So, I already wrote one really trippy post about this show, but I've been able to watch a few other epi's and sometimes a girls got more to say. So let's get on, right? I admit that I did try to figure out other ways in which to watch this show, because I really wanted to finish the story lines that I had started. The British channel that it airs on won't let you watch epi's unless you live there. Fair enough and makes sense, but I was still a little sad about that.
Finally though, whoever has been uploading them to Youtube (who probably shouldn't be doing that, but I digress) added the last two epi's of this current season. I, of course, watched them, but you know what? In those two story lines I had a beginning and an end... and absolutely no middle. It was like magic, but it was also frustrating. "Let's take this bike apart." "Okie Dokie." ............................................ "And the bikes all done!" "Huzzah! Yippy Skippy!" I've missed all the cool stuff. All the use of wrenches and the coming up with design elements and all of the mechanical tinkering. All the actual work to get to the finished bike. Either bike, as there was the 1940s Canadian Harley Davidson (I realize I probably said the wrong bike, but you know what it's confusing watching two epi's from season 7 and two from season 1 - there was a pre 1955 Triumph somewhere in there) and the newer model Norton that they were retro-ing out. It was nice to see the end results, but I'm still missing out on those story lines. And I also admit that in my last post I mentioned my great lack of love for Harley's. But I also said that I like old bikes. As in 1950s and before. And one that was used for the Canadian military around WWII ups the cool factor of a Harley for me. So, it's finished and over but the Canadian war time Harley was a really beautiful machine and now I know how to apply sticker transfer things properly. Yes that's my take away. Considering I only saw Henry and Sammy(?) remove the engine, take the frame for paint work (or was that a completely different bike on a completely different epi?), and fix the hodge-podgy headstock, oh and drink a lot of tea. There's also a Ghostbusters mug too. My take aways from these shows are odd, but I'll continue. I couldn't tell you where I saw it before. See, if you watch Find It, Fix It, Flog It they're always at Henry's Palace O Sheds working on things. On The Motorbike Show it's the same location; The Palace O Sheds (which is not what anyone calls it but me). I can't keep it all straight. I just know I'm watching Henry and Guy wanting to work on something and Guy is holding a mug that catches my eye and I rewind it because I'm like, "Is that a Ghostbusters mug?" and it is! Then later Henry is using the same mug, because ya know, I can't help but notice it because it's a pretty iconic symbol to be pranced around on screen. So, yeah see if you can spot the Ghostbusters mug too! Also the Norton that Henry and Guy were retro-ing out was stunning and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it that much, because I think I'm not into street bikes, but apparently I'm just not into one's I see here stateside? But it was really gorgeous. They did this magical thing too were the body was aluminum and the decals were gold and black stripes. But, then they'd get it painted and the body would be black and the black lines would be gold? Or was it silver? I wish they'd explained a bit more about how that wizardry works, because that sounded cool. You would think that if I were setting out to write a blog post about this that I'd be better at it, right? I should have jotted notes while watching the epi's the first time. Did I do that? No. I watched them and then tried to remember all of the jumbled up information from them. I started working on this post and went back and watched both of those epi's again because "What was it they said? What was that about?" And do you know what? I still had questions and rewatched them for a third time, mainly fast-forwarding to parts where I thought the information was. My take away from watching those epi's so many times? Damn, that man is beautiful! and also I still can't find where Henry said that line. So, it wasn't all wasted time really, even though it was, because of all the times that Guy was on the screen or when the camera would no longer focus on him but you could still hear his lovely, lovely voice. And I did remember some points I had wanted to mention, so there's that. But moving on. I think I liked it (the revamped Norton) so much because it was beautiful in its simplicity. Nothing was over done about it, though there were very striking elements about it. It just flowed together really well as a design. Also apparently guys just look really hot riding bikes. They don't for the most part here. It's a lot of really, really old heavy set guys with braided beards and pony tails who look like they might smell, riding their Harley's down the road. That's not attractive. And while I don't find Henry an attractive person (as in not attractive to me and thankfully so as the man is married!) there's a certain niceness about the way he sits on a bike or rides it. The music they play doesn't hurt either. And I say this, because apparently since this re-do of the Norton was such a big deal for Henry and Guy it got the best music. And Henry did ride it. Didn't help either that they kept saying that you felt like a hooligan while on it. I don't even go for "bad guys" nor do I think bikes are just a "bad guys" thing, but damn they were not wrong. Everyone just standing near that bike looked like a sexy bad boy while the music was playing. I don't know their demographic for this, except that I'm sure it's mostly British, but I would guess that it's mostly males watching. I'm sure their reactions were quite different from mine. They wanted to be the sexy hooligan on the bike, reliving their youthful years. I, however, could see the understated man thrill of just looking at that bike, like it was full of hope and longing and I don't know what else, and while I'd want to ride that bike and look at it in person (and know how they put it all together and the "magic" of the