It isnae the fastest bike, but it’ll pull a caravan
Weekly Update 4 – 07/08 – 14/08
Ah, the feeling of fresh tyres. It’s a strange feeling really. A cross between bum clenching and quick breathing as you try to scrub them in. Every degree of angle you exhibit brings this feeling on, coupled with the thoughts of the back end sliding out behind you as you go over too far. But once you get out to the edge of the tyre, this feeling turns to joy as you are afforded the full use of the tyre.
These feelings are enhanced ten fold if it’s wet. Which it just so happened to be the day I picked the bike up.
Now if you have got this far and have no idea what I am talking about then,
When a tyre is made the inside of the mould is coated in a release agent, which allows the tyre, once moulded to be freely ejected from the mould. Without it the tyre would be a pain in the arse to get out of the mould, and when you are making millions of these, you need a quick way to get the tyre out and the mould shut for the next tyre to be made…anyway, this release agent just so happens to be extremely greasy. So that’s the reason most, if not all motorcycle dealers, servicers and outlets will tell you to “take it easy for the first 100 miles or so” as you leave.
For a great example of why your told to take it easy, see exhibit A:
Now, when I last got a back tyre on the GSR (a Bridgestone BT-021 for those who are interested) I picked it up from Stuart and he said the famous words, “take it easy.”
As I bid adieu he started talking to the next bloke who was waiting and off I went. I pulled out of the garage and started heading along the road, and gave what I thought was a good level of throttle given the situation. Next thing I know the bike is snaking about and the redline is being kissed. “BRAAADADADADADADADADA” up the road. I could just imagine Stuarts face.
I told you that so I could tell you this.
I got the new tyre on the MT on Saturday there, a Metzeler Z6. Now those of you who have read every post on here (thanks Rossy Boy) will know how I don’t ever mix brands of tyre. By this I mean I don’t have say a Dunlop on the front and a Michelin on the rear. It just doesnt work.
Now when I called Stuart to get him to order a tyre he tried to get me a Pirelli Diablo Strada, the same as both my tyres were before the flat rear. He called back shortly after and said that he couldn’t get a Strada rear and suggested the Metzeler Z6… I said “you told me not to mix brands” and he said that basically Pirelli own Metzeler and the Z6 and Strada are basically the same tyre, same profile, just slightly newer tech in the Strada than the Z6.
If Stuart says its ok, it’s ok.
Saturday I headed down and it was wet (great) and there it was, fresh shiny new tyre. We got chatting about various bikes and his race bike was sitting there. I moaned about how the GSR needs the crap revved out it if you want to go somewhere instantly. He agreed saying his R6 race bike needs a lot of rpm before he goes places, whereas the MT is just BOOM you are off.
“Aye, it isnae the fastest bike but it’ll pull a caravan” he said, I burst out laughing. I’ve never heard torque explained that way before much to my amusement.
So we talked some more and I mentioned the unfortunate situation where in order for Stuarts business to be thriving, people need to be falling off their bikes. He laughed agreeingly. Is that a word? Agreeingly. He laughed in a way to suggest that he agreed with my statement.
Stuart you see is owner of Jackson’s Bikes, the place to go if you need absolutely anything done to your bike…unless you live outside Scotland. There are some shockers in his garage I tell you. He was showing me a bike that hit the back of a bus and the engine casings were split as if someone had wanted to show a section of the engine. Clean through. Unbelievable.
Anyway he parted with the take it easy line and I mentioned my last visit. He burst out laughing saying that he was talking to the waiting guy and heard me redlining it up the road. He smacked his forehead in a “oh no what are you doing…” way and was laughing.
So off I went with this insane torque machine, wet roads and fresh greasy back tyre on. It was ok really, I took it easy but taking any kind of corner on new tyres is always a shaky one. By the time I get round to changing my tyres they are usually well squared off/bald. This means more force is needed to turn the bike, to get it over the edge or lip of the now flat area. When a new tyre is on there’s absolutely no resistance and the bike falls to the side. It’s quite shocking and I always get a “oh shit somethings wrong” instant reaction but then realise it’s how it’s meant to be… Maybe I should change my tyres more often. ..maybe not, at £108.63 a piece I don’t make a habit of it.
