Yamaha MT-01. I beg your pardon?
Artworks are consuming my every moment of living…that and putting up blinds in the house. When I am not painting or drilling, I am either eating, sleeping or riding my bike. Anyway, just so you know, I feel guilty. But thinking about it this instant, guilty for what?
My GSR is running it’s bland life fine at the minute. My back tyre is squaring and the head bearings are clicking. My headlight was turning off whenever I turned the steering to full lock left, but I soon found out that the connector had worked itself loose after me prodding it every time. A quick click back on sorted that out.
I’ve had the GSR for over 2 years now, and after a fatal mistake by Em of looking at other bikes, we have been thrown in to discussion.
Discussion about the future of my biking life. Don’t worry, I am not giving up. The issue revolves around the GSR and winter. You see, Winter in Scotland is a very unwelcoming place to be. It’s usually cold, usually wet and always miserable. This is true for everyone, pedestrians, car drivers, hillwalkers. For motorcyclists it’s a freakin nightmare.
I spoke a while back regarding the new VFR1200F as my main motorcycle and the response was mixed. Some agreed with my points regarding the output of the bike/lack of fairing protection. Other’s took their chance to call me a sissy and offer me a moped. The question in point was getting a bike that would give me year round satisfaction, with the benefit of not falling to bits.
It seems that my thinking was going down the wrong path. You see, I was going down the path of a one bike outfit, something bullet proof that would ease my woes. But after big discussion with Blair, Em and anyone else who would listen, having a second bike seems like the way to go. The reasons are thus:
One bike = High price, high mileage, high wear & tear, quick boredom. A one bike house would mean running a bike throughout the year including winter and thus exposing it to the same bike rotting salt.
Two bikes = Lower price, low mileage, low wear & tear, less quick boredom. A two bike house allows use of one bike for summer/dry days, another for winter/salty days.
It may seem excessive to many, but the argument is sound. Why sell the GSR and buy a new bike, only to inflict the same torture to it, road salt, sitting outside in the rain rotting. It would be the same situation all over again and it seems totally pointless to continue buying new bikes only for them to fall apart because I ride them at a time that these bikes aren’t designed to be ridden.
If I have a bike for summer/dry riding, I have the excitement of a fresh bike. I have the reduced mileage on both the new bike and the GSR. Once it gets wetter/colder, I switch to the GSR. I would be able to look forward to summer again, because at the minute, I am still riding the same bike in summer, winter and every other time.
I’ve paid off the GSR now, so it’s mine. It wouldn’t matter if I wanted to sell it anyway, because after speaking to a few garages, no-one would even entertain the thought of trying to resell a 2-year-old GSR with 30,000 miles on the clock, a bit rusty here and there and generally a hack. So no-one wants it. And I aint giving it away.
The added bonus to strengthen the argument is insurance. Insurance companies seem to go on the assumption that more miles = more chance of crashing. This means that the premium goes up massively. Take my old Buell for example. I put 18,000 miles annually on the insurance form and it returned a premium of £1,600. Put in a mileage of 5,000 and it’s £300. I couldn’t afford to run it based on that kind of money, so I sold it.
SOOOOOOO
What am I saying then? Well I will be looking for a Used bike to ride during summer/dry days, and I will be keeping the GSR for a winter hack. It makes complete sense.
Now those of you who have been here from the start (Thanks Rossy Boy) will know I had a Yamaha MT-03 as my first bike. The seat melted due to faulty exhausts, Yamaha didn’t give a shit. I got a Buell and so the nightmare unfolded.
I swore I would never return to Yamaha. I lied.
Now that I have the opportunity to basically get any bike I like (within a £5k budget), and having spent the past 4 years knowing that someday I would own a Yamaha MT-01 I thought, this is my chance.
And so it is.
Now a lot of people in reviews and in person lament the MT due to the lack of jail baiting top speed. They see 1700cc and get disappointed that they don’t fly at the speed of sound. They get upset that the bike has R1 derived brakes and chassis, but when you try to get your knee down the headers threaten grounding.
I think that they don’t understand it. Whereas I do.
The MT is a bike that gives you the unbelievable thrill of torque, without getting you in to trouble before you know it. It’s a bike to fart along the back roads on knowing that at the twist of a throttle you will instantly be rocketed forward. None of this IL4 surging at 9ooorpm (a-la GSR).
A lot of reviewers say it’s bland because the power is so linear (in other words when you open the taps, the power doesn’t waiver or surge in, it’s just “flat” all the way to peak RPM).
I think the MT is perfect. I would have a V-twin over any other engine until the day I die. I love them. I want a bike I can get on and just enjoy. I don’t want to look down and see I’m cruising at 100mph and not realising it. I want to go down the street and small children fall to the ground from the vibrations…maybe not.
