Its a big old bus this…
Weekly Update 2 – 03/07 – 28/07
Hello everyone.
It’s been a busy old month in the life of YamYam. Firstly I had my meeting with Glen Richards, to get my artworks signed! It was a nervous time for me for some reason, but anyway it went without a hitch and it was a great experience, Glen is a fantastic bloke. I gave him his complimentary canvas and off he went with it under his arm, to show all the HM Plant boys during his tea! I showed him the Bayliss as well and he loved it, so hopefully the word will spread and I’ll get some more orders!
I’ve been commuting to Glasgow the past couple of weeks on the MT and boy oh boy does it fatigue me. It’s not the riding position at all, in fact it’s the most comfy bike I have ridden. It’s the vibes through the pegs, coupled with the lack of foot movement (on the motorway) makes my feet fall apart after half and hour. It’s not the best and it’s certainly needing some kind of foot restage botch if I wanted to use it as a proper touring bike.
“There is something about traveling at high speed a few feet above hard ground that gets your attention. When the body is right there, the brain tends to be right there with it.”
I was planning on writing a story about the reasons why I believe motorcycles to be safer than cars, but having typed just that in to Google, I found this article here. It pretty much says exactly what I was going to, so there’s no point in regurgitating, I’ll just link to it and write something else!
I have been working extremely hard these days at work…obviously. I have been doing some serious hours an it’s left me with zero time for well, anything. I get home at 3am, I am more concerned about sleeping than updating yamyam or other important things like eating.
After a weekend to forget, even though I already have due to exhaustion, I am now on the recovery and have some free time to do all the things I haven’t been able to do for the past month.
The other night I finished very late through in Glasgow and had forgotten to put my clear visor in my Kriega so had to ride for an hour and a half in the pouring rain with my dark visor on. It wouldn’t have been so bad had it been dry as I could go along with it open to see the road, but because of the rain it was near impossible. But after an hour on the bike and getting saturated through, I was suddenly aware of the cats eyes on the newly laid stretch of road near Kinross. They lit up so brightly that through the dark visor it was almost like a landing strip leading me home. It was amazing, as pretty much that’s all I could see through the visor.
That happened several times over the coming weeks, me forgetting my clear visor, me riding home in the dark, sometimes dry, often wet. I would always love getting to that stretch of road, as it meant I was almost home; the place I have grown to miss through not being there at all the past wee while.
One thing is for sure though, the MT is the best bike to be on when you are knackered and wanting to get home. Once you are in top gear, you just chug along. Nothing else to really think about. That’s what I love about it, if you want to get a thrill, open the throttle quickly. If you want to cruise, just sit back and enjoy. You feel amazing regardless of what style you feel like.
I will be sad when winter comes around again (and at this rate, it’ll be tomorrow)
Washed it for the first time in two weeks today, it was pretty dirty all over and I was secretly worried it had been damaged or rusted, but it was brilliant. All the dirty stains and rusting parts cleaned up a jem and it’s sitting outside my house gleaming in the evening sun.
I am glad I am so fortunate to own such a bike. I see a lot of bikers on the road on bangers and old bikes. I don’t feel bad for them, because they are probably loving it. I just feel fortunate to be able to walk out to the MT every morning, knowing that it will soon be locked up and still gleaming, as the GSR is brought back in to active service. I too will soon be riding around on a banger, but I will also still be loving it.
Sorry for the complete lack of update. It couldn’t be helped.
Cheers
YY
Welcome to 2010!
Well welcome one and all, for it’s two-thousand-and-ten A L R E A D Y.
The weather here is atrocious at best, so because of this my bike has been constrained to the work garage, as I couldn’t get it home. Because of this, my bike has sat for a week and now that I have returned to see it, the ignition is seized stopping the key from turning (you can still get the key in though…) and thus I can’t start it, thus I can’t unseize the rear brake that’s now jammed on.
Ace.
It’s going to be a few weeks I would imagine, before this snow and ice clears up. This isn’t good because my bike needs to be in active service asap. I think what I might do is get Stuart to come and get it and do a service. Then I can just wait until the weather is a bit kinder to 2 wheels.
Anyway. I hope Santa was good to y’all and you had a great and happy new year’s celebration. We had a great time, with a new Fraser in the family (Lily, both mother and daughter are well!) and some nice relaxing fatty-eating-chocolate-and-other-leftovers joy.
2010 has to be a good year, because 2009 wasn’t. And for this reason, I have made a promise to update YamYam at least twice a week. Let’s see how I do.
Oh and the 25th of January will celebrate my 3rd year of YamYam and 2 wheeled joy. Insurance AHOY!
Cheerio for now!
Gordon
Road Rage, the Biker Way!
