Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time

iPhone dump

2012-01-22T04:09:00.001+01:00

Ok, the picture is blurry and all that, but at the platform in the back there's around 10 people dressed up as crocodiles. Or dinosaurs. Yes.

Ducati update/modification?

2012-01-20T15:24:00.003+01:00

I've been thinking about making my tank slimmer to the seat cause it hurts like hell after a day of riding and now I'm planning to let the guys at Animalboat do the cut-an-weld work since a) they seem to be very nice (and skilled) people b) I don't have a workshop and c) anyway don't know how to weld... But! I do know how to handle Photoshop ;) Above: the original Ducati 900 S2, below in red: current state of the bike and under that the mods I'm considering. What do you reckon dear internet?

Planned modifications:
1. Cut and shorten the subframe loop about 20mm and make a new, higher and more curved seat.
2. Higher rear shock pickups to put the shocks in the same angle as the frame tubes.
3. New stay for the rev-counter to position it more vertical, facing the rider.
4. The big one -cut the tank in half and make it slimmer to the rear.
5. Some paint and stuff.
6. I want a steering damper. (yes I know it has to be mounted more or less 90degrees to the fork or have like a pivot where it's mounted, but it looked bloody good to have it following the tank...)
7. (Last pic) Awesome Surtees/Hailwood 250 Ducati GP-racer front nr-plate found in recently acquired awesome book called The Art of the Racing Motorcycle.

Update. Not sure about that desaturated blue, in any case I don't have time/space for disassembling the bike to paint the frame, so for this year the bike will be red. Like this maybe:

Sideburn 9!

2011-12-14T13:16:00.000+01:00

Just picked up the latest Sideburn mag from my mailbox, excellent stuff! This one features lots of good stuff including a higher quality version of my Ducati Desmotracker and some really cool Bikensteins from Peirs over at Derestricted. Thanks a million to Gary and Ben at Sideburn! Get the mag here.

Sick BMW motard

2011-12-11T15:51:00.001+01:00

Saw this bike today while being out for a ride with a friend, so grungy, so damn cool. Sounded amazingly healthy too, want!

And at the bike shop where we saw the BMW they affordable gloves, great! :)

I've been crap at blogging this autumn...

2011-12-09T15:02:00.001+01:00

...but here's a recap in pictures.

Neat architecture scale models.

Polite reminder...

Crazy scooters.

Insanely expensive new rotors...

Motegi MotoGP paddock

Super GT?

Tamiya model, Honda RCV212 Nakano.

Bread in individual plastic bags... wtf!

Great little trip over to Europe and Eicma.

Thanks.

Had 'Painful Ramen', it was good.

Washed and tumble dried a lighter by mistake... it blew up.

Hondas balloon man. Right.

Well hello there, good to see you again!

Yes! It's Handy Hand! :)

Mooneyes Yokohama Show.

And finally, I met Shinya Kimura, awesome guy, that salt lake racer is just fuckin incredible in the flesh.

Now, I'll try to get into this blogging stuff again, pick up my camera every once in a while and all that. Until then, oyasumi nasai.

Yesterday at Hakone

2011-09-12T16:20:00.000+02:00

Desmotracker

2011-09-01T13:28:00.002+02:00

Got some good news from my friend Piers over at Derestricted and thought i'd celebrate by doing a new bikenstein (yes I know, to celebrate by doing some photoshop work sounds pretty dull...). Why Roland Sands hate the beautiful swingarm and carbonfibre subframe of the desmosedici and replaces it by american steel tubes I don't know, but it seems a bit contra-productive to me...

Boardtrackers at the MC Collection

2011-09-01T03:24:00.000+02:00

No brakes, no clutch, 60º banked ovals and speeds up to 200km/h, you'd have to be nuts to get on one of these bikes! Big balls.

Britten no.3

2011-08-31T00:34:00.001+02:00

I want this bike more than anything in the world.

Sometimes it makes sense to be in a picture yourself, just to be able to prove that you've actually seen something like this in real life, but sometimes you also look like a twat and have a helmet hairdo and funny glasses-shadow-stripe-thingies on your face... So there you are, I've seen a Britten and right now I regret not having touched it... damn, why didn't I just touch it a little bit?!

MC Collection, Sweden

2011-08-29T15:37:00.001+02:00

We stopped by at the MC Collection outside of Stockholm during our trip, they currently have Britten no3 on display and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to see it in the flesh. It didn't disappoint and the rest of the collection was much better than we expected so I can only recommend a visit if you have the chance. Will post a bunch of Britten pics in a separate post soon and also their boardtracker collection which was brilliant! (Couldn't manage to make a good cut of pictures so here's almost all of the ones we took)

But suddenly, disaster... WTF!! \( > < )/

The Norway trip...