I think what I keep remembering is when I went to France on the Buell. I was going down the street and a gang of youngsters on mopeds/125′s were all gathered down the road. I saw them, and they heard me. As I drifted past them with the beat of the 1200cc V-twin beneath me, I knew that I was on something special as they all stood open mouthed. Then I noticed the collection of skinheads standing up from a cafe, perhaps expecting some kind of chopper or harley, to see this small bug eyed gold wheeled machine. It made my year. It made me love biking.
It won’t quite be the same with the MT, for a start its huge. But its also deeper, louder comfier.
So.
I am going to have a wee test ride on one to see if all the reviews are correct. From there it’s either buying one, or looking elsewhere, but something tells me I will be rumbling home once more.
Updates (hopefully) as things start to unfold.
YamYam’s Top 10 Posts Ever.
So whilst I await the melting of the Fife Ice Caps, I shall collate some data…Geek Style.
I am always amazed at how sparse reviews are for products, or how biased a lot of reviews seem to be. Motostrano Blog said it excellently:
“I rarely read product reviews these days. They are all advertisements and we know it- pure fantasy. On the other hand, there’s the ‘discussion forums’ where you can read countless essays written by lonely males holed up in their mancaves about the products they’ve purchased, sharing with others the ins and outs of why the product they invested in is so great. Of course it’s great, you bought it and you’re actually wasting life hours writing about it. We beat our chests about the little gizmos and gadgets we’ve been able to scrounge up on our hunting and gathering missions out in the shopping wilderness. Heading back to camp with our gear speared on a stick- which is really a lonely little desk away from the kids or wife – we review the goods, inspect it, try it on, pose in action shots in front of the mirror, perhaps in our underwear, perhaps dressed up in our leathers in the garage. Then, as if to map out a terrain that no other fellow savage has explored, we set up to transpose our inner most thoughts on digital paper about whatever it is we just bought, signaling to other tribe members where to go and what to see along the adventure.”
So it’s with great satisfaction and indeed pride, that I have been complimented on my reviewing technique and detail. This is probably why (and you will see soon enough) my reviews are the most popular out of my posts. Naebody cares about me seeing a plane almost hitting the Forth Road Bridge. They want to know why I think the Puma Desmo’s were the best boot ever made.
Anyway, lets move along. I give you the top 10 favourite posts on YamYam ever (in descending order):
#10: Review: Respro “Foggy” Anti-fog Mask
#9: Review: Puma Brutale Gore-Tex Boots
#8: Update: AGV GP-Tech Helmet
#6: Review: Shark RSI “Eden” Helmet
#5: Yamaha MT-03
#4: Review: Puma Desmo 800 Boots
#3: Tutorial #1: How to change grips and handlebars
#2: Kawasaki ER6n
The most popular post on YamYam ever is, surprise surprise:
#1: Review: AGV GP-Tech Helmet
So there you have it. I think the reason is I got the GP-Tech really early, as in first batch. This allowed me to get a head-start and offer the viewing public a chance to see what this new helmet was like before going out to purchase it themselves.
It’s a good indication of what people are after when looking around the interweb for motorcycle type stuff.
I hope you enjoyed reading the top 10 posts, but also have a wee look around the archives at the non-review stuff. You might be pleasantly surprised…or endlessly bored.
All the best
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.
Back in full swing.
Hello all.
Well this last 2 weeks have flown by. My bike was in for it’s 7500 mile service last Thursday and although they didn’t fix the really annoying knocking sound, they did fit another back tyre. £340 it cost for the service and back tyre, which is a big chunk of moolah, but I guess that’s what happens if you use your bike a lot.
So the knocking is still there, but I have booked my bike in at the end of August for a “longer test ride” by the mechanics, who also noted on the service sheet that I need a new air filter…but they couldn’t fit it because they ran out of time…
Great. I am starting to doubt the authenticity of the garage. In a few posts back I wrote about how B needed a new bar end weight after his fell off. Well he went in to the garage at the weekend there and I went with him on my bike so he could get his bar end weight fitted under warranty. He decided to get a new back tyre as well because it was bald! So we waited around for a bit and then the guy signalled B in to pay for his back tyre fitting. When he got in the guy said, “That’ll be £140 please” and B went, wait a minute. He knew exactly how much it should have cost because I got my tyre fitted 2 days ago and it should have been £118 fitted. So he queiried it.
“Well there’s the tyre, and that costs £x, and there’s the valve and that costs £x, and then you have the fitting and balancing and that costs £x….and then you have the bar end weight..so anyway.”
“Hold on a minute, the bar end weight is to be done under warranty!”
“Hmmmm. Hold on.”
He then got the only guy in the whole of the garage that is allowed to deal with warranty issues (supposedly) and he came out and went, yeah it’s to be done under warranty.
