Click the image above to read the PDF feature.

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The choice of a boy band member and Phil Mitchell went down well

The MV weighs in at 173kg. No, that’s not a kerb figure. That’s harry boners, and gives away at least 10kg over some of its 600cc rivals. The good news is the F3 is the most powerful ‘600’ ever produced, churning out a whopping 115bhp.  The F3 car tips in at 550kg, including the driver and any ballast. The Mercedes Benz motor produces around 210bhp. These figures give us 381bhp per ton for the car. The MV busts the charts with almost double that – 664bhp per ton – but we didn’t have much of that cheating substance: downforce.

Here’s a corner-by-corner insight into how and where Alex Lynn (future F1 driver) and his Fortec Motorsport thingy gained an advantage over Al and the bike, apart from not falling for the burger van trick. Fatty managed a 1:42.61 lap of Donny, while Alex clocked an impressive 1:23.08s…

A clear state of wheel envy

Redgate
The bike gives away nearly 20mph to the car at Redgate. Braking at the pit lane exit, I physically couldn’t have hit the anchors any later, running wide on several occasions before the hot lap. The MV’s stability was good and the engine braking control was working with me here. The Brembos are mega. Meanwhile, Alex and the car dab the brakes at the end of the start/finish straight, drop a gear, and drop the frickin’ hammer.

Bike – 65mph/2nd gear
Car – 83mph/5th gear

Craner Curves
The car is flat-out all the way down the hill. I’m already a member of the Craner Club and didn’t want another badge. Some road bikes prove tricky in change of direction, with a total inability to handle the G-forces. The MV was sweet, although a lingering doubt as to whether the shift lever would touchdown and knock it down the ‘box was always there.

Bellas rodas…

Old Hairpin
Still in top cog, Alex stamps on the brakes to assist with steering around the cambered-on-entry, off-cambered-on-exit Old Hairpin. Carrying an insane 40mph more, the car gains massively as the bike’s front-end is truly tested. It’s on the exit where the MV’s shock wasn’t behaving as well as it should be. Luckily, the TC was tidying up the squat and lack of feel. Up the hill towards Mcleans, the MV’s triple pulls hard and gains a little time, until another corner. An iffy constant throttle response definitely lost time here, too.

Bike – 80mph/3rd gear
Car – 122mph/6th gear

Clear track, MV F3, lovely

Coppice
The blind entry, again, favours the car, which has an apex speed of an extra 25mph. Despite the soft set-up, the MV was very stable over the rise and I was able to turn-in exactly when needed – crucial for good drive onto the back straight. Acceleration was sacrificed through lack of feel. For the first time since exiting Redgate, the car leaves top gear. Alex and his cheating four-wheeled combo just sneaks the top speed before dabbing the brakes and downshifting one gear for The Esses. The MV loses a mass of time here, braking from 141mph to a sedate second gear parade through the chicane.

Bike – 73mph/3rd gear
Car – 97mph/5th gear

Melbourne Loop was the closest it got

Melbourne Loop

The slowest section of the circuit is fairly even when you look at apex speeds – the difference being the car is at minimum speed for a minuscule amount of time, braking much later and gassing much earlier.

Bike – 37mph/2nd gear
Car – 41mph/1st gear

Click on the photo to see the onboard lap

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Ready, steady, MILF…

The Isle of Man TT is the ultimate test for a motorcycle. There were a whopping 60 entries for the new Lightweight class this season, and about 55 of them were Kawasaki ER-6s – most of the 55 were Ryan Farquhar built with Team Green backing. Taking on the might of Ninja power was a little shop in Bristol. JHS Racing entered as a privateer entity, with the previous year’s Manx GP winner, Dave Moffitt, as the pilot. The team managed an 11th place finish and was the top Suzuki, splitting a horde of Kawasakis and narrowly missing out on a top-ten due to some technical issues. Nevertheless, the JHS Racing SV650 also zapped the speed traps as the fastest Supertwin at this year’s TT, and boasted the healthiest horsey output on the TT paddock dyno. The team are racing at the North West 200 before heading back to the Isle of Man, and retiring the SVs to start developing Suzuki’s Gladius.

