Wrench'n Ride'n

Part 4 is here and we start off with two photos from the Sweden leg of the trip before Michael gets into Finland. Campground at Vaddo, Aland Islands. Crossing the Baltic Sea. There were 62 riders from Finland, Russia, Holland, Germany, one from the UK and one from Australia. The Australian collected a longest distance award and an armful of memorabilia at the awards ceremony on Saturday evening which included a book on the history of the MZ marque written in impenetrable Finnish. The Finns are unassuming and straightforward people and I was treated kindly, they are nice people to spend time with. On Saturday night the women and then the men took a sauna followed by a dip in the lake, the water in the lake was room temperature warm. The sauna after days of riding was just fantastic. It was good to spend time with my friend Keijo, he is the MZ Club of Finland’s secretary and one of the rally organisers. Finns on average drink a lot of strong alcohol. Drink driving accidents are all to...

Just found this on the Net. Would hate to tour in it. Wonder if they do a Cafe Racer version?? ;-) This came from MySpace TV. One Wheel Motercycle AMAZING NEW BIKE

The Japanese seem to have this thing for cult figures or icons. I don’t mean the nasty ones that tell you they are god and take all your money. I mean the icons that have come out of Japan. Like Godzilla. Pokemon. Monkey and the Phantom Agents. They seem to do this with their motorcycles too. Take the humble Yamaha SR400/500. I am finding more and more shops in Japan that make customs parts for this range of bikes. You can dress them up as bad boy choppers or make them look like old British singles from the 50s. At times I will be featuring the different sites I find as I ride the net. And no I have nothing to do with these shops. I am just sharing what I find. :-) One such shop is Mr Scary MC . I love the name. I wonder is he really is Scary?? ;-) They have customs parts that are very colourful.So much so that they seem to be very untraditional when it omes to customs bikes. As you can see from this Titanium Muffler system. There is no mistaking their customised SRs. You won’t lose t...

Here is Part 3..... Day five since leaving the UK. I’d now ridden about 850km with Klaus, Detlef and Thom. They spoke English fairly well as do most of the folk I met in six countries with the exception of France. This day we rode 240km east to a campground on the Baltic Sea coast south of Grisslehamn and the ferry port to Finland . We avoided the capital Stockholm by riding minor roads around it in a big loop through Koping, Tillberga, Skokloster and Vaddo. The countryside in a large part of Scandinavia is mostly flat having been ground down by the weight of a couple of kilometres of ice in ages past. The Baltic Sea is shallow for the same reason. It’s still very attractive with its neat towns, green fields, distinctive rust red coloured farm buildings and distinctive stick fences. Highway 26 Central Sweden. The guys took me to the Skokloster Motor Museum set in parkland and part of Skokloster Castle, the biggest private castle in Sweden. The exhibits are displayed in an old building ...

Here is part 2 of Michael's ride to the MZ Rally Finland..... Getting to Felixstowe from Heathrow Airport by public transport involves three train connections to Paddington Station, Ipswich and Felixstowe and takes about three hours. I needed to stay overnight in Felixstowe and I chose the Grafton Guesthouse recommended by Dave Milligan. I’m glad I did because the proprietors Geoff and his wife couldn’t have been more obliging. The next day Geoff stored some of my luggage for safe keeping and drove me the two miles to the shipping depot to collect the bike. It’s a powerful thing to find someone who is prepared to help you ( a motorcyclist) on your way when you’re thousands of kilometres from home and don’t know a soul. Felixstowe itself is a popular seaside holiday town noted for it’s Victorian -era buildings. Summer booking for the Grafton and anywhere else in town should be made well in advance. The bike was waiting for me in a warehouse corner looking just as I had left it in Me...