2011-08-26T15:46:00.000+02:00

...got cancelled due to really crappy weather and we decided to stay in sweden instead, riding east, away from the rain. Shame, we've kind of seen Sweden before... but we'll do the fjords some other time, had a great time anyway and we found some pretty decent roads (also a lot of not so fantastic gravel roads...(fun on the beemer, but hard for the rest, someone should really update the maps to give you a hint of what's what!)). Mine and Olas bmw didn't want to come home with us unfortunately and we had to leave it with a horrible sounding clutch problem, it's back home now, but will need some love to get back in shape. Looking forward to the next trip!

CB650 Seat

2011-08-07T16:17:00.000+02:00

Just picked up the seat for the CB650, very nicely done and not too expensive, the guys at Posh made a good job (in opposite to the crap one we had made while we still considered to have the Dunstall-tank...). Can't wait to see it on the bike!

Zoomer

2011-08-04T19:02:00.001+02:00

Had some things to take care of around town today so I did some hand-held iphone filming while I was scooting back and forth. It's so much nicer to be on the Zoomer instead of the trains, even though they air conditioning on the trains are quite nice on stinking hot days like we have now...

Check around 1.40 for some badass style!

Rain and BBQ

2011-07-29T08:16:00.001+02:00

Been away riding with some friends from work yesterday and today, we went to a volcanic lake where you could see nothing because of the mist and rain. Then we went to a panorama-viewing spot where we also could see nothing else than a white wall of clouds... Then I lost my central stand on the Ducati. And after that we got caught in a massive rainfall and got completely soaked. But the BBQ yesterday night made up for all that and what does some rust on the brake discs matter when your boots are still soaked from the day before anyway?! And it seems that it's just a matter of time before my sidestand will collapse, but all in good time, no need for concerns yet, the bike is lighter, hence faster, without the central stand anyway.

Arigatou 96 for the 45.

CBs getting ready!

2011-07-26T16:10:00.000+02:00

Heading over to Norway in a few weeks time for riding (weird what's going on there right now, but not much one can do about fanatics like that...), the CB650 is back from being fixed at the painter after it caught fire a while back, it's all good again and I'm waiting for a phone call to go pick up the new seat for it as well. Also Andis CB (top) is pretty close to it's comeback on the road after a loooong absence (only ridden once??). Christians BMW (bottom pic) is always ready I guess, maybe just some fresh glue to keep some parts together?? And mine and Olas BMW are also ready for action after Olas little crash earlier this year, it even has a horn now! We might even have a guest or two for some part of the trip, would be fun! I can't wait to get going, I have even managed to get super-mega-extra-long summer vacation and I'm so looking forward to spend most of it on a bike!

Ola goes panorama wild

2011-07-12T13:04:00.000+02:00

My very bestestest friend Ola came over a little while ago, was really good to spend some time together, we rented a bike for him and finally got out riding together here in Japan. Great 3-day trip, which on the last day had me almost crying in pain from riding the Ducati over 500km in a day. Doesn't sound so bad? Well, those 500 took us from 14 hours with only around 2-3 hours of breaktime for food and fuel. Still not so bad? Ok ok, listen, my tank is the original S2 tank which is supposed have a much higher seat fitted and the edges at the back are pretty sharp and get quite wide at the base, they cut in to your groin pretty nicely and gives your package a rather solid beating over time... If I had the same leg proportions as a Playmobil-figure it'd be no problem, but then again -if that was the case, how the hell are you supposed to shift and brake if you can't bend your knees??

Anyway, wonderful fantastic twisty roads with almost no traffic and beautiful surroundings. And I learned that there's a certain chain of mountains that you can't cross over but have to ride around, good to know for the future. Ola learned knew things as well, his camera has a panorama function which he went all out with meaning I had to wait all the time for mr Panorama to finish being a tourist... And he learned that it makes sense to bring a second set of pants when you go riding, you'll see what I mean as soon as I finish a little video I'm cutting together from the riding.

Ola, oh so hostile while taking his bath, bad bad manners...

Svensk midsommar :)

2011-06-25T05:41:00.000+02:00

Suzuki Tzar

2011-06-17T13:52:00.000+02:00

For Ola, from me, from a friend who knows the guy with the bike. Eh...

Tokyo flight

2011-06-13T15:04:00.000+02:00

Flying from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

I went for a little flight with a friend living in my building who's got a pilots license, really really spectacular to see Tokyo from birds eye perspective, it's huge of course, dense to say the least and it also gives you a little remainder of your own size and importance on this planet...

Monkeying around

2011-05-21T09:07:00.000+02:00

Monkeying around from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

Setup.

Photoshop test.

Tamiya prototype...

Perfect friday night at home!

