Manx GP 2013 Michael Dunlop

I've watched‎ Michael Dunlop over recent years at the Manx. I first saw him go through at Ballagarey in 2010. He was a wild man bullying the bike round. Then a year later at Douglas Rd Corner he was not quite so rough. In 2012 at the same spot he was the only rider to use the kerb as a berm on exit, I went and looked at the rubber when racing was over.  This year he was the only rider drifting the bike through Westwood, I could see the front wheel pointing away from the bend. On one lap he still had not got the bike fully upright as he changed up for the small crest at Erinville a few hundred metres further on and had the back wheel snap out on him. No change of engine note, still full throttle and a big shimmy then the bike settled down for the approach to Douglas Rd Corner and on through Kirk Michael. Wow.

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Manx GP 2013 top stars grenadine classic bikes

Before the event I read comments that the influx of top TT names into the classic races would lead to a spate of grenaded motors. I suppose that those commentators can feel vindicated by the large number of machine failures experienced by those riders. However, on the basis that most if not all of their machines were replicas of the originals using materials greatly improved from the originals and developed to produce power that those materials could stand I think that the argument that superbike riders have no mechanical compassion is flawed as their bikes were built to stand the pace. How come the break downs happened then ? Well having previously been stunned by the speed of Ryan Farquhar on the Paton through Westwood it was a shock to see the top bunch of seeded riders all attack the corner in flat out mode in contrast to the fast but steady approach of many other riders - no disrespect intended. My point is that these riders are all used to maintaining flat out pace everywhere - it is what they do for a living - and it is no wonder that classic replicas bred for short circuit dashes are as prone to failure when held flat out for minutes at a time as anything else. In other words these riders are faster than the bikes they were on so no wonder they went BANG.

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Another natter at Jurby Manx GP 2013e

Thankfully someone had noticed all the usual burger and meat food vendors and was offering veggy and healthy alternatives. I stood in line and could not help but laugh at the somewhat graphic conversation amongst a group of people next in line to me. When I turned to see who they were they were being entertained by Chris McGahan who has raced forever and would be racing in the Classic classes and riding my favourite sounding bike the Miles Trident. The upshot of the hilarity was that he was due to sidecar passenger for Colin Seeley in a parade but was very aware of how anxious Seeley could get about rider punctuality. Apparently this was well known back in the day by Seeley's riders , particularly it was mentioned by Dave Croxford, thus the riders took great delight in deliberately showing up at the last minute - which was exactly what McGahan was doing to Seeley at that moment !

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Conor Cummins - that TT Veranda crash

Conor Cummins was much in evidence at the Manx GP 2013 both in the paddock and at Jurby. I happened to bump into him there and asked him what happened to cause his monster crash at the Veranda. I said from the Close to the Edge film footage that the smoke from the rear tyre made it look like the rear wheel span up, then came round on him. He told me that the data for that moment at the Veranda was the same as the previous lap for the bike and that he was comfortable with how the bike was going. Then came the only thing he could put the cause down to. Remember that he is a Manxman with good local knowledge. He is aware that as the road turns at that point on the mountain it faces the sea. On some days this can make it a place where sudden strong wind up droughts rush up the mountainside. Weather conditions on the day of the crash were conducive to this. A rider arriving at high speed at full lean would have no warning of this and he feels that this is what happened to him with the result that the up drought got under the bike sufficiently in that split second to break adhesion. The smoke from the back tyre was the result of the tyre not breaking away but coming back down again, grabbing the road and flicking him off. I said that would have been the end of bikes for me to which he replied that these things happen and he was more scared of dropping the Kevin Schwantz RGV 2stroke four he would be parading at Jurby than anything else at the moment !

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Here is Siegfried the Simson having an adventure with his previous owner

http://www.realclassic.co.uk/simson425sport.html

How amazing to stumble across this article about my bike ! Best bit is finding out just what was replaced in the clutch. Riding the Simson takes a little getting used to. As the owners manual says it is built to rev but it is not natural to treat an old bike like that. However you have to take off with loads of revs and then it pulls once you are under way. I did wonder if the clutch is still slipping so I tried 2 things. First I cruelly let the engine slog up a steep hill in top gear - result bike almost ground to a halt but no sign of lots of revs with no go. So that seems ok. Next on a flat road I gave it maximum revs and let the clutch out quickly - wow - he bunny hopped up the road with the front wheel skipping off the Tarmac. Conclusion - clutch ok, just use lots of revs. Also tonight realised I had been trying to adjust the tick over using the wrong screw. Reckon that the only other one which adjusts the height to which the needle drops down to is the right one so will put the Leerlauf back 1 3/4 turns to where it was and then raise the slide stop to speed up tick over. Before that I need to check plug colour after weakening the mixture by raising it from 4th to the correct 3rd notch. Here's hoping for a nice digestive biscuit colour.
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Manx GP 2013 - VMCC regularity run - 21st again !

How about that ! Ethel came in 21st again - just like last time in 2011. Here are the results http://www.manxtimingsolutions.com/DynamicResults/SplitsType8.aspx?eventId=VMCC13

So we did 3 laps of the original St Johns course, Tynwald Green, Ballacraine, Glen Helen, then left at Douglas Road Corner down the lovely coast road to Peel then back to Tynwald on the A1 Douglas Road.

We did laps of 23.49 minutes, 34.85 minutes and 18.21 minutes ( wow ! ) to end up averaging 25.52 mph against 24.00 mph target with a deviation of 0.94 mph to finsih 21st out of 77 starters.

I put it all down to going into Kirk Michael on the 2nd lap and enjoying a coffee and a snooze on the bench there...................

German relatives

Aha says Ethel the Beemer, I'm from Berlin and Siegfried the Simson is from Suhl so we are going to get on well.

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