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
The Countdown Begins…
Well, actually it already has.
2 days to go and I am getting mega excited. For those that don’t have a clue what I am talking about, we (me, Em, Blair and Kirsty) are riding around Scotland, anti-clockwise. Perth to Inverness to Freswick, to JOG, across the very top of Scotland to the North West, down to Ullapool, then down again to the Isle of Skye, where we shall stay for 2 nights and head around Skye, then down via Oban to Lochgilphead where we decide if we want to (read if we can be arsed) go round the Cambletown twig, before heading back home to Perth….breath.
It’s a 7 day trip starting from this Friday, 23rd May till Thursday 29th. All the B&B’s are booked and we are gearing up for the long journey, which will take us round the very pinaccle of what Scotland has to offer, and by gum I am excited. I hope the weather is going to stay nice, but we’ll just have to wait and see! Looks promising though.
So anyway, to prepare for the trip, I spent tonight working out how to mount my helmet cam on the bike to capture some of our journey. After 20 minutes of non-starters, Dad came out and asked what I was up to. He then did a Dad special and managed to rig up a mount for the camera. It consisted of an L-bracket hacksawed a wee bit, with a jubilee clip and the mount for my dogcam. A few moments later and we had a rig! It looks like THIS:
CHECK THAT OUT!! HAHAHA, brilliant.
So there it is! It works a treat! There is no vibes from the bike and it is solid as a rock with a little bit of solid adjustment should I need to. The angle of the camera was pretty much perfect as well, with maybe some down angle needed.
The Dad Special. King-ding-a-ling.
I have a video of my quick jaunt with the dadcam mount but I will refrain from posting it up……..
It’s brilliant, and well hidden so when we leave the bikes out it will hopefully be safe.
So there you go. I will maybe take some stills from the video to show you what it’s like, and then the Scotland Tour 2008 DVD will go on sale….haha.
The HID light is excellent and I have found out why the high-low beam thing was bust, the gaffa taped wiring loom obviously has a loose connection, because when I turn the bars to full lock left, the full beam works….so I’ll have to sort that out on Thursday when I am off! I also had to re-fit my stock wedge bulbs because the bloody japanese LED ones started flickering again. HOW ANNOYING IS THAT. It’s like a really bright strobe light going off at the front of my bike. Oh well, it looks cool with the warm top half and cold bottom half….sort of…:(
Note the reflection off of the screen, smart.
I’ll post before Friday and then it’s a week of (hopefully) glorious riding pleasure.
Thanks for looking folks
Gordon
Repair Bills and Suzuki
Goodevening all.
This weekend was a mixture of good and bad. But lets be positive and start off on the good.
Got the ER6 back on Friday, one of the windiest days so far this year. It was looking ace in the dark, really shiny and it was cleaned quite well. Got all my still dirty gear on and headed home from the Garage. It was a weird feeling riding for the first time after the accident. But moreover it wasn’t a secure feeling on the ER6. Really twitchy.
The repair bill was quite reasonable. The parts list was as follows:
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Gear Lever £25.98
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Generator Cover and Gasket £52.62
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L/H Front Indicator £23.67
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Front Brake Lever £25.45
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Rear Brake Lever £20.30
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R/H Footpeg and bank sensor £46.62
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Clutch Lever £7.67
So there you go.
On Saturday I went to the Suzuki garage and started arranging the GSR. I chatted away with the guy about it all and gave some details, £200 holding fee which they refund me in a weeks time….silly, and some details about the ER6, at which point he asked what the condition was of it. I said that it was good condition and that it was a test ride bike so has marks on the footpeg hangers. There is also a crack on the fairing. At this point he took interest and asked what sort of crack etc. And eventually he said well we need to do a workshop check before agreeing on the price for the ER6. He wants it in showroom condition so may need to order some parts in. Ok I said and off we went, agreeing that Saturday was the time to do it all.
When I arrived home i went out to the ER6 and took the front fairing off to inspect in in the kitchen and it was scraped to buggery. If he sees this he’s going to know that it was dropped etc so I need to replace it.
So I will call the Garage tomorrow and get one ordered as I dont really want to go in Saturday and they say “ooo it’ll cost you £200 for a new one so we’ll take that off the part exchange price..” when it actually would have cost me £50. At least it gives me proof of them trying to pull my pants over my head. But it’s all depending on what the boys at Suzuki deem to be “Showroom Condition.”
We’ll just have to wait and see. Me and Em went out for a 2 hour ride today and I put the helmet cam on her this time. Which shows a really smart angle. I’ll convert it tomorrow and post it up to let you see. However the lens gets dirty again. I am starting to think that this camera will only be really good in the complete dry weather. But it was a good ride out and already my confidence has came back.