Carr Magazine

2011-05-17T15:13:00.000+02:00

If you're interested in car and bike design sketches there's an excellent mag made by a mate of mine called Carr Magazine, my diesel-Zoomer is now sporting a fancy sticker from named mag and the attention and interest from the Tokyo-leute is immense to say the least, I reckon it has boosted sales of the forth edition beyond imagination.

Marek, how about sending over some mags in return for this free advertising? Same address as last time, thank you very much! ;)

Also, check the sketchsite at simkom.com

RC166 progress

2011-05-08T15:00:00.000+02:00

Made a little bit of progress on the Tamiya RC166 last week, got some red paint on the tank and tail, looks good but I think one more layer would be even better. It's just... you know, I'm bound to screw it up if I paint one more time and then I have to sand it down and shit and I'll be pissed off with myself and it'll be standing on my desk for another few weeks and so on... To paint one more time or to not paint one more time, that is the question.

Btw, saw a nice sportster a few days ago, I'm no Harley fan, but this stuff I like!

Traffic...

2011-05-03T17:08:00.003+02:00

This is how it looked leaving Tokyo this morning, would like to say that it was worth it but there was people and stupid cars everywhere and finally it started raining and we came back home soaked. That's what you get from messing with the first official holiday of Golden week...

Tokyo-Ebina from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

Btw, Zoomer is fixed and well again :)

Zoom-bada-boom!

2011-05-02T14:37:00.000+02:00

I'm a moron. Just bought a used Honda Zoomer (Ruckus) from a friend at work, perfect for scooting around town, slow but kinda fun. First time at the gas station I got a bit confused cause I always use the high octane petrol for the Ducati, but there's a regular option aswell as diesel. I wanted to get regular for the Zoomer, but in a flash state of imbecilliness I didn't bother to ask which one of 3 options it was. Yellow I know, it's the high-octane. That leaves green and red. Red felt like a caution/warning color in my mind at this moment and I didn't want any trouble so I picked green. That was my only real argument for picking green, wtf?? On the way back home it got quite clear that green is diesel. Why oh why is it so difficult to ask first...

Zoomer.

Diesel.

Moron.

The Ducati is running fine though, new chain and stuff, going riding the coming days, will put together a riding vid of that hopefully. It's a long time since I posted anything of the Duc so here's a iphone pic of her showing off the new gold chain.

CB and be em dub

2011-04-06T13:36:00.000+02:00

Dirty 'shop of the seat and rear light which we plan for the CB, seat plate is done and we have a good contact for making it this time. Hopefully...

And the BMW got new tires, we likey!

I'm bored...

2011-04-01T16:22:00.000+02:00

I'm on the way back to Japan, waiting for my transit-flight at the airport in Moscow. It's really no fun at all here. So I dug out some weird old pics that me and some friends did a few years back after coming up with the concept: Anabolympics. The idea is simple, it's fully allowed and encouraged to go all out with any type of doping, epo, steriods, anything goes! Surely there's an public interest to see how far the human body can be pushed and what records can be set. I imagine a scenario where the 100-meter runners are brought out to the track by forklifts since their bodies will be so unbelievable pumped up that they can't carry their own weight. They would of course be madly explosive runners, but basically completely spent after those 100 meters...

Here's a few of the ones we did back then. Unfortunately I can't find the original description of the characters and their type of doping, they all had names and explanations and stuff, hilarious stories. Anyway, first out: the classic one of focusing on only one part of the body...

Same here actually, but the poor guy to the right, although massively strong, did up the wrong arm...

Aahh, sometimes there are hormone side effects to those little pills...

Ha ha, I love this one, 1938, when people still did the scissor style!

Advanced stuff: the muscle-morphing style, making sure that you have the power where you need it althrough the shot-put... thing... throw.

And the more primitive version just mating man and bear for brute force! Hard to imagine the paws in those shoes though...

Shit, this only took 15min to do, still got hours left before boarding...

Strange times...

2011-03-25T16:57:00.000+01:00

Very very strange and scary times right now, after the quake 2 weeks ago (which scared the living shit out of me) I went back home to Sweden to take a bit of 'holiday', feels wrong to be here but equally wrong to stay in Japan. Been trying to keep my mind busy by spending some time in the basement at Olas place, working on our bikes. The CB has taken a rather different turn after we tried to put a Triumph Thruxton tank on it, just to have a laugh actually, which we then really liked the look of. But only after I spent a few days sanding down and painting the Dunstall tank we had from the beginning... to then put it on the shelf... together with the rubbish seat we had made by a guy that completely ignored my foam-mockup seat...

This is how it looked before, kind of a 'broken' feeling where the tank meets the seat. That's the rubbish seat that cost us 350 euro to have made...

