belfastguzzi

I have tried to get better quality video on to Youtube. It would make a big difference. I split the video into two parts and edited them down to be shorter. For a start, they are better for being shorter. But the final quality when uploaded is still not good. Somebody must have better experience, as there are better looking videos on YouTube? I originally compressed the video to 640 x 480 as YouTube recommend. I kept it at 25fps but but reduced the compression quality (more compression) as it was a long video. It looked ok when exported, but looked poor when uploaded. The latest upload is reduced to 320 x 240 and frame rate is dropped to 15fps to make a smaller file Compression is H.264 Quality is Best (maximum) rather than reduced When exported, the quality looks fine, though the reduced frame rate is apparent. However, when uploaded to YouTube the quality is poor (blocky) again. Perhaps it's because I reduced the dimensions to 320x240 and YouTube has upsized it? ~Help requested~ Can anyone advise?

There will soon be less than 130 days until the date

There is video of a ride along the shore road at Portaferry, in the Travel Forum

Click here for > Video of the shore road at Portaferry, County Down, Northern Ireland If everything is operating fast enough, so that the download option works for you: to see a decent picture in YouTube, click on 'watch in high quality' – bottom right under the video picture. ___________________________________ Portaferry – Moto Guzzi rally base This is the area where our May 2009 V11 UK meeting, (Ulster Rally), will be based. On the video, the main accommodation at Barholm can be glimpsed, opposite the ferry pier. Map of the video ride route. The green line shows the road, The scale bars to the left show 1 mile / 2 km ___________________________________ Other versions: EDIT 1 The video picture looks better here. It's a smaller pic and higher quality though it takes a minute or two to download. EDIT 2 – BEST VERSIONS These versions now on YouTube are better because they are edited shorter. Split into 2 videos here: Part 1 Part 2

Yes, the main point is that someone with 'too much money' spent a fortune on messing-up for everyone including his co-driver who appeared to get nothing from the whole experience, apart from condecension. It was clear that others with more understanding and genuine involvement had spent much, much less on entering cars that they loved and they actually completed the event. A programme on some of those guys and their cars would be much more interesting than the vacuous celebrity chef. Nice cars, nice place and nice, in a way, to see that money doesn't count for everything.

There probably was, until the Manticore ate it. Such were the dangers of prog rock. Youtube: ELP performing part of Tarkus

There is a great series of old programmes about Prog on BBC4, started yesterday. (By a freaky coincidence it was preceded by a programme on the Large Hedron Collider.) There's just been a clip of Focus' first appearance on BBC tv – and I fondly remember originally seeing it http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-v7LzOeTkfM They've said that following the Old Grey Whistle Test appearance, demand for the album was so high that the record company had to switch their plant's entire production output to the record for 10 days. Next up: over an hour of ELP on tour in 1973. Overturn the Hammond, let-fly the Moog, unleash the Manticore.

Jan 2009. Some ferry prices (GBP) with MotorCycle News discount. If you want, try http://www.dfdsseaways.co.uk/Offers/MCN Amsterdam - Newcastle (England) £216 return, including cabin Esbjerg - Harwich, £342 return, including cabin http://www.stenaline.co.uk/mcn Hook of Holland - Harwich, single is £28 http://www.stenaline.co.uk/mcn Stranraer (Scotland) - Belfast, single is £36 or £44 or Holyhead (Wales) - Dun Laoghaire/Dublin is £36 single Fisguard (Wales) - Rosslare (Ireland) same price Fleetwood (England) - Larne £48 single + cost of cabin

very good – it's not as long as your memory

...by means of the Luddite Head Collider BTW I may have spotted what went wrong with the boffins' LHC last year. Does it not seem somehow wrong and a bit worrying that all the big tube things, in the pic a few posts previous, are held together by gaffa tape wrapped round them?

That year went quickly. The LHC must have worked! Next time they fire it up, the Laws of Physics might drag Guzzi into the 21st Century. ! What would we do? Flying atoms could result in two extra cylinders and twice the horsepower or something equally horrendous.

Maybe we should wait another year to find out?

Another year, another chance to fire up the Large Hadron Collider.

The monkey is always extra http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QiBONX1VvlM&...feature=related

Oh you posted same time as me. Mine is much more tasteful.

