Consideration of engines, some decent Youtube videos

This blog was conceived while I was walking out of the Valley yesterday (21st April) using my engine, heart lung and legs to make the steady climb from the Black Lion (not open). It was a tad over the 'one hour' we are allowed/advised but in my defence we live in a very rural area and we only saw one other person on the walk and it was so therapeutic.

Before I elaborate I recalled I wrote a blog in 2016 where I collated many Youtube videos of old engines being started in canal boats. To fill some distracted time have a browse here  

So then I got to thinking about all the engines I/we currently own and it's more than I originally imagined.

In no great order of preference (I've rounded the engine sizes to their given side rather than their specific CC as I'm lazy...

• Percy's engine which is the biggest engine in our ownership.... 3 litres 2 cylinder diesel 
• Honda ST1300 Pan European, unsurprisingly my European and UK touring motorcycle has a 1300cc V4 petrol engine 
• Honda NC750x (DCT) motorcycle, this is the 'little' motorbike for anything I don't fancy on the bigger bike. There are hundreds of miles of unclassified roads in the moorlands and the peaks to explore and this is the perfect bike to do it on. It has a 750cc parallel twin petrol engine with a Duel clutch transmission.
• Rover 75 Connoisseur tourer, 2 litre diesel* getting close to having done 100,000 miles in this car, my automatic mimi limo I'll be sad to see it go it's useful but too big really for what I need now. It was perfect for weekly 400 mile round trips to the south coast.
• Toyota Auris 1.4 diesel* Rachel's car. So far very reliable frugal motoring.
• Honda 1000kw generator.  I think its only 50cc petrol **(yep checked) lovely bit of reliable kit for the boat 
• Flymo strimmer I think this is just 25cc. Petrol 2 stroke so I have to mix oil in with the petrol

So seven 'engines' in total, more than some and less than others I guess.

We do have three EV's  - electric vehicles if you can count cycles as vehicles. We hope to swap one or both the cars for an electric car in the future, not sure when but it seems the way forward especially as most of our journeys do not seem to exceed 50 miles nowadays. I expect as soon as we buy one with limited range we will then find out how many times we do need the extra range !

* Both diesels brought when the government were telling  us diesels were better for the environment and diesel was considerably cheaper than petrol !!

**My first motorbike Honda FZ1E was a 50cc  - the same size engine as my Honda generator and the bike took me all over the place.