front showed the wheels were misaligned so this needed doing.

The tyre guy gave me a printout of the work, adding that caster angle was marginally out of whack. Caster angle? I knew about tracking, about toe-in and about camber angle. But caster angle seemed both alien and familiar. It took me over a minute to work it out. With cars the caster angle of the wheel is a comparatively minor matter; with bikes (powered and pedalled) it’s crucial.

This chopper has an extreme caster angle. The forks reach so far forward there’s daylight between the front wheel and the engine. It wouldn’t be pleasant to steer such a bike but it would be even worse steering a two-wheeler (especially a pedal bike) with close to zero caster angle, where the forks are almost vertical. Talk about twitchy; the bike has a mind of its own.

The moral? Car drivers can forget about caster angle. Bike riders know all about it. QED.

Names that bypassed the experience

Only Avus and, perhaps, Plutarch will find any pork scratchings here. Everyone else can take the afternoon off.

The bike is a Matchless twin, circ. 1960. By then Matchless and AJS bikes were “badge engineered” (ie, identical hardware, different labels, the aim being to preserve two marques dating back several decades). It’s shown here because, to my surprise, a Matchless appears on the cover of the current Radio Times.

I had intended to expatiate on the quaint optimism embodied in this and other bike names of the period. After only a brief reflection I realised that even quaint optimism was a marketing rarity: Velocette, Triumph and possibly Ariel had the right idea but Sunbeam, Royal Enfield and BSA (standing for Birmingham Small Arms!) completely missed the point. Even worse were the excruciatingly dull names relating to human progenitors: Francis Barnett, James and (unforgivable, given its hairy-chested prowess) Vincent-HRD.

Virtually all British bike names, with the exception of Triumph and Norton (both small operations now), have disappeared and choice is limited predominantly to Japanese companies. Ironically the big four (Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki) all bear the names of their founders yet, because of their foreign-ness, don’t sound quite so tedious. In fact Yamaha, a company that started out making reed organs, and Kawasaki have almost onomatopeiac links with their bike products.

Ducati – the successful Italian manufacturer? Founded by the Ducati brothers.

Incompetence rapidly rewarded

Being theoretical rather than practical I have initiated many techno-disasters. This was the most spectacular.

Years ago (“the often times” – as my daughter says) one fuelled a two-stroke motorbike by pouring first petrol then oil into the tank then agitating the bike to mix the two. Frequently neat oil got into the carburettor, snuffing out the engine. That meant stripping the carb and cleaning it.

This happened with my 125 cc BSA Bantam, and I carelessly reassembled the carb so that the slide was at the top of its action not the bottom – leaving the throttle wide open. When kickstarted the engine whined immediately to maximum revs. How to stop it? No ignition, of course, and the twistgrip was inoperative.

So I reached for the high tension lead feeding the sparking plug and wrenched it free. But there were many many volts emerging from that lead and I was thrown across the backyard and crashed into the dividing wall. Painful. I will continue to shrive myself in a continuing if intermittent series on other such disasters.

TECHNO-MUSIC AT CHRISTMAS
For he is like a refiner’s fire. Messiah.

Das sehn wir auch den Rädern ab…
Die gar nicht gerne stille stehn...

Die Steine selbst, so schwer sie sind…
Sie tanzen mit den muntern Reihn,
Und wollen gar noch schneller sein...

(We see this also with the wheels…
They don't like to stand still...

The stones themselves, heavy though they are…
They join in the cheerful dance,
And want to go yet faster...) Die schöne Müllerin.

Battle between the sexes - on wheels

This is a pretty old motorbike. The photo dates back to 1957 – 58 and even then the bike was seven or eight. The giveaway is the apparent lack of rear suspension. But in fact the rear end was sprung.

For this is a 500 cc Triumph Speed Twin notorious for its spring hub. How did it work? I don’t know. I was more interested in blaring up to the Lake District on it. My guess is the capacious hub accommodated substantial springs arranged radially and that the spindle “floated” at the springs’ notional junction. A horrifying concept which delivered its horror during cornering.