Anyway, as the week draws to another speedy close the rain is falling like one of those rainfall shower heads….hang on. I need to get me either a one piece waterproof oversuit or at the very least, a pair of brieks. I am growing tired of getting off my bike only for all the water that has collected in my pants to go shooting down my legs and in to my boots. It gives a somewhat bitter end to the journey.
YamYamBiker.com is steadily growing in popularity and visibility. By steady I mean I have a steady view stat of around 170 folk a day… I would love for it to get a bit more popular, so any hints on what you would like to read about would be appreciated, or indeed what you don’t like reading about.
To help me on my way I have been included in various “TOP ###” motorcycle blog posts, including the ones below. Many thanks for that and I hope people start finding and subsequently enjoying YamYamBiker.com.
All the best for the coming week all,
Gordon
Weekly Update 1 – 21/06 – 02/07
That’s more than a week of update but only this once.
Hello and welcome to my revamped YamYam for the 2nd time this year…the reasons for my changing of the look twice are that I feel YamYam is only seen for the big feature reviews, namely the AGV GP-Tech, MT-03 and the Kwak ER-6N among many. Only the dedicated followers and RSS feeders see any of my other posts, so I think it’s time to shake things up for the benefit of both myself and possibly the readers. I remember starting YamYam as a way to share my experiences on 2 wheels with the world, and as of late it’s turned in to a place to dump my aggression and annoyances. There’s still going to be that but I will try to get back to the good things about biking and my new bike will aid that.
I had my summer holiday the week leading up the 1st of June and since coming back to work 2 weeks later I have been full steam ahead. So what has been happening of late then…?
Last Monday (21st) I got a call to say that the MT was ready. Excitedly I went up Tuesday morning with the intent to leave the GSR with the garage to get the bearings fixed/replaced if it wasn’t too expensive. I arrived seeing the MT sitting outside and got the same thrill I had when I saw it. There’s just something primal about the way the MT looks; beastly, hunched and taught.
Heading in I got the keys for the MT and asked about the bearings for the GSR, around £100 was the reply, ok doke was mine.
We went out to the MT which was sitting beside an enormous Harley Davidson trike. It was absolutely disgusting to be honest, sickly candy blue, big seats, flat dash with radio, sat nav, heated grips etc etc. Then the bloke mentioned that the guy riding it hasn’t got a bike licence…
Apparently if it’s a 3 wheeler you can ride it on a car licence, which was extremely worrying. Anyway, we said our last pieces of “friendly banter” and I got on with my day.
The MT is glorious. I don’t know if you have realised yet, but I love my bike.
When I first got my bike I was sitting at the lights in the middle of Edinburgh and a bloke on some Fazer iteration pulled up and immediately shouted “I want that bike” to me. I opened my visor and laughed. He said something to the effect of:
“Aye, you should have seen it, the other day I got my bike out the garage after the winter, very same day slipped on some diesel and wrecked the whole right side” he said, pointing to the sorry-looking indicator, sadly dangling by it’s wiring out the side of his fairing.
“Aye? That’s a shame” I said.
“Aye. Anyway, want to swap?”
I laughed, this time with more meat. “Aye, why not” I said and turned to see what stage we were at with the lights. Pedestrian is now red so we are about to go.
“Take it easy mate” I said and he returned the wish.
First gear, click, let’s rock. Summer Luvvie #1.
A few days later I was at the very same set of light and I drew up beside a guy sitting on a Varader learner bike. I noticed he was looking at the MT but I am really not the kind of guy to blow my own trumpet, so just let him get on with it and didn’t offer a “what d’ya think partner” look.
He then shouted “WHAT SIZE ENGINE IS THAT!?” and so the conversation begun.
