Harmonious Balance

There has been 2 weeks since my last blog post and not much has happened on the Harley front as the roads have been less than kind to us Harley riders that feel the experience is better when there is no damp....anywhere! well I am not really that fussy but Dan is - Dan is Andrew's brother-in-law and a fellow Harley Head and the thought of anything touching his bike other than his hands brings him out in a cold sweat. To date we still have not had our inaugural ride out as the 3 strong Edenbridge chapter....

Now for a bit of 'other stuff' - picked Ellen's car up from my mate Simon's spray shop on Wednesday and I am pleased to report that the harmonious balance in mine and Ellen's relationship has been restored, in all honesty Ellen was surprisingly good about the whole bike meets car thing. Simon made a stunning job of correcting my handy work and the finished job was amazing, I know I didn't take any pictures of the damage and for a now converted blogger that is the cardinal sin but anyway you will have to take my word for this that what I did made your toes curl and what Simon did made little birdies sing! Cheers Simon!!


There is another major thing happening at our house, we are deep in the throws of having the front garden and drive turned into a luxury parking area for fellow Harley riders, bit like a welcome break without the hospitality and the shelter! No seriously it should make a huge difference to our lives as having the whole area block paved means that there is much better parking area and we will not be walking in loads of crap into the house every time you make the journey from car to front door. A local contractor called Steve Mercer has taken the challenge and I have posted a few pics of the progress so far.


Things are moving well and they should be back on or around the 5th Jan next year.

I have thankfully finished my Christmas season DJing at Brands Hatch and I can honestly say that the work was great but if I ever see another Christmas dinner and have to listern to 'Mistletoe and Wine' or any of the other foot tapping Christmas music I will be a happy man - well until next year when I would love to do it all again!

Did do one small thing to the Harley and that was to remove the bright yellow indicator covers and replace them with very cool smoked clear ones, I know both Andy & Dan have this done and the difference is massive!!

I have also come to an expensive realisation that Roland Sands products are going to make a regular appearance on my Harley and help to get to the look I want - bring on Brands Christmas Parties 2009!!!!

Happy Christmas to anyone that reads this and congratulations to Nancy & Niamh on their amazing showing at Olympia yesterday - I don't know where they came just that they did get to the final!! Weldone

Birthday Blues!

Harley Davidson FXSTI 2006 Softail

Well today is the day after my Birthday and like the queen I am now officially having 2 Birthdays this year as yesterday was a complete write-off and one that I will be having Birthday Blues for quite a while about!

I never thought I would be writing a blog page let alone thought I would buy a Harley (main reason for my blog), but both of these phenomena in my life are due to my next door neighbours Andrew & Nancy. Andy is a Harley owner and living next door to that beast (the bike not Andy) is very infectious! Nancy is the blogging queen and if I have a fraction of her devotion then... well frankly I'll be amazed - both of their blogs are featured in my Blog List.

Andy's Beautiful Dyna Superglide

So yesterday was my Birthday and was also meant to be a great riding day seeing as the sun almost shone for enough time to make you take a second look at the roads on your hands and knee searching for a slight hint of a none greasy texture to the surface so as not to get your pride and joy (pride and joy must be cleared up now, there are 2 things in my life that fall under this description, one being my week old Harley Softail FXSTI and the other being my wife Ellen, Oh and the 4 cats when they are not up to mischief so that make 6 things!) dirty! Everything was on plan, checked with Andy what time he wanted to venture on our pilgrimage down to Shaw Harley Davidson to grab some thing to eat from their Saturday snack waggon and then to look at shiny things to covert for a later date. So off I go to get the bike out of the garage to fill her up with fuel for our ride out, moved the bike out to in between my van and Ellen's car, shut and locked the garage door, turned back round to the bike to see it slowly creeping off its stand - now from this point everything went in slow motion and I managed to wedge myself in between the Harley and Ellen's car! well not before the bike had gone so far that it had caused a load of damage to Ellen's car and unknown to me till later had bent the handle bars on the Harley to a very unridable angle ......... this wasn't how I had imagined my birthday to play out.

Interesting Angled Bars

Today is another day and is for this year, my new Birthday and although Ellen's car is looking a little sorry for itself Dad and myself stripped the bike down and managed to get the handlebars back to the position that god intended them to be in, quick spin down the road confirmed all is well on the bike front. Ellen's car goes in next Monday to have major surgery with a friend of mine that has a spray shop near to Crawley.... so the morel of my tale is that if you have a crap Birthday its just fine to postpone it to the next day.

Well back to the main reason for the blog ...... My Harley, it is everything I thought I would never like and now everything that I crave in a bike ...... weird! I have been riding bikes since I can remember and they always resembled something NASA would commission to explore a new solar system and at warp factor 9 .... and made of plastic! So the Harley is a change in every aspect of my biking life, lots of chrome and the funny thing is I want to polish it again and again and again - I've never felt the need to clean a bike! and there is the sound, its very addictive I already feel the urge to just start her up to hear the straight through Vance & Hines pipes roar at me for no other reason - God only knows how Harley riders don't get pulled over every time they venture out on their bikes, but they don't, there seems to be an immunity waved from the boys in blue, they just seem to look the other way.

When you buy a Harley you get given a parts book that is the size of a phone directory, as Andy says "giant mecano set" and hes not wrong, you could if you wanted change over every bit on the bike from something that fits your taste and pocket! So this blog will be a diary of my journey changing, customising, polishing and riding my bike with a little bit of normal life thrown in for good measure!