Tokyo Heli-flight

We chartered a helicopter for a joint celebration-flight for some of us turning 30, one leaving japan and one getting divorced, if I should ever use the word awesome and really mean it, this would be the time!

AWESOME!!!

Fuji strange ride

Yesterday was somehow strange, joined a friend to go riding with a group of his friends and quickly got reminded why I normally don't do big groups... we were standing still more than moving, fuel-coffee-toilet-stops being the main focus of the day... but nice weather and a very nice lunch break at a strange blobby building close to mr Fuji made it a pretty nice ride anyway. In the afternoon I went alone to check a small road which I've been curious about because on the map it seemed like it would connect two of my favorite roads, it looked small and indicated that i'd have to cross a pass at almost 2000m -perfect!

Starting from a small village it took me around 20-25min to reach the top, the road being littered with leaves and dirt and fallen branches making it a fantastic playground to avoid all these little obstacles. I could feel the altitude and it was starting to get a bit dark and cold. And I was completely alone. No one on the road. No houses next to the road. Not even any vending machines which here in japan means that you are surely out in the wilderness!! It was a brilliant ride with very mixed road condition and also width of the road which added a special flair to it. The top was closed though and I felt strangely alone and disconnected up there. decided to roll down in neutral with the engine shut off and had an near magic ride only hearing the wind and a surprisingly well greased and smooth sound from the bike, no rattling or anything. Weird not having any drive out from the turns but otherwise brilliant, more like skiing or something. And then it hit me, that something is actually bicycling... something I've come to think of as a boring and primitive version of motorcycling... an activity linked with tight pants and go-faster-shades, but I might need to reconsider all that now, because this strange, silent and smooth ride down went straight in on the top ten list! Confused.

New dancing shoes!

Been riding the Ducati on a set of tires of unknown age, not too bad, but the rear was pretty worn down so I figured I'd upgrade for this autumn and while doing so trying to fit a wider tire in the rear (yes, for looks). Easier said than done... the tire manufacturers are not exactly focusing on 18inch wheels these days :( Finally found these Pirelli Sport Demons which added 10mm to the rear with a slight decrease of tire diameter, had to sign half a million papers at the dealer that I took full responsibility for mounting a different size to the recommended one and all that. In any case, they fit just fine and handling is from my point of view a big improvement which was a bit of an relief since they kind of scared me with all those papers about how potentially wrong it all could go :/

And indeed something went wrong. Not the tires though, but I realized that the piggyback on my spanking new rear suspension, from aussie outfit Gazi, is hitting one of the bolts that holds the rear brake caliper. Cock. Fixed it from the inside now and it seems to work. Tomorrow I'll check it properly. I totally dig their products, no fancy colors or ultra-chromed springs and fixings, just black springs and titanium/black body -neat. And very friendly and service minded sales people, been a pleasure dealing with them.

BTW, if you're bored: fuldans.se

Sketchbook RC

Summer holiday (japanese style...)

Finally got some time off to make a dash back home to europe, turned out the whole thing had a certain japanese touch with different countries and cities almost every day... Munich for a couple of days, Salzburg for one evening, back home to Sweden for a week with stops at "Alo the enourmous" place, home-home and then Stockholm, all in all great fun to see everyone even though it was supershort.

Andi posing with my KTM 250, if you would only have some kickstarting-skills you could actually hit the MX-track mate! The Kawa Z (below with the rest of the bunch) started though, don't really know what to do with it, but it's time will come! Andi -thanks for keeping the bikes safe and happy!

Christian ended up with saturdays birthday-party cake in his trunk... 914+cake=pure awesome.

He he, can't wait till next summer to try out the new little toy!

Cool to see and test ride Olas Triumph, love it, that tank is just fantastic!

This is the latest addition to the gang, a CB650 -81, somehow ugly and cool at the same time, we reckoned that tank and exhaust system could be kept (well, engine and frame aswell obviously...) and with a bit of paint, a new seat/tail unit and suspension we should be able to get something decent out of it. I'll keep you posted on the progress (which will be slow), me and Ola bought the bike for 10.000sek and we have a total budget of 25.000sek so let's see what we can do. Great fun to start stripping it down together, can't wait to sit in a freezing cold garage at christmas holiday to shape a seat-tail foam mockup and hopefully put some painted parts back on?! Looking forward :)

Have patience little cb...

Marcus and Lisa and Markus came by at Olas place for some Carrera-racing, beer and pasta. Perfect evening, it was supernice to see you all again! Good luck with the new job Marcus!

For some reason I have no pictures from my own birthday party, but it was in any case great fun to see all of you who came and big thanks to Luri and Lompy for arranging everything!! :) Good to be home for a short while, see you soon again!

And on the flight back I got reminded about how cute the japanese are, this is an announcement saying that you should take it easy with the booze during the flight, because otherwise you might get totally drunk and funny and start dancing with your tie around your head, ha ha, soooo true! :)