As you may have spotted, I been campaigned the bike on the short circuits last season with, er, mediocre success. After a year’s worth of development and tinkering, Fast Bikes decided to release the SV650 from circuit captivity and return it to its natural environment – everyday chores on Her Majesty’s highways. A nifty daylight MOT certificate and a trip to the Post Office for some road tax later, we were let loose on the TT course. The Mendip TT course.

Is it a 675? Is it a race bike? Er, it’s an SV650

There’s no doubt the class has brought excitement and a raft of new technologies, bordering on prototype material, such is the openness of the rulebook. Manufacturers of aftermarket parts and tuning bolt-ons must be rubbing their hands with glee, what with the influx of interest in the ER-6. But with all the financial shitstorms circumnavigating the world right now, do we really need a class that requires £15,000-£20,000 spent on being at the sharp end? Hell yeah…

Airbox/induction
JHS has developed a Triumph 675 intake that fits snugly to the SV’s headstock. Forced air volume is at least doubled over the standard. The true magic lies beneath the tank and if we printed what was under there, we’d be sleeping with the fishes.

Electronics
The ECU has to remain standard, but the loom is open to all sorts of, er, openness. JHS has used its experience of racing Minitwins and developed a loom using CAN-line technology. A Translogic quickshifter sharpens the shifts, while a super-light and heavy duty battery ensures the fuel injection system can fire the juices. As the year progressed, a lot of the unnecessary goodies were removed because of complications, like datalogging.

Back-end
The standard swingarm has been modified to house a 675 rear wheel, and is supported by an Öhlins shock that’s been built specifically for this bike. An underslung brake caliper speeds up rear wheel changes, not to mention makes the process much easier. Various linkages have been tested but the standard linkage rate seems to work best. And a new swingarm will be fitted later this year.

Engine
In its fifth generation, the JHS lump has severely gone under the knife. As previously mentioned, all that remains from the standard lump is the crankcases and the crank itself. Everything else is made in-house (pistons, con-rods etc), and with hours of head work and valve detailing, James has now found the limits of the internals.

Clutch/gearbox
The big difference between the TT bike and the short circuit bike is the gearbox. The ‘factory’ bike has a close-ratio ’box that allows for not only higher terminal speed, but better acceleration. The standard gearbox has country miles between certain gears, which makes gearing for certain tracks a friggin’ nightmare. Sigma (as in Neil Spalding off of the Eurosport telly box) designed and manufactured an SV-specific slipper clutch to cope with the 30 per cent extra power. Engine braking is so fierce, clutch wear was ruining a race weekend…

Front-end
The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot this SV wears a complete 675R front-end. A little stem modification, and the Triumph yokes, forks and wheel slips on nicely. The Öhlins internals have been revalved and shim stacks adjusted. The length of the fork stroke has been lengthened to aid balance.

The JHS Racing SV650 is one tricky bitch to ride in more ways than one. This is a bike honed for flat-out buffoonery, throttle tube pinned to the stop, throttle bodies battered and soaking up v-twin vibes, with the dash never hovering below 6,000rpm. The biggest problem we faced on the photoshoot though (and the KFC drive-through) was the steering lock. It’s got the turning circle of a sinking Dreadnought, although that matters little when giving it the berries.

Big Mac please…

Think race bike, think stiff and unforgiving. Not really. Even with my weight to consider, the suspension is far more progressive and controlled than OE road kit. The JHS SV has bump management that £20k superbikes would be envious of. Until active suspension is properly proven, the combination of super-gnarly bumps at Ginger Hall and baby-bum smooth Shellgrip Tarmac over The Mountain will have to be sorted via good old fashioned screwdriver know-how.

