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An (Occasionally) Enthusiastic Bike rider with a penchant for geological stuff, having a good time and utilising my pessimism to it full capacity!

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Pah! - Doctors - what do they know?!

I had my routine 6 monthly blood test a couple of weeks ago with some additional blood letting to test for adverse effects relating to some cramps I've been getting in my Calf muscles.
All pretty routine stuff 'till I get a summons to appear in front of the Doctor. I assume this is for my routine 6 monthly bollocking relating to excessive feeding frenzies and not nearly excessive enough exercise frenzies.
However, on reporting to aforementioned medical practitioner I am advised to stop taking the cholesterol tablets for a couple of months, submit to another blood-letting exercise in 2 months and
(you'll need to be sitting down for this bit)
Stay off the bike for a couple of months!!!!

What is wrong with the man? is he mad? has he been prescribing himself the wrong kind of sweeteners for his tea?
I don't understand?!
He did have a large sort of smirky grin as he mentioned this, I think he's in the pay of that dodgy copper in North Wales.

I, of course, agreed with everything he said and promised to take the car to the NEC for the bike show (He he)

(Sh#t, I hope he don't read this!)

Sunday 9 November 2008

Bl#@dy LEDs, it gets worse!

Having spent ages fitting 2 LED's in each mirror housing One in the right housing (the proper Amber ones) has packed up!, this comes to 6 of the 8 LED's I got from Ultraled.com that have give up the ghost, bailed out, gone west, etc.
I shall forego any further urges to get my LED's from this source and stick to getting them from Maplins, all of which are still working despite having to put up with my (not inconsiderable) ability to bugger - all things electric - up.

I tidied the garage up today, due to pressure from' she-that-doesn't-want-to-scrape-ice-from-the-windscreen-in-the-morning', so the car can be put into it.
This has the effect of reducing the available space for the bike, so I will now have to revisit my 'mucking about in the garage' schedule and maybe transfer some effort into sorting out my website, which I've not been giving enough attention too.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Bl#@dy LED's!! Why can't they fit themselves?

Some where on the internet is a photo of a Honda ST 1300 Pan-European with dinky little Amber LED's fitted inside the wind mirror housing facing back-the-ways.

Theory being that people who sit a bit taller in the saddle (or have a Airhawk seat cover - that'll be me) and can no longer see the indicator tell tales on the dash and tend to forget the indicators are on, (and getting all bitter and twisted when cars/people pull/walk out in front of you as you approach junctions?!)
Will be able to see the LEDs fitted in the mirror housing and switch off the indicators (thus relieving the stress inducing actions related to hurling abuse/gestures at cars/people who pull/walk out in front of you as you approach junctions for what you perceive as a totally inexplicable action and/or a distinct dislike of you personally despite the fact they don't know who the hell you are; Hmm- is that Paranoia?)
This theory has yet to work for me, I fitted a couple of 5mm LEDs, as seen on the aforementioned internet picture, but they where;
a) Red instead of amber.
b) not bright enough during the day.

So over the last week I decided to replace these LED's with the correct colour 12v 5mm amber LED's
I invested a few £'s in 8 LED's, pre wired and set about fitting them.

At this stage I should mention that anything electric, in particular 12v, is a total mystery to me and I've always assumed that 12v systems were the domain of other worldly beings who have no concept of 'normal'

Out of the 8 amber LED's, one turned out to be white(?) and the wires fell of 5 of the other 7 leaving me with 2 that I managed to get fitted having blown the alarm indicator fuse on 3 occasions and requiring 3 trips to Maplins for spares (I've completely depleted the Milton Keynes branch now of both mini spade fuses, amber & orange LED's)
They are now fitted to the bike and are working (at the moment) unfortunately due to a very strange lack of amber super-bright 5mm 12v LED's on this planet I had to make my own up (see above relating to my understanding of electric) and I could only get Orange LED's - thus I have Amber to turn Right and Orange to turn Left.
I've also fitted some wind deflectors as you can see, these went on without to much hassle ('Cos there not electric!) and I have some other bits to fit to protect the (rubbish) paintwork.

I suppose at some stage in the near future I will change the Orange LED's for Amber one's but I need to get some more fuses first?! and read up a bit about electric