The Beemer is coming along nicely aswell, we've shortened the seat and mounted the rear light and stuff and also cut and mounted the carburetor funnels. Tires are ordered and we've decided to go for a dirtbike-scrambler look. Took it for a testride last week, bloody cold but great fun!

It's so weird being here and follow the news about the Fukushima plant and hearing about the devastation along the north-east cost of Japan, I wonder how it will feel to go back to Tokyo. I wonder if I still have a job after being away so long...

Arthur Fulmer AF50

2011-03-05T08:35:00.000+01:00

Went for the this years first little ride today and picked up my new helmet from Hellmart. Masaki-san made a great job padding up the inside for a slightly tighter fit, thanks Masaki-san! My Ducati was acting up a little bit due to just riding in the city with lots of stop and go's, but all in all a nice ride. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 18º celsius and sunny, but I'm sure it's nice with the snow back in Sweden as well...

Olas Thruxton...

2011-03-03T16:07:00.000+01:00

I spent all day with Photoshop at work today, but nope, that was not enough according to Ola, so I was ordered to make a pic showing how his bike could look with his new Kellerman blinkers mounted. And it had to be done tonight. He's a hard boss. And not very fair.

So I did a little bit more than he asked for (japanese style you know...), and now he has to get new mufflers and paint his rims and move to Brooklyn. Ha!

Tamiya RC166

2011-02-26T17:18:00.000+01:00

After going to the Axis exhibition of the handmade bike models I felt ashamed of my own neglected RC166 Tamiya model. It's been standing on my worktable for about 6 months without any progress...

It's good fun, but oh so frustrating, some of the parts are hardly possible to grip with tweezers. But I have good inspiration from my coffee cup and figured out how to see what I'm doing when I'm spray painting stuff on the balcony at night, double sided tape kicks ass! I also realized that it helps to do things in the right order, not just start with the bits that looks like the most fun to do, weird.

And btw, while I was working on the model the old Asimo decided to take Freddie Spencers NS500 for a spin and don't you think he managed to crash it and brake the left grip... What a twat.

Bikenstein 2

2011-02-18T12:20:00.001+01:00

Moa-ha ha ha haaaa! Fuck yeah, these bikensteins are fun! I put this one together last night and I think it would kick ass! Low positioned coolers that'd be filled with sand before even rolling out to the starting line of the Dakar, open dry clutch which wouldn't last for 10km in rally conditions and the Ducati 1198cc twin which in this Vyrus 987 trim delivers 211hp! KTM's 450 Rally front and the tail from the Freeride concept, beefy Akrapovic mufflers and good-for-nothing tank volume since I removed the rear tank and also cut the bottom of the front ones. My god, it'd be so useless that you'd better just stuff it in the back of one of those awesome Kamaz trucks if you want it to go anywhere at all, not to mention that it anyway wouldn't fit in any of the classes of the Dakar... But screw all that, it looks killer in my opinion!

Piers, good on you for posting the street tracker bikenstein, it got me going on this one!

Exhibition at Axis Symposia

2011-02-17T11:45:00.000+01:00

I missed the name of the maker of these bikes, but he builds them from scratch, scale 1/9, only buying prefabs like screws and cables -everything else is made from zero, even tires! Also, if I understood it right he doesn't start from drawings but rather builds them based on pictures and a careful eyeing of proportions and details. I think that's why some stuff look slightly off, but in my opinion it just adds character, someone said he built 40 models in 20 years (or vice versa?). I took a day off from work to catch the last day of the exhibition but ran in to my boss at the venue... damn, can't a guy have some privacy! The boxes are also nice btw.

No racing at Motegi today...

2011-02-17T03:15:00.000+01:00

...but have a look at this Honda-thingie, it's the u3-x, a one-wheel-drive personal transportation... thingie. Honda is making demos at the Honda Collection Hall at Motegi and besides being slow like a snail it's pretty amazing, in the clip it might not be so fantastic, but seeing it in reality is quite weird because it somewhat messes with your mind in terms of what is possible to do. It should just fall over right, but it's standing there balancing itself on one wheel and then someone sits on it and it just goes 'hey, no worries, iv'e got this!'. I'm looking forward to see this tech making it's way into other applications.