paint work), I also just kind of wanted to be the lady of the sexy hooligan who would be riding that bike. And it was weird, I'll admit, that one of those men standing there in the Norton show room, I just wanted to see him on that bike and the thought put this quirky Peanuts Gang smile on my face. I have no idea what my face looked like, but it felt like the weird squiggly lines of Charlie Brown and Company. I'm not even trying to think about him, but one can't really deny feelings and such when you see someone you find utterly beautiful. And here I've made a post about motorbikes all weird and girly again. But what kind of writer would I be if I didn't tell you how my mind flows? Probably a great writer. ha ha ha But I digress. He did ride that bike later at the end of the last epi and it was not disappointing. Besides why would I write this from a male perspective since I am not a male? So gentlemen who might stumble upon this, this is what some females think about a show about motorbikes or you riding them or whatever, and the parts they find fascinating. Plus while a guy might either be jealous, or perhaps relishing in the triumph of Guy and Henry's seemingly life long mission come true; as a female I found it to be absolutely adorable and quite endearing. And I mean adorable in the best possible way. I was happy for them. I thought it was pretty fantastic that the guy at Norton liked it as much as they did. But from a very non condescending female perspective, I could sort of see the youthful energy about them, that unbridled excitement of their teenage years welling to the surface only to be contained again by their learned man behaviour of stoicism and non emotions. I may or may not have also found it sexily adorable the way he ran into the Norton building; along side Henry who was riding the bike. But we'll move on and try for a bit of guy land here. The bike show, Kickback, was interesting, where enthusiasts had overhauled bikes to their own liking in their garages. There was some pretty fascinating ones. And in one of these new epi's Henry rode a Honda Cub, which is his. He keeps riding and talking about a new bike during a segment in each epi during this season. I liked learning the history of the Honda Cub, and seeing the old advertisements and reels for it, and then seeing the overhauled ones at the Kickback Bike Show. Though to be honest I had a pretty difficult time understanding the guys there that were being interviewed about their Honda Cubs, but apparently it was pretty hilarious. Now, I believe it was season 1, because the reason I decided to watch it because there was a small bit about Steve McQueen. Henry got to talk to McQueen's stunt double/mechanic, so it was nice to hear about McQueen from someone that worked closely with him and hear about mechanic stuff and know that basically if he'd collected stamps (I don't know, he used something that seemed uncool), that he'd still have been an all around swell guy. He still would have been cool. Sidestepping a moment, Henry did voice over something being basically more orange and crazier than Donald Trumps hair and then at one point though I never found it again in my searching he said something was muddier than The Mississippi. I could say it's weird to watch a British show and hear so many references to America. But then you're reading a blog from an American girl and I apparently can't stop mentioning Britain, so, I guess I can't think it's too odd. But I certainly did in the moment. Which brings us back to the very end of the season and back into uncharted girl land. Henry had everyone from the show do a ride out, which seemed nice and fitting. Sammy took the Canadian Harley, Henry and his kid took the sidecar bike, and Guy rode the redone Norton. And well, everyone else rode their own bikes, mostly men, but some women rode their own or were riding pillion behind their men, to some place a bit up the road (20 miles or something?). While it was very nice seeing Guy ride, that wasn't my take away. What was it? It was two part. The chilly rainy weather and the riding of motorcycles. It made the ending a little bittersweet for me. While I understand that riding on a bike is chillier than other forms of transport, so the colder it is, then the worse for riding. Also that rain is not your friend while riding. It stings when you're moving that fast into it. But, I still thought the weather seemed lovely just for weather's sake and was blissfully different from my swampy gross and disgustingly hot weather that I'm forever contending with. But to ride a motorbike has always been something that I've been drawn to do and experience. I don't really know that world, but there's always been that tug and pull from it. I have ridden pillion on a friends bike when I was ten. I had been begging him for a few years to take me on it, because I already felt the pull from it. Obviously he wasn't going to let me take it on my own (regardless of the fact that I couldn't have kept it upright), but that experience lasted all of perhaps two minutes. The time it took to make the small circle of houses back up to mine. The only time I've actually ridden a bike myself, it was a dirt bike in a field for about a minute or two. I've never been able to actually go. I don't understand personally the weather changes while on a bike, or how the feel of keeping it upright with your thigh muscles while stopped, or leaning into the turns. I've been told the principles and I'm intelligent enough to understand what all those words mean, but to actually experience something puts a whole new meaning to words that are simply spoken at you, no matter which subject one is referencing. I also admit that I'm a little nervous about them. A nervous fascination all rolled into one. Are guys nervous about bikes? Or do they just say, "Yep, I'm gonna tackle that.", and just get on and go without so much as a second glance back? Probably. Which if that's how they are, then that is at once thrilling and fascinating as well. However, I like to know a thing before I attempt it, at least somewhat. It's a world I've always been on the fringes of, hearing snatches of bike motors rumbling past my house or