The riding position does little to nurture comfy riding, as the standard tank makes for a far reach with race clip-ons and the Daytona 675R front-end, and the super-high pegs necessary for its addiction on corner speed. After half an hour of riding, my wrists were ready for bed. But the crux of the stiffness and rigidity is down to the frame and aftermarket race components (mainly the extra rigidity of the 675R Öhlins fork).

There’s some serious work involved here

If you missed out on our adventures of Thundersport GB last season, you wouldn’t know about the teething issues we’ve had. This is a bespoke machine with bugger-all to aim for from a base setting, and radical geometry changes from a standard SV. It’s like cut-n-shutting your mountain bike, hacking off large amounts of metal and welding on some more, and expecting it to handle. Well, that’s what it feels like, anyway.

It feels long and stretched out, perfect for attacking open corners, yet with a whiff of bar, it falls on its ear without instability or any nervousness. It’s sexy cornering rolled into a 165kg mass. Apart from shitty ergonomics and the AIM dash, and having to lean it against the petrol pump to pay, not once did I think I was on a race bike.

Baldy fills her up with 95-octane fuel. James wasn’t happy…

It’s only when we edged out of town and beyond urban environments that I had to think about riding, and any limitations involved. It’s a bike that only truly functions in a small parameter of thrashing, yet is still capable of dawdling and high street window-shopping. Must be all down to those SV genes.

The Bridgestone R10s are an unbelievable race tyre, but do little to inspire confidence on the road with this set-up installed on the SV. A bit like Rossi at Mugello, when he slowed his pace a little and bust his leggy-weggy, you have to stay committed to maintain heat in the rubber. UK climes, 72-point U-turns and modelling for the camera don’t mix. This isn’t a Page Three poser, more of a sexy back-page headliner.

We started off the year with a Power Commander auto-tune unit but not even that wizardry and technology can handle the bespoke and finicky air/fuel ratio of the JHS Six-Fiddy. When you’ve got the induction intake the size of a killer whale’s vagina, gasping for gargantuan amounts of oxygen, and an intricate fuel injection system that pumps in copious amounts of gasoline, fine-tuning has to take place in realtime and ‘pinking’ has to be disciplined.

A small badger was found hiding in the intake

Many thought there would be oodles of torque and usable grunt escaping from a tuned 100bhp SV650. This puppy is relentless in its charge to the redline and has around 4,000rpm of viable power and is only really happy when the shift rod is activated and rebounding for another climb up to the rev ceiling. A big, bucket-hand fistful of throttle and an equally brutal clutch hand are needed to even launch cleanly, despite the stupidly short first gear. There’s no pussyfooting welcome here. You need to boss it.

Everything you see here is 100 per cent legal, but I still felt like I’d fondled my neighbour’s wife and was on the run. It’s not obtrusively loud or offensive, but like anything slightly idiosyncratic, this bike attracts needless attention. Two coppers fly by and I tense up, grabbing the bars with superfluous angst. Chill out, man! A quick glance later, they were off to catch proper criminals…

The majority of race bikes we ride bear some resemblance in feel, and looks, to their donors – even the triple-figure WSB bikes. But the JHS Racing SV650 is unique and offered some of the most fun I’ve had on two wheels. It’s an SV on serious steroids, and it’s legal.

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It’s 1998, and a future FB staffer is stood in front of the podium celebrations at Assen, after Carl Fogarty won an incredible race against Frankie Chili. Most know the story by now – Frankie fell off at the last turn, threw some insults and fists at Carl in parc ferme, then turned up to the press conference in his bathrobe for another ruck. Good times! Anyway, while Foggy was spraying the champers the aforementioned future FB staffer was making his way out of the scrum, and noticed a young James Toseland standing with his mechanic and then team manager, Neil Tuxworth. He was transfixed, eyes never leaving Carl, who was busy lapping up the glory. James was in his first year in WSS with Castrol Honda, yet had seen a potential debut podium go west when his gear lever fell off. So there he stood, arms folded, watching the king Carl do his thing.

