FOOD!

Like most men, I like food. Like most bikers, I like proper* food. I know there’s a big debate about organic foods and budget food, eating meat and all this processed microwave stuff. There’s been a lot of programs from these celebrity chefs, doing this that and the other, making fancy food, that may taste good (I don’t know if it does or not) but the portions are rubbish and value aesthetics over proper* food.

However there is one who has caught my eye, and that’s Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (sp). That’s because the finished product resembles the food that I cook. Whether it tastes as good is another question.

Another thing that appeals to me is the way that he takes the food from the very beginning from the land, and puts it through the an amazing process to create what I call proper food. To me this is the way food has always been prepared through history and is the way of the future.

The more people who begin to realise the effects of modern living is having on their health and wellbeing, the more people will start to embrace this way of living and producing food. For me the comeback of the fresh fruit and veg stall and local butcher is gathering pace, and I for sure am changing my life to incorporate more of this proper* food

*Stew + Dumplings, Pie + Peas, Fish + Chips, Roast Dinners etc

Honda vs Yamaha

Honda Vs Yamaha

 With Yamahas new Crossplane crank creating a long bang engine, will Honda follow suite and build a crossplane inline 4? I hope not. This is the perfect opportunity for Honda to go back to its roots and build V4 engines again.

 This engine configuration, as with the RC30 etc, creates a long bang engine with a 360° crank, which gives the same effect as Yamahas crossplane crank, but keeps Honda’s identity separate.

 With the Yamaha having a strong showing on the road and track already, and the only other contenders in WSBK being the Ducatis and guess what? Aprillia with V4 power.

 I think the time of the conventional inline 4 is over, and about time. Hopefully this will force manufacturers go back to their roots and to be honest, their characters.

Insurance Scams

You probably think I’m talking about making false claims on your insurance policy to bag yourself some free or better stuff. Well I’m not. I’m talking about millions of us being ripped off by an insurance company for a totally valid claim that they won’t allow or heavily penalise.

Hundreds of pounds a month are spent by each of us insuring our beloved bikes, cars, homes and such like for accident, theft, damage and failures. But when a product fails or is written off or even stolen, insurance excess has to be paid, a car is worth only the market price at the time of the accident, not the price at the time of insuring. Same goes with, well everything.

This to me is just a rip off. I’ve paid £2000 over four years to my car insurance which was only worth £900 at the time of the accident. When my car was written off, which I was not to blame, I was offered only half of what the car was worth. The insurance company would not budge on this figure. And then they had the cheek to ask for the excess. I told them to recover it from the third party as it wasn’t my fault. What a farce

Payment protection is a joke. £22 a month for 4 years, and when I lost my job due to the credit crunch, they wouldn’t cover my loan payments because of a technicality. Then they had the cheek to deny my request for a complaint and refund on my insurance.

Well, I’ve seriously being asking myself if it is worth insurance, when, the people who steal your motorcycle get off scott free with £4000 worth of machinery, and you get treated like a criminal and a mug when you try to recover the costs that, really you have paid for twice, and only get half back.

There’s only one thing to blame, this soft, backwards, provides everything for the lazy, punish the hard working government.

Hydrogen Future Vs. 6 Cycle Engine Present

I’ve been reading some funny stuff from people who have some pretty strong opinions on our future energy sources. This has lead me to do some research into what is happening right now with, let’s be honest, our future and livelihood.

Well for starters some people seem to think that hydrogen is the be all and end all of our energy worries. Well on the surface it has a pretty good argument. It can be produced from renewable sources, such as wind turbines, hydro turbines etc by electrolysis. its only waste product is water from a fuel cell and has the potential to be the greenest of the green fuels.

There are however some problems with using hydrogen as a fuel, lets say, to replace my petrol car with a fuel cell car. Well my main concern being an end user, is the cost and availability of fuel cell cars. At the time of writing, Honda are the only manufacturer of a fuel cell car, which they are only leasing at $600 a month in southern California. This is a problem to me, because I live in England, and don’t have $600 a month to have the privilege.

Next problem. Can I drive 250 miles from Cheltenham to Darlington on a tank full of hydrogen? Well yes, probably, but where do I get a tank full from? Honda have a solution to the lack of hydrogen fuel stations. Its called the Home Energy Station. This device converts natural gas into heat, electricity and a supply of hydrogen gas to power your car. This is good if you use your car for short journeys and running about, but still falls short of being able to fuel your car for longer journeys.

The fact that natural gas is still used to generate the hydrogen leads to the question, is this better than existing technologies? Well on the surface, yes, it is. But dig deeper and you realise that it isn’t really. For example, the six stroke engine. Sounds futuristic, doesn’t it? Well basically, it’s a four stroke engine that’s had the exhaust cam speed reduced by a third, and en extra injector. To inject, Water?

Well it works like this. Air/fuel mixture is let into the engine through the inlet valve. Conventional. The mixture is compressed and ignited. Basically a four stroke engine. Then the clever bit. Instead of letting the burned gasses out of the exhaust valve, water is injected into the red hot gasses. This flashes of into steam, expanding to 40 its original volume. Those of you who know how a steam engine works will realise what will happen. The piston is then forced back down to create a second power stroke without burning any more fuel. The gas mixture is then let out the exhaust valve as in a conventional engine.

The utilisation of the heat generated by the exploding gas increases the efficiency of the engine by 40%. Based on the average four stroke at 30% efficiency, this would create an engine that is up to 70% efficient, just 20% short of an electric motor. This also eliminates the need of a cooling system saving cost, weight and complexity of the engine.

This raises another question. What happens to the water? Well, add a condenser to cool the water, and simply reuse. Obviously there would be some losses of water, but no more than coolant in an existing four stroke engine.

The biggest plus for this six stroke engine is the infrastructure. Its already there. Oil refineries, pipelines and distribution stations. Manufacturers redesign engines every year, and how much extra will these simple modifications cost? Well the cost of a redesign, because it makes use of everything already produced by the manufacturer, just rearranged. This should be the next step to “green” energy, while the hydrogen infrastructure is being developed over the next few decades