Yesterday then,
I was heading back home after a days work and I got to the new section of road just before the bridge. I was coming from Edinburgh via the A90 towards the A8000 spur, and there are two lanes. The left is a continuous lane that takes you on to the new 3 lane road to the bridge. The right hand lane merges with the middle of the 3 lanes. In between the continuous lane and the other 2 lanes of the merge is a thick set of chevrons, to keep folk at safe distances I guess, and perhaps offer a route for emergency services to get up. Anyway.
I was in the right hand lane, ready to merge in to the traffice from the middle lane and in front of me was another biker. We were just about to merge when a car to the left of the biker in front who was on the continuous lane, cut across the chevrons and tried to merge on to the two main lanes. The biker, seeing this as totally idiotic and dangerous, waved his disgust at the driver 2 ft from his window. Shaking his head and holding both his hands up in amazement, he continued to watch this car driver drive along the chevrons, waiting for the biker to get out the way.
So now, having established that the car driver was an idiot, the biker accellerated forward to let the car driver in to my lane. I had already merged with the main traffic, but then passed the car driver who looked at me with a glakit expression (Scottish for blank, confused look) and then got on his merry way.
All the while however, the biker who had shown his disgust at this idiot driver, had now accellerated past him, went back on to the chevrons, continued speeding up until he was doing roughly 30-40mph more than the flowing traffic and then cut through all 3 lanes, weaved in and out of the traffic and then he was gone.
I was left thinking that, even though the car driver had done a silly move, the biker thought, “I’ll show him” and proceeded to show off his mad skillz by doing one of the most idiotic things I have ever seen! Similar to my “There’s a reason for all the cliches” post, this guy was a hypocrit in motion.
Why would you show the guy who just made a boo-boo, that he made a bo0-boo, by making a serious boo-boo yourself?
Shades of “That’s not a knife….this is a knife” I feel.
Anyway, I’m glad he got it off his chest!
Gordon
January 2009…what happened?
January 2009
Good evening all, it is a cold Sunday night here in Scotland and I have just realised how long I have left it since posting.
My January this year wasn’t the action packed January like last year. No sir, this Janauary consisted mainly of riding to and from work. That’s it.
As far as biking goes, this is as routine as it comes. Yeah there was numerous stupid car driver fuelled moments and a lot of lonely rides in the bogging Scottish winter weather.
My favourite moment from Jan 2009 was when someone pulled out in front of a guy on a beemer Long Way Whatever. I watched as the guy then peeped his horn, raced along side the driver’s window and proceeded to pound on it in frustration. It was a spectacle and something which I found highly amusing. I could also hear some expletives being launched from within his helmet. Brilliant.
We had some snow here over the past 2 weeks and for most the snow had little or no impact. When I say most, I mean people who actually have a grip of themselves. There were people flailing about whining that they can’t get to work and blah blah. Every day I went out in -1°C, -5°C and swept the snow off my bike. I then started my bike and then got on my bike. I then wheelspun out of my housing estate and then wheelspun on to the motorway. I then rode my bike to work and back again. Most people called me a psycho, whilst I called myself a non-panic merchant. I found it fine riding in snow. I found that although it was at times trecherous, as long as I approached the situation sensibly, I was ok.
Well there wasn’t a better way to approach the weather last week. And my story starts thus:
Thursday last week I headed to work in the snow like I had done for a few weeks. I got on the motorway and it was snowing heavy. I then got all the way through the rush hour traffic and roadworks, through some idiotic moves from car drivers playing with satnav and mobiles, some thinking about work and some just sleeping. I got to my work’s street, which is cobbled and the back wheel was loosing traction like mad, so I slowed down to below walking pace, say 3-4mph and kept it in 2nd to try and get some traction. Then as I went over the entrance to my office car park, which happens to be downhill, my front folded and down I went.
Now there wasn’t a whiff of brake, nor a whiff of anything else. As soon as I touched the slush on this slope there was absolutely nothing I could have done. And what’s the most annoying thing? It should have been gritted.
As I fell it felt familar, something which only people who have fallen off their bike can understand, and I shouted “why isn’t this f*cking gritted?”
Well not a moment had passed and a guy from my work had appeared from the garage saying he had heard me fall off. He also said that his car had been all over the place too and was angry that it wasn’t gritted. He gave me a hand up and off I went in to the garage pushing my bike along, although it was sliding still under no engine momentum whatsoever. It gives a wee idea of how slippy it was.
In to the dry garage I stopped and surveyed the damage; broken rear brake pedal (obviously. These things are meant to break…) a scuffed engine casing and crash mushroom was filed away flat. Luckily because I fell on a downslope, the crash mushroom protected the bars from coming in to contact with the ground, so they were fine, as was my bodywork.
I tried to start the engine and after a bit of trying it started fine. It was showing FI but I turned the ignition on and off and it started ok. I then rode it and parked it up.
