Replaced rubber grips on the heated grips. 5 mins a side. Hairspray trick still works. Now what do I do with my frizzy hair?
Put newly serviced forks back in the red 749. Very disappointed with myself for taking so long getting that bike back on the road - should have been ready in March/April and I still need to do a few things yet (MOT etc). Luckily, having been brought up as a Catholic I am really skilled at beating myself up/ feeling guilty.
I’d assumed being Catholic exempted you from any and all wrong doing in life as long as you confessed your sins to God?
Nah. It’s all about guilt and feeling bad about oneself. *no longer Catholic by the way, had it beaten into me so hard it came out the other side.
Hardwired a Garmin 395 into my Multistrada. Not a huge fan of satnavs but in a moment of utter madness, I volunteered to back mark a group ride on a long weekend tour of the Eifel forest so needs must. Andy
I’m a massive fan of satnavs, I would go so far as to say that my Garmin 660 is the best bit of biking kit I’ve ever bought I can remember well before bike satnavs were here, getting lost for ages around Eperney? In France, it must have taken us 40 minutes to sort ourselves out, 5 or 6 bikes having to turn around when you had the wrong road, getting maps out, etc, just a right chew on you can do without, especially if it’s stinking hot at the time. On our foreign trips now we have at least two routes per day loaded in the navs, normally a long route and a short route, gives us the option to hit the short route if it’s pissing down. We also plan in fuel stops, coffee and lunch stops, you can pace the ride a lot better as it gives you a countdown of miles / time to that nights hotel, if you’ve got loads of time, another coffee stop, if it’s telling you that you won’t get to the hotel until 07:30 pm, well you need to get your finger out a bit ! All this planning can be done well ahead of the trip and changed or refined on the laptop at home, then pinged out to everyone on the tour a few days before departure. It also gives you a pretty good idea of what total miles you’ll be doing, so you can make a judgment on the life of your existing tyres, chain/sprockets and brake pads etc and whether to fit new ones before you leave, we normally used to get one pillock in the middle of a trip that needs a new rear tyre because he “ thought it would do another 3,000 miles “ ….ffs ! So when you’re in the middle of nowhere, that’s biggest part of a day wasted trying to find a decent tyre that’s the correct size and that’s happened more than once! For me, it takes the navigation/getting lost hassle out of your trip and allows you to relax and enjoy the ride a lot more I find. If one of the group wants to take a detour, no problem, when he’s done whatever he just selects the nights hotel an hits “ go to” and then catches up with everyone else in the bar Also the search function is great if anyone has an issue with their bike and needs to find the nearest dealership Edit,..Just remembered one guy had an issue with his Triumph 675 Daytona and did a search for a Triumph dealer, he shot off on about a 70 miles round trip but came back to the hotel empty handed, turns out that this Triumph dealer was a ladies lingerie shop, bra’s and knickers, that kind of stuff,..oh how we laughed ,…then mercilessly ripped the piss out of him ! I’ve also got a Sena Bluetooth unit in my touring helmet, a great help as it gives you voice prompts for directions,…you can be tanking down a road in your own little world and then a voice in your head tells you to turn right in half a mile, a lot less chance of missing the turn and straying off the route and getting lost. It can also give you speed camera alerts, starts audibly pinging at you when your approaching a fixed camera, every bit helps here when your on new territory.. If your that way inclined you can also load your favourite tunes onto a micro SD card to play through the Bluetooth headset to alleviate the boredom of any motorway stretches, also take phone calls on it , but imo feck both of those, I can happily live without them . About seven years ago we were staying in Boppard, Germany,..had a great day out, good hoon of about 260 miles, back to the hotel for the three S’s and ready to hit the town for a meal at about 7:30 pm when I got a call from home,…family emergency and I had to drop everything, pack and get my riding gear on in about 5 minutes, just setting in dark when I left the hotel, rode all through the night, through Germany, Belgium, France and back through the Chunnel, got home ( I live well up North ) about 8:00 am the next morning, including the previous days hooning session I’d done well over 800 miles by then….what I’m getting to here is there’s absolutely no way I could have done that return trip on my own in the dark, without the satnav,….that point on its own is worth considering ? Also the hotel at the end of the day is also a lot easier to find, I remember stopping in Orleans one night, even with the sat nav this hotel was a right chew on to find, nav kept telling us we had reached our destination, we were right on top of it but couldn’t see it , we didn’t actually realise we were there because the hotel was one of those modern mirror glass things with an arty-farty sign that was unreadable from the road, the nav was correct, we were wrong Always take paper Michelin maps as backup but never needed them yet. If you haven’t already guessed,…. I love my satnav !! Post number 3000….wow!!
A brand new MOT on the superlight today, it was dry when i set off and then we had a flash flood....so a quick wipe down.
Took the wheels off the Multistrada and drove down to Micheldever to get tyres swapped over. Unfortunately their bead breaker is broken. Bugger ! Drove back home, cleaned both front and rear calipers and refitted the wheels. Have to do it all over again on Wednesday, assuming the equipment has been fixed. Going to need new tyres for both the Multistrada and Monster come the end of September so bit the bullet whilst I was there and ordered sets for both. Andy
Removed the old knackered decals from the fairings & seat unit. They weren't lacquered so it wasn't too bad. I definitely recommend using a heat gun. The worst part is removing the gloop residue left on the fairing. I tried "Gloop Gone" which didn't work. WD40 which worked-ish. Sprayed on old fashioned Gunk and with a little rubbing the sticky stuff came off.
Thanks, that was my first ride on it, there're one or two items that need ironing out before i sell it.
Already bought 3 pairs of Metzeler Racetec RR’s and a pair of Metzeler TD slicks so far this year. The Metzeler Roadtec 01SE’s and Pirelli Rosso III’s take the tyre spend to just under £2000. Andy
Today I will be attempting (for the second time) to thread and secure my Kreiga short straps to the subframe of the Scrambler in readiness for my long weekend up in Scotland. If I fail it’ll have to be a less acceptable option/solution of using the long straps, which I’d rather not do if I can avoid it.