If B was any other punter, he would have just paid the £140 and that would be it, no second thoughts, but it just shows how sneaky some people can be.
Rant over.
The weather was tremendous at the weekend, starting foggy and burning off to reveal a gorgeous day. I then went with Em on Sunday to buy a sofa, which was stressful and then had a BBQ at night, which was awesome.
The week started pretty bad with lots of fog. Then today it was foggy again but brightened up a lot during the day, only to lead to an insane mega down pour at home time, but luckily I only caught the outskirts of it and managed to ride across the front of it, which was nice!
The bike is going well, and the back tyre sure does remind me how good the GSR handles. You start to lose that “flickability” when your tyre looks like a car tyre. Oh well.
I was going to get some BT016′s on for their “triple compound” goodness but can’t afford it this month (or the next 56) because of the house. Oh well. 
We move in in 2 weeks and Em is beside herself. I can’t wait and I am looking forward to 19 days of pure and simple holiday.
I am finishing my photography website off where I have got all my landscape photographs and other images available for sale. I’ll post details closer to launch, but as a wee taster, here’s one of my images. If you fancy owning a fantastic limited edition print, including ones that are distinctly motorcycle based then check it out.
Thanks for looking all,
Gordon
HID and seek
Hello
I have been pretty disappointed with the GSR light situation, but it is nothing compared to the Buell. I could hardly see 10ft in front of me with the Buell’s lights, but anyway, I fancied doing something to alter the situation.
I thought about LED’s and having a row of them somewhere at the front of the bike, but then a guy on the GSR forum showed me this and I just about wet myself.
Pretty amazing.
I’ll have to investigate further, but it seems to be the solution I am looking for.
Full usage to the redline and idiot white van man…
Hello everyone.
After little over 3 weeks of ownership I have finally run in my GSR. So the first 600 miles @ 7000rpm and 1000 miles @ 9000rpm are done, and oh boy is it something special.
I had the odd crank open before being “allowed” to, but I wasn’t going for it, so as soon as I crossed the 1000 mile mark I ripped open the throttle in 2nd and nothing really happens. That is until you get above 9000rpm…
Basically what happens at 9k is that the bike goes in to hyperdrive. The bike shoots forward and the engine sounds glorious and it really is a struggle to hold on. Fantastic! However, even though I have the o2 Eliminator mod in place, there is still a rather large jerk when I let off the throttle, at around 6000rpm…but I can work around it.
Anyway, this weekend past was tremendous, superb weather for being on the bikes and we took full advantage of it. On Friday I picked up Emma from her house and we headed up to mine, pretty damn cold but it was Em’s 2nd time on the bike so she was happy. It’s really comfy she says, lots of room, but she finds that she is a bit far away compared to the other bikes. Saturday I cleaned the bike thoroughly, polished it as well. I then remembered that I had to take my RST gloves back to Scott Murray, because during the months of them being in the bag they came in, the velcro strap had broke…I can’t explain it but that’s RST for you…so I phoned Blair up and he said that he had just got back home from being at Alan Duffus, and that his girlfriend Kirsty had been fully kitted out, so they fancied going out on the bike.
I was a bit worried for them, I know Blair hasn’t had that much experience of solo riding yet, but he’s his own man and it’s up to him whether or not he’s ready…so I suggested we all go to Scott Murray and then home again. Em and I got suited up and off we went. It was glorious, sun splitting the sky, quite mild but with the occasional nip in the air. We arrived 15 minutes later and had a look at K’s new gear. Nice stuff, it was mostly Spada textile gear, red to match Blairs bike. An AGV helmet with a red/silver design, the smallest Alpinestars gloves you have ever seen and some Alpinestars SMX-4′s. Very nice.
So we headed off to SM, which was a laugh. I have never seen someone on the back of a GSR until I saw Kirsty on Blairs bike. I burst out laughing because she looked so high on the bike. After a short trip over we arrived.
As we entered Billy was with someone else but he soon came over and started chatting to me. I said I was in about my gloves and he had a look at them. After a wee bit he asked how much I paid for them, as the receipts I had with me weren’t for the gloves. I said £40 but he thought they were £50. He asked if I fancied having another look at their gloves but I said do you have anything other than RST…no, but then he went away and came back with a set of RST gloves. They looked the business and he said “what do you think of them then? Try them on and then we’ll talk…”
They were pretty comfy, really well made (from first looks) and had nice design touches on them. Billy said they were £80, but “hey, for you let’s split the difference..” I said, a Fiver? and he said “yep.”