Nut-butter, Hellmart and Antiques cafe

2011-02-06T08:34:00.000+01:00

Nut-butter

Hellmart

Antiques-cafe

Lately I've been at some very nice and very japanese bike/geek/ottaku shops in Tokyo area. Today I went with Antonio to Hellmart which was really amazing, packed with old helmets which the owner kind of restores or rather refreshes on the inside and then sell to ridiculous prices. I ended up buying one of course... :/

The cool thing is that they are always so welcoming and friendly and curious about where you come from, what you ride etc, it's something that I often miss back in europe, this genuine service-mindedness. The last pics are from Antiques cafe, which was so nice that me and my friend Nicholas ended up spending 3-4 hours talking about bikes and chatting with the owner and eating excellent food before we finally left for home. Good time.

our BMW

2011-02-06T04:19:00.000+01:00

Starting to think a bit about what we should do with the beemer, it's really quite nice in it's current state, but me and Ola both want something a bit more gravel able, gravable? eh, anyway, made a super rough touchpad copy-paste try, single seater, short tail, new subframe and rear shocks, smaller headlight and some black paint. Let's see let's see...

The coins.

2011-01-26T13:53:00.000+01:00

Where quite a lot, almost 140.000yen! Look what I could get for that:

http://www.goobike.com/bike/stock_8502217B30101207002/

http://www.goobike.com/bike/stock_8501124B30110116005/

And why do I want that so much? Because that's the preferred bike for our Tokyo-Melbourne trip! Ah, and what could be better than starting a trip like that by buying your bike with coins!? :) I'll keep you posted.

Mama Aiuto and my coin bag.

2011-01-21T15:08:00.000+01:00

Ok, Ola is a big fan of Mama Aiuto, it's a Miyazaki-character and he kind of said 'wouldn't it be cool to have a big-ass Mama Aiuto on the bike?', I said 'mjnaa' but today I gave it a try, he's pretty intense that guy and I quite like it. Pretty far from a classic look, but the bike is anyway turning more in the direction of bulldog than primadonna so maybe it could work? And Piers, do you make heat-proof -273 stickers...

Secondly, I hate coins. They are useless and dirty. I also kind of dislike plastic cards. It's faster with cash I reckon. So I'm quite cash-based, especially here in Japan where it's complicated enough going to a shop and stuff anyway. So I end up with a lot of coins that don't get much love. But their time has come! First time I filled my coin bag was in Austria, where I decided to buy a ticket to Japan for holiday if it was enough in there, it was. Almost 800euro that time, it paid for both ticket and hostel during my stay, neat. Last time was less and I made the rule that it's only allowed to spend coin money on things that I really want, but do not NEED. Because they don't really exist do they? They are lying in a bag and if that bag would be gone I would have no clue how much it was or wathever so they are living in the twilight-zone of things existing somehow. My current bag has been full for months, but I've ignored it until now, it's time to get something I don't need!

Here's a few things I don't need:
Playstation 3 and the latest MotoGP-game
A Honda Gorilla
A Yamaha TW (damn, it will not be enough for that but I REALLY don't need that)
Go to Cuba with Christian (hmm, but when...)
A sofa. Nah, that's cheating, I need that.
Shit, I don't know, can't think of too many things now, but wanted to specify the rules before I start counting that I can't come and later say 'oh, I bought a sofa for my coins, brilliant ey?' nope nope, cheating it is. That's that, will start counting now.

Ritmo Sereno

2011-01-15T11:36:00.000+01:00

Made a little excursion to ritmo sereno today together with mr signor Antonio-san, very nice place and the guys took some time to show us their workshop aswell -cool. The racing BMW is so very pure, I'm properly in love with it. ritmo-sereno.com

BTW, been stuck reading threads at advrider.com lately, well worth a visit for anyone who dreams about some biking adventures. Here are 2 good ones to start with:
The BAM-road
A rodie in motion

CB 650 some pics

2011-01-13T15:48:00.002+01:00

The CB is about to ride the "pulka" to the basement, bike made it, pulka not.

CB650 crappy movie...

2011-01-13T15:40:00.000+01:00

CB650 project x-mas 2010 from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

Hmm hmm, it's interesting how one set out to make a fantastic movie-thingie and then just forget about filming because it's too much fun working on the bike. So there's almost only Ola fooling around in this one. But that's also quite fun I think, so it's not all bad.

CB650

2011-01-11T13:22:00.000+01:00

Trying to put a little movie together of our CB650 project, but realized that I deleted the clip where we finally got it running... Anyway, it was great to spend some days in the basement and we got quite far actually, waiting for the seat to be done now and then some electrics issues needs to be sorted but otherwise all good! We think it's all good at least...

I totallly forgot!

2010-12-21T14:29:00.001+01:00

Ola bought a beemer! It's great and hopefully we can upgreat even more, I'm thinking mx-knobbies and a little high fender to make it ready for the gravel roads back home... mm mm.

The previous owner is Jens over at thecartorialist.com

Dusting off the bookshelf...

2010-12-19T09:06:00.000+01:00

... has it's perks it seems, for example, you get to put all your bike-models together on the table and pretend that you own the real ones! It's also ok to play with them a little bit since they are just waiting there for the time being... It's ok right?

