Day Off

Most people take a day off work to go somewhere nice or to do something special. I took a day off work to spend it it my garage in the middle of winter making brackets that I would rather have bought.

I thought that I would like to be able to change the windscreen on my Caterham to a little aeroscreen. The car is low powered and it runs out of go on the straights. The windscreen is large and flat and stands almost upright. I believe changing to the aeroscreen should give me another 10mph top speed.

Getting to the fasteners on the windscreen stanchions involves taking a lot of the interior apart so I don't want to be doing that at a track day. I bought a pair of brackets that should provide captive nuts for the windscreen stanchions, but they didn't fit. I cut them up and fiddled about with some box section and some polyurethane adhesive and made these. They do fit accurately but they took me hours to produce.

This is the aeroscreen (it's still got the protective film on), a motorcycle mirror and a bracket that I made to join them together.

One of the questions that you never get asked in a social situation is "do you own a press brake?" although I wish you did. In my case the answer is "I don't know, does this count?". This is a very hard extension bar, my aluminium bracket, and a bit of soft wood in a very large vice.

Richard "I wish I'd never started" B

Gap

This week I share with you an old favourite family story. I don't know exactly when this happened but you can make a fair guess from the vehicles involved. My older brother had bent one of the half shafts on his Ford Capri and was fixing it in a hurry. He got a replacement from a scrapyard in Devonport. He got to and from the scrapyard as a pillion on his friend's Z750, on the way back he had the half shaft in his lap sticking out each side of the bike. They came back through the city centre and were very very nearly involved in a nasty accident. The rider went to cut between two queues of cars at high speed. While the gap was big enough for the bike it wasn't big enough for the half shaft of a Ford Capri. It became clear to my brother that the rider had forgotten about his passenger's cargo and that he was just about to be stuck off the back of the bike and probably have his pelvis shattered in the process. He let go with both hands and JUST managed to get the long, heavy, cumbersome shaft upright before they shot between the cars. Like some kind of incompetent post-apocalyptic knight with his rusty scrapyard lance.

Richard "retro" B

C125

This weekend I changed motorbike from a Yamaha TMAX (XP500) to a Honda Super Cub (C125). Obviously it's much smaller and slower, but I'm really pleased with it so far.

The clutch is automatic and the gearbox is upside down. I think you'd describe it as "One down, three down". It also has a Pacman door so that you can go round the back from 4th straight to neutral. As I've come from an automatic bike with a CVT I keep forgetting to put it into gear before I try to pull away. All my other motorbikes had the gearbox the right way up, so I quite often force it into the wrong gear during acceleration.

My least favourite change is the front brake. On the TMAX I had twin 4-pot callipers with high performance friction material and a 120mm front tyre. You could stand the bike on its nose with the pressure of two fingers and it felt like you could ruche up the tarmac in front of you if you wanted. It's not quite the same on the Super Cub. The mirrors are too close together and I've had to put one of them on an ugly extender. I also no longer get nodded at by bikers.

The fuel economy is absolutely outstanding, and the servicing costs should be low. It's fun to ride and it looks cute. The funniest features are an automatic clutch (so that delivery men have their left hand free to cold their cargo) and a heel pad on the gear lever (so that businessmen don't scuff up their smart shoes).

Richard "roll the power on gradually" B

New Decade

I know it's ridiculous to believe in good omens or to put meaning in random events, but I'm really hopeful about the 2020s.

You always try your best to make the best cup of tea that you can, you use the same ingredients, utensils, techniques and temperatures time and time again, but sometimes the tea is delicious, sometimes insipid, and usually mediocre. I have a friend who marks every cup of tea he is served out of ten. I believe that discretionary bonus points have sometimes been awarded, either for serving the tea with a chocolate biscuit or once for serving it topless.

I marked it myself, but the first cup of tea that I made this decade was a 9! It honestly was that close to Plato's perfect form for a cup of tea.

The first engagement in the culture war of 2020 (that I'm aware of) had a wonderfully positive and empathetic message. It was criticism of a mean spirited web comic about schadenfreude. The character New Guy was written as the butt of the joke, but because he had to question taking pleasure in other people's misfortune the author had accidentally created a very positive and caring character. All the edits, memes and criticisms are promoting empathy, friendship and fair treatment. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/new-guy

Richard "What Would New Guy Do?" B