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Fatt Max

Back in Blighty & Beyond

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Yes indeed, me, mrs and mini Max are now officially on holiday.

We left Auckland on Saturday night at 11.30pm, 11 hours later we are in Hong Kong, 2 hours at the airport then 12.5hrs to London. We land in perfect sunshine ready for a break away with the familiy and friends in the uk.

So, safely tucked into my dads Ford Focus and we head off down the M4 bound for the familiy home in the home of football, yes indeed folks, the mighty town (and stadium) of Wembley).

Its a cracking day and a shit load of bikes are on the road enjoying the sunshine. We pulled up alongside a rather heaviliy built Goldwing, rider and pillion in full gear with the visors up chatting merrily away to each other. This bike had a double set of panniers on both sides and the biggest hard top box I have EVER seen. The top box was adorned with about 6 flags, there was the union jack (of course) as well as flags of South Africa, Canada, the USA and (upon further checking) Cameroon....bizarre....

We hit the A406 North Circular road heading towards the Wemble arch and all of a sudden there are bikes everywhere. Notable was a very nice and brand spanking new Kawasaki, an incredibly old but rolling Royal Enfield, a CBR that was held together byt duct taoe (we all had a good laugh at that one), the loudest and cleanest Harley Fat Boy I have ever seen and the fasted GN250 in history.

10 minutes lated and we are passing the famous ACE Cafe, the weather has broughe the bikers out because the place is mobbed. A toot and a wave as we drove past and the promise of brekkie there later this week, I even have a Fat Bikers Motorcycle Club sticker for them.

One thing I did notice however, was a lack of riding gear being worn on the road. It was a hot sunny day and in good old Englis tradition my fellow pommes love to get their kit off at the first sight of the golden ball, looks like this extends to riding gear. Lots of cut down jeans, T shirts and carpet slippers.....oh well, at least they bothered with clothes.

Looking forward to more bikey experiences while here especially the trip to the ACE plus meeting up with the Rock City Rebels MC based in Ireland....oh and the warm beer and cold pies......

Update 27/07/2011

So, a few days into the big UK adventure. Amazing really, even Mrs Max commented that there seemed to be a shit load more bikes on the road then when I left 14 years ago. Did notice though that most of them are (now brace yourself for this) high powerde scooters.....

Yeah, lots of 250 and 400cc Burgen type deals mostly ridden by people wearing T shirts and shorts but thats ok cos they did have High Vis......

Moving swiftly on, I have alse seen some masters of the art of lane splitting at speed notably on the M4. Dont know if these guys are skilled, blind or crazy bearing in mind the lanes are about 3/4 the width of the motorways in NZ.

Roads generally are narrrower but that dont stop the crazies, I'm trying to get some 'true' crash stats off some contacts here just to see how we stack up. Mind you, with 12 million more people jammed into the city I'm sure these wont tell us too much.

Last night was a classic, I went to Spurs v MK Dons (the round ball game, proper football) proudly wearing my tottenham shirt along with pops, me bruvver and me nephew. As we are standing by the side of the road two guys on tip top Suzuki GSX's steamed passed and as they did they beeped and waved at us. "Feck it, do I know these guys?" I thought. As we reached the ground the said guys were getting out of their racing leathers to display their full tottemham player kits underneath, the ultimate biker, rides fast and wears spurs kit.....now, if only they were a couple of chicks........ooohh, cold shower time...

Thats it for now, certainly more bikey stuff to see and do.....

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Comments

  1. baptist's Avatar
    Say hello to Stepney for me while your there (wonder if they still speak English there?)
  2. Fatt Max's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by baptist
    Say hello to Stepney for me while your there (wonder if they still speak English there?)
    I shall try, I'm orf daaahnnn the east end on Tuesday, lets see how the lingo goes, eh
  3. growlley's Avatar
    or scooters are trendy amongst the 'London' crowd at the moment. Still its good fun booting some lawyer off one.