During that day I went back out and noticed that my bike was leaking oil from my scuffed engine case. There was a bolt loose enough to turn by hand and this was where the pil was coming from. I went inside and called Stuart, from Jacksons Bikes. He suggested tightening the bolt and warming the engine up to put the engine under pressure and see if there was oil spurting out. If there wasn’t I could ride it to his garage. If there was, it was goosed. Luckily the bolt tightened up fine and there wasn’t any oil.
The ride home was interesting though as I crapped myself incase the engine casing burst off the side of the bike, thus throwing oil on to my back tyre throwing me in to a housing estate or field…but I was ok and got to the garage fine.
After riding the bike in to Stuarts new bike garage wing he surveyed the damage saying that he thinks it’s just a case of rear brake pedal replacement and that’s it. My 16,000 mile service was due so I said just to get that done whilst the bike was here and also replace the brake pads after Stuart had mentioned it the last time.
“You’re mental. Riding in this!” He had a look at the back and muttered “That’s down to the steel…” had a look at the front and “…yep, they’re pretty much the same!…how do you stop!!?”
“It’s an issue”
So we agreed on what needed to be done and off I went happy that my bike was in safe hands.
Voila! My January was complete and February is already half way through, which is ridiculous. My weeks have been flying by (hence the reason I never realised how long it has been) and I am getting the bus to work tomorrow, something which annoys me. On Friday there I was sitting in front of some greasy bank exec type who had serious fag and tea morning mouth and kept sighing, which sent all his faggy tea breath over in to my seat. Lovely. Then some youngster sat in front of me, doused in some sweet smelling aftershave which added a sickly twist to the atmosphere. This is why I hate public transport.
I can’t wait for the spring and it seems to be coming through now. It’s to be mild this week and I can hopefully get my bike back before I poke my eyes out on the bus.
I have had the GSR a year now, so I’m going to post up a yearly review of it. Stay tuned for the relatively small good points and the overwhelmingly regular bad points…it’s not going to be pretty…
Thanks for the regular interest all, I know how lucky I am.
Send me a message if you can, I’ll reply to every single one.
All the best,
Gordon
p.s. 15,500 miles this year. It seems to be flattening out a bit, but that now makes my overall bike mileage well over 33,000 in 2 years. Oh and recent news of bike air bag jackets will be covered soon too…grrr.
Review: Bridgestone BT016 “Hypersport”
Hello everyone.
I feel guilty. It’s over 14 days since my last post. So sorry about that.
First things first, an update on the black stuff. This tyre is amazing. From the off I commented that it felt planted, well it still rings true after 400 miles of use. Its not even looking like it’s thinking about squaring off yet, and I guess that’s all down to this “5 layer” deal.
So that’s good.
I have been harping on about winter the past few posts, and today it was official. There was not a bit of frost spared this morning, as the whole scene out my window was white. The bike had it’s cover on so the only real frost was on the bike cover but the bike was cold, and a small layer of ice rested on my seat.
It has been getting progressively colder over the past 2 weeks, and a few times I’ve had to go via Kincardine bridge due to high winds on the Forth Road Bridge.
I found the loom for my heated gloves the other day, so set about getting a replacement battery connector (sadly left on my Yamaha MT-03 when I sold it for the Buell.) I went on to the website (www.giali.com) and added the battery connector to my basket, then tried to pay for it…not working.
So I gave them a call (being a f*cking idiot, I actually called the fax number) and the guy was like “I’m talking to my fax machine.” He said that I had the old style and they were in the process of updating the website.
Anyway, he took my card details and in 2 days it was delivered! I haven’t had a chance to fit them yet, but after this morning, I will definitely have to do it tonight. It was an excellent service from Giali again, very pleased with their help and their products.
In other news, I nearly got t-boned by an edinburgh taxi the other night on the way home. He came shooting out of a give way without looking right and I had to swerve in to the other side of the road to avoid him. A quick “peep-peeeeep” of the horn and he slammed on his brakes. It was pretty close and after I got around him, I checked my mirrors and he was stopped for a good 10 or so seconds, so obvioulsy got a fright. No wonder, he didn’t bloody check both ways only to find, oh wait, there’s something there…
Black cabbies are dangerous in cities.
Anyway,
That’s all for now. I haven’t cleaned my bike for 3 weeks, the chain is on it’s way out and I need some new sprockets…
I said it was going to be an expensive month and oh boy, it has been.
It’s a dangerous game this.
I had never really thought about it really. The Forth Road Bridge is a means to an end. It’s not until something like today happens that you actually think, “yeah, that’s pretty dangerous.”
Today was like any other day for me, I left at around 8:10am and once on the motorway, it was the norm. I noticed the overhead sign reading “Accident on Forth Road Bridge” and thought, whatever, I’ll just go down the middle. And I did. Once I got to the hold up I just toddled down the middle and that was that.
