Friday, June 27, 2014

Lucille Heads Home

Last weekend saw myself and Kiera head down to Cornwall to retrieve "Lucille"

The rough plan was to travel down Sunday once we had dropped the kids off in the morning, stay over night at Sharon and Tom's house in Cornwall and head back the next day.

I was sort of hoping that with taking the top box off, removing the perspex screen and front basket that we would be able to load her up into Kiera's 4x4.

But first we needed to have a view of Sharon and Tom's house which they are renovating and then a few beers and a bite to eat at the Sand Bar on Praa Sands.


After a good nights kip and a gallon of coffee to get me started it was time to take a look at "Lucille".

She has been sat in a garage not moving an inch since my round the UK trip.

The 4x4 was close by but it did not need a genius to work out that it would require some serious stripping of components to make her fit in the back.

Only one thing for it - ride her home! Thankfully it was a wonderfully sunny day with not a cloud in the sky and no hint of rain at all! 

Refuelled and oil checked and she was ready to fire up, only she didn't! So thought it about time to check the spark plug and possibly change it for one of the new Iridium ones I had bought.

On removal it did not look to clever so swapped them over, and still not a great deal, so decided to bump start her.

A gentle roll down a hill, knock her into 1st and there she goes, sweet as a nut!

A quick blast around the block and she was sounding as good as new!


Ready to go with just my small panniers full of tools, well you never know do you? 

Kiera hung around for a couple of hours and then played catch up with me all the way, finally meeting me just past Honiton.

The ride up was easy, and I'm not sure if I was imagining things but changing the spark plug over certainly made a difference. She flew up the hills and I topped out at just over 50mph.

I sat around 40-45mph for most of the journey. The whole trip took 7 hrs and the mileage was 203 miles door to door. Which on my reckoning was around 28mph average speed! Not bad for a fat bloke on a C90!

I actually beat Kiera home by around 5 minutes as well!




"Lucille" did as I expected her to do and that was to perform with no drama's, I could ask no more of her.

Since being home I have ridden her to work a couple of times and it has been a joy! Just what you need after a long day, a 15 minute ride on a C90 to de-stress you and put a smile on your face!

My only problem being that after 15 minutes I'm just settling myself in and need at least another hour in the saddle to make it feel right!

At present she is residing in the garden as the garage is to full after the house move to get her in, but that will be soon sorted, then she will have a garage all to herself! Happy Days!!!

The journey continues................

Sunday, June 1, 2014

The Versatile Honda C90

Asia is where the Honda C90 and it's lookalikes have proven themselves again and again over the years.

They are never serviced, totally abused by their owners, over loaded and run on dodgy fuel.

Yet, they keep on going, which in itself is remarkable considering the above.

In 1991 a Dutch photographer Hans Kemp was working in Vietnam and was blown away by the amount of small engined motorbikes transporting the nation's population around.

But not only people, goods of every shape and size find their way on to these little work horses.

Hans Kemp's book "Bikes Of Burden" is a great book full of brilliant pictures he took whilst out in Asia. Click on the link above to buy the book direct from Amazon and for a taster, please click "HERE"