A little Night Ride

2010-12-18T11:54:00.000+01:00

A little Night Ride from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

CB650

2010-12-18T09:18:00.000+01:00

Aaaahh, it's soon finally time to get on with the CB650 that me and Ola bought this summer, during autumn we've gotten the black parts painted and I've got a big bag full of parts bought over here in Japan. The current state of the bike is like the last pic while the first one shows the abomination it was when we got it. Pic 3 and 5 are my photoshop-visualizations and hopefully where we will finally end up with this little project.

Sketchbook RC T-shirts

2010-12-09T13:58:00.004+01:00

YEYYAA! A t-shirt with a bike-sketch which I made, I feel awesome today :) My mate Piers over at Derestricted spent quite a few hours converting and cleaning up the paths in order to make this print, can't wait to proudly stroll around in Tokyo in it, my god, life as I know it is over, celebrity-parties here I come! Nah, but seriously, it looks real nice, get it now over at the -273 store.

I forgot...

2010-12-08T14:13:00.004+01:00

...this TW! :)

Mooneyes Yokohama Outside 3

2010-12-05T11:15:00.008+01:00

A LOT pictures from Mooneyes Yokohama Custom show, really cool event, I enjoyed the outside more than the actual show inside. So many really nice Japan-style customs, seriously -Japan is the shit!

BTW, blogger sucks, why can't you add pictures as a group or batch?? I took me almost 1,5h to make these 4 posts... bah!

Mooneyes Yokohama Outside 2

2010-12-05T11:09:00.007+01:00

Mooneyes Yokohama Outside 1

2010-12-05T10:55:00.009+01:00

Mooneyes Yokohama Inside

2010-12-05T10:42:00.009+01:00

Last week at Motegi

2010-11-27T08:45:00.003+01:00

Motegi Impressions November 2010 from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

No clue why the sound starts spontaneously at some parts of the vid, tried to resave it a few times but figured that since there will be no Oscars won for this one I might as well give up.

I'm in a up-giving mood today.

Engrish

2010-11-27T08:34:00.003+01:00

When I snapped this photo I wasn't even aware of the exclamation mark, I thought it was funny enough that using this product is 'easy & surprise', only later did I realize that there was no L but an ! :)

Bikenstein!

2010-11-19T10:32:00.004+01:00

My mate Piers over at Derestricted has been doing a few Bikensteins lately, so I got a bit motivated to give it a go myself. This one is based on my nr1 dream bike, the Britten V1000. Now, if anyone would actually attempt to build this bike for real, they should be shot, because if you have a Britten to start with you sure as hell should keep it as it is! In my mind however, this one would be possible if you'd have a crashed Britten to use for an engine donor and then some mates over at KTM to supply the Freeride concepts bodyparts and someone down in Italy would have to nick a few things from the Moto Guzzi V12 concepts aswell, but if all that can be sorted I reckon you have a mad cool wheelie-machine! Stopping power is another issue all together considering those tiny little wave discs though...

2nd try

2010-11-11T14:35:00.001+01:00

Mr Fuji Goes Here from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

GoPro camera test and Vimeo test

2010-11-07T16:34:00.001+01:00

GoPro Camera test from Martin Petersson on Vimeo.

Enduro 5h-race

2010-11-05T14:44:00.010+01:00

Last weekend. Raining all day, 5-7degrees, 5hour enduro-race, 3 riders per team, 100 teams and mud mud mud... Thanks to hot spring bath afterwards I'll put it in the "it was fun" category :)

Kendo -Japanese championship

2010-11-03T10:25:00.005+01:00

Hmm, quite interesting to see the Japanese Kendo elite, but at the same time strangely dull. They are insanely quick (too quick for me to capture on camera...) and accurate, but so good at defending themselves that the type of clean, perfect hits that you'd expect from them kind of fail to materialize. Glad I went to see it though, haven't seen such a contrast between movement (the kendokas) and static standing (the referees) for quite some time. :/

Phone dump

2010-10-18T13:28:00.006+02:00

The view from my new favorite road.

The Japanese have no limits to what they do with their Honda Apes and monkeys, love it!

"What do you mean officer, not enough tire pattern left?!"

The inside of my mufflers look wicked, is this normal? Of course it's normal that my mufflers look wicked inside!! ;)

Turbo Honda CX223, built from scratch!

Gotta grab my real camera sometime and go for a walk in the neighborhood, the way people park here are pretty creative, check the clearance to the roof!

MotoGP Motegi

2010-10-04T17:26:00.007+02:00

Casey Stoner back in good form.

The americans checked if the gravel pit was in good condition. Of course it was, this is Japan.

Randy de Puniet wasn't too sure if the americans really checked it properly though...

Rossi and Lorenzo had a epic battle, no love wasted between the two of them!

"This way??"

