The Journal of Edinburgh & District Advanced Motorcyclists

In This Issue:

Page 2: Word From The Chair

Page 3: Word From The Saddle

Page 5: Test Passes etc

Page 6: Sick Kids Xmas Run

Page 7: Product reviews

Page 8: Blood Donor Ride

See Page 5

Events are notified on EDAM Facebook page: https://goo.gl/zyVD3q and the new, improved website: http://www.edam.org.uk

After a prolonged break, we are back and ready for the new year. Well, al-most: there’s just the small matter of ice on the road to contend with. Oh, and the potholes! I try to steer clear of Edinburgh these days and I hadn’t driven there in over 4 weeks, until yesterday. The condition of roads is an absolute disgrace. A national problem, you might think? But no, the roads of Fife are, by comparison, very good indeed with long stretches of the East Neuk’s roads having been recently renewed. This only strengthens my be-lief the ECC has a policy of making the capital’s roads as unattractive as possi-ble. For those who ride throughout the year theirs is always the issue of corrosion to contend with. Whether to clean, when to clean, how to clean the bike. Cover it in goo and clean it in spring? One thing’s for sure, not protecting and not cleaning will result in a rusty, furry mess in no time at all. For me, it’s the cold,

soapy water and hosepipe after each ride, but others swear by ACF50 or Scottoiler Fs365. Before long it will be the MCN Scottish Bike Show coming around again. If you know anyone thinking of taking the Ad-vanced Rider Course, it will be on offer at £99 with the added bonus of 15 months membership rather than the usual 12. Bargain! As I often say, the content of Twistgrip is provided by you, the readers. So please contact me if you have some-thing to say.

Glynn Jones

editor@edam.org.uk

March 2017

TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

EVENTS

Previous PDF issues of TG are available

here: https://goo.gl/RXqQeb

March 2017

A belated happy new year to all our read-ers. Another year older but the plus is we can all, hopefully, look forward to a good year’s riding in 2019. For some that starts now with a cold commute to work or a few carefully planned week-end rides through-out the winter months; for others it’s a time to give the bike some much needed TLC.

Riding in the winter is certainly reward-ing although speed and the length of journey in my case at least is much re-duced. Even with heated grips on my Triumph Sport I find that after about 1.5hrs in the saddle I need to stop for some hot tea and a biscuit. I generally wear a base and windproof layer below my jacket and that keeps my core rea-sonably warm. My fingers appear to suffer the most. Perhaps I need some biker mitts and better wind guards on the handlebars! If you have any advice from your experience of riding at this time of year let us know. Just drop a note to our Twistgrip Editor. On a similar note, regardless of the length of ride in the winter I wash the bike with cold water then apply some Muck-off which I let lie for about five minutes before hosing it all off again with cold water. A brief blow-dry and WD40 application later the bike is ready to go into the garage until my next ride. I also spray some brake cleaner on to the discs and pads to prevent them for seizing at this time of year. That seems to work for me. If you have any tips on how to maintain a bike to deal with the ravages of the winter weather let us know and we will share it on Twistgrip for future reference. As we look forward to the spring its time again to think about the Motorcycle Show

at Ingliston on 9/10th March. For the IAM and the affiliated groups this tends to generate the greatest number of applicants for our Advanced Rider Course. So it’s important that the show encourages as many new (and old) riders as possible to go along. For that we need all the manufac-turers to participate. I have a bee in my bon-net about this (refer to my article after the show last year) but I will leave any further comment on this for another time. I am an avid reader of Ride magazine and I tend to read it from cover to cover. I must say I was surprised but encouraged at their new bike of year choices. The best adven-ture bike was Honda Africa twin with its iconic heritage. The best sports tourer, which is my favourite category, was Kawasa-ki H2 SX. This is a declining area of biking which for me is a disappointment. My old Triumph 1050 cc Sprint ST is still the top dog for me, although it had its faults and was discontinued in 2014.I am picking up the vibe that my current Tiger Sport is also due for the knacker’s yard. What is happening out there with adventure and now retro bikes being found round eve-ry corner? Sales count I suppose. The best naked was Yamaha MT-09SP.It’s great that Yamaha are back with some cracking models to choose from. The best sports bike was the Ducati Panigale V4S.It’s slightly out of my price range but a special bike to look at. If you have ridden one it would be great to get your feedback. The best retro was Kawa-saki Z900RS.Triumph seem to be pushing this market very heavily just now and appar-ently sales in America and China have vindi-cated this approach. I worry they are putting too many eggs in one basket, but what do I know? If you have a retro bike tell us why it appeals to you. An old or even a new Norton would do nicely in my garage. So, with that background, the show should be a celebration about everything that is good in motorcycling so I hope you can sup-port this event. The IAM is changing the format of support required on the IAM stand this year and I hope its successful. More youthful exuber-ance is required I believe. If you are young and chic get in touch if you would like to volunteer. I mentioned in last month’s article that it would be good if IAM’s new CEO could make the trip north. I understand that he will be

