Kilkenny

We rented a car today and drove down to Kilkenny.  Daughter Karen was going to drive until she found out the only option was stick shift, so her SO Jon got the duty.  There were some moments of stress in the roundabouts, but at least it wasn't my stress.  We are getting further and further away from motorcycle related stuff, but I've had my turn.  Now is the time for castles and gardens. 

 

Kilkenny Castle

 

 

We did find an interesting pub called the Left Bank.  It was a real bank until the economic crash of 2008, when it was sold and was converted into a pub.  I'm beginning to really like Guinness!

 

 

Note the sunburn.  Not going to add to it in the next few days as Ireland is looking more like we expected.                                                                                                                                          

 

 

 

 

 





A-Maze-ing apartment

We have been in Dublin, Ireland for a couple of days and are staying in an apartment where I still make mistakes getting to our unit.  Carolyn and I will take you on a tour:

Here is the outside door to the building

 



Once the desk clerk lets us in the building we enter the next doorway:

 



Then over to this door:

Through another door:

Up a flight of stairs and down the hallway to another door that has a release button to let us out into a courtyard:

Then we walk across the courtyard to another door with a keypad:

Now back inside and up a couple of steps, we head for another door

That gets us to an elevator

Which we take to the fourth floor

Then out of the elevator and through this door

And finally to our apartment door

The architect for this place was obviously insane and incompetent.  Once inside the apartment every room has a door that automatically closes and cannot be kept open for ventilation.  We assume these are fire doors, but in case of a fire we would never be able to figure out how to get out of the building in a hurry so we would be toast anyway. 

Oh, and the internet only works in the bathroom and one of the bedrooms, so right now I am sitting on our bed with the netbook in my lap and the mouse on the nightstand. 

However, the weather has been fabulous.  The Irish are going bananas and say this is the best stretch of weather they have had in three to ten years, depending on who you talk to. 

We have seen lots of interesting things, but since this is about motorcycles (and Mustangs), here is a picture of some professional courior riders:

Small bikes with Hippo Hands.

Tomorrow we check out of here (should be able to find our way out by then) and rent a car for the next stage. 

Busy Days!

It's been three days since I have been able to find the time to make a post.  We have ended every day late, and with the slow internet at the Snoozebox, it just wasn't going to happen.  Thursday was supposed to be a "day off" because there were no races, so we scheduled a tour of the course with Phillp MacCallen, who won a bunch of the TT races back in the early to mid 90's.  The tour was scheduled for 11 am, so we spent the morning down at the Douglas Promenade.  There was art gallery with the following work:

It was called The Fragility of Life, and the rider was made out of glass jars and bottle parts.  Pretty cool. 

Speaking of cool, we saw these old riders walking around town with their canes:

The person in front in the black and red gear is a woman. 

MacCallen narrated as a tour bus drove us around the course and it was a fascinating trip.  I came away with the following impressions:

1.  The TT course would be a challenging ride at normal street speeds
2.  Knowledge and experience is worth more than courage. 
3.  These guys have no lack of courage. 

Regarding the first, the things that make it challenging, besides the walls and buildings right up against the road, is the steepness of some of the grades and the unevenness of the road.  It has dips, rises, bumps, and many blind corners and crests.  MacCallen did a great job of describing what it takes to do a lap, but he was also nailed it when it came to explaining why anybody loves to ride.

Here is a pic from the bus to give you an idea of the narrowness of the road:

Our tour ended around 2:30 and so we decided to take in the bike show at Laxey.  This was beyond walking distance to we went to take the bus.  Problem is, the bus drivers were on strike this week, which meant that there were still buses, but they were few and far between.  After waiting for an hour we got a ride up to the show, which turned out to be pretty lame.  They did have a couple of classic Triumphs like this:

 

They did have on display the mobility scooter that went 85 mph in the Ramsey sprint races.  It has a 600cc four cylinder motor of some brand, and I got my picture on it:

 

There were only a couple of dozen bikes in the show and by the time we caught a bus back to the 'box and had some dinner is was way late. 

 

Friday we took a cab up to Creg Ny Baa to watch the TT lightweight class, which consisted mostly of Kawasaki's like mine and was won by James Hillier on a Kawi.  Then after a couple of hours the main even, the Senior class began.  However it barely got started when there was an accident where a bike crashed into the spectators and injured several.  This happened at Quarterbridge, where we had been watching on Wednesday.  The race finally did get back underway at 4:30.  We were this close to the road:

 

 

When we sat down our feet were actually dangling over the road.

 

Following are some of Carolyn's pics from the race:

 

 

 

 

 

 #5 is Bruce Anstey and #4 is Guy Martin, who is sort of a rock star in England and Ireland; sort of like Barry Sheene and Valentino Rossi. 

