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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/04/12 in all areas

  1. I have done thousands of miles on bikes and that kind of behaviour (and I'm talking about general agressive behaviour to bikers from car drivers) is not unusual from a small minority of car drivers. It is also not unusual for this small minority of car drivers act agressively when a biker whom they have just blocked/cut up or run off the road to then use their car as a weapon against the biker and make it a whole lot worse. The initial incident is normally IMHE accidental but once the biker draws the car drivers attention to it (and this may only be as mild as a look of exasperation to the honk of the horn sounded to let the driver know the biker is actually there and not in rebuke) the car driver then retaliates. I have also been deliberatly driven at/forced to change lanes and bullied by car drivers when riding a motorcycle. This normally happens when filtering in traffic queus as some drivers seem to resent the bikers ability to make progress when they can't I had an incident many years ago whilst crossing Putney Bridge in London which illustrates this. The traffic on my side of the road was queued and moving slowly (10mph at most) and the traffic on other side was very light. I was taking the opportunity to use the lack of traffic on the other side to filter, timing the moves past the traffic on the left with appraoching traffic as the bridge is quiet narrow. I was doing between 15-20 mph and had seen an HGV come up onto the bridge (I was about a third of the way across) chosen a large gap to filter into on my side of the road to let it pass. The gap was infront of a silver Ford Granada Scorpio and behind a large white box van. As I moved to the left to take up the space infront of the Scorpio the driver accelerated into the gap right up behind the white van giving me nowhere to go, this was a deliberate and agressive manouver, the traffic on my side was still moving slowly so maintaining the gap would not have been an inconvienience for him and there was no way that the driver could not have seen me as I was infront of the car as he closed the gap. I was now along side the O/S front wing of the Scorpio about a foot over the white line with a large vehicle approaching. In my left mirror I could see the driver of the Scorpio had is arm out of the window and was giving me the w***er sign, he then began to move over to the right delibertly forcing me further into the path of the approaching lorry. With no option but to stop (couldn't get past the white van infront of the Scorpio) because of the approaching lorry the driver of the Scorpio continued forward and then the traffic came to a stop with me opposite his open driver window. He was leaning out hurling abuse at me and trying to push the bike over with his right arm. I was, as you can imagine, a little miffed at this and was looking for a way out when I saw that, attached to the ignition key was a HUGE bunch of keys. By this time the lorry was inching past and I had to lean over towards the Scorpio to give lorry driver a bit more room, the Scorpio driver was enjoying the moment so much he was a bit slow to react to me leaning over a bit more and removing the keys from the ignition. I waved the keys infront of his face to which he replyed "You'r not going to do anything stupid with those are you?" I said "Not if you appologise for what you have just done" to which he suggested I go forth and multiply. By this time the traffic had started move off again and the lorry had passed, the Scorpio driver the tried to get out of the car but the bike was right up against the door so he could not. He was now shouting and swearing and in a right temper. I obliged him by "not doing anything stupid" with the keys and handed them in to Putney Police station where I made a full statement. I figured it would have been "stupid" to give them back to him and the Police Station was the safest place for them. It was my intention to throw the keys in the river but, hey that would have made me as bad as he was.................. Chaz.
    2 points
  2. Hi there! My name is Nick. I'm a track enthousiast and trackday organizer from Athens-Greece. Here is the story of my Westfield. I hope you find it interesting. Back in 2007 I bought my Westfield from UK. It was a Megabird, with oversized pistons and increased capacity, and some engine/gearbox modifications. I drove the car with my girlfriend all the way back to Greece, without any weather gear (the car that I would buy should had a full roll cage, so no hood/doors), just wearing our helmets and some custom hand made weather-proof clothes. We definitely wanted to have an experience of such a road-trip. It was the end of October of 2007, and during our road-trip returning to Greece we faced some very bad weather conditions. We drove across UK, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Italy.. the weather was terrible, so it was a very long journey. Unfortunately it seems that the previous owner of my Westfield "forgot" to tell me that the engine had some oil consumption, so as soon as we arrive to Italy we found out that the engine had run out of oil. We also face some other transmission problems during our trip, but we finally get back to Greece. I had then made a video of that trip, describing some of our most unforgettable moments with our new Westfield. You can watch that video via the following link: http://vimeo.com/2625276 The car was fantastic in the track, but less enjoyable (actually a pain in the ***) for road driving. A few years later, on 2010-2011, I decided to convert my BEC Megabird to a Duratec powered one. You can find in the link below some specs and a short build diary of the rebuilt. I'm sorry but the texts are all in Greek, but you may find some short descriptions on the title of each post, and of course you can see some photos. See my blog here: bugs.trackday-special.gr You can also watch a video of my second run with that layout (Duratec + H pattern gearbox (on my left-hand which is not so convenient for us here in Greece)). It was the beginning of our effort to set-up the car from the beginning, since there was a big change in weight distribution (and a total weight difference of +50kg) and a huge impact on car's behavior and balance. Nevertheless, we succeed the best lap time of the day on all categories (we run at an amateur category, since Westfield and Seven-type cars do not have homologation for professional racing in Greece, but our lap times was also better than the "pro" racing cars lap times) with a difficult to drive set-up. Here are some of my Duratec Westfield specs: Engine: Ford Duratec 2.0 - 198 hp @ the wheels Gearbox: 6 speed Caterham C400 - H pattern + 3.6 final drive ratio Diff: LSD 7" tran-x Brakes: Alcon 4pot 247x20mm + balance bar / Golf rear calipers Suspension: Westfield widetrack oval A-arms + Protech shocks Chassis: Westfield BEC, customized with extra rigidity braces ROLL CAGE: full roll cage by “Custom Cages” Exhaust Raceline 4-1 header + Simpson Race silencer Wheels: Compomotive CXR 7x13 (front) | Compomotive CXR 8x13 (back) Tyres: Michelin 200/54/13 or Kumho V70A (front) | Michelin 22/54/13 or Kumho V70A 235/45/13 (back) Weight: ~565-570kg ps. I apologize if I've put this thread on the wrong board. Sorry for the long post!
    1 point
  3. So just for clarity we are talking 10-15 minutes roughly every hour 9-5 less probably an hour for lunch when the track closes? Is this a day when they are running the correct way round or one of the reverse circuits? Steve
    1 point
  4. Probably not much help, but I don't think anyone sells extensions (idea for a good product anyone???). I got my old man to knock me one up on his lathe..Works perfectly with my racetec boss:
    1 point
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