So long as the bike was upright the horror was disguised. But bikes heel over on corners and the springs could not respond logically to this radical change in applied force. My friend Richard, who sold me the bike, put it this way:

“The rear end of the bike flexed during cornering. These oscillations were absorbed in the hub and then re-transmitted – out of phase with the bike’s forward progress – back to the frame. The bike behaved like an animal having a nervous breakdown.”

Should my old Speed Twin be included in a blog called Works Well? Definitely. On one of those Lake District trips the pillion was occupied by a girl-friend who had expressed an interest in rock climbing. Having survived my instruction in Langdale she incautiously referred to my sedate progress on the way back. I’d been holding back on her behalf. A mile or two of open throttle with the Triumph pythonising its way between the dry stone walls returned our conversation to a more even-handed state.

Falstaff nudges my elbow

A great bargain: 37 BBC DVDs covering the complete Shakespeare for about £120. I mean, how otherwise will you ever see Timon of Athens? We watched the plays on telly in the seventies and are now re-viewing them. Two surprising enlightenments: The Comedy of Errors and Henry Vl, pts 1 – 3.

Plus a salutary reminder from Falstaff: “Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying.” It’s not that I overtly fibbed but I may have left the wrong impression and I feel I must do a little repolishing.

The subject was motorbikes – what else? The hero was the Honda Fireblade and for starters I must confess to a conflict of interest. In asking Honda if I could use an official photo of this mighty beast I was mildly interrogated about my motives. As a result I was given the key to the Honda Virtual Press Office! This may have affected my disinterestedness.

More important, did I leave anyone believing I had ridden a Fireblade? If so I apologise. I haven’t. I’d like to but things are stacked against me. The insurance companies have identified a new category of risk with its own amusing acronym which, alas, I forget. Basically it concerns men d’un certain age who now have the wherewithal to indulge activities they could only dream of in their youth. They buy a two-wheeled monster and then do fatal damage to themselves, the bike and a tree. It’s usually a tree.

Restrained by the work of actuaries I can only stand by the roadside and yearn. There, am I shriven?

Welcome to the fall-off rule

Remember the demo in physics? Bunsen burner standing on its base (stable equilibrium), on its nozzle (unstable equilibrium), on its side (neutral equilibrium). With a motorbike only the latter state is available without assistance and a bike on its side is no use to anyone.

Working for a weekly newspaper I used to call on the town's men of the cloth. Father Michael O’Sullivan noticed my parked bike. “I see yiz ride a bike. I did win I was a young priest. Niver had a cold. But yiz'll fall off once ivery year and a haf.” The transition from a temporary form of (often very) unstable equilibrium into neutral.

Fr. O’Sullivan was right about the fall-off rate. Once my friend and I were riding Indian file on our bikes and a dog darted out. My friend swerved and I did too, but a microsecond too late. My clutch lever (on the left-hand side of the handlebar) caught his raincoat, swung the forks round on full lock and I was tossed on to the tarmac. People at a bus-stop nearby watched with interest but none moved to my aid. They would have lost their place in the queue. The adamantine West Riding.

A subsequent event contributing to my fall-off quota occurred when a car pulled out into a steepish hill down which I was travelling. No escape. The bike hit the car amidships and I somersaulted over the car and landed some yards (we were still Imperial then) down the road. Tucked into my raincoat was a box containing my complete LP collection, perhaps 25 discs. None was harmed.

Young people believe they are immortal. The assumption of a mortgage tells them they are not.

The seductions of speed

Blog-visitors to Works Well who aren’t turned on by motorbikes are having a thin time just now I’m afraid. But Plutarch asked me to explain the visual appeal of the Honda Fireblade (see July 5 post).

Honda admit this Fireblade has very strong links with the bikes they race in MotoGP – the two-wheel equivalent of Formula One. The phrase “street-legal racer” is legitimate. So what are the clues?

First, this is clearly not a two-seater. The distance between the wheel centres (the wheelbase) is too short; this makes the bike more agile round corners. Secondly, note the exaggerated distance between the rear mudguard and the rear wheel to accommodate the springing action of the (horizontal) rear fork. Very much a racing bike feature.

