2012!!!!!!!! :-)

So I guess it’s been five weeks now since the final BSB round back at Brands hatch, almost seems impossible doesn’t it, it feels like 5 minutes in some ways to me but in other ways it seems like 5 years ago!!!

After Brands I was a little bit bashed about and felt sore for a week or two but finally that settled down and the only things that started hurting then were my arm and ears from holding a bloody mobile phone all the time ;-) It’s funny in a way because for the past few years, well since 2008 I’ve always had a manager to take care of this time of year for me but I decided things would be better if I did them on my own so I parted ways with my manager a month or so ago. I’m quite enjoying the whole making calls and negotiating deals thing to be honest and at least you know first hand exactly where you are.

Personally a few bits and pieces have been happening, I’ve been able to spend lots of time with my baby daughter Lilly and Zack which has been real good, Zack’s almost a little bit too in love with his little sister right now bless him, it’s pretty amusing watching him with her!!! I’ve also been down to Spain to collect our cats and dogs and brought them over to the UK which stole a week out of my life!!! Whilst on route down to Spain with my friend Stef I took a joke photo in the services of him pretending to text whilst driving which for all the do gooders out there caused absolute chaos, it REALLY pissed me off at the time because I was trying to be fun, to make people smile etc, updating my Twitter profile and all I got was a load of idiots going on about police evidence and how irresponsible I was, at one point I honestly thought F**k the lot of you I’ll just shut down my Twitter account, I don’t need that sort of crap but then there were a load of nice messages and I thought I’d not give the idiots the pleasure of knowing they’d got to me a bit so we carried on!! Stef and I got in a good bike ride, A being the operative word, we peddled 100 miles in a real good time but on about mile 80 odd Stef turned across the front of me at 26mph and took my front wheel away which sent me sliding down the road at that speed in lycra, how sore!! Fortunately I was ok apart from cuts and bruises but my bike took a bit of a knock, the good news is though the guys at Corley cycles are getting it fixed up and it’ll soon be as good as new!!!

Talking of knowing where you are things finally got sorted at the beginning of this week, last week things were still up in the air with Honda and a couple of other bits but finally Honda decided they wouldn’t wait any longer and I simply wasn’t ready to make a decision at that point so I had to pass, it was a frustrating way to end a very good year and I’d personally like to thank my team boss Harvey, Chris my crew chief, Nick and Tom for all their hard work all year, they were a good bunch of guys but with that having happened on Sunday I headed up to Penrith, after a good few weeks going backwards and forwards with Birdy on the Monday the deal got signed off and it’s on now, Paul Bird Motorsport Kawasaki for BSB in 2012, Birdy and what I like to call MY team are coming back to the UK to try to get the job done and the title won and I’m chuffed to bits that I was the 1^st door he came knocking at when looking for a rider.

It was funny in a way being back up there, this is the third time now that I’ve ridden for Paul and despite the fact the last time was 2007 I walked in and immediately it was like I’d never been away. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to next year already, there’s plenty of exciting stuff going on at PBM and with the program Paul has planned it should make for a very interesting year, I was hoping to get out and have a ride around on a bike by the end of the year but with the bikes going over to Macau it doesn’t look likely that it will be possible, that said the guys will have a new BSB spec bike built probably mid December and spend hours upon hours sussing engine specs, fuel mapping etc to get things started, I believe the plan is to start testing pretty early, initially with a bit of a shakedown test in Spain to try a few different specs engine and chassis wise then after getting back and going through all the data and feedback etc push forward in whichever direction we need to be going in order to get a 2^nd run of Spanish tests sorted to check our progress, I can’t wait to get riding again and see how the new rules are going to pan out, it’s certainly going to be quite a spectacle trying to ride a bike with 200+ BHP with no traction, launch or wheelie control, big skids will definitely be doable ;-)!!!!!!

Going forward now we’re looking into what days I’m going to be heading up to the N.E.C for the bike show where I’ll be spending time obviously at Kawasaki as well as on the Feridax (Shoei UK) stands among others, I’m working right now on getting my personal deals done and hope to confirm that nothing will change as I work with two great companies in Shoei (Feridax) and Alpinestars but more on that when I know what’s happening.

Tuesday I’m off to Kawasaki to collect my new motocross bike to play on so I look forward to getting out on that and other than getting stuck in training wise that’s about it for this Blog, for sure there’ll be more to report in the very near future so I’ll keep you all posted as soon as progress is made, take it easy, Shakey #67