Breast Way Round originated in Scotland as an idea to raise money for Macmillan Cancer and also raise the profile of female bikers at the same time.

This took the shape of a 450 mile run over 3 days up the west coast of Scotland. This has now blossomed into an annual event, now in it’s 6th year, in which around 150 bikers, primarily women all wearing bright pink hi-viz vests and mow-hawks on their helmets, joined by a few men wearing decorated bra’s set off on their 3 day, 450 mile run.

So far it has raised a staggering £212,000 for Macmillan and it is hoped that in this 6th year the run (and other events happening during the year) will reach a £250,000 total in 2013!

Lisa Moore has taken part in the Breast Way Round since 2010 and had always dreamed of bringing the experience to Northern Ireland. She says; "I have been personally inspired by this ride and having taken part in it wanted to bring this to life for riders in Northern Ireland. It is a ride that is inspiring, the amazing comradeship you feel on the ride creates new friendships that stays with you and it is something I wished that female riders in Northern Ireland could experience too! At a meeting of the Northern Ireland Female Bikers (NIFB) Facebook group I initially explained about the Breast Way Round ride, I told them of my own experiences, how it had inspired me and of the amazing amount it had raised for Macmillan. All of the girls were interested and thought that having a Northern Irish Breast Way Round run was a great idea!"

So Lisa approached Macmillan, who were also keen to come on board with the idea, a committee, with Lisa as Chairperson, was quickly formed and Breast Way Round Norn Iron 2013 (BWRNI) was borne! •BWRNI is a unique event in Northern Ireland; it will have up to 100 motorcycles/scooters/trikes taking part, with all different riding abilities being catered for •It is being held on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th August 2013 •The 100 riders will be made up of 80 females, all wearing bright pink tutus, mow-hawks  etc and 20 males who will all be wearing decorated bras throughout the ride •The event is a shared experience and we have riders taking part who are from cross community, the LGBT community and also riders who are disabled •The ride is approx 250 miles, being completed over 2 days. •The run will be stopping at Newcastle, Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry on Saturday and Portrush, Joey’s Bar and Carnfunnock on Sunday, so as riders can hold collections for Macmillan and have a bit of fun with the general public while dressed up :) •It is hoped that the run will raise £10,000 for Macmillan Cancer Northern Ireland

BWRNI has already found amazing support so far from:

TR Logistics Group and WorkWear Mallusk who sponsored the hi-viz vests

Halliday Citroen, Bushmills who are loaning us a support van for the weekend

BT48 Apart Hotel, Derry/Londonderry who have arranged reduced rate accommodation for the riders

GS Motorcycles in Ballymena who have helped us raise funds and use their premises for photos, etc

The Dunlop family and Joey’s Bar, Ballymoney who have helped us to raise funds and use their premises for photos, etc

If anyone is interested in taking part or you would like any further information at all please contact the BWRNI team, who can be contacted @ [email protected]

Facebook: Breast Way Round Norn Iron

Twitter: @BWR_NI

This year's Ride to Work day is less than a week away and is your opportunity to save time, money and encourage others to take to two wheels and commute on a motorbike or scooter more regularly.

It's easy to get involved - simply swap the car for the bike on Monday 17th June and encourage your friends to do the same! Don't forget non bike-riding friends can get a taste of life on two wheels through the industry approved Get On campaign which provides an accessible route into motorcycling.

www.ridetoworkday.co.uk

Our contact in Shanghai was Roger Owens, or Junior as he was called back in the days when he was the youngest member of the Northern Ireland volleyball team I captained at the Commonwealth championships in 1981. Or was it 1881? I can never remember.      

Now a successful businessman, he’d sent his company’s bright blue London taxi to meet us at the airport. As it hurtled along the superhighway from the airport into Shanghai, it was like entering the set of Bladerunner on drugs, with the rivers of headlights and tail lights streaming constantly between some of the most exquisitely designed skyscrapers on earth. And yet, as we turned into the street where our hotel was, there was a tiny bicycle repair shop on the corner, with an old man squatting on the floor fixing a puncture, just as in Clancy’s day.      