Speed through corners is dictated by the angle to which the bike can be heeled over as the picture on the right shows. Because of this components must be drawn as close to the engine as possible. Especially true of the exhaust pipe which is routed almost entirely under the engine.

High speeds require powerful brakes with most braking effort coming from the front wheel. Note the huge front brake disc. And the grippy fat rear tyre.

Yet despite the tight purposeful contours of the Fireblade’s engine it is liquid-cooled. Oh, and it revs to 12,000 rpm.

Again, thanks to Honda for the pix.

Did I mention I was a bike nut?

In a May blog my friend Plutarch wrote: “A shining, red, brand new Harley Davidson…catches my attention. I stop and stare… I have never driven a motor bike and have reached the age when, if I tried, I would certainly fall off. But this is a thing of beauty.” With it came a partly veiled invitation for me to respond.

I did so in two posts. More will follow since motorcycles shaped my youth and their memories warm my advanced years. (The hell with euphemism. Shouldn’t this be “old age”? – Ed.)

Plutarch finds motorcycles alien but can see their attractions. So, let’s pretend he was unaware of the graphic arts (he isn’t) and had just seen his first oil by some competent Englishman – Joshua Reynolds, perhaps. That’s the Harley. What follows takes him up to Rembrandt.

Here's a Honda Fireblade. At our age, it’s a bike Plutarch and I would be advised to stay clear of. It weighs 171 kg, has a top speed of 180 mph and takes 10 sec to cover quarter of a mile. Of more relevance to this blog the Fireblade develops 175 bhp. By comparison my car weighs 1500 kg and develops 140 bhp.

Plutarch may still find the Harley more beautiful but that’s because he hasn’t undergone the two-wheel equivalent of visits to the National Gallery, the Louvre and MoMA. I’ve done my time and find the Fireblade stunning. It’s made to go fast and that’s self-evident. I’ll try and explain why later after a session with drawn curtains and a wet towel.

PS: Thanks to Honda for permission to use the pic.

Soon they'll need trainer wheels

MOTORCYCLES. Part two of a long series. Bike racing is more exciting and usually closer than car racing. Especially at the top end – called MotoGP, a foolish contraction which can be confused with moto-cross, the rough terrain sport for two-wheelers.

New tyres and more extreme riding styles mean bikes can be leant over at seemingly impossible angles when cornering. The tyres – which now only last one race - are virtually circular in cross-section offering grip round 100 deg of their periphery. The riders, hanging forwards as well as sideways, achieve a weird vector of forces that support fierce speeds.

TV coverage has recognised that cornering angles provide the thrills and offers a real-time graphic measuring this feature. Some riders lean over at 59 deg from the vertical. Simulate that between the palm of your hand and the surface of a table. Not so much a racing bike, more a frisbee (Note: Inset pic hints at subject but is not a racing bike. It's got rearview mirrors!)

Plutarch and Hells Angels

MOTORBIKES. Part one, probably of many. Blame Plutarch for tempting me. Even after my first car, motorcycles remained dear. I belong to a generation when poverty meant a bike was the first form of personal transport - nowadays most people start with a secondhand car. Later, working on a magazine called Motorcycling, I learned a painful professional lesson; you don't necessarily develop as a journalist by immersing yourself in an enthusiasm.

But an end to being maudlin, in this blog it's techno that counts. Plutarch records seeing a Harley Davidson and fearfully imagines "driving" it. Bikers talk about "riding" bikes but I can see why a non-biker might prefer an alternative verb. "Riding" sounds passive, "driving" suggests being in control.

Ironically the one make of motorcycle you might "drive" is a Harley Davidson (see pic). This weighty US bike has an enormous engine (1200 cc*, larger than several small cars), you sit low - almost amidst the works - and seemingly reach up to the handlebars. Most characteristic is the exhaust note of the low-revving vee-twin engine: a lazy, lumpy growl that rises to a "blat" as speed increases. Progress is majestic. I can just about accept the sentence: "Taking the Harley out for a drive".

However, when Plutarch dreams of sensuous if terrifying speed, he's imagining something other than a Harley. More on this, when I'm back from France.

* Update June 22, 2008. Seems I'm out of date on the Harley's engine capacity. In France I encountered one with a 1500 cc engine