"There are only three sports: mountain climbing, bull fighting and motor racing, all the rest are merely games." Ernest Hemmingway

Indeed.

MotoGP Motegi 125 and Moto2

2010-10-04T16:58:00.005+02:00

Marc Marques, unstoppable.

Are you looking at me punk?!

Moto2 traffic in the first corner.

Toni Elias style is just great, no one hangs off like him, amazing.

MotoGP Motegi Impressions

2010-10-04T16:07:00.009+02:00

Rossi checking the 125s start. Us checking Rossi. No one checking us.

Scott Redding, the youngest rider in Moto2, he's been having a tough time after running over Tomizawa a few weeks back at the Misano race. Very nice guy, congratulated him on his 5th and wished him good luck in the future, he was happy.

Dovi. Should be happy, finished 2nd, best result this season.

Colin Edwards, 5th in the race and genuinely happy.

Yamaha Tech3 boss, forgot his name, doesn't look happy but who knows...

Ben Spies.

Ben Spies ass. Maybe happy.

Lorenzo not very happy.

Hiroshi Ayoama, happy to be home.

Parking on the oval course, cool, very cool.

Tokyo Heli-flight

2010-09-30T16:31:00.004+02:00

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

2010-09-26T07:06:00.006+02:00

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!

2010-09-24T12:32:00.005+02:00

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

2010-09-07T16:33:00.001+02:00

Summer holiday (japanese style...)

2010-09-04T07:13:00.008+02:00

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! :)

Tamiya.

2010-08-12T12:12:00.005+02:00

As I mentioned in the last post I kind of caught the Tamiya-bug, it actually started even before that visit to the Tamiya headquarters and their showroom because a guy at work gave me a CB1100R model kit for free after I promised to take part in an little exhibit... stupid stupid me... Of course I could not leave it at the level of just building the CB the way you should, I had to go and customize it. I was strongly influenced by Wrenchmonkees CB750 build, shown below here, my personal favorit among their very nice bikes.

Now, you'd think I'd at least be smart enough to take some pictures of the final model before the exhibit, but you'd be wrong, so here are a couple of dirty iphone-shots which is all I have for the moment. I'll make some proper shots once I've got the damn thing back.

Thanks Kuro. ;)

Next up: Honda RC166...

Lately...

2010-08-06T12:48:00.001+02:00

Asama VOLCANO races, how cool is that! If I change career I'd like to be a volcano racer for sure!

Taking a evening ride after work, love the nature over here. But now you think: "after work? There is no "after work" in Japan is there?? After work is reserved for Karaoke and getting wasted with your boss right?" Correct. This was the first time I've been able to catch some evening light due to the yearly obligatory trip to the immigration bureau which finished faster than expected. Sweet.

Got to lend this sexy beast (nope, not the KTM -the aircooled XR230!) from work a couple of weeks back, was good fun to ride some offroad again, but I ended up overestimating the tires (my skills?!) and crashed off the trail with the mirror up inside my helmet... I guess that's why they take the mirrors off when they race (at the VOLCANO races!) right?

The Gundam statue again, he's touring Japan right now, saw him in Shizuoka at the train station. He owns anyone in sight.

I've caught the Tamiya-bug... I have a few scale models which I've bought assembled and painted but after a visit to the Tamiya headquarters I just had to give it a go myself. It's a classic case of a hate-love relationship, some pieces are so small that it makes the tweezers feel like trying to grab something with the hooves of a cow, hopeless stuff... But damn good fun to see it slowly coming together and step by step looking like a real bike. Below is my Wrenchmonkees inspired CB1100R, I'll post some more pics in the next post and tell you about the next model aswell...

Mega-suck

2010-07-04T09:39:00.003+02:00

This weekend was supposed to be brilliant... borrowed a Honda CRM250 from a friend at work to join some guys offroad riding + bbq close to Mt Fuji. Been more than a year since I've been on a offroad or mx-bike and I was mighty much looking forward to this, especially since I've seen pictures of their earlier trips and it always looked like great fun. Got everything ready friday evening for an early take-off on saturday, my mx-boots finally got to get inside from standing on the balcony for 10months, googles where properly cleaned and lucky underwear brought out.

During the day however I felt kind of weak and rubbish and when I after preparing my gear finally checked my temperature I had 38.4... WTF. Had I believed in God I would have been seriously pissed off with his ill-timing, but as it stands now I could just surrender to nature, stay at home, listen to an audiobook, watch motoGP qualifying and Argentina-Germany... not happy.

Rain season...

