Lincoln Grand Prix

86 miles and 11 times up the 1:6 cobbles of Michaelgate. I always watch this every year, great spectacle and you can usually catch it on eurosport as well.







Team cars, motorcycle outriders the lot.



Camera bike - I guess you get used to sitting backwards whilst flung about. Great job if you can get it.



Broom wagon gradually closing in on the last rider.
Had to look twice but ex formula 1 champ Nigel Mansell came strolling by and stopped for a while across the road watching the race - on his tod,nobody bothering him, and then went on his way!

Going North.......

.....this time to Norway!! Places confirmed on the freighter from Immingham for mid June, but outbound to Gothenburg in Sweden and back from Brevik in Norway.
Immingham only 50 minutes away and the dock is 5 minutes from work so its on the doorstep, no three or four hour trecks to Dover or Harwich. Got my YHA card for my 10% discount in the hostels over there which should average out at £40 per night for the ten nights. Taking the tent as well, so all bases covered. Petrol in Norway £1.64 per litre!!!!!
The YHA card is £15.95, but theres a deal on at the moment and a £5 tesco voucher is worth £15 on the deal, so that plus a cheque for 95p gets me membership for a year.

My bikes got 3 wheels

Picked up a puncture on just about the farthest north you can get on Skye. Eventually manage to plug it with repair kit but it's 500 miles to home, it's a Sunday, tomorrows bank hol Monday and theres probably not a tyre in Scotland anyway. However, for piece of mind johnny at the b&b has a GS and very kindly offers me the use of his wheel to get me home. Top man.

The B&B - Lochbay - is a stunning place, in a stunning location run by Tash and Johnny. The best we've ever been in, no arguement. If you arrive on a GS it's even better as Johnny has one, hence the loan of the wheel - maybe its an additional service to punters to cannibilise his bike for spare parts? Reminds me of a visit I had to RAF Coningsby, arranged by a work pal ex.RAF. We went to see the eurofighter typhoons, and in a corner of the maintenance hanger was a typhoon that had been gradually cannibilised for parts - £69 million parts bin. They were gradually using all sorts of bits off it.

We also got to see inside the BBMF hanger for a really good close up look at the Spitfires & Hurricanes and have a chat with the maintenance crews. The Lancaster wasn't in but had broken down in Holland after an air show. A replacement engine was being prepared and the German air force (of all things) were sending over transport to pick it it up and deliver it to Holland!!!. According to my grandad, the best things to come out of Germany weren't mercedes & BMW but empty lancaster bombers - not very pc but the sentiment of that generation I guess.

The.little b*#$€%d that spoiled the day

Nige having a day off the bike today, so me & Steve off on a bit of a tour of Skye. First up is over to Portree and then North towards Staffin, past the Old Man of Storr and stopping at various viewpoints overlooking the Sound of Raasay. The waters like glass and we think we might have spotted a whale (or a very small part of it). A black arch in a disturbance of the water, which repeated itself every couple of hundred meters.





Stopped at the Kilt Rock viewpoint, but soon moved on as it was jammed packed with those little highland tour minibuses that had japanese tourists jumping in and out of them.
At Staffin we head west to Uig over the Quirang, then follow the road around to Dunvegan. For the best views of the castle carry on past the castle entrance and follow the single track road North - plenty of places to stop and look back.

That is what we did , and it's where I discovered the sliver of bone that found it's way into my back tyre through the thickest part of the tread. Admittedly I must have picked it up before then as the bike had felt loose at the back earlier on but I had put that down to gravel.

Although I carry a tubeless tyre puncture repair kit - the Rema type - I've always looked at it and thought to myself 'I hope I don't have to use that it anger'. Well f**k me, three or four miles up a single track road in the most Northerly part of Skye I get my chance and it's like a rehearsal for Billy Smarts Circus. I manage to rip 2 out of the 3 plugs that I have as I haven't reamed the hole out big enough and end up sticking the bone sliver back in the hole smothered in rubber cement to get us back to the B&B, stopping every 8 miles ot so to bang a CO2 cartridge in when the tyre went flat. Four CO2 cartridges later and we're pulling into the B&B just as Nige is pulling out. Nige has got some more plugs and rubber jollop, Johnny at the B&B has an air compressor and I finally give it one more go and get a plug in which seals.
With that it's a walk down to the Stein Inn for the rest of the day to drown my sorrows.