inSpire ride in 2019
InSpire Ride in 2019
A slightly different article this week, we are going to look at a lens and a motorcycle all pulled together covering an event - the InSpire Ride-in 2019. The ride-in is a charitable motorcycle event to raise money by the riders paying an entry fee, meeting up and riding as a group.
This year the InSpire Ride-in had two start locations, a Southern one near Ancaster and a Northern one near Hull. The plan was for the two groups of riders to set off and meet up at the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) just south of the historic city of Lincoln.
The IBCC is a memorial to the 55573 Bomber Command airmen who lost their lives in World War II. It has a spire at its centre that can be seen for miles. This spire is the same length as the wing span of the famous Lancaster bombers which carried airmen on bombing runs over Europe 70 years ago, and is surrounded by the names of the fallen who never returned.
So, on a sunny Sunday I set off to meet up with the rest of the guys at the local petrol (gas for our colonial cousins) station. Well I would have if I had got the right one! Once I had worked out I was at the wrong place I set off on my mighty Grom.
For those who don’t know what a Grom is it’s the American name for the Honda MSX. Grom has been adopted this side of the pond to identify the MSX125 (Mini-Street Xtreme). Yes a 125cc bike, not the most powerful machine I have ever owned (9bhp), or the best handling. The Grom is an odd motorcycle. It's hugely popular the world over but it doesn't fit into any of the pigeon holes that people like to put bikes into. It is a learner legal bike in UK where we are restricted to power and engine capacity for those who haven't got a full motorcycle licence or have just passed their test.
Groms can be seen in towns and cities delivering pizzas or transporting the younger population to work with learner plates attached. It can also be seen in the hands of experienced bikers, which is odd. Why would you buy a Grom when you could have a top end sports bike? The Grom is tiny, like really small, a proper mini bike and this is where the attraction starts. Its small size makes you smile as soon as you see it which makes its fun, a lot of fun.
It's not only fun to ride, but the general population find it funny too. I'm a big guy so when I'm out on the Grom I get a lot of double looks from people in cars and on the sidewalk as they try and work out what is going on with what looks like an optical illusion. When they do work out it is a big guy on a tiny bike they inevitably break into a smile, and small children point and wave. When you park up it can be a pain if you are in a rush, people will come over to chat about the tiny, tiny bike.
And generally speaking I am in a rush on the Grom as it's my transportation of choice when I want to get into town quick. Pull on some boots, jeans, hoodie, gloves and helmet and jump on the Grom and I'm off. No need for hot sweaty full leathers. All my kit is Kevlar lined with armour and gives me 6 seconds of abrasion resistance as well as being comfortable enough to walk round town in all day. On a longer journey I will put on some better kit to protect me as I might get up to a max 60mph the Grom will give me, but round town the hoodie will do, and I look cool.
This is the other reason for getting a Grom, they are cool. If you are on a big custom bike you are trying too hard to look cool. On a Grom you are not trying to prove anything, so look cool de facto. And if you happen to be popping a wheelie (on a private road) you will look event cooler. Groms are great for doing stunts on.
The only problem with owning a Grom is that they are slow, very slow for a motorbike. This is not a problem if you are free running on your own. Try and go out with your mates on sports bikes for a run to the local biker meet up and you will be left behind. So what you need is a load of friends on Groms. Five of us decided to do the InSpire ride-in thinking that even if the big bikes ran off we could ride together. We shouldn’t have worried, I think we hit 60 once on the ride in.
Riding in a large group of bikers is quite an experience. The sound alone is amazing but seeing a lone biker going in the opposite direction is hilarious. We saw a few bemused bikes on the other side of the road all probably wondering what was going on. Then a lone lemon yellow totally tricked out Grom appeared, queue loads of waving from our little group. We were to find out later that Floyd was just out for a run to Lincoln and had no idea about the ride-in. He did a quick u-turn and joined up with us to find out what was going on, such is the lure of a pack of Groms.
Myself and Kev found ourselves riding together in the middle of about 200 other bikers after spotting Floyd. We were keeping up mixed in the big bikes even though we were flat out sometimes. Kev is an experienced rider who had just returned from an 800 mile touring trip round Wales on his Grom. Just goes to prove how versatile these tiny bikes are.
When you look at the pictures you will notice the five bikes are all different. There is a massive market in custom parts for these bikes. The obvious difference is the headlights. The Original Grom has the oval headlight whereas the new model introduced in 2016, the Street Fighter (SF) has an dual bar arrangement. But as soon as you get your Grom, OG or SF you will want to personalize it. Parts for these machine are cheap but, and it’s a big but, it can get out of hand and it's not unusual to hear of people sending thousands of pounds on their tiny bikes.
We arrived at our destination and as soon as we had parked up at the IBCC, Floyd joined us and we attracted a small crowd of inquisitive bikers, one of whom was a reporter from Motor Cycle News our weekly motorcycle paper here in the UK. He was super interested in the small group of Groms and got us to get our bikes out of the crowd for a group photo and an interview. After we had schooled him on how good the Groms are we set off to check out the other bikes and get some drinks; it was one of those unusually hot British days.
As the Grom is a small bike and I'm a big fella there is a power to weight issue. So to keep this to a minimum when I was picking my camera gear for this trip I wanted to keep the weight down. Most Pro lenses are big and heavy and to get a variety of focal lengths so you need a few of them.
I didn’t fancy a heavy backpack so just packed a Nikon D7200 with a Nikon 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 VR DX. This lens was packaged as a kit lens with the D7xxx range of cameras it can still be purchased today new for around £500. I wouldn't recommend that. The lens goes for half that second hand. A lot of these lenses get moved on if they were purchased as a kit and I have no idea why, they are very good lens.
With a focal length of 18 -140mm (28-200mm on a FX camera) this is an excellent walk round lens. It is very sharp, gives you plenty of reach and opens up to f3.5 to give you a pleasant bokeh (the out of focus part of the image) and for this job it was ideal; it’s a very light Lens.
The IBCC carpark was now full of bikes, about 650 of them raising £6500 for charity. Being packed in the wide angle part of the lens at 18mm proved to be invaluable. You can see there is a little distortion which can be fixed in post production, but I kind of like the effect.
The zoom was also useful especially when the Dakota from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flew over head as part of the event. After the first pass of the Dakota I reviewed my shots. Not too interesting, just a plane in the sky. I tried a wide angle shot with the bikes in the foreground. Better but just a very small plane in the sky now with some bikes. As it came in for its third low level run I deliberately shot into the sun hoping for a nice silhouette. Sometimes you just get lucky.
We moved up to the memorial gardens where the names of the aircrew who lost their lives during the war are cut out of the metal walls. It is quite moving when you see the number of people who lost their lives and inevitably we all moved to parts of the wall that had the same surname as us.
For me, a bit of reflection ensued. Most of these guys were in their 20s when they died, they wouldn’t get to grow old with their wives or see their children or grandchildren grow up. It takes a special kind of person to get into an aircraft knowing your probability of being home for breakfast was very slim. War is awful. I think John Maxwell Edmonds Epitaph sums it up a bit better than me.
When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrows these gave their today.
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