 

Fantastic experience, but by the time we got back to the 'box and had dinner, we were done for the day.  I am typing this from our apartment in Dublin, Ireland, which is an interesting experience in itself that I will post about later. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



Three Races Today

We had our grandstand seats on the first row and watched the "TT Zero" class which is the electric bikes.  Last year this was won by the Motoczysz bike produced in Portland, and they were back again this year with two bikes.  Their main competition was from a Mugen bike called the Shindin.  Mugen has always been a sort of proxey for Honda and it was said that Honda spent 4 million dollars on this bike.  It is pretty well known that Honda is working on an electric bike for public sale, and a win would give them a jump start on publicity.  Well, they had the best time in practice and were leading the race until the very end, when the Motoczysz passed them on time.  Hooray for the USA!  However, only one of the two Motoczysz finished.  The average speed of the winner was almost 110 mph.  This was a one lap race and it was sort of strange to watch as there was very little sound from the bikes. 

The next race was the Supersport class, which included 600cc fours and 675 cc triples.  I swear there were also some Ducati twins in the race but they were not listed in the entry.  It was won by Michael Dunlop.  It was a four lap race and required refueling after three laps.  The refueling happened right in front of us and was fun to watch. 

 

This race was won by Michael Dunlop.  Being a four lap race, we got to watch them come through the start/finish straight at full throttle and they were screaming.  Top speeds in this area were around 150 mph. 

 

After that race we walked about a mile down to Quarterbridge to watch the action in a slow turn.  The race we watched there was the sidecar race.  Carolyn got some good photos with her telephoto lens in this area.  Here are a few:

 

 

 

 



 

The result of the sidecar race was an upset in that the many time winners, Dave Molyneux and Patrick Farrance were beaten by the world sidecar champs Tim Reeves and Danial Sayle.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bikes Everywhere!

No TT races today, but we still had a busy day.  Walked down to a park near the beach in Douglas to see a classic bike ride-in, and then took the Manx rail to Ramsey to watch some sprint (drag) races.  These were a sort of "run what ya brung" 1/8 mile drags.  There were some interesting entries, including a mobility scooter like you see old folks getting around Walmart in that went over 80 mph.  Also some touring bikes with panniers and top box.  Some serious types also, including a stretched and slammed Hyabusa that got up to 140 mph in the 1/8th mile. 

Everywhere there were bikes of all types except crusiers.  The riders are generally leathered up with full race outfits and super sharp bikes.

The internet here is slow, so I'm going to have to go light on the pictures, but here are a few:

Single cylinder Vincent.  Didn't even know they existed. 

Traffic Jam in Ramsey

Typical bike parking. 

The island itself is really beautiful and the weather has been fantastic.  I was so worried it would be rainy that I wasn't prepared for the full sunshine and actually quite warm weather.  Getting sunburned is turning out to be our weather problem. 

To end the day, we had a demonstration by the Red Arrows, which is the RAF equivalent of our Blue Angels or Thunderbirds.

We watched this while (in my case) having a beer on the deck of the Snooze Box bar.  This is a bar/restaurant where we get our breakfast and can lounge and get drinks. 
Tomorrow the real racing begins and we have our grandstand seats at the start/finish.  This is only a short walk from our Snoozebox. 

Arrived in Douglas, Isle of Man

All flights and connections went well but it was a long 28 hours of travel and I'm tired.  We have also had difficulty getting internet connections and our phones still don't work.  Even though we got here late in the day, there is still a lot going on and I will just post some quick pics

These are the Snooze Boxes where we are staying.  It looks pretty much like a cell block in a prison from the outside, but it's pretty cute and cozy inside. 

More tomorrow.  I need some sleep. 

Getting the Mustang Ready for Summer vacation

The car makes a great winter project, but with the prospect of good weather, I don't want to spend time indoors in the shop.  I also want my shop space back for working on motorcycles and property maintenance equipment.  So I have made a push to get a couple of projects done on the car and then I will put it away for the summer.  There is also a sort of deadline to get things done, as next Sunday Carolyn and I are leaving for a 19-day trip to Ireland and the Isle Of Man.  My daughter and her SO Jon are going also.  The big draw with the Isle Of Man is, of course, the famous TT motorcycle race. 

After a run of really nice weather, it has turned rainy and so I have been working on the car.  The main things I wanted to get done is the rear disk brakes and the instrument cluster.  The brakes were a bit tricky since I had to cut the stock brake line across the axle and make new flare end fittings because the disk brakes use flex lines at the calipers.  Nevertheless, I got it done, and this is how it looks:

Next, I tackled the instrument cluster.  In my last post about the car I was installing the under dash wiring and converting the ammeter to a voltmeter.  Now I have connected the instrument cluster to the under dash wiring and also installed the speedometer cable to the back of the speedometer, the backup light switch to the backup lights wiring, and the brake light switch to the brake pedal. 

The wires under the duct tape are for the backup light switch.  This switch is activated by the transmission under the driveline tunnel. 

This last photo reminds me that I also put in a new ignition switch and light switch and new bezels for the lights and wiper switches.  Oh, and I also put in the engine bay wiring harness for the gauges and starter solenoid.  Guess I have been pretty bush since the last post.