Then I reached the bridge and as I approached the very last turn off I saw “Forth Road Bridge closed” on the overhead. Brilliant. Something serious must have happened.
I continued down the now empty outside lane and pulled up along side the Officer and asked, “how long is it likely to be shut?”
“For a long time.”
“Is it fatal?”
“Can’t say”
It is. Of course it is.
Once off the motorway people were splitting off left and right trying to out fox each other for time saving. I continued along and noticed that a lot of people were stopping on the roundabout asking officers what the deal was. I did speak to the police but I spoke the the guy that wasn’t directing traffic off a live roundabout. Mongs.
It took an extra hour and a half to get to work and I checked the news to see if there was any updates to what had happened.
A short while later the news came up that a male biker had been killed. What a tragedy.
And it makes me so sad to think that one unfortunate fellow has lost his life like this. News is still pretty sketchy but it seems like 2 cars were involved too. The circumstances I dont really know about but it can’t have been nice. My heart goes out to the family of the guy. Furthermore, it must be difficult to deal with if you are one of the car drivers involved.
Coming off your bike is something that none of us want. Of course we don’t. But inevitably if you do lots of miles, it’s going to happen. You hope that when it does happen you are on a straight bit of road with 20ft of grass either side and that you’ll land somewhere relatively safe. What you dont want is to come off your bike with metal grates and posts on one side and a 100m drop on the other. But you can’t choose.
It has affected me this one. I hear all the time about folks coming off bikes and accidents involving bikers, but it’s not until something happens that involves some place you frequent that you start to think, “What if that was me?”
I hope that I don’t ever have to find out what it’s like.
A very sad day.
Ride safe all,
Gordon
UPDATE:
Just had an email from a guy who was on scene in the middle of the Forth. You can see his email in the Comments section.
More news has also filtered through, being that it was a 48 year old male, riding a silver Honda and involved a white van and a blue car. According to the email, it was a central reservation job. He was also wearing an open face helmet. Very very sad.
Gentlemen, Start your engines
Work finished at the usual 5:30pm and I was quick in getting away from the office due to me wearing my Hardas and Furygan. It was typically uneventful and the warm breeze was nice as I tottered along.
As I approached the curve on the A8000 the traffic was at a standstill and in front there was a CBR thou which had passed me earlier on. We began filtering through the cars, which were stopped, pretty strange even in the worst queue to the bridge.
As we headed along the big straight I glanced up at the overhead info sign and it said “Forth Road Bridge – Closed.” What? Did I read that right? Closed? It’s not windy…hmm
So we continued to filter, but at a quick lick, both of us knowing that there was an accident somewhere along the way. It was quite cool filtering with the CBR boy as he was quite fast at filtering, so we were weaving in and out of the cars, which were standstill still….still… when we finally got to the front there was around 30 bikers all standing around with their helmets off chatting away. It was bizarre! I pulled up behind the CBR and a bloke on a Transalp started chatting to me, asking what was going on and I was like, “I have no idea!?”
So after a few minutes we both shut our engines off and got off and started chatting about commuting to Edinburgh and my GSR, which he said was in great nick! Cheers matey! He asked what it was like and I said it was good and once you get over the throttle issue its great.
We continued to chat for 10 minutes, all the while some car driver is peeping his horn unintentionally as he tries to get his jacket off, without getting out the car. By this time the CBR bloke had his helmet and gloves off and was nodding along to the Transalp boy who was in full flow.
And then, what can only be described as an exact replication of the Suzuka 8 Hour endurance race, the lights changed to green and all the bikers ran for their bikes! I had kept my helmet and gloves on so that when this time came I could get going but you should have seen some of the bikers grappling at their gear to get away quick.
I got on my bike and started it up, Transalp getting his helmet and gloves on quite quick. CBR boy was taking ages and did a redliner as he tried to get things co-ordinated. I said cheerio to Transalp and then 30 bikes shot off from the lights. It was breathtaking and such a cool feeling. The variety of engines was amazing too, from deep harley twins to the litre sporters, we were all in full swing and it was glorious.
We then adopted a staggered formation all the way across the bridge, me being about 4th from the front, and cruised across the bridge. It was something else I tell you and I wish I had got my camera out (like one bloke did) and took a photo.
Anyway, I then headed home and noticed that my screen that I had fitted back on last night was ace. Takes so much of the wind blast off my chest and makes the bike more slippery through the air, which in turn makes accelerating quicker. Brilliant!
Turns out that a lorry had crashed and from what I could see, took another 4-5 cars with it. Hope no-one was hurt.
A great moment however and I am sure most of the other bikers were loving it too. This is why we do it!
Cheerio for now,
3 days to go!! HO HO HO HO HOH OH O HO OO HOHO I can’t wait!
Gordon