at a group meeting in Glasgow shortly and plans to attend the IAM spring forum in Stirling. Hopefully we can report back on what his vision for the IAM is. We are still looking for a volunteer to attend the spring forum on 12th April so get in touch if you can help. I know that we also have the Scottish Mo-torcycle forum on the horizon so there is plenty to keep you entertained if you have put your bike away for the winter. Sandy chairs that event and would, I am sure, welcome your support and ideas. (Feedback from this event will be shared with us all either in this or subsequent issues of Twistgrip) Sandy, as EDAM's Chief Observer and Chair of Scottish Motorcycle Forum, has also organised an Observers’ training weekend on 12/13th April. This has proved to be very popular and I am sure after one or two pints in the bar on Satur-day night some tongues will be loosened. This event will help us to discuss and standardise, where appropriate, our ap-proach to training throughout the region. Well done Sandy for organising this. EDAM ride-outs throughout the winter months continue with Elliot mainly at the helm, so keep an eye on the events page on Facebook for an update. With the new riding season fast approach-ing, I hope to see as many of you as possi-ble participating in EDAM events. If you have any ideas please get in touch with Dave McCutcheon, our events co-ordinator. Dave organised a first-class karting event for us all in January with about 50 would-be racers turning up. All I will say is that I managed to get in top 40. Being old and fat did not help my chances, but I thor-oughly enjoyed the evening. Its time I finished rambling on so until the next time, safe riding.

A WORD FROM THE CHAIR: by Dave Alexander

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

If you have seen the most recent IAM magazine, you will see that the tree hug-gers are out to get us (again). According to experts, motorcycles are hideously polluting pieces of machinery and should all be crushed immediately. My immedi-ate reaction is ‘hogwash’ but, of course, by my own admission I am just an ape. Apparently, air pollution contributes to an estimated 40,000 deaths each year and costs the economy £22BN (according to estimates) seems a bit like the zombie apocalypse, rather than any fact-based assessment, to me, but as I say, what would I know? Allegedly, this death cull is caused largely by road vehi-cles. It is said that motorcycles manufac-tured since the year 2000 could emit 8,000 per cent more CO than cars manu-factured during the same period. So, remember, it is a jungle out there, please, try not to drop dead on your way to get the morning paper. As a species, we can be remarkably stu-pid, despite the obvious intellectual gifts we are born with. We seem quite happy to accept propaganda from alleged ex-perts/news outlets and political leaders. We allow these to form/shape our views of all sorts of subjects without any great thought. Politics, for example, is the oddest of all concepts. Someone with almost no demonstrable skills, no experience of real-life situations/work and with a dubious educational back-ground and a frankly bizarre axe to grind, can, quite easily, end up in charge

of policy and/or international relations. In defence of such a system, we say it is democratic. Democracy being defined as a few folk turned up, disagreed on most things, had a vote and some of them got their own way (or perhaps not, as the case may be). To be fair, the alternatives have not prov-en to be great. After all, old Adolf was a rank amateur when compared to Joe Sta-lin; but that’s propaganda for you. Having attended another IAM jamboree, I was reminded that being a fat old (& male) git is not a demographic with which they seek to be associated. The trouble is, I have found over my years in travelling towards old-gitness, that very often it is old gits that know stuff, have experienced stuff, have learned from experience (both good & bad) and are able to pass on what they have learned. When I was many years younger, my children were con-vinced that I knew nothing about anything and that I had never experienced anything (when I was their age, I thought much the same of my own parents). As it has tran-spired, as I have aged, then miraculously I have learned things that my children seek advice on, despite remaining an ape with little comprehension of the world in which we live. At this stage of the year we are in the depths of winter, where it becomes ap-parent that the policy makers have quite clearly forgotten all about the basics of road safety. There is, apparently, a drive to improve driver/rider awareness with the NC500 route/region being seen as a priority. (Statistics you see, the few that have manged not to die from fumes will now seek to die on the road, apparently). When I heard of this initiative, a number of thoughts passed from one ear to the other. Firstly, I very much doubt the aver-age Chinese (other races are available) tourist is even aware that there will be road safety initiatives in the NC500 area & there can be little expectation that such a tourist is likely to attend and safety awareness training. Perhaps the thinking is that rather than waste your time visiting distilleries or going on a whale watch, you can attend a road safety awareness course in a foreign country - a spiffing