He was a really nice guy, from what a 3 minute rapid traffic light conversation reveals, but you could tell he loved his bike, or rather the biking experience. He excitedly reported how he had just passed his theory test and was about to sit his practical test in a few weeks. He lovingly tapped his tank as he spoke about his commute from Fife and how he loves being out and about on his wheels. It reminded me of when I first passed my test, the sudden freedom and exclusivity that biking brings.
I mentioned I ride from Kinross, wished him well on his journeys.
“Once I pass my test I’m going to get a man’s bike…like that one.”
He offered me lead position and off we went, with a nod goodbye.
It always amazes me how quickly you can have a conversation at traffic lights. It’s one of biking’s great exclusives.
Riding the MT isn’t something for one who doesn’t like attention, for everywhere I go people stop and stare, bikers ask questions, van drivers put thumbs up at dirty windows. It’s a real moral booster, that’s for sure.
Riding from the Forth Road Bridge in to Edinburgh at 8:30am you encounter a set of traffic lights that I like to call “bum clenchers”.
These are the lights that have a habit of changing to amber just as you pass the point that you could have stopped for them. The result is either a bum clencher through the rapidly approaching red light, or an extreme-to-the-point-of-stoppie anchors out braking manoeuvre that one day will inevitably end in a face plant scraper.
Anyway, I was sitting at these lights having filtered through the traffic and I saw a guy approaching behind me. He got alongside and opened his main visor of his Caberg, leaving the Top Gun internal visor down and shouted to me,
“ARRIGHT! THESE LIGHTS ARE SO F*CKING DANGEROUS MAN, SERIOUSLY.”
I nodded, having not bothered to open my visor because in the time it had taken him to stop, open his visor and think of what words to spit out, I had looked at him and his bike.
He was on a Repsol Honda rep, with a top box. There’s a contradiction itself. But then looking along you see that he is wearing jeans and trainers. His choice. Textile jacket, Caberg helmet.
Now I don’t generally dislike folk who wear jeans, hell I’ve worn normal jeans on my bike before. But I didn’t do what he did next.
Seeing my acknowledgement to his spurt of fury over the bum clenchers, he then cracked his main visor down, watched for the lights to go to green and then waited for me to go.
I gave my bike a wee bit revs as we had missed the immediacy of the green light so off I went sounding glorious as I did. He then, and I’m not exaggerating here, ripped past me, red-lining it. He then weaved through all the traffic, top-box shaking from side to side, full bomb only to screech to a halt at the next set of lights. Again he fired off from these lights and continued his high-speed filtering in to the sunset.
Summer Luvvie #2.
Anyway,
I’ve got my meeting with Glen Richards on Friday, with him signing some of my artworks of him on the HM Plant Honda. Should be good but I’m nervous about it. Will take up the Troy Bayliss/Ben Spies to show him as well, I just hope the weather stays fairly decent.
Emma and I went away on the MT on Sunday Night to watch the sunset on top of Cleish Hill, it was pretty nice but the midges and flies made it unbearable so we went for a quick spin round by Kelty and then home again. It was fantastic heading out at 9pm in lovely warm sunshine. I took the main photo from Cleish Hill.
I think that’s it for this weeks update.
Let me know if you like the new look/format.
All the best
Gordon
What winter does to your motorcycle…
What does riding your motorcycle in winter do? Well if like me you don’t have a garage or a hose, this:
(click the image for a full whacker)
Unless you are intimate with a GSR’s engine casing, the black shiny bit should sit up against the lip of that bolt you see there. But the road salt has eaten away at it so much, that you can actually see the shaft of the bolt. Now bear in mind, this is about 2 weeks worth of salt sitting on the bolt areas, and this is the damage.
Its pretty crazy to think that 2 weeks worth of shit they put on the road can do this sort of damage but there you go. This is the second casing on this side of the bike, I’ve had 2 on the other as well.
I guess I should have known it would happen but, not this quickly.