Next day, it was out on the Clancy trail with our guide, Kent Kedl, boss of a company called Control Risks who specialised in fraud investigation, kidnapping management and hostage negotiation. “Kent, with a name like that, you’ve got to be either a Californian surf dude or one of Superman's mates,” I said as we walked off a main street straight into the heart of old Shanghai, its narrow streets pungent with the aromatic smoke of assorted creatures being fried, boiled or roasted and noisy with the clack of old men playing mah jong and traders advertising their wares.  

In narrow windows hung bolts of silk, wool and cashmere which tailors would transform into fine suits and shirts in a matter of days for a song, while the cobbler next door would furnish you with a pair of bespoke handmade shoes in only a few days more. The Confucius Temple Clancy described is still there, past a pond crossed by a zig-zag bridge so that ghosts can’t find their way to the Starbucks opposite and are forced instead to queue for a pricey tea ceremony, although I doubt if Bill Clinton and the Queen coughed up a fiver for a cuppa when they visited. And beyond, the Yu Gardens are exactly as Clancy found them: a haven of goldfish ponds, elegant trees, bamboo groves, cobbled walkways and temples for calligraphy, meditation or prayer.      

As we emerged, Gary spotted a stall selling Mao hats and badges, and a white Chinese fighter pilot’s helmet with a red star on the front for which the stallholder was asking 320 yuan, or about £32. “How much should I offer her?” he asked Kent.   “Same tactics as hostage negotiation. Offer her 30 per cent, then walk away,” laughed Kent. He was right, of course, and two minutes later, Gary walked away 12 quid lighter and a helmet richer. “If you need a jet to go with that, I know a good arms dealer,” said Kent.      

The next day, having seen what Clancy saw, we met Roger for the tour of what he hadn’t, taking the ferry across the river into another world, of wide boulevards and 3,000 skyscrapers, more than New York, with another 2,000 planned. At the end of the day, we toasted Clancy in the Long Bar of the Peace Hotel, where Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin once dallied. In the corner, the hotel’s legendary jazz band played just as they had as young men before the Communists disbanded them after the Revolution in 1949.  

With the city now buzzing again, they had been hauled out, dusted off and told they could start playing their decadent capitalist tunes again, even though they were now all in their eighties.

The next day, we were on the plane to Nagasaki, where as the Bulow docked in 1913, Clancy almost certainly grinned with pleasure to see, as his Henderson was lowered onto the dockside, a sight he had not seen for some time: roads. As he motored north, around him was a country more delightful, beautiful, peculiar and above all different to anything he had ever seen, particularly the quaint habit of locals to dash out of their homes and into the road when they heard his horn, thinking it meant the arrival of the fried fish salesman, the pipe cleaner or the clog mender.  

Still, apart from kamikaze pedestrians, rickshaws and carts, he had the roads to himself, since he saw no motorcycles and only a single car in his whole time in Japan. It is, as you can imagine, much the same today. We had arrived in Nagasaki just too late for cherry blossom season, that time of year when the petals come fluttering down to remind the Japanese of the fragile, temporary beauty of life.   But then, the city where we stepped ashore became an even greater reminder of that on the morning of August 9, 1945, when the 240,000 citizens woke to a warm but overcast day and were glad when the clouds parted at 11am to reveal just enough blue sky to make a sailor suit. They shouldn’t have been, because at that moment the crew of the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar returning from finding Kokura, their planned target, obscured by cloud, saw Nagasaki through the same gap and dropped their bomb on it from 30,000ft.  

In three seconds, 70,000 people died and another 70,000 were fatally poisoned by radiation. We emerged into glorious sunshine and bought two cones from an old ice cream seller, and in a few deft scoops she created what looked like two perfect roses almost too beautiful to eat. She handed them to us with a polite bow, and in that moment I was reminded again why I love Japan, for the infinitely loving care given to the beauty of detail in everything from bathing and the tying of a kimono to the tea ceremony.      

And so, with world peace in the balance but my love for Japan secure, I returned to our traditional ryokan and a struggle with the four thousand buttons on the slightly less traditional automated toilet. At one stage I accidentally cranked the heated seat and hot air bottom drying fan up to maximum heat, leading to a few seconds of intense panic that my nether regions would burst into flames and I would be charged with arson.

@ VMCC Festival of 1000 Bikes, Mallory Park, 13/14 July 2013.

Here is some huge “Stop Press” news with the VMCC Festival of 1000 Bikes providing the stage for the launch of the new Crighton CR700P Rotary Race Bike. You can find an exclusive first view of the new bike attached to this communication.