glimpses of them zooming past me on the road. It's a little sad that with this life long fascination, The Motorbike Show is the closest I've come to actually seeing them, or even beginning to understand them. That one family friend from long ago no longer has that bike and I don't know any people with bikes. In all my forays to Classic Car shows I've never once seen a bike present. Oh, there was the one I went to last year that had bikes, but they were bicycles. I also could have looked them up online, but while I spend a lot of my time online for work, I never think to search things on it. That sounds weird but it's true. I'm still of the mindset that for serious research I have to go visit the library or else immerse myself in the tangible. My first thought is never, "Oh, I can just look that up on the internet." There's also the fact that I'm the type of learner who has to see it for real. You show and tell me what to do and then let me actually tinker with it. It's hard to wrap my head around words that hold no true meaning. You could show me pictures of the bike throttles and clutch and give me written instructions on how to start a bike, but without actually being on one and having someone guide me through it and letting me actually do it, it doesn't mean anything to me. By the way for the dirt bike, my uncle started it for me, though I told him I wanted to learn how to do it. Oh well... The only things that I could see while watching The Motorbike Show were the things I already knew from working on cars. There's no throttle or handlebars on a car, but there is a fuel tank, and I've touched those, filled those, taken them off, sanded them, cleaned them, and re-attached them. Though the engines are different looking, I've worked with engines too and when they said, "We're refitting the head gaskets" I could point them out right away because so many times I've had to remove old gaskets and reapply new one's. I understood the frame because the chassis of the car is the frame though it's not called that. Easy peasy. However other things, because they were only briefly mentioning it and not showing the actual part and they weren't currently touching it, I had no idea where those parts actually were. But, while I understand the mechanics of cars, and I don't mind getting dirty, and I like to actually look at classic cars, it's a lot to deal with. The bikes seemed so easy. They're not, I'm sure, but all the basic innards of a motorbike could fit inside one car transmission or engine! That seems a lot less daunting than a car. Plus there's no engine compartment to a bike. There's no need to lay over the side and reach down in there with the threat of the bonnet slamming down on you to sever your spine in half, nor is there any need to raise the bike up and crawl underneath it. Already two plusses there. And though I'm sure there's some arm twisting maneuvering to working on a bike, I bet it's nothing to that of a car. No, they just lifted it up a little on a hydraulic lift so things were closer to work with and just stood on the side and worked, or else went to the other side and did something mechanic-y. And when removing the engine there was no need for an engine lift. Another plus! Though I'm sure that I couldn't remove one, without damaging it or my foot, by myself, but it took two people and that was that. I could totally get on board with mechanicing a bike. I would actually really love to and I'd probably pick it all up pretty quickly since I already have some base knowledge. It actually all looked a lot more satisfying and enjoyable than working on a car. The simplicity of the tinker than the headache of work. I'm not saying it's not work, but it looks like an absolute dream, if I'm being honest. But this leads me into my final point and one that's slightly weird. So, I did mention in a previous post that my dad is the reason that I know anything at all about mechanics of cars or things about bikes. Mechanics from his dad, but the actual riding of bikes from him, since he was big into that before he married. I have wanted to tell him about this show, because he might enjoy it. I say might, because while he does like bikes, he's sometimes weird and it might not interest him at all. However, I haven't mentioned this show to him yet. He's not heard me watching it. He doesn't read my blog and I've not brought up anything about motorbikes, not even the one's Guy and Henry fettled with on Find It, Fix It, Flog It. I did mention that show back in January when I first watched it, but all I told him was that it's like American Pickers, but British. It's weird, but good. I didn't even mention that they sometimes worked on bikes. Yet, every time recently that my dad comes in here to the office, he's bringing up motorbikes. Am I exuding this motorbike aura or something? Am I permeated by a ghostly exhaust or petroleum smell? It's kind of weirding me out. Somehow he's picking up on the MOTORBIKE neon sign that must be blazingly flashing above my head... or else why would he suddenly work bikes into the conversation? Bikes drove down the street while he was in here and he first remarked, "You know what that sound is right?" "Yeah, bikes." But, it was 98 degrees outside and all I can think of is how hot it is, so I then said, "Ugh, it's so hot, I don't know how anyone can be out and about in this weather." Then he plowed on with, "Oh, but it's colder when you're on the bike, that's why they wear those leather jackets." The he couldn't just stop himself from talking motorbikes. The same things I've heard all my life. That the rain stings and that people need to take care around them because cars are a danger to bikers. Then the groan worthy dad joke of, "How can you tell if a biker is happy?" "Because of all the bugs stuck in his teeth." Get it, because he's been openly smiling during the entire ride? Yeah... I didn't say it was a good joke. That was just on one visit. On other visits he's found some way to sneak motorbikes into the conversation somehow. Just random bits of information. And it's kind of getting weird, man.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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