idea, no doubt. Unsurprisingly, it is not just ‘Jonny For-eigner’ that seeks to crash on the NC 500, our indigenous UK population are equally lacking in skills, judgement and common sense. It is just unfortunate that they seek to throw themselves lemming-like up the road and down the embankments all over the north of Scotland. Personally, I blame it on the Europeans. Had it not been for the EU and their insistence that we should take their money and build decent roads and bridges all over the remote areas of Scotland, we would not have had to put up with all this traffic and damn tourists bringing business and money to the local economy. It was much better pre-EU, when the North was both inaccessi-ble and generally closed. We were per-fectly happy being backward, surly, gen-erally poor and living on mince. However, since these damn eurocrats insisted that we build some decent roads in the North we have, as motor-cyclists, much less to complain about on that score. The same cannot be said in our economic heartlands of central Scotland where there was little to no EU roads investment. Generally, the roads here are in very poor condition and motorcyclists do not feature in road design. It is odd how our German chums manage to install manhole co-vers that work with motorcycles where-as ours tend to be worn out death traps on a wet day, positioned for maximum effect on the motorcycle line. It is also odd that in areas where we actually have dense traffic, road maintenance is almost non-existent; almost as if, the more usage a road gets, the less maintenance it requires. Far too many of our roads are simply dangerous for a whole variety of road users and I have to say that the cycling lobby is far more effective at getting their message across. As a mode of transport in the modern environment, a bicycle is pretty useless other than for short urban journeys. Nonetheless, short urban journeys are generally the least safe environment for the cyclist. Yet the cyclists have been able to push

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

A WORD FROM THE SADDLE by Sandy Dickson, Chief Observer

for all manner of special treatment, even to the extent of getting changes to the highway code (which actually make little sense – 1.49m = a dangerous pass, 1.50m = a safe pass – have a look at the width of a cycle lane the next time you are out & see if you can work out how much road is actually required to accommodate a cy-clist). I am not having a pop at our cycling chums, rather the ineffectual thinking that goes into policy making. So, when you are out and about on the bike at this time of year, think about the road surface and the road environment – stationary hazards (trees, street furniture,

telephone boxes, barriers, planters etc etc) are the things that will rip you limbs off, when/if you lose control on a defec-tive surface, so ‘inert’ hazards are not really inert. You often see street lighting columns that have been struck by vehi-cles – why? The columns are about 150mm diameter and 30m apart, much easier to miss that to hit. As a motorcyclist, the road surface is both your best friend and your worst nightmare at this time of year. The coun-cils do not maintain the roads to any decent standard (they will, of course, argue they do but are subject to finan-cial constraints) so every day after a heavy frost or heavy weather, think that the road surface is likely to be in a worse state than the last time you rode it. As a population we seem to accept that there will always be work going on on the railways and that they need invest-ment and maintenance (which is of course true). Railways only go from A to B and only carry a fraction of the mobile population in real terms (the train to Achiltibuie, anyone?) Motorised vehicles allow the population to live outwith the urban areas and to travel to/from their work which, given the financial imbal-ance currently present in the economy, is the only way in which many services, can actually be staffed. An average nurse does not earn enough to live in central Edinburgh, never mind London, nor do they earn enough to pass the proposed financial threshold for immigrants. As I said, politicians do not need to be the brightest, to be in charge. It is unfair to the commuting population that the roads are poorly maintained, poorly policed and the green lobby has been allowed to make pariahs out of us. If the railways were in such a poor state

of maintenance, there would be a public enquiry but for road users, c’est la vie. The green lobby seems to have for-gotten that we start with basic needs -shelter/food/safety etc, that these need to be paid for and to pay for them, peo-ple need to work and people = pollu-tion. The M8 is not queued from Shotts to Newbridge each day because people wish to do a bit of light shopping. The ‘system’ is the only thing between you and hospital at this time of year, so use it. It gives you time to think and time to react. If you do not have time to think and react, then I suggest you might want to slow down. Adults some-times forget that they already know stuff and then they forget to consider things that they already know. It was -8° at my house this morning and I saw two motorcyclists on the roads. The main routes are gritted but that does not mean they are ice free, for a whole list of reasons. The side routes are not gritted and are wholly suitable for a ‘Gemma Collins’ display, so hardly mo-torcycling weather. Applying the sys-tem, it would be reasonable to conclude it was a good day to get the bus, but people are allowed to make choices and they also have to live with the choices they make or, sometimes, the choices others make for them. I live in hope that our world will not actually fall over on 30th March but, if it does, I am stocking up on tinned lettuce!