Anyway, I thought I would share what the consequences are of leaving salt on your bike. I think I will have to replace these casings and get busy with the FS365 from Scottoiler.
Bums.
Just goes to show how crappy the materials are that Suzuki use on their lower end bikes.
How not to fill up your tank…
Hi folks,
Tonight I had a bit of a scare, in Tesco Petrol station of all places.
GSR was my steed today (until the warmer/dryer weather kicks in) and on the way home from work I stopped in at the station beside the FRB to top up the tank.
Of course the only pump available was the far left one, so the bike was leaning away from the pump. Not usually an issue. So as it’s a “pay-at-pump” place I got my card out, put my pin in and waited for the “please lift nozzle…” etc.
Got the pump nozzle, made sure the pipe was over the seat and went round to the left side of the bike (as the bike is leaning this way, it’s easier to get the nozzle in the petrol hole than try and flip it over)
The petrol cap kept flapping shut, meaning I couldn’t see what I was doing, and as I fill the tank by propping the nozzle on the very lip of the inlet as to get the most in the tank without it clicking off all the time, it was important that I saw what I was doing. Well of course what happened next?
Mid-fill, with the trigger fully depressed, the nozzle slipped out of the hole. And not just “oops, in we go again” I mean the force of the petrol coming out of the nozzle coupled with the snap slip of the nozzle leaving the lip meant the whole “gun” of the petrol pump was suddenly airborne and spraying petrol everywhere. It was up the petrol pump, it was all over my bike (think a thin film of liquid coating the whole tank, seat and quickly running south).
It’s not like I stood there with the petrol spewing everywhere, it was a “slip-oh shit-trigger off” quick thing, but in that split second it took to shut the petrol off, it was everywhere. The petrol spews out at some lick, I tell you.
I stood for a moment waiting in horror for the petrol to hit either the engine or the headers or indeed the underseat exhaust box and engulf me and my bike. 3-4 seconds later I had ran round the bike, slotted the gun back in to the pump, ran to the place with the towels etc and grabbed a handful to try and stem the liquid from going further south.
Luckily nothing combusted except my heart rate.
I finished filling, got myself ready with my now petrol soaked gloves and took the bike away from the pump to give it a once over.
In doing so I noticed that the engine covers, the ones that had corroded before, were seriously corroded again. I mean seriously, to the point that it’s like a hill with a bolt sticking out the top.
Something I will have to address when I get the bike in the garage in prep for winter. Very worrying and it seems like the only thing that isn’t cheap rubbish on the GSR is the petrol I put in it.
Anyway,
That’s the first and last time I’ll do that, because if that was the MT, that petrol would have instantly hit the header pipes and both the MT and me would have been up in flames…in the Tesco petrol station.
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.
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
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
YamYam’s Back, but not without problems
Hey y’all.
I’ve been back a good wee while now but firstly my broadband situation was just dismal. If you are ever thinking of going with o2, forget it. They suck ass.
Anyway,
Just to let you know it’s been an eventful few weeks and I have some new products to test and review from a company called Fourth Element, who supply thermal and technical clothing to major police forces and other folks, including divers.
My bike is running ok, I’ve fitted hand guards so I’ll cover that as well.
Weather is deteriorating fast.
I’ve been trying to get my main website (www.gordon-fraser.com) up and running with all my photography, artwork etc etc but its taking ages.
Anyway, I’ve now got reliable BT broadband, so updating will be happening soon.
Sorry for the delay in fresh material, it’s that time of year.
All the best folks
Gordon
Fuel Light Challenge #1
So this morning I go out to my bike and look at the dash when I turn the key. 2 bars of fuel left. Hmm.
Now usually the way it works out is that the day that I need to fill up, I usually have 3 bars left that get me to my work and then to the petrol station afterwards. Today however was different and instead of going to the nearest petrol station to fill up I decided to see if I could conserve my petrol in order to get to work on 2 bars.
