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Back from a long weekend on the Isle of Lewis – you can see the gallery here or just watch the slideshow below

We stayed at the fantastic Braighe House B+B 3 miles out of Stornoway. The service was fantastic along with the accomodation – lots of nice wee touches made the stay most enjoyable.

We cycled a bit on the day we arrived but then had to trundle about by car the next couple of days due to horizontal rain one day and gales the next! Ate well though and managed a bit of cycling in the grounds of Lews Castle on the monday before a delayed ferry brough us home.

With some of the proceeds of selling the (motor)bike I bought a new PC! First one in a wee while so its been quite a leap in performance.

Lorraine inherits the water cooled beastie for email and business stuff!

My new one was from Cyberpower – for those that want to know the details its a
E8500 (3.16 GHz) CPU mildly (for now) overclocked to 3.33 GHz
Geforce 9600GT (512MB)
Antec 900 Gaming Case (lots of big slow fans and plenty of room for
160GB + 190GB + 250GB Hard Drives
All hooked up to a 19″ and 17″ monitor.

Lorraine gets an increase from 1GHz to 2GHz and 2GB memory.

What to do with the old one – media server for the house perhaps…

For the first time since I was 17 I am bikeless through choice! (broken bones and bent bikes were the other reasons)

Not sure whether to be elated at selling it for a good price or sad to be bikeless. Will see how I feel in the next weeks. Going to be odd going in the garage to get the bicycle out and not seeing the Fazer.

Anybody want any bike gear – will be going on ebay soon.

Size 9 Sidi Vertebra, well lived in jacket, Ladies waterproof armoured jacket, some other bits and pieces.

Well it looks like I’ve sold the Fazer and so ends (for now) my motorcycling that I’ve been doing for the last 20 years.

Genuine reason for sale (as they say in the adverts) in that I’ve done less than one thousand mile a year for the last couple of years so was costing me money for not much use.

My daily commute has come down from a 6+ mile round trip to 4+ miles so my bicycle is in use everyday. Bike sheds and shower at work make it easy, plus I’m getting my daily exercise!

If its nice on the weekend then I would rather go to Glentress or take a trip on the bicycle.

If the need arises in the future then I would certainly consider another one.

Haha, got your attention.

Not quite as fast as my current real one, but a lot more easy to build (just a spanner and an Allen Key required).

Many thanks to Secret Santa in the office. What a great gift, built it in my lunch hour of course…

It was an Edinburgh (Scotland?) holiday yesterday so as if on cue – it rained quite a lot

Anyway a trip to Ikea on Saturday morning meant I had things to build so good excuse to stay in and do that. We’ve reorganised and redecorated what was the therapy room into our office which meant some shelves and a different/smaller desk.

I also fitted a Scottoiler to the bike after fitting a new chain and sprockets the previous weekend. Not sure how its getting on yet as trip to work will be the first outing for it. Hopefully it will save on replacement chain/sprockets in the future.

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Seems like there are lot of roadworks about just now – no mention of them on the Clarence website but I came across 5 in a slightly circuitous route home the other day.

View Larger Map

Finally got around to MOTing the motorbike on Saturday lunchtime. Forgot how fast it was – seems like ages since I’ve been on it – well it was February.

Still pondering keeping it – it was great to be out on it again and it is useful to have the extra form of transport for the odd occasion I need to be away somewhere…

Hmmmmm….

Hmmmm, still pondering.

Started it up on Sunday afternoon and ran it to keep it from rotting away completely…

Its now positioned slightly differently in the garage to force me into going past it every day – rather than it being tucked away in a corner.

So still thinking about it

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Hmmmm,

At the age of 17 I was persuaded by Dad to get a motorbike so I could get in and out of University easily (probably so I didn’t keep asking to borrow the car…)

After 20 years of motorcycling with only the occasional non-biking period – the longest one I can remember is when I broke by scaphoid – I’m considering selling the Fazer Thou…

Considering mind you, not entirely decided yet.

The main use of the motorbike was the daily commute just over 3 miles each way into and out of town. Since I’ve had my bicycle though I’ve hardly used it.

Its taxed and insured but its MOT has recently lapsed – not because it will fail – just because I have no pressing need to have it back on the road after the winter layup.
So dear reader – what do you think? Should I MOT and sell it or keep it for the very occasional further afield visit that I can’t cycle to when Lorraine has the car?

Ponder ponder.