I read, with great interest, the article on

legislation allowing the description of

‘protective’. There are two points which

immediately spring to mind.

I’ve ridden bikes, continuously, for over 50

years and pedal cycles for 10 years before

that, so I can remember the days of no

helmets and no MOT’s. Whilst I would not

want to return to that, we should be very

cautious about compulsion.

As a professional engineer, I’ve been on a

committee involved in the compilation of

a new British Standard. Remember them?

(My one was a technical standard for es-

sential ship equipment.) The BS chairman

made it quite clear that the purpose of a

standard is to define the minimum ac-

ceptable quality/construction/materials/

etc. for a manufacturer. We were specifi-

cally not to include any ‘like to have’ de-

tails. As you correctly say, why should a

manufacturer bother providing anything

better than the ‘letter of the law’. How

could this affect bikes? Well, anything des-

ignated to give protection against abrasion

and impact (as seems to be the proposal,

albeit at different grades) would not need

to give any weather protection. That’ll be

all right then!

If we see a legal requirement to wear

‘approved’ kit on a bike, the industry can

wave goodbye to the urban commuter and

small bike rider. I use a 125cc scooter for

buzzing around town. That is pure

transport; not riding pleasure. I’m happy

to don the leathers when I’m out on the

big bike but I won’t wear them when I’m

shopping or meeting a friend for lunch.

Remember, these small bike riders include

the youngsters who become big bike users.

Ultimately, the big bike riders will also

disappear. Is that the Machiavellian politi-

cal plan to get rid of bikes altogether?

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

CE-APPROVED CLOTHING

by Malcolm Christie

EDAM welcomes the following members:

Gloria (Glo) Lo, Edinburgh Paul Rose, Edinburgh

Congratulations go to: Peter Freeland who passed his test with assessor Alistair McLean David Reid who passed his test with asses-sor Alister McLean. Observer: Ian Astley

Monday, 11th March from 19:30 to 21:30,

The Steading Bar and Restaurant, 118-120

Biggar Road, Edinburgh

Peter Riley of Helite Air Vest will give a

presentation of air bag jackets. A chance to

hear why an air vest may be as important

as your helmet and try on the various

styles. For comfortable fit and sizing , I

would advise you to bring both your usual

bike jacket and helmet ( as occasionally

the turtle back style can catch your hel-

met) See airvest.co.uk for product details.

EDAM Slo-Mo machine skills day. Sunday 12th May 2019 at East Fortune 9.30 to 16.00. A opportunity to practise exercises from “Full Control” in small groups of 8-10 riders per ‘instructor’. Cost of the day is £25, with a maximum of 40 places. To book a place - send a cheque payable to EDAM to EDAM Membership, 93 Caiyside, Edinburgh EH10 7HR or ask membership@edam.org.uk for BACS details. Sunday 28th April: Hadrian’s Wall Run. Start 9.30 am at The Steading and should be back by 17.30. Hopefully it will raise some funds for Scot-land’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA). Elliot has set up a JustGiving page for the event where folk can donate if they wish https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ian-beattie4 though it is primarily an EDAM run.

Off-Siding

Should you use the opposing carriage-

way to improve your view? At the risk of

poking a stick into a hornet's nest again,

this video clip cropped up recently, and

inevitably was at topic at debrief.

On the A6093 to Pencaitland there is a

warning sign for a poor visibility nearside

junction, reinforced by SLOW on the

road. The lead rider's local

knowledge was that a vehicle might

emerge from this hidden junction, so he

moved to the opposing carriageway to

improve view & visibility. Fair enough,

and probably quite acceptable in Eng-

land. As it was, there was a car at the

junction considering whether to emerge

turning left.

Police Scotland's view is against off-

siding in this circumstance.

Their argument runs:

1 - an oncoming vehicle on the main

road might appear and not expect you to

be in their carriageway.

