My small corner of the interweb, mostly about bike stuff

Well, much has occurred since the last entry.

The boy finally bought a Honda VFR400 in Telefonica Movistar livery. He then decided that a Cagiva Mito rear end would suit the bike better, so we grafted that on and had it painted to match.

Oh, and we went to the London Bike Show and this year I didn't end up sprawled across the car park, needing a ride home in a van.

Still got the old Zephyr, although was lured by a Ducati 750ss around Christmas time.  Fortunately I was too late though.

And my Dad died on 16th March, we cremated him today.  He used to have bikes when he was a lad, so as soon as I have found some pictures of him on his bikes I'll add them to the gallery.

I'll miss him, that's for sure.

Last weekend was mainly spent makingroom in the shed for another possible bike (the boy is rather taken with a shite old FZR400). I do like a tidy shed, but struggle to maintain it so.  Anyhoo, see photo posted for posterity:

Couple of weekends back I loaded up the old girl with camping gear etc and (accompanied by a BMW riding associate) made my way to UKRM's EndOfSummerMeet in Derbyshire.

Much bollocks was spoken, mainly by middle aged chaps sporting beards and jumpers, much beer was consumed and much good food partaken of.

A jolly nice ride up and a jolly nice ride back too; the Zephyr didn't miss a beat (as usual).

A thoroughly good weekend (IMHO).

The whole Jota Bar thing seems to have calmed down now the risers are fitted, and I have to say I rather like the riding position.

One thing I did notice was thet the Jota's had no bar end weights, and after riding the old barge for a while my fingers felt "buzy" when I got off.  Anyhoo, yesterday I found myself at messrs M&P's finest emporium of shiny stuff, so I purchased a set of chrome bar end weights.

Having fitted them I am pleased to report a noticeable lack of buzzing fingers, so this was £9.99 well spent.

In the meantime, we successfully negotiated the MOT test earlier this month, and I guess I really did ought to fit the new tax disc, as the one currently on display is very out of date.

Ho hum, I may wash and polish the bike today (if I can be arsed).

So, the saga continues.

As reported in my last entry, the new risers bolt to the yoke from underneath.  They are not supplied with any bolts, so a Saturday morning search of the local fastener stockists was undertaken (successfully).

Anyhoo, the top yoke had to come off, which means removing the clocks and the big chrome nut on the top of the headset.  So far so good, luckily I had a big FOAD socket which fitted.

Problemo No.1  - the holes I need to screw the new risers through from underneath are threaded.  Mating them to the threaded risers is not easy.

Problemo No.2 - 2 of the bolts will not fit due to the casting of the underside of the yoke.  No worries, just dremel the bastards out thinks I.  Wrong, No.1 son has royally fucked the dremel, so I have to resort to using the dremel attachment in the Bosch rechargeable drill.

Once the dremelling was done, on with the risers.  Really, I should have reamed out the threaded sections of the yoke, but didn't want to do this in case I needed to return the bike to standard.  So, on they went (after a fashion).

Now all fitted up, with more adjustment than you can shake a stick at. A brief test ride was very positive, everything felt a lot more comfortable and stable than before.

So, as I have a free Saturday today I think I'll be mostly hooning and fine tuning the rear shock settings.

Woo hoo, bikes fucking rock.