So I got brand spanking new RST GP Pilot gloves for £5. RST don’t make a higher spec glove, but I’ll post up the pics after this post…
Then we headed back home, and just before Kinross, we encountered one of the biggest idiots I have ever seen. We were going along, I was infront of Blair and Kirsty, and I saw a white van man up his arse. It wasn’t a transit, but one of those maxi van things. Anyway, Blair pulled in to let him past and I saw him accelerate off, thinking he would soon pass me. But then he swerved in front of Blair, so ended up in between us…then slowed down!!? So Blair pulled out and over-took him, and I accellerated away as well. But then he was back up his arse again. So Blair pulled in again. Seeing that he was going to pull in front of Blair again, I shot off in front, pulled out in to the inside lane, and just as I did, a car infront towing a trailer pulled out. I let off the throttle and the bike slowed, but as I looked in my mirror I saw white van man going up my arse! So I slammed on my brakes. To the point of me going 40mph. As I pulled in I turned round to get a look at this boy and he was going bananas! Shaking his hands and looking mental! …so I stuck my finger up at him, and held it there. For ages. Then gestured him to get the hell away from us and he took off.
Blair meanwhile was still behind me as I was doing all this, but then decided to undertake me just as I was ushering the idiot away. We were quite close to colliding but thankfully we didn’t. Then the idiot carried on until he was about 20ft infront of Blair and swerved in, trying to give B a fright, but he was so far in front he didn’t really do anything….
A complete and utter idiot, who for no reason at all decided to make our lives a misery, and in the process made it extremely dangerous.
Anyway
That was that, and that was Kirsty’s first introduction to Biking, not the best I think…
Sunday was good, Blair washed his bike and we went out for a moster ride. I got it all on helmet cam so I will edit that and post it up. In the meantime check out these official photos for the day, if you click the link below:
We have clearance Clarence
Hello all.
First things first, you will notice that to the left is a wee picture. This is a new feature with my blog, patented and copyrighted by me, so don’t even think of copying it.
For every new post I make, I will include said picture which should give an accurate representation of what my mileage is with my new bike. So there you go! I am quite excited to track just how many miles go on to the GSR and this gives an easy way of doing it.
Anyway, on to the post: NEW STUFF.
The Scotland trip is coming up in May. We are heading out on Friday 23rd, early doors and head for Inverness. Anyway, Blair and I wanted an intercomm system because we were fed up shouting stuff to each other and if we are on the move, which we will be 99% of the time on the trip, we need an efficient way of saying, “I need petrol” or “look at that 15ft Hawk about to eat your head off…”
So we looked at intercomms, and there were some good, some obviously bad, cheap, expensive and odd. Some names to mention were AutoComm, StarComm and IntaRide. I was really up for IntaRide, we used them when on the DAS course with ProScot. They were really clear and although we had the duff, bare plastic edged logistical earpiece on, the sound was excellent at all speeds, including the faster, country road sections. However, the IntaRide stuff starts at £130. Now, I was up for paying that because I want a system that works when I want it, every single time. I understood that you get what you pay for and that was that. But Blair being Blair, he wasnt up for the out of pocket expense, and fair enough, £130 is a lot of money, and this trip is going to cost a bit anyway.
So we looked to other methods. How about getting them all seperate then? Ok, well what radios should we get? We looked at Motorolas, Alans, Midland and Philips. The Alan G7′s got a really lengthy consideration, but then I stumbled across the Alan 777′s. These were really smart, very compact and would be perfect for what we wanted, a small radio which could be on the person, thus not too big and heavy. The 777 also had new tech in it, like a mobile phone lith-ion battery thingy and a host of features that sounded good…like 38 CTCSS…who knows, but it sounded good.
We found them here, which worked out as £60 for 2, £30 each for radios, instead of £100. So far so good. What about headsets? well again, here for £19.99 each! So for £50 we were getting a full rig! Plastic money was produced and virtual money exchanged virtual hands. CUT to today, when I opened them up and seen what it was all about:
This is the Alan 777. It is tiny, has a small inverted LCD display and a nice cherry red paint finish
Click below to see the rest of this post and tonnes of pictures…
O2 Eliminator Mod
Hello folks.
Having ridden a week with my new GSR600 I was already getting fed up with the snatchy throttle. It was the reason I didn’t get the GSR in the first place and I was getting frustrated. However I ordered something called an o2 eliminator before I even had the bike itself. The o2 eliminator is a small plug which you put in place of the cable that runs to the exhaust sensor. I am not entirely sure what it does, but assume it loops the circuit in some way to fool the engine in to thinking that it needs to run rich. Because the snatchy throttle was caused by the engine running lean, the o2 eliminator would remove this problem, or so I hoped anyway.
So on Thursday last week my stuff arrived, forks for my rear paddock stand and the o2 plug. I had ordered bobbins but they were suspiciously not in the parcel.
This is the o2 eliminator, and even though it says “Honda” on the packet, it’s designed for many makes and models of bikes.
So there it is!
I had spoken to my mechanic about getting him to fit it and he said it was easy, but shouldn’t be any more than £30.
Click below to see the installation and tonnes of pictures…