My work is 34 miles from my house and I knew that really, it wouldn’t be an issue, but I didn’t fancy playing the fuel light challenge so played it cool and done the eco thing.
Sure enough I arrived at work with still 2 bars, where as normally I would have been on total flashy (reserve tank in GSR terms. The petrol pump symbol flashes when you have say 5l left in the tank, and the whole gauge flashes when you are down to your reserve 3l ish.)
It got me thinking. If I can get to work on 2 bars driving at the speed limit and keeping accelleration to a minimum, what would it be like if I always did that? In other words babied it about from full tank?
Well here we go then, the start of the test. See chart below.
Ok. So usually I fill up my tank and then bomb it. Not in town necessarily, but on the motorway or dual carriageways etc. My full tank gets me home from the petrol station, then a full commute the next day, then in to work the next day after that. I then go to the petrol station on the way home with around 5.1litres left in the tank (even though it’s on half flashy, I am too chicken to play the fuel light challenge.)
Tonight I filled up my tank to the brim, 10.9litres of fuel. Calculating (roughly) the MPG, it seems I get 44.5mpg in rip-the-arse mode. From the second I turned on the ingition, I was in eco mode, so pull away and immediately to 2nd gear, then change up through the box until 5th doing 30mph. Easy on the throttle and no hard accelleration.
It’ll be really interesting to see just how long my tank lasts, and I might take it that one step further and strap a jerry can to my seat and really run it dry to see what the mileage I can get out of it is like. I will then compare that to the normal use data.
*Normal Use = hard accelleration, very fast cruising speed on motorways and occasional red-liner.
** Economy Use = quick shifting up to high gear, soft accelleration, low revs, speed limits everywhere with occassional lower than, and general eco mindset.
So I got home tonight with full bars. I will bet that tomorrow I will still have full. Let’s Rock!
New Logo, British GT’s @ Knockhill
So did you notice then?
For those that didn’t, here’s the old logo:
and the new one
What do you think?
I am heading to the British GT practice session tomorrow at Knockhill (Friday), armed with my camera so I should hopefully get some good looking photos.
In other news, and if you had been watching again, I am 9 miles short of the biggie: 20,000 miles…well, not that big but still unbelievable. I have been carting my point and shoot about with me in the hope of capturing the exact point I hit the 20k. I’ve been lucky as I am 9 miles off the mark with my bike at home, it’s not like I am halfway to work on the motorway when I suddenly realise I am 1 mile away from it, with nowhere to park.
I will update tomorrow night with (hopefully) some fabbo pictures.
Thanks again y’all and check out this blog which is runs the same vein as yamyam.
Gordon
Suzuki GSR – Just a pain in the ass?
Hey all.
So I got my bike back last Wednesday and for the first 30 minutes of riding it, it felt weird. I had ridden the new (08) SV650 for the past week and had gotten used to the quick steering and fall over cornering. The GSR seemed a bit stiff, a bit like you need to work at it to get it to corner. I didn’t like it.
But then after riding it again on Saturday I was back to knowing my bike and it felt like second nature again. It’s amazing how quickly one can adapt to a different bike so quickly.
I had to go to work on Saturday, but left at mid-day. I had to drop off a package in the middle of the city so after doing that I headed back home through the town. After a bit the bike started to feel really rough, shakey and just not right. I looked at my mirrors when I stopped at a set of lights and it was like I was riding a V-twin! The mirrors were vibrating like nothing I have ever seen on the GSR.
It was then that I looked down at my dials, to see a flashing “121°C” oil temp and the red oil light illuminated. For reference, my bike usually sits around 70-80°C. I immediately thought “Shit, I need to get moving before my bike blows up” and then the lights changed, so I quick shifted to 6th and bumbled along. Thankfully within a couple of seconds the temp started to come down and when it passed 119°C the flashing of the digits stopped and the oil light went out.