Many enthusiast’s will know that Brian Crighton created the famous (and Championship winning) Norton Rotary race bikes of the late 1980s & early 1990s.Those visiting “1000 Bikes” in recent years will know that due to the help of the National Motorcycle Museum & Brian Crighton these iconic bikes have formed one of the most popular parts of the “Past Masters” feature.

This year the brand new machine will be joining its famous Rotary predecessors out on track for the very first time in the hands of non other than multiple British Champion Jamie Whitham! What about that for another VMCC first!

If the above isn’t enough to whet your appetite prior to seeing this new British Machine for the first time how about a couple of figures? 200BHP! 135KG! We reckon that’s worth a trip to Mallory Park!

www.festivalof1000bikes.co.uk

AFTER POKERSTARS SENIOR TT IS RESTARTED FOLLOWING BRAY HILL INCIDENT

After the initial race was red flagged due to an incident at Bray Hill involving rider Jonathan Howarth in which ten spectators were injured, the race got underway at 4.30pm and the first few laps were nothing short of superb as the gaps between the leading riders were minimal. It was Gary Johnson who grabbed the lead at Glen Helen by 0.5s from William Dunlop with Michael Dunlop just 0.05s further back! Michael Rutter slotted into fourth as McGuinness found himself down in fifth.

It was all change at Ramsey though as Michael Dunlop hit the front for the first time, Johnson now second and McGuinness third. At the end of the lap, the order was still with the first five riders all over 130mph and only seven seconds between them, Dunlop leading from McGuinness, Johnson, Rutter and Guy Martin.

McGuinness began to make his move on the second lap and, after edging ahead by just five hundredths of a second at Ballaugh, he completed his second lap at 131.272mph to open up a 2.4s lead. Dunlop was 4.8s ahead of Martin with Bruce Anstey up to fourth and ahead of Rutter as Johnson was forced to retire with a broken foot assembly.

Another slick pit stop by McGuinness’ Honda TT Legends crew saw him leave the pits with a bigger lead but by Glen Helen the gap was down to half a second although McGuinness had doubled this by Ramsey. It was nip and tuck all the way and at half race distance there was two seconds between the duo, Anstey in third ahead of Martin and Hillier, who had relegated Rutter to sixth.

On the fourth lap, McGuiness appeared to have broken Dunlop slightly and, for the first time, his lead increased the whole way round. Leading on the road with Hillier right in his wheeltracks, the pair lapped at over 131mph as they came into their second pit stop and whilst it allowed McGuinness to go seven seconds clear of Dunlop, it also allowed Hillier to not only move up to fourth but also close up on Anstey.

Fifth time around and McGuinness’ lead crept up to the ten second mark, Hillier continued to have a great education behind the current King of the Mountain whilst the thousands of fans around the track were also being treated to an on-track duel between Anstey and Donald. McGuinness and Dunlop looked safe but third place was anyone’s and as the riders headed into their sixth and final lap, Hillier had nosed ahead albeit by the tiny margin of 0.16s!

The final lap saw the leading four riders all lap in excess of 131mph, Hillier and Anstey both setting personal best laps, but it was McGuinness who was celebrating the most as he took his 20th TT win, and his 41st podium, by 10.1s. Dunlop ended his phenomenal week with a second place and, in a thrilling last lap, Anstey set the fastest lap of the race, 131.531mph, to get the better of Hillier for third.

Martin took fifth with Rutter in sixth, the Midlands rider delighted with his first 130mph+ laps. William Dunlop took seventh from Dean Harrison and Dan Stewart with Australian David Johnson securing his best TT result in tenth.

Lee Johnston was the best of the Privateer’s in 11th and that allowed him to take that particular Championship by ten points from Dan Kneen, who took 12th in today’s race.

The race was delayed by 3 1/2 hours following the incident on Bray Hill. The Race organisers issued the following statement:

"ACU Events Ltd can confirm that 10 spectators were injured during an incident in the Senior TT Race. The rider Jonathan Howarth sustained a minor fracture. The race was red flagged and emergency services were immediately in attendance at the scene.

The ten spectators and the rider were taken to hospital with injuries ranging from slight to serious but not life threatening. Four of the spectators have been discharged, five of the injured have been kept in hospital and one remains under observation in the emergency department."