F-LIGHT OF FANTASY

It's been awhile since I scribbled anything down here. But the thing is that this was intended to be a blog, not a cesspool of meaningless twat. And when I think I don't have anything worth mentioning, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'll say nothing. Even if it means months of you staring at the same damn screen.

Anyway, I've been meaning to go out shopping for bike stuff - the kind of goodies that everyone seems to have seen somewhere but can't place where. My RX 100 project sorely needed a tail light, and my wallet was sore shelling out fines extracted by the well meaning men in uniform. And I thought to myself that illuminated parts are something that I could do with having around the shed, up for grabs at a moments notice.

Besides keeping your rear end from resembling pita bread, these things are great tools to keep you from noticing the flaws in a motorcycle. Don't know how to clean up that gangrenous tail of your new and spiffy customised motorcycle? I'll tell you what; just slap on the largest red light you can find back there and then never forget to proclaim how responsible a motorist you are whenever the occasion permits.

As with all things of this nature, the day you choose to actually get off your ass to get something done, the stars and fate sit together the night before, plotting on how to ruin whatever semblance of a plan you might have had. This time they concluded that rain coupled with unimaginable traffic would do wonders to fuck up my scheming.

I wouldn't have any of that, though. I mean, if it was for anything other than motorcycles, I probably wouldn't have even got out of bed and put on my slippers, but here I was going shop to shop to find the perfect specimen of something that I didn't even have the faintest of a clue about. I would go to the bloke behind the counter, ask him for lights with very accurate and helpful descriptions like 'long', 'circular' and 'motorcycle'.

This is what I ended up with, and in retrospect, I don't think any of the stuff I got home was ever intended to grace a motorcycle. I know for a fact that the olive green bits go into Indian Army jeeps while the spherical one in the centre appears to be a replica of what used to be fitted onto the old Nissan Patrols.

Bad blood..

Yellow Fever made her debut ride about town today and we were promptly carted off to the police station by, er the police. Figures having a handwritten numberplate won't cut it these days and the cops generally don't take chances with blokes on RXs or just RXs themselves. Apparently, at least that's what the gallant men in uniform had to say, there are a lot of sods who ride these things about these days, snatching chains from pregnant women and such. Okay, I made up the pregnant part but anyway..

I feel like a total bad-ass now and I'm sure the little Yam's notoriety is only going to go up. She's running great, just lost the stand spring when I hit a series of bumps the great care-takers of my city seem to have fucking forgotten about. She's running a tad lean but that's just a matter of fine tuning. I'd like to lower the headlight brackets to give her a meaner look but all of that in due time.

On show...

 Some time ago, I got to know of a French man on a mission. No, it wasn't anything to do with gourmet cooking, but motorcycles. Now, he told me that he was traveling through Bombay (I hate calling the city Mumbai, so lynch me you buggers!), clicking photographs of avid motorcyclists and their machines - in short, the essence of the biker in the city. He's captured everything from a Pulsar to a blinged out RX, a Vespa to a handful of Royal Enfields. He swung over to my place late one evening and somehow, seemed very kicked to see my little cunt of a shed. He said the cobwebs and the chaotic mess added texture to the photograph. I thought it was a lot of artsy fartsy mumbo-jumbo, you know, the kind that describes a worn out and torn pair of jeans as 'distressed'. But when Thierry mailed me the results, I kinda blinked twice. Sure, my cunt shed still looked like a car bomb exploded in it, but it seemed to be at peace, like a womb holding all those bikes while they gestate into their road worthy form. Thierry Vincent is holding an exhibition in Paris of all his work relating to the "Mumbaikers'. Check out the following link for more dope. Here goes: http://www.thierryvincent.com/article-the-mumbaikers-chez-tendance-roadster-61218113.html