I got a lift up to Bahnstormer yesterday from my ageing friend to go and pick up Rosie. We arrived just before closing time, and all of the bikes had been brought inside. Some lovely bikes too. There were little tickets on them and it looked like the tickets had the phone numbers of the person to call about the bike. Closer inspection revealed that it was the price tag.

Still, I saved a packet of money - I didn't buy an X-challenge, despite the best efforts (delivered with great humour) of Alistair. We did speak about the new 450 enduro - to be launched in Many - and the specs are still very hush hush.

I am told that it is around the 125 kilo mark - no contest with the 89 kilo AJP PR3. That 35 kilo difference is a tank full of fuel, all the Dakar electrics you need, and an a fairly big proportion of the rider.

Cleverly, BMW have built a power limiter into the 450 enduro, which keeps the power output to about 50 brake horsepower. If you want more (up to 80 horsepower I believe) then you need to simply cut a single wire and off you go.

The type of people who'd want to do this are people who race the bikes. Bikes that are raced take a lot of punishment. BMW bikes come with a warranty, and raced bikes would cost BMW a lot of money in warranty repairs.

So what they do is invalidate the warranty if you cut this little wire. Since it is pretty much guaranteed that anybody racing a bike wold cut the wire, they save a lot of money on warranty repairs. Very clever. Nothing happens for nothing.

So out came Rosie, all sparkling and clean and fixed. I was so pleased to get her back, that I pulled a wheelie in the forecourt riding straight towards my ageing friend (who then aged a little more due to 200kg of BMW bearing down on him front wheel in the air). OK, so he's got a very shiny fast car, but let's see it do that ...

When I got home after going on a fish and chips procurement mission, I had to push Rosie around my ageing friends shiny fast car in order to get her all parked up for the night. Pushing Rosie round my the car , I put her on the side stand and it wasn't down completely. Timber. She must be sick of lying down by now.

In true hubris fashion, I said to my ageing friend "and this is how you pick up 200kg of BMW" before proceeding to, em, completely fail to pick up 200kg of BMW. In the end, I needed a bit of help to do it. That's a little message from the universe about why a 89kg AJP is a Good Thing.

My ageing friend has more bizz-ness discussions today, but with somebody completely different. I was down at the university earlier in the week, meeting with a bunch of people who have a neat idea that they are trying to patent and to make a lot of money from. One of them was a professor (the idea is his) and the other two were bizz-ness people. They need somebody to write some software and, in true Yosser Hughes style, I said "I can do that".

So it's probably not a recommended job interview technique to be picking arguments with a Professor of Computer Science about how computers work. It's probably even less recommended to do this when he is wrong and you are right. Sat there with the head of Computer Science - this guy has had more stuff published than Einstein - and we're hotly debating whether such-and-such a thing is actually part of such-and-such a standard.

Remember Asterix? All of the characters in Asterix had names that ended in '-ix'. There was VitalStatistix - the chief - and Obelix (the one who carried boulders on his back). So I was thinking that if this guy was an Asertix character then he'd be called 'Academix'. A real professorial type, with a real strokey-chin type of pondering air.

Now over to my ageing friend to work out the commercials, if indeed there are commercials to be worked out. It would be nice. 3 months of well-paid work, mostly from home, but when I have to go into the office then it's only about 2 miles away from where I work.

Maybe whilst I'm there, I'll ask what's the chances of them giving me a University degree since I don't have one and it would be nice to have letters after my name.

Speaking of which, I remember reading once about a guy who couldn't afford a private number plate for his car. His name was "Mark Smith" (if I remember rightly) and he wanted the number plate "M4 RKS". In the end, he paid 50 quid to change his name by deed poll to "W322 MXY" (or whatever it was).

I sent a mail to the Anti Monkey Butt people, asking if they'd like to sponsor us by giving us some stuff for free, but still no response yet. I'll try again - it would be nice to have a picture of a monkey with a red arse on the bikes. Some bikes will be sponsored by Oil companies (Repsol, Total), a couple by fag companies (Gauloises), and then there will be our lot - monkeys with red arses.

My ITM went to Holyhead yesterday to pick up his bike, which has been in the process of being delivered for two months now. Hopefully it all went well and nobody had to get too cross about it. He has an 8-hour enduro on Saturday - his first - and will be riding alongside Philip Noone (akar 2008 entrant) who is also going to Morocco.

I got a lovely email from my ITMM (Irish Team Mate's Missus) yesterday too. She wont be going to Morocco - a conspiracy of not liking flying and Wee Yins to look after.

One week to go, and I have a whole bunch of Shippee going on about Morocco. We're all stocked up on Vaseline and the like and, as ever, I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for tuning in, and sticking with the rambling and randomness. Welcome to my world.

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