My trip to the Bike show....

On the bike, of course!
Steve came up from the deep South and we launched ourselves up to the NEC via Jacks Hill Cafe on the A5 near Towcester (strangely the bike can't seem to get past this without turning into the car-park, and throwing me off into the cafe in the process) We topped up the Cholesterol here and continued on our way.
I noticed, after travelling the first 30 miles and my fingers had started explaining the definition of frost-bite to my already frozen-from-birth brain, that the air temperature gauge was registering 3 degrees C.
My nice new Halversson's ensemble was keeping me quite warm - but my gloves were failing me around the fingertip area - and the rain had failed miserably to penetrate anywhere - Result!!

Having got to the NEC we parked the bikes -indoors- and I discovered that the NEC coms system didn't get on overly well with my alarm! It took ages to get the thing to set correctly and would only work when the Transmitter/receivers were in use and thus ignoring my alarm system?!
The show was better this year -in my opinion- than last year, my only disapointment was on the Triumph stand,

The New Thunderbird!

It's bloody awful!
What are Triumph thinking?
Just call it the 'Rocket 1'

Don't sully the name and looks of a design classic by comparing it with yet another Harley clone! leave that to Honda et al

Once over this, we met up with Teresa, Mick & Hanna for coffee and pasties in the highly priced Cafe in the NEC (opps, sorry I forget to insert 'corruptivly' between the 'highly' & 'priced')

AND, (here's a good thing that you all need to do!)
we joined the Royal British Legion Riders Branch they get up to all sort's of ride-outs and trips, displays visits etc. they also are looking to do a record breaking sort of 'iron butt' trip of 1000 miles in 24 hrs with over 200 riders, this could be fun! all for £17 a year! (This also covers the RBL memebrship fee)
Click on the link and find out more.

My newly insert wing mirror mounted LEDs worked extremely well and leaving the indicators on is now a thing of the past, jury's out though on the fairing deflector kit I fitted. I need to get out more to find out if this works.


Oh yeah, Have a look at this website I'm putting together it's all about the '7 Points' trip some of us Round Britain Ralliers did in May 2008
you may like to have ago yourself!!

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!)

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.

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