Keep it Local

Ever since I moved to Tunbridge Wells in 1999 I have been a fan of the place - and particularly after giving up my real job in London in 2007, I have been making an effort to get more involved locally.

So it was a real treat today to help out a fabulous local business Love is...Boutique with a photoshoot for their vintage clothes in the town centre.  The shoot was done by a good friend Chris Cassidy who produces a fantastic blog with his wife about all things in Tunbridge Wells  - called Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells.  Anyway Chris took some amazing high quality fashion shots of the lovely model Livvy and I took the following Hipstamatic of my bike with Livvy decorating it!

No.7 Test Ride to Dungeness

Last Saturday I took my new No.7 Bike down to Dungeness for a 120 mile round trip test ride - which went very well apart from the clutch lever falling off - but this was soon found, fixed and back on the road.

The purpose of the visit was to indulge one of my other keen interests; photography.  A good friend Carl Abrams  had arranged for our local Flickr group to meet there and take snaps of the surroundings and the Supermoon that evening.  I of course was only interested in photographing my bike.  So here are my favourites, plus one of me riding taken by Carl, just to show my bikes are for riding and not just for show.

Richard II Bike

Delighted to have finished the Richard II Bike - its come out really well and rides and sounds a treat.

• 1970 FLH Harley
• New S&S 93" Shovel Engine
• Baker 5 Speed
• Billet Brakes 12 pots on twin discs at front and single disc at rear
• Paint by Keith Baker - "Swift Like Lightning"

BSH Photoshoot

Had a great day out in London today taking the Othello Tracker and Caesar Racer to a studio to be photographed by Mike Prior for Back Street Heroes magazine.  I have some of my Hipstamatic shots below as I want to show the professional shots after BSH publish them.  Big thanks to everyone involved including Stu and Will from BSH and of course Charlotte from Liverpool the model who had a lorra lorra fun.

Bike No. 7 Update - Richard II Bike

With all the excitement of the Custom Bike Show, I thought I would do a quick update on the Richard II Bike.  As this is essentially a re-assembly of a an existing bike (with a new engine) its going quite smoothly.  Paint will be ready by 7th March and so within a few weeks it should all be ready to test.  I need to sort out some admin for it, like getting the SORN removed, and a new Tax disc (free as the bike is 1971), and getting the V5 changed to reflect the new colour and engine - then the small matter of insurance, which is painful as unless they can tick a box on a computer saying that it is a specific model  - then computer does not compute.  Anyway here are some Hipstamatics of the bike so far.