Never, ever, take a brake shoe lining for granted. Almost without exception Japanese shoes are fixed to their alloy carriers by adhesive alone; you rarely see rivets used. Eventually dampness, heat and time can and will rupture the adhesive bond causing the lining to come away from the shoe. The two potentially disastrous scenarios here are either your brakes fail or loose lining locks up the wheel. Long term keeper or new project; always and without fail check with a flat blade how good that critical adhesive bond is. Brake shoes are cheap, life isn’t.
As a child Bertie (well, Robert back then… blame his sister for the nickname) was exposed to motorcycles thanks to his uncles. They would show up at his house with a lovely lady as pillion throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
After a naughty time on field bikes (it’s what we did back then) Bertie passed his test in the early 1990s and became a reporter for MCN in 1995, moving to the sports desk and covering World Superbikes in 1996.
With a change to Bike Magazine in 1997, he stayed until 2000 as news, features and road test editor. Moving into PR with Cosworth, Bert was bored with cars and returned to bikes in 2001 with Two Wheels Only, becoming editor in 2002 and leaving to be freelance at the end of 2004.
With almost a decade freelancing, Bertie joined Mortons in 2013 and became editor of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics, a post he’s desperately clung to, to this day. And no, he’s never had a pretty girl on the back of his bike.
BSimmonds@mortons.co.uk