You could see the passion burning in his eyes, he wanted the adulation he was witnessing but more so, the success. As it happens, we sidled up to him as we left and said, “Don’t worry James, you’ll be there one day.” The response we got said it all, “Cheers mate. I know I will, one day.”

Now, many may think that the response of a big-headed racer, full of testosterone and confidence, but that’s just one aspect of JT’s career that’s generated debate aplenty. We wonder whether or not there’s been another British racer in recent history, that’s generated and divided opinion as much as James Toseland.

Yet one thing can’t be denied, and that’s James’ fighting spirit. It won him two world championships, both against the odds. 2004 is a perfect case in point, and you need only watch races from that year to know exactly why James is, and always should be, a national racing treasure.

We wonder whether or not he knew he had that in him, even when he was riding a teeny trike in his Mum’s back yard aged three?

“Barely!” said James during his visit to the office to say his goodbyes. “That was before my Mum met the man who sent me racing, Ken. He passed away, sadly, but Ken is the one responsible for me riding and racing, I’ll always have him to thank. I was eight-years-old when I got my first proper bike, then it seemed like no time before I’d won my first championship, which was the first I’d ever entered, the 1995 Junior Road Race title.

“Then we moved up to the Superteens championship, but made a big mistake. We bought a Cagiva 125, the same year Aprilia released their RS125, and got completely spanked. In fact, I was even lapped by none other than Steve Brogan at Brands Hatch! Less than a year later, however, I was racing against people like Paul ‘Marra’ Brown, Ian Simpson and John Crawford in British Supersport. It was because of the CB500 Cup, which I’d done a bit of winning in. Honda took notice and suddenly I was in a proper national series. What actually happened is that the rules were changed just for me, so a 16-year-old could compete on a 600. It’s a little bit of history really, because they wanted me in it so badly, and now other riders of that age can compete too. I’m kinda proud of that in many ways,” said James.

And some superb rides saw him graduate further and far faster than normal, to the World Supersport series with then WSB champions Castrol Honda. A dream move, you’d think, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, as James remembers.

“That was a really tough couple of years, super tough. At the time the CBR wasn’t competitive, or at the very least ours weren’t. Races were being mainly won by Yamahas, Suzukis or Ducatis then. Also, the Michelin tyres were a couple of steps behind the competition, so we were almost overriding the bikes to compensate. Then came Monza, and on the Friday I broke both of my ankles in a big smash, as well as suffering other injuries. Then the following day my team-mate, Michael Paquay, was killed. Not long before that, my cousin had been killed at Cadwell Park. So we were dealing with that, then Michael’s death, and me virtually immobile in a wheelchair for over a month. That period really brought home to me and my family just how potentially dangerous bike racing is. It was all a bit too close to home, and I’d risen on such a fast incline that I didn’t have time to think up until Monza. So I took stock of things, and decided to come back to Britain so I could ground myself somewhere in reality,” he said.

And that reality would be BSB, with the Vimto Honda Paul Bird squad. James would go on to highlight his talents until Cadwell Park played another joker in his life.

“I tell you what; I loved working with Paul Bird and his squad. Phil Borley was my crew-chief, and I’d been racing against him a couple of years previously. We had what was basically a kitted SP-1, and it was so slow compared to everything else, but handled beautifully. The boys had it so it felt as though it was on rails. But I still had some good performances, like beating Niall Mackenzie at Oulton Park – until going to Cadwell Park and breaking my legs,” said Jimbo.

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My mum always said, “Bikes are dangerous, you can’t have one.”
But as a kid I was a massive fan of Kickstart. I used to ride my BMX doing all the trials stuff, but any suggestion of riding a motorbike was written off by mum and dad.

When I was 18, I moved to London and bought a Honda City Express.
I was going to get a proper bike to do my gigs on rather than take the Tube. Then I discovered that because I was a comedian, the insurance would be horrendous. Even for my Ford Fiesta it was £2,500. I was pricing up insurance on a 125, and it was in the thousands. The 49cc Honda City Express still cost me 1500 quid to insure! It was an old pizza delivery bike, and if I got a puncture or something went wrong, I used to go see this Greek bloke who serviced the pizza bikes and he’d do it for free. Then I got a Kawasaki KMX. It was when the insurance started going down, that the collection grew!

