This is what a carport should look like. Reggie, Fireball, and Fergie. Old Yeller sits outside, knowing that come winter he will take the place of the two fair-weather machines. Or something like that, anyway. Bike is running OK, though the blasted carb is really a piece of junk. Time to try a different one, me thinks.

Just a photo of reggie taken today. Slightly overcast and temperature a bit cool for summer–summer 2005 summed up right there!

I brought the BSA out of slumber to get ready for annual Vashon Island shin-dig, hosted by the local Vintage Motorcycle club. (Note: The photo is from a show the bike was in a few years ago, now!)

It started right up, considering the inactivity it has had–it still only has 650 miles since it was restored. Smoked like hell for a bit, wet sumping to blame, I think. I have a list of things to do, starting with having my friend Robin take a look at the carb to my replacing the kill switch and the absolutely dreaded task of pulling apart the front end to fix the forks, which leak like there is no tomorrow.

I met a potential contractor for our new house at our property on Friday. I was lamenting that I rarely get good deals because I put out some weird “sucker” vibe or something. He said “show up to a meeting in that truck and they’ll know you don’t have any money.”

My poor truck gets no respect–and it’s a perfect disguise (not that I have any money, in any case, but still).

Just a quick note to say I spent an inordinate amount of time reading and enjoying the restoration story of one of GM’s “Futurliners.” They’re pretty ungainly looking, but it’s a great story and there are a million photos.

What a great way to have something fun to do in retirement…get together with friends once or twice a week and restore a piece of motoring history.

This is just about one of my favorite motoring photographs–it shows Raymond Mays, an excellent British driver before Hitler’s War, reacting to his car’s loss of a wheel on a hill climb. Mays later went on to found BRM, a manufacturer of race cars designed to bring the Grand Prix championship to the English. He was also, in the euphemism of the day, a “lifelong bachelor,” quite talented in the dramatic arts.

Bourne was the home of Mays and there is a most interesting site about the town and its history: Bourne, Lincolnshire, England in Words and Pictures by Rex Needle.