2010-06-16T15:14:00.003+02:00

Rain season just started... got a few great days of riding last weekend though, but now it will be kind of rubbish for a while it seems. It's so humid that even when it doesn't rain (like in the pictures above taken from my flat when I came back from work today) it's like breathing some kind of hot sticky slimy substance... and this slime has no resemblance to normal air whatsoever. (:O No genki. And this is just the beginning... Anyway, been a while since I saw a rainbow, so that's always something. :) (And I look kind of slim in the first picture, nothing could be further from the truth though! )

WRC Finland 2008

2010-06-07T15:07:00.013+02:00

Last post I said the WRC-pics deserved their own post, not sure anymore, but here are a few anyway...

Chain of thoughts...

2010-06-02T12:13:00.016+02:00

Last post made me think of my mx-bike which is all lonely (kind of... sometimes Andi tries to kickstart it...) in a garage outside Munich, I miss that bike.

Remembering the bike made me think of a awesome trip to Hungary some years back, which reminded me that I lost my kickstarter somewhere in the forest or on the applefields down there (oooh, those applefields, throttle pinned in between these mega-looong corridors of trees, so sweet!). That created a bit of drama since I had to be kind of careful not to stall the bike at a shitty place for push-starting... but good stuff nonetheless.

Thinking of the mx-bike then made me think of my other neglected bike, the Kawasaki...

A fair bit of money went into that bike to make it run and quite a few drunk hours on Andis balcony sanding and spraypainting stuff, loved every minute of it though!

That led to thinking of the trip to Paris which was the main reason for all that (hard? incompetent?) work. That trip was le brilliant!!

The moment pictured above on Champs Elysees in the pissing rain was kind of crap though..
But this was just perfect, red wine and friends in the warm evening next to the Seine.

So that made me think of the trip the year before that, Germany-Denmark-Sweden-Finland-Balticum-Poland-Chech Republic-back to Germany, also great trip! Somehow strange to be a tourist in your own country!

Yep, sweet sweet stuff, thanks again Peter for letting us have the bikes for a week (sorry about the wheelies...). Anyway, I then remembered the second part of that trip, on the other side of the Baltic ocean...

It started good enough...

But soon turned into exactly what you could expect from the Fins!!! ;) What the fuck!!

It'd be a shame to end this post like this, so I'll add some good memories pics for the end...

(We actually watched WRC Finland, but those pics deserves a post for themselves)

Good times, miss it a lot lately and miss all you guys, hope to see all of you soon again! Martin the sentimental crybaby signing off... :.(

Erzberg Rodeo

2010-06-01T16:14:00.012+02:00

Taddy Blazusiak, winner 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Tomorrow or the day after is the start of the Erzberg Rodeo 2010, it's an awesome event, I wish I could be there to see it again this year. The pictures above are from 2008 when I went there with some friends, loved it, a bit difficult to follow the race because you have to move a lot yourself, but compared to the effort put in by the riders it's hard to complain... The guy in the last picture just fell asleep, completely out of it, I'm not sure but I think he's not even halfway through the track...

Wet weekend...

2010-05-30T10:24:00.006+02:00

As I said in the last post we made a little trip this weekend, been to a very nice onsen in Nikko, it was raining a lot on the way there but my bike put up a good fight with a little help from gaffertape and 7eleven ice-cups to avoid rain from going straight into the carbs... I expected some drama from my italian lady, like "vaffanculo, why in the padres name are we out riding in this shit weather, can't you see I'm almost naked?! that's it, screw you stronzo -I'm gonna misfire all the way from here to la mia casa!" but to my great surprise we had none of that -awesome! :) Also proper drinking yesterday night and looots of time spent in the outside baths -good stuff!

Duc 900

2010-05-28T14:36:00.005+02:00

Been spending a lot of time in the garage, sorry -parking space, in my building lately, bought a bike-stand which meant I could finally take off the front forks to mount new head light holders and a new front fender and lowering the rev counter+speedo. Dropped the forks through an extra 10mm to get a bit better stance as well. Also mounted a mini-mirror that I found at the local Ducati dealer, ridiculously expensive but looks great I think :) And you can even see things in it!! Like what's happening behind you and stuff like that! Now I'm looking for different rear shocks to lift the tail of the bike a bit, feels too low right now. People tend to look at me in a kind of strange way when they come home and park their bicycles and see my lying on the floor, dirty and sweaty with tools and parts all over the place, but I reckon that's their problem... Another thing is that the parking area is video monitored... so the old security-boys in the building might be wondering why i've been taking-off-putting-back-taking-off-putting-back-taking-off-putting-back the front forks, head-light and front fender a million times... well it's because I can't measure things properly and have to re-do and re-drill things over and over ok!! Anyway, been good fun lately, tomorrow we are going for a weekend trip with some people from work, very much looking forward to get up on some bendy roads again!

Maximes TW

2010-05-24T17:40:00.002+02:00

Very clean, nice work Maxime!