2 - if using the opposing carriageway to

improve visibility and view, is this con-

sistent with the basic safety rule: "Be

able to stop in the distance you can see

to be clear in your carriageway."

3 - if an oncoming vehicle requires you

to return to your carriageway, the limit

point has decreased and thus basic safe-

ty rule for approach to the corner has

altered.

4- also consider what might happen if a

vehicle was emerging turning right from

this side road and then noted you using

the opposing carriageway. Would it com-

plete the manoeuvre or stop and create

a partial road block?

Alternative strategies could be to stay in

your carriageway, reduce speed and be

prepared to use a horn warning.

To complicate the issue, the IAM offer

different guidance in Scotland and Eng-

land with regard to off-siding

so, I guess the debate will continue.

https://youtu.be/pxA5IGMDwD8

Belly pan for a Kawasaki GPZ500S.

Very good condition. Can deliver in Edin-burgh area. £30 or best offer. Contact: Dave McCutcheon

david.mccutcheon@ed.ac.uk

Two Honda 29 L panniers plus 45 L top box. All fittings and inner bags includ-ed. Was new £900. Now £350. One pan-nier scratched but not dented; every-thing else in very good condition. Was fitted to a Honda NC750X.

Please contact Carina Cairns by PM via EDAM Facebook page.

TWISTGRIP 5 FEBRUARY 2019

TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

EVENTS

TEST PASSES

NEW FACES RIDING TIPS by Elliot Beattie FOR SALE

As much as I try to capture each bike on my helmet camera as everyone arrives into the Sick Kids, I am invariably distracted by

someone or something so unfortunately don’t manage to film each and every bike. Regardless, I am sure there were at least 65 bikes this year, which made it a great turnout – for those that were there you can hopefully see yourself on the following YouTube clip: https://youtu.be/YbJ_KLw48Bg I decided to change the route this year as I felt the previous one, which went from The Steading into Morningside, then along Church Hill and Strathearn was just a little too short. So this time we ventured further into town to Toll-

cross, up past Lauriston Place and the old infirmary and then Potterrow, Sum-merhall and then Sceinnes Road which leads to the Royal Hospital for Sick Chil-dren. As usual there were a good number of Santa/Elf outfits on display along with copious amount of tinsel and lights on the bikes. Many arrived early and had tea/coffee and some breakfast at our meeting place, The Steading, before we all set off. It was a very special run for one of our participants, Graeme Dorrance. As you may have read in last October’s edition of Twistgrip, Graeme was touched by

our efforts on the Easter Run back in 2016 when his son, Sam, came out of his ward to sit on our bikes. Sadly, as some of you will have read and know, Sam succumbed to the aggressive brain tu-mour he was suffering from not long after. When I met up with Graeme on a sponsored walk last summer, he said he wanted to come along on our Xmas run, especially so since the Sick Kids was planning to move out to join the ERI out at Little France sometime in 2019. Graeme hadn’t been on a bike for a good number of years and didn’t cur-rently own one. Due to this I ap-proached Calum Murray at Saltire Mo-torcycle as I know they hire bikes. Once I explained the situation, Saltire had no hesitation in providing a bike free of charge to Graeme and were extremely flexible regarding everything else to do with the getting the bike to and from Graeme. I know that dealers don’t al-ways get an easy time from us punters, as it is usually always easier to remem-ber the not so good experiences than them weigh up fairly against the good, but I must say Calum and Gill were ex-ceedingly friendly, helpful and nothing was a problem to them. Graeme drove down from his home in Stonehaven early on the morning of the run, so after a cup of tea at my house we both got on our respective bikes early to allow Graeme the feel of two wheels again before heading up to The Stead-ing. I took Graeme along some of the route that we were to take, so that it wouldn’t all be ‘new’ to him on the actu-