I toured Australia  and I decided that I was going to do the whole tour without planes.
So I did an 80 date tour and travelled 26,000km on a BMW R 1150 GS. I picked the best touring bike possible. When I lived in Oz, I lived quite near Phillip Island, so started to get into trackdays.

My love for off-road started when I bought an old trials bike.
We used to live in a national park, with hundreds of miles of riding land. It went from being happy on firetracks, to finding single track stuff, then searching for logs and rocks. The next thing you know I’m racing. The first race I did was a 24 hour enduro and then I got into the extreme stuff.

I did the Red Bull Romaniacs race last year.
I finished it, did the full five stages and came 12th in the hobby class. Half the field don’t even finish. Don’t get me wrong, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and the thing I’m most proud of. Before doing the Romaniacs you’d get people being a little snide about things, but I proved a point. There are quite a few media types that are into bikes, but are more into posing. I’m not a double-denim wearing biker who rides my Harley up kings road, I genuinely love riding bikes.

I’d like to have a go racing.
Maybe in the Triumph Triple Challenge. It’s possible. The next thing on the list is going off to do the Roof of Africa in November, which people say is harder than Romaniacs. I’d also like to do the Scottish six-day trial. I like the dirt stuff, as it’s constantly changing and there are a few ways of doing it. Road racing is the same thing, with grip changing dependent on tyres and you’re talking centimetres and millimetres. But it’s easier to practice off road; I haven’t got a full size track in my garden…

My wife bought me a 1976 Norton Commando for Christmas.
I’ve got a day-to-day Triumph Tiger 800 XC that I go to London on and to the shops on. I’ve got a Daytona 675R track bike and a Ducati Streetfighter. Now that’s an awesome bike – it’s my ‘oh, shall I risk my license going down the shops’ option. Stuntman, Paul Gower, took me up to an airstrip doing wheelies. You move your arse back a centimetre on the seat and the front wheel just launches. It’s just an unnecessary bike in every sense, an utter hooligan, it’s too powerful and too fast, and you can’t even take it out and park it because it’ll get nicked. It’s totally impractical, but I love it.

I’ve also got a Triumph Scrambler.
If I’m off to a craft fair or agricultural show, that’s the bike to have. And then I’ve got my dirt bikes, a KTM 350 XC, a Gas Gas 250 Raga rep, and a Husqvarna 510 SMR. If anyone wants to buy it at a cheap price, let me know. I’d just like to point out I do have a incredibly expensive security system. My wife pointed out the cameras should be pointing to the house where my family is, not to the garage…

I’ve got a bike for all occasions.
I was looking at the Ducati Multistrada, especially after watching the Pikes Peak race. I look at it and think, ‘that’s perfect’, but then realised I’ve got a bike for everything already.

I don’t really have a dream bike.
It’s probably something that’ll sit there and not get ridden. I like the Desmosedici and I’d get one if I was going silly. Maybe one of Troy Bayliss’ old Ducatis, or if Rossi had an old bike kicking around I’d have that.

Rossi back to Yamaha is great.
I wanna see him win again just to show Lorenzo how to do the victory celebrations. I’ve got no gripe with Lorenzo, but he’s such a plagiarist when it comes to bringing out the flags and all that. I don’t mind the guys who hate the interviews and media stuff, and I’m a huge fan of Casey Stoner and he doesn’t like any of it. I love the way he gets arsy about everything away from his day job and clearly all he wants to do is ride bikes.

To keep up with Ross’ twitter travels, click here

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Riding on the road is a bit tricky these days.
Going from road to track is a huge gap. For me, riding on the road is detrimental to your track pace. If you go fast on the road, well, you know how things will end up. I’m just into road riding now, and seldom go near a racetrack. You boys have to mix the two, fair play! I get the offers to go on track but don’t take the opportunity. I just thoroughly enjoy riding motorbikes. I’ve geared myself down to just riding for enjoyment.