This is the first installment of Michaels write up on his trip to Finland. I have already had the privilege of reading this all the way through. I am very envious of him. What an amazing trip. So now it is over to him…… I had decided that riding my own bike to Finland to visit my friend Keijo, another MZ rider, was feasible and something I could manage. I have another friend in the northern German town of Bad Bramstedt , Klaus and my plan was to ship the bike to the nearest port , Hamburg, 40km south of his house. Klaus would help me collect the bike and we would then ride to the Finnish MZ Club annual rally on June 18th together. I have a 2000 model MZ Skorpion with 48,000km on it purchased new from Readford’s in Dubbo. Klaus has an MZ 250 ETZ model. Michael's son Peter with his dad's Traveller. Using a Garmin (global positioning system) we would ride the 1700km finding back roads where possible. Our route would take us from Puttgarden on the tip of northern Germany through De...

There are more of us out there! Michael Barnes from Dubbo was pointed to this blog by another MZ owner, Rory McPherson from southern NSW. Michael is a MZ Scorpion Traveller owner and lives in Western NSW. That makes 5 of us that I now know of in NSW. Michael has travelled very far on his Traveller. He shipped the Traveller to the UK and then rode from there to Finland for the MZ Rally 2006. During he Europe leg of the trip, over a period of a month, he rode a total a nine ferries. The shortest 20 minutes, the longest 24 hours. Here is his Travller in the parking lot of a hotel in Helsingbord Sweden. Hey thats why they are called Travellers. {EDIT} Here is a map of the route that Michael took. Over the next few postings to this blog I will have Michaels write up of this trip and photos. This is going to be a great touring treat.

Today I and Lilly, youngest daughter, rode into Camperdown. We had a mission. To try out the café at Deus Ex Machina and kick some tyres in their bike shop. We wanted to sample some of their hot beverages and soak up the 40/50s atmosphere. No way were we disappointed. What a great place. Not just for die hard bikers but also for the locals. The shop/café is located at 98-104 Parramatta Rd Camperdown. About 5 mins from the centre of Sydney by fast single cylinder bike with open megaphone. If you can’t see the giant DEUS bike logo painted on the side of the building just look for the cool bikes parked around the shop. The MZ looked great parked next to a Guzzi Griso. Around the corner was a Triumph chopper, a tricked up SR500 single and the Japanese brother of the MZ, a SZR660. Walk into the Café and you are great with lots of noise. Good noise. Happy noise. People sitting around chatting over a hot drink and a meal. Biker people with jackets and helmets. Locals who come here for their c...

The Isle of Man TT races would have to be the best bike races every. This is no road race circuit. It’s around the streets of the Isle of Man. Here is a full lap of the course. The rider and commentator is David Jeffries. Hold on tight. It’s fast. Very fast. Wait till you see him ride through 2 villages. Sit back and enjoy 20 odd minutes of great riding. [Moto] David Jeffries full lap TT Uploaded by michto93 On a sad note David Jeffries was tragically died on May 29th, 2003, when he crashed at Crosby on this circuit during practice. David Jeffries Tribute.

As you would have gathered from reading through my blog I love sidecars. Yes I am a wee bit wonky. ;-) I found this great video on YouTube and have to share it with you. This was shot in the USA hence the chairs being on the 'wrong side'. You may never get to ride an outfit but this will show you how much fun it is. Enjoy! :-)

Yesterday I went on the ‘250s do The Nasho’ ride that was arranged via the Netrider forums . I was not supposed to be riding this weekend. After spending all that time bending over cleaning the oil off the back wheel the weekend before, I had pulled the muscles in my back. I had pulled out of a ride arranged for this weekend due to my back. But by Friday night I was right as rain. I know the MZ is not a 250 but a ride through the Royal National Park with a whole bunch of other riders was too good to pass up. Plus some of the 250s on the road are faster than the MZ. The main meeting point for this ride was Sylvania Mcdonalds. Four of us (Sleddog, BRD007, Andu and me) meet up at Krispy Kreams at Liverpool. We travelled along Heathcote Rd and it was freezing and wet in places. That cold that I was getting cramps in my left foot from the cold. Was this a sign of what was waiting on the road in the NASHO? BRD007's 2007 Hyosung GT250R Sleddog's Suzuki Boulevard M50 Some of the 33 ...