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

SICK KIDS XMAS TOY RUN by Stuart Richardson

Stuart Richardson & Graeme Dorrance outside the Sick Kids. Inset: Sam Dorrance

al run. With a few words of encourage-ment and advice, Graeme was soon re-laxing and enjoying being back in the saddle after such a long break. As usual there was a great turnout from a number of clubs, individuals and geo-graphical locations so many thanks to all from EDAM, Peebles Motorcycle Clan (PMC), Curvy Riders Motorcycle Club, Blood Bikes Scotland, Dumfries & Gallo-way Blood Bikes (yes, they are also in Scotland!!), Biker Bear Scotland and any-one else I may have missed (sorry in ad-vance!) who attended the run. The new route and run seemed to go very well through town with no mishaps that I am aware of and everyone marked the requested junctions on this longer journey. I was worried about marking Tollcross since it is a busy multi-lane junction and not easy to stop on but, by pure coincidence, my brother was next in line when we arrived there so he got the honours – thanks Baz! As usual we left a huge number of gifts in the lecture theatre of the Sick Kid’s before heading outside to meet up with Sue from the Edinburgh Children's Hos-pital Charity for the obligatory photos, letting the kids sit on our bikes and wav-ing to those who were too ill (or perhaps too scared?!) to come down and meet us. It was obviously a very emotional day for Graeme as this was his first visit back to the Sick Kids since Sam’s passing. Grae-me’s Mum and Dad also made the trip up to Edinburgh from the Lockerbie area and were there to welcome Graeme as he entered into the car park, taking pho-tos as he did so. Unexpectedly Graeme also got to meet up again with one of the receptionists at the Sick Kids who had provided a fantastic train set to Sam whilst he was in the hospital, as he was fanatical about all things related to trains and railways – a lovely, but poign-ant moment for both of them. I really don’t know how Graeme managed to keep his composure during our event, but over a pint in the evening he did say that he was really glad he had come along. I hope he comes back again soon once he gets himself a bike (if his wife Tanya allows him!) as his being on our run was certainly a privilege for me and reinforced the pur-pose of it. Ollie, one of the community fundraisers at

the Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity, recently got in touch to say the event went down a treat with everyone at the Sick Kids and he is looking to see if there any other ways that we can engage with the Sick Kids – I’ll keep everyone posted

should they have anything in mind. Finally a quick thanks to Elliot for being our back-marker once again and Kyle for helping ensure everyone exited The Steading in one go. This year’s Easter run to the Sick Kids will

take place on the morning of Sunday

14th April – please spread the word and

hope to see you all there.

Vee Wipe

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

The Vee Wipe is for cleaning you visor, giving clearer vision with a sweep of a finger. This is usually worn on the rid-er’s gloved index finger. It will remove, dirt, mud, or rain from your visor while riding, and is a great item to have. There are other products out there but a few members had mentioned this and asked me to give it a try. It’s an excellent product and does what it says. It comes in 3 sizes and the ma-terial is a very soft rubber. Pros and cons: The Vee Wipe is easy to use and cheap. Depending on how often you ride you will get a good two years out of them. A couple of bad points that you need to look after them as they can split and not ideal if it is dry & dusty. Price is around £6.00.

Scala Pro

For those who remember, I’ve had this

now for about 8- 10 years and it is still

going well. Every time I think of changing

it I ask myself why, as it is still good.

The battery is not holding its charge for

as long but it is still fine at about 8 hours.

It’s OK for taking phone calls with your

helmet on and excellent for pillion com-

munication. Now and then it has to be

switched off and on to reconnect, but

really only when one of them is in a

building where the single is being

blocked.

I don’t think you can get this device any

more as they have been updated. It

would be good to read readers’ reports

of this or other comms kits. We are using

the device in Shoei helmets.

Although not created as definite events

there had been mention on the EDAM

Facebook page of two talks involving

Police Scotland. These will not take place

in the near future due to the speakers

being involved in Brexit planning.

PRODUCT REVIEWS by Dave McCutcheon

POSTPONED EVENTS

On Saturday 10th November I met up with the other participants for the Blood Donor Ride at the Steading, as organised by the Curvy Riders. Around 10 of us were then led by Carolyn Lamb (who heads up a team at the Blood Donor Centre) into Edinburgh and parked up outside their building in Lauriston Place for some photos before heading inside to be ‘drained’. Carolyn had organised for 14 appoint-ments to be booked and they were all fully utilised, which was a great bonus and went down well with the Blood Do-nor Centre. I usually only attend myself so it was really good to have other companions as we sat in the waiting room (watching Judge Judy!) before heading in to do-nate. Then the usual cup of tea/juice and biscuits, as well as a slice of Sarah Fleming’s home-made lemon drizzle cake. Oh, and there was copious amounts of home-made tablet on the go too! Suitably refreshed and on a sugar-high we then departed for our respective rides home. It was a good couple of hours spent with like-minded bikers and if another session is arranged I will cer-tainly try and go along again.

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TWISTGRIP FEBRUARY 2019

BLOOD DONOR RIDE by Stuart Richardson