Riding Carlos Checa’s 1198…

I could say Imola was my favourite race.
At the time it wasn’t as important as it is now. It was unexpected, I had no basic objective, and it was a new motorcycle. It was totally out of the blue. That same year, I won the Ontario 200 and I’ve also won the Bol d’Or. It’s hard to single out just one race. The first time I ever left these shores was when I went over to do the Barcelona 24-hour race. We finished third on a 250cc. When you’re young, the whole thing was pretty exciting and you got absolutely mobbed in them days. When they built the Olympic village, they lost most of the circuit there. It was built around a park in the centre of the city.

I had some fantastic races with Agostini.
It was when I was riding a Triumph 3. I finished second to him four times, and crashed while leading him. Let’s face it, Ago was the target man in those days. I actually beat him in a race at Cadwell Park. I guess the exotica from my era were the MV Agustas. I had the opportunity to ride them, but didn’t.

I never won a Grand Prix, I never won a TT.
I had lots of second places in each of them, but it’s circumstance, you know. In those days if you were riding a 350 Yamaha and Ago was on the MV Agusta, you just weren’t going to win. A second was a win. It was the best you could hope for.

The crash at the North West 200 was probably the worst I’ve had.
Me and Tony Rutter were dicing for the lead and, apparently, we hit a backmarker who went down in front of us. When you fall off there, you hit walls and bounce off kerbs. Neither of us actually know what happened as we were doing 135mph, flat out on a straight that was four miles long. I bust my wrist badly and had quite a few serious operations. I also bust my collarbone and ribs. I raced for many years after that, but had to have a super-quick action throttle. Being knocked unconscious was the worst thing – walking around like a zombie for a week is never good.

I was riding the new Ducati in 1972.
The bike that I won Imola on, and Ducati gave it to me to bring over here. I was racing at Brands Hatch and I beat Phil Read on the JPS Norton by half a wheel. The Ducati wasn’t very good at short circuits because it was designed to go around Imola – and nowhere else. The geometry was like a chopper and it had a massive long wheelbase, so going round a fucking tight circuit was a real struggle. It used to wear out front tyres before the rear, it would understeer that badly. That was quite funny. After that, I went off to America because that was where the real money was at in those days.

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My manager didn’t want a bike on his fleet.
He thought they were unproductive. But Head Office said, ‘we’re not asking you, we’re telling you.’ So he had to find a rider. He asked if anyone wanted to do it, saying ‘bear in mind you’re going to be cold and wet all the time’. He was really trying to sell it, but I said, yeah.

I’ve had the bike since March 2012.
I haven’t done a full winter on it yet. The bike is an 11-plate Pan European, but it’s already done 27,000 miles. It came out of London, and because the AA has the Carole Nash and Suzuki contracts, they wanted one in the Cardiff area. I attend the bikes, but the cars as well. This is the only AA bike in South Wales.

Before I could use it, I had to pass IAM.
But I can ride a bike. I used to race motocross in the AMCA British championship, that was back in the 1990s. My best finish was third, and I was happy with that. So I can ride a bit. Truth be told, I can wheelie a motocross bike for as long as I like!

The Pan European is a good bike.
It’s got a good motor and it handles pretty well. Because there’s a bit more weight on it there are a few ground clearance issues, so I’ve had to replace the hero blobs once already…

A policeman had a chat about the Pan’s weave that got so much coverage…
The police got rid of all of their Pans because of the weave that you get at high speed. I wouldn’t know about that! The copper reckoned you could catch anything on a Pan, but the BMW’s they’ve got now wouldn’t catch a Transit van according to him!

There’s a stack of clever stuff on the bike.
I’ve got diagnostics on the computer with a 16-pin lead that sorts most cars and bikes, a compressor to pump up tyres, a battery tester and charger, jump leads, hand tools, a socket set and spanners, that sort of thing.

