Dorchester

Skate sesh at Dorchester today with Wayne, Bob, Jack, Poulet and Joe. Busy little park but perfectly formed:-

Boyz in da hood:-

Joe entering orbit:-

Took ages before I felt comfortable on the board. Been two weeks with no skating. Still rubbish though. Perhaps I'm expecting a bit too much after only three months or so since my return to the fray. Enjoyed it all the same.

War and Peace and Weather

Went to the War and Peace Show yesterday down in Kent. Huge show with plenty going on. Shocking weather at times though.

The front end of a Lancaster:-

You could go inside for a look (gawd knows how they did what they did in these things):-

Some of the Living History chaps were taking is quite seriously (wonder what his back garden looks like):-

The Germans were out in force:-

But not all looking smart:-

Panzer summink:-

Tiger 1...or is it?

And so were the Russkis:-

But at least we held the Beer Tent:-

Adventures in Concaving

My concaving experiments have borne fruit:-

What was once a flat deck now has a reasonable concave. Well....some of it has anyway. This took most of the Wiltshire water reserve and Didcot Power Station had to fire up another unit to provide the electricity. A worthwhile endeavour.

Summer...? What Bloody Summer...?!?

No skate today. Wet and miserable outside. Think the WWM went out yesterday. Gonna be depressed....

Ariel Club Swindon Rally

It was the Swindon Branch rally this weekend so I took the 38 Red Hunter out for a blast on a thankfully dry day. Despite noticing that the bearings in the rear wheel were a bit loose, and having to wave the spanners even before I'd started the engine, the bike performed much better than the last ride out. Must have been fuel starvation. Had a great ride tooling round the leafy lanes of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

The assembled rallyists at Bill Littles Bike Barn:-

My 1938 Red Hunter complete with stealth technology fuel tank (they just can't see me on the radar til its too late):-

Take me to your Leader (its an Ariel joke....):-

Rounded the run off with a pint in the Old Bear Inn in Cricklade with Hemingways and Rollins and a tidy pie from the butchers. Nice.

Big thanks to John and Sandy Ellis for organising the run and all the rallyists for supporting our Branch event.

Shaping the Future from the Past

Day off work today and its p*ssing it down outside. So, I decided to modify an old well thrashed (not by me) Caballero Dragon and Bats deck into something a bit more new skool. This is the deck:-

Basically I ride a Flip Bob Burnquist deck which seems a bit long after the Flip Geoff Rowley deck I started with but the width is good. So I thought I'd cut up the Cab deck into a new school shape, using the Burnquist deck for width and the Rowley deck as a template for truck placement.

This is the Burnquist deck coupling with the Cab deck. Hoping for some nice offspring...

New tail shape. Still going to be a bit raggy:-

New skool/old skool - the reshaped Cab:-

What I will hopefully end up with is a quite short wide deck. Its shorter than the Rowley mainly because I got a bit carried away with the jigsaw. Wheelbase will be same as the Rowley, which is an inch or so shorter than the Burnquist.

Unfortunately the Cab deck is pretty flat and whatever concave there was has fallen victim to Mr Jigsaw. So, an attempt to add some concave to the deck (note the use of valve spring compressors as G-clamps):-

More later....

`Sham Sesh

Bit of a skate with Wayne at Corsham this morning. Wet to start with but it soon dried out. Tried to drop in on the 3 footer again but I just couldn't get it. Totally frustrated...til next time. Mr Goff, my skateboard, got a few knocks on the nose - bit of woodglue should sort that out.

Tour of Dean

Made a daytrip to the AOMCC ToD rally near Gloucester. Had a good ride out on my 1938 Ariel 500 but it ran terribly on the way back. More investigation required.

UPDATE - took the carb and fuel pipe apart yesterday. Carb was OK although there was a bit of debris in the float bowl. The fuel filter was full of muck and I think it was restricting the fuel flow such that there wasn't enough flow when I got on the main jet. New filter fitted and all cleaned. Try it out at the weekend.

Filton Kingswood

Mid-week session at Filton skatepark. No dropping in and not much progress from me. Lovely evening though. And a good bunch of skaters. No pictures cos I forgot the camera again...but this is the park--->

Corsham Chill and Rites of Passage

Nice evening skate session at Corsham with Bob and Wayne. Dropped in for the first time after an eon of failed attempts. Well chuffed. Another step forward.

Tankfest

Went to see the tanks at Bovington last weekend. Good selection of armour and a boiling hot day to boot.

Gert big Tiger 1 - the only running one in the world

NSU Kettenkrad - half motorbike, half tank German strangeness

Sturmgeschutz (or StuG) - self propelled assault gun