I also got my quote through from Express Insurance, with £395 as the official quote.
So yeah, I’ll keep you posted on what happens with Suzuki.
Thanks for looking folks,
Gordon
Post Crash Video – Snow blues
Hello everyone.
I took my helmet cam to my very first day back at work, which also happened to be the icy/snowiest day. Instead of being sensible and getting the bus in, I decided to be an idiot and go on the bike..but I got there in the end. Shame the very next day I would be flying through the air…
Here it is:
Pretty cool except the rain getting on the lense of the camera. But it did show some cool effects as I got to the bridge! Psychadelic…if that’s how you spell it…
I will hopefully be heading to Suzuki this weekend to trade in the ER6 for a silver GSR600, brand spanking and the final bike I will own for a while.
I am still to confirm some stuff, but it looks like I will only get £1900 trade in for the ER6, because the garage “doesn’t sell many” which I think is crap. But there you go.
I will get the 0% finance dealio, as well as the Alpha Dot, 12 months road tax, 12 months AA cover, first service free, courtesy bike when in for a service and I have asked for a deal on crash mushrooms….hahaha
So aye, I am looking forward to it for sure!
I’ll update you before the weekend to let you know if I will have my first new bike of 2008! HAHAHA.
Thanks for stopping folks,
Gordon
p.s. The music in the video is Biffy Clyro, Wave Upon Wave from the Infinity Land album…it was on at the time so that is why i used it. Plus the microphone that I got with the camera was crap, so all you heard was a really distorted voice and wind noise. Sorry bout that. The intercom that I am looking at will hopefully have an OUT socket for connecting up an audio feed. More on that later.
DogCamSports Helmet Cam
Hey everyone,
Back to work tomorrow….boo.
I thought I would post up some pictures of my new helmet cam for y’all to have a nosey. So far I have been nothing but impressed with the camera. Yes it’s a budget job but the picture quality is perfect for what I wanted and for £60 all in it’s a great deal!
So without further adoo,
So there you go! I will be posting up new videos as well as more blogs so keep checking back!
The videos will be available on YouTube as well but the description etc will all be here.
Thanks for looking!!
Thanks
Gordon
It’s 2008 – the year of the helmet cam.
Hello everyone and Happy New Year to you all!
Christmas was a good time and a very relaxing time as well. Which is always good.
I purchased, as promised, a helmet cam from Dog Cam Sports. It’s the “budget” camera, pulling in 420 lines, and the camera, battery holder, microphone, sucker mounts and fixed mounts cost me £60, which is a steal considering the pretty good quality of the camera. I haven’t had a chance to shoot on the bike yet, but I did manage to get it working! See below my first every YamYam video! Enjoy!!
The video was in widescreen format which makes it look squished. I have remedied this for the next time, which will hopefully be Saturday when the snow has cleared up. I will post up some pics of my helmet cam setup soon.
Thanks for stopping by!
Gordon
p.s. I found an older Bike mag and it was the 600′s shootout. The z750 came bottom in almost everything. Guess I will have a rethink then…FZ6 anyone?
4000 hits and counting
Hey y’all,
My site just hit 4000 hits in 11.5 months! I know it’s nothing compared to the other sites on wordpress, or even in general, but I am chuffed!
Also, type YamYam in to Google and I am second! YEAH!
I am almost definitely getting a helmet camera so come 2008, YamYam is going video-stylee.
2 weeks till christmas.Oh dear.
Keep up the views folks, hopefully I can get some more interest when I start the videos going.
Thanks again for looking.
Gordon
Fresh as a daisy.
Hello all.
So what has been happening in the world of YamYam?
Well my Buell has been on eBay and that was a waste of time. Now it’s been on BikeTrader for a week and I’ve had a lot of interest. However there have been so many annoying people that phone up and tell you that they have so many clients wanting to buy my Buell blah blah.
The reason is I didn’t check a little box that enables “PhoneSafe” or something like that. I didn’t check it cause it costs potential buyers lots to phone me up through this free for me service. Ah well.
I got a new back tire eventually and oh my what a difference. The bike falls over so quick now it’s like a different bike, a mere sniff of a corner and it’s down and surging through it.What a superb bike!!!oh…. oh well.
I am looking at getting a helmet cam and have taken the first step in the path. I bought an Archos 605 wifi, which has an extension that allows me to use any recording source I want. So I am checking out the dog cam range and i’ll hopefully get one of those soon.
I am now looking at a Kawasaki ER-6N as my next bike. I am going to test ride it this weekend so i’ll post a wee item about that on Sunday night.
Anyway, I’m off,
Thanks for reading!!!
YamYam