Abba roll in the rockin new year: youtube.com/watch?v=RIwHOo1IwtM

The 1948 Maserati Here's a couple of pieces to read, if you fancy. First a newspaper article and second, comments in a Motorsport forum, which as well as commenting on James 'the berk' Martin, raise the issue of originality or improvement when running old vehicles. 1) by Kevin Eason > The bones might creak a little more than those of his young counterpart, but Sir Stirling Moss could still show James Martin a thing or two about speed. Martin, though, might be able to teach Moss about owning one of the most valuable cars in the world. The celebrity chef and would-be ballroom dancer will arrive tonight at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome at the wheel of his £1million Maserati, one of 375 of the most opulent and expensive cars in the world taking part in the Mille Miglia, a legend in motor racing. The city-to-city race once captured the imaginations of generations of enthusiasts and schoolboys trying to visualise what it would be like whizzing between houses and on public roads at up to 170mph. Martin won't find out because the present Mille Miglia is more a cavalcade than a race; Moss knows the experience only too well. He holds the record for the fastest run from Brescia, at the foot of the Alps in Lombardy, down to Rome, in the south, at an astonishing 97.96mph, made in 1955. When Moss, 78, met Martin, 43 years his junior, in London a few days before this year's event, the chef with a passion for cars was keen to know how Moss could achieve a feat that even now modern racing drivers would marvel at. Moss, on the other hand, was just as anxious to know how Martin would steer his little Italian beauty over the roads of Italy and whether he was nervous about damaging it. Martin is not taking any chances. He buys most of his classic cars, including the Maserati and a Jordan Formula One car, from Cars International, in London, and has hired three mechanics from the company to follow him along the route. His lovely A6GCS, built in 1948, is one of the original cars to have competed in the epic 1,000-mile dash through Italy. The race was one of those typical feats of derring-do that captivated the early racing drivers and their teams, dashing from city to city, throwing up clouds of dust on the potted roads as millions of Italians crowded the sides of the single-track roads. It started in 1927 and ended as a race 30 years later when 14 people were killed, forcing the Italian authorities to end the great adventure by imposing restrictions on motor racing. But the Mille Miglia would not go away and has run as a crowd-pleaser ever since, a chance for Italians to revel in their history and car nuts to enjoy some of the most exotic machinery made. The modern version attracts big-name sponsors, such as Jaguar from Britain, which has sent its own classic fleet of C- and D-Types, as well as two XK120s. However beautiful and however fast these motors may be, none will match Moss's historic feat, one that will probably never be repeated. Moss, usually described as the greatest driver never to be Formula One world champion, gave much of the credit for the record run to Denis Jenkinson, his co-driver. Jenkinson, bearded and cerebral, came up with what was then the innovative idea of taking a roll of paper on which directions were written. Martin has in the co-driver's seat a petite blonde, Sarah Bennett-Baggs, a mean racer herself, who is competing in this year's Porsche Club Championship in a pink 911. The only paper will be notes for the forthcoming book about the race and for a BBC film crew, because there will be the inevitable television documentary to follow. The pair are among 24 British crews in an array of lovely cars, from a Frazer-Nash to an Aston Martin and a Bentley. The drivers are almost as exotic with Jean Alesi, once of the Ferrari Formula One team, expected and Mika Hakkinen, the two-time Formula One world champion, driving a beautiful Mercedes 300SL Gran Turismo. There are royalty and executives from some of the most famous brands in the world. In fact, the Mille Miglia is more a beauty pageant than the gritty motor race that Moss contested. A Roman legend - The Mille Miglia was started in 1927 by a group of aristocrats and businessmen because Brescia had lost the Italian Grand Prix to Monza, and was run over a figure-of-eight route to Rome and back over 1,000 Roman miles. - The race of 1940, one of the last motor races in Europe before the intensification of the Second World War, was notable for the arrival of a new team, Auto Avio Construzioni, led by one Enzo Ferrari. - In 1930, Tazio Nuvolari was tailing Achille Varzi at dawn, but turned off his headlights so that Varzi could not see his Alfa Romeo. On the straight run-in to Brescia, Nuvolari swept past to victory - and flicked his headlights on as he went by. - Hans Herrmann had a lucky escape in the 1954 race when the barrier started to come down at a level crossing as he arrived at full pelt. He simply smacked the helmet of Herbert Linge, his co-driver, to warn him to duck and then hurtled underneath the looming wooden barrier. - Sir Stirling Moss was the fastest man over the Mille Miglia at an astonishing average speed of 97.96mph with Denis Jenkinson, his co-driver, reading directions from a 15-foot long roll of paper and giving hand signals. Moss warned Jenkinson to make sure his directions were correct; Jenkinson replied that he had an investment in getting the instructions correct because, if they crashed, he would die, too. - The great Juan Manuel Fangio refused to run the Mille Miglia with a co-driver because he believed it was too dangerous. - Ultimately, Fangio was proved right. The race was ended in 1957 when the Marquis de Portago crashed, killing himself, his co-driver and a dozen spectators and the event now runs as an historic rally. 2) Motorsport Forum > http://www.motorsportforums.com/forums/sho...ad.php?p=568985

That was the address to watch live, at the time it was showing yesterday. You should be able to see it here, for the next 7 days: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g8...s_Mille_Miglia/ Or is it also limited to UK?

I think that the later spring with larger coil (to allow for variations in the boss size) is 04 23 83 00

Time for some Rock'n'Guzzi Following Christmas, it's appropriate to mention Cake, as they tie in Moto Guzzi with RocknRoll 'lifestyle' in their song: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ILRpRv57H0g&...feature=related And remember Scritti Politti? I hope not. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...st&p=113155

From the last time – I thought that you did, or were going to, change the pawl arm as well? Did you change both parts so that you have the correct combination of spring (coil size) and arm (boss size)? EDIT: Maybe it was someone else, not you, who posted before, but I think it was a Mark?? I don't think that there's much talk about the spring these days because the fix has worked for most people, so it's a surprise that you have been through 4 springs. By the by, there are still 2002 bikes running around and breaking their springs (original or not, I don't know). From time to time I get mails from people who have found / used the pics that I have on the web about the fix. The last one was just about a week ago.

Oh dear, it's got a bit sad. Having completely rebuilt the car at monstrous expense, he immediately enters the race and thrashes the thing. I know people recommend 'no break-in', but then is it really a great surprise when the valves let go? Out of the race and no chance to sell the car on for £1m as a MM completer.

Anyone watching James Martin's MilleMiglia adventure, now on BBC2 and internet here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlive/bbc_two_england/ ? £800,000 and counting... £12,000 for life insurance for the few days, £3,000 per piston, £8,000 entry fee – for example. Yes, an MGS 01 Corsa really does seem like good value now.

Ah yes, I should have said, "if the mirrors and the model were removed". Or were you thinking more that the bike should be removed?

Looks ok-ish in these views, if the mirrors were removed.