Right now, I haven’t got a job on.
I’m unproductive, as they say. I’ve got the sat nav and the phone that gives me all the information I need. It loads all my jobs, so I know exactly where and when I need to be. But as I hadn’t got a job on I saw you lot riding round (we were at Llandow, testing – Ed) so I thought I’d pop in and have a look!

The last bike job I did was on a Suzuki.
It was just a temporary puncture repair, just to get a chap home. Repairing tyres is a dodgy area. These repairs are purely to get someone home, they’re not designed as a permanent fix. So we’ll do them, but remind people that they must get it changed. You shouldn’t risk it, especially on a big bike. It’s just not worth it.

It’s cheaper to get a temporary repair done.
Then you get someone on their way than stick them on the back of a truck. Trucks cost money, it’s as simple as that.

The AA’s procedure is to send a patrolman out whatever the problem.
You could be a fully qualified mechanic and have a broken drive shaft in your hand, but we won’t send a truck out until a patrolman has seen it – proved by this story…

I had a call out the other day.
It was for a Bentley. This bloke in his Bentley reported a noise coming from the front of his car and he couldn’t move it. I came out and had a look. He was going ‘Why have they sent you, I need a truck’, so I explained about the procedure. Anyway, it’s got these big Brembo calipers and a stone had jammed in the back plate. I stuck my finger in, popped the stone out and that was it. He was in the process of booking his car in to the Bentley garage to be looked at, but I’d dealt with it in 10 seconds.

The biggest problem on bikes are regulators.
Someone will start their bike up, go for a ride, then they just stop – or they find they can’t start it again. Batteries tend to go just at home, so once you’re on the road regulator failure is what most bike call outs are for.

On the whole it’s the older stuff on the bike side that breaks down.
My bike is equipped with leads, I can plug it into another bike, keep my bike running to charge a battery and then I follow you home. If you give a battery a full charge it’ll last 15 minutes or so, which is usually enough.

No single manufacturer, car or bike, sticks out for breakdowns.
Every manufacturer’s stuff breaks down, right across the board, cars, bikes, everything. Even if one did, I wouldn’t tell you!

I don’t want to be the next bunch of flowers and T-shirt.
Riding round I get to see a lot. On the bike what worries me is seeing all these corners in the Brecons and around Abergavenny with a bunch of flowers and T-shirt on it. It makes you think and I don’t want that to be me.

In the van I was doing eight jobs a day.
I’m now doing 16 jobs a day on the bike. So I’ve gone from probably about 15th in a team of 60 to number one! Which is good for me because I get a bonus. The more jobs you do, the more fixes you do, and the better bonus you get. It’s great!

I enjoy my job.
Don’t get me wrong, there are days where I really don’t want to be out in the rain, but otherwise I really enjoy it.

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Along the way, Bruce is putting together video of the project, and this is the first episode. After years of planning, it finally gets of the ground with a big leaving ceremony in London. Then Bruce heads off into the charted territory of Europe, before heading out of Europe and into Africa. Here’s the first episode, and it’s well worth a watch. Check out the latest issue of Fast Bikes to read all about the planning work behind the trip, and head to www.teapotone .com for all details – including how you can donate to one of Bruce’s four charities.

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Click the cover to read the whole French Alps Route Guide

Simply plug your Garmin sat nav in, open up the Connect site, and download them now. That way you’ll have them stored for when you head south next summer, and you can follow the very routes we rode!

Here they are:

Miussy to Fry

Les Cours to Valloire

Allemond to Alpes d’Huez

Scionzier to Le Grand Bournand

La Clusez to Flumet

Beaufort to Bourg St Maurice

Ugine to Megeve

Bourg St Maurice to Pre St Didier

La Coulee to La Chambre

La Chambre to Le Bourg-d’Oisans

Valloire to Saint Martin d’Arc

Termignon to St-Foy-Tarentaise

Isn’t technology great?

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