Once I got to the dual carriageway the temp came down to around 85ish and my heart slowed slightly. However it wasn’t just this incident, as come Monday it was still pretty warm. Sure enough by the time I got to work the temp had crested 110°C and although the engine didn’t sound or feel like there was anything wrong, I certainly didn’t like it being so high. When I arrived at work I called the garage and they asked me to come in asap. When in the garage on Tuesday I handed the bike over at around 3:15pm, after arranging to be there for 3pm. Howeer I didn’t get my bike back till 5pm leaving me and Em floating about the garage for nearly 2 hours. It was a bit annoying as there aren’t any seats except the wall outside but when I saw this, it made up for it:
I couldn’t believe it when I saw them! The B-King with quad pipes. This is the same bike that had the 2 Brothers Exhausts on it, but man, these things are lovely…but then, after gazing at their titanium stainless steel splendor, your eyes can’t help but fall down on to the white slip of paper that holds the price for them. That’s right folks, you read it correctly: £1615 retail price. It seems no-cheaper with the “Our Price £1000″ because lets face it folks, a grand for a set of cans is pushing it, don’t you think?
(I would still have them though…)
So after I got my bike back, the boy mentioned that my rear-right hand indicator lens was hanging off. We went through to the workshop where my bike was in bits and there it was, hanging off. I never noticed it until this moment, but it was plain as day. Even the rubber seal was hanging out as if it’s intestines were on show.
I got the guy to order me a new one and tape up this one.
Pretty annoying and yet anothing thing to add to the long bill of parts.
Just for you, I now have a picture of the part that was most recently replaced under warranty: the whole crank casing.
That’s a whole lotta metal there folks. This part goes all the way from where the black bit meets the silver bit at the left of the blue arrow, all the way down behind the header pipes at the bottom, all the way behind the big circle at the bottom left. It’s a massive bit, and pretty much the whole engine. All replaced under Suzuki Warranty. Beggards belief that Suzuki don’t think, “hold on, this is the same bike that was in just the other month there…” but hey, as long as it gets fixed.
Well, at least my bike seems to be running ok now and for that I am thankful.
In other news I have been made aware of something called FS365, it looks something like this (taken from www.scottoiler.com)
This stuff you spray on to your bike after a wet ride or in winter and it protects the bits that are cheap and shit from corrosion. It’s a little too late for my bike really, but I will still be investing in some for this coming winter to at least stem the rot.
Rusty.
Anyway,
I have some updates for my AGV GP-Tech and thoughts on my next bike.
Many thanks for all that take the time to write to me and all that visit regularly. I appreciate it all, and I hope that you enjoy what I write and review.
Yours
Gordon
Still Here>Not Happy
Hello.
I am still here folks, albeit a bit miffed.
My bike is falling to bits and now, to top it all off I am having to get the front of the engine replaced. This is costing £1500 JUST FOR THE PARTS and then 2 weeks of labour, all done under warranty.
I will update with pictures this weekend.
Meanwhile I have finished my first book, and it’s available to buy now worldwide.
Check it out below:
So check that out, then come back at the weekend to get the low-down on my horrendously bad bike…
Thanks for looking folks,
Gordon
Suzuki GSR600s K7 – The Big Review
Hello.
This post would have been done a looong time ago had it not been for my bike breaking so much, so apologies for that.
It has been more than a year now of owning the Suzuki GSR600 and I am about to review it. It won’t be positive in any sense of the word so if you are in a good mood, please navigate to another post on YamYam until you are angry enough.
I guess I’ll start from the start then.
I bought my GSR600s K7 in January of 2008, it was my 4th bike and the last chance of a bike for the next couple of years. I had a Yamaha MT-03 (which melted), a Buell XB12Ss Lightning which costed £2000 for insurance and a Kawasaki ER-6n which was crap and I crashed it and then sold it. The GSR was the bike that I had to get on with as I wasn’t able to afford anything else.
Brand Spanking New.
Blair had one since November 2007 and after having a sit on it and seeing it going etc etc I liked it. I had never had an in-line-4 and had never had access to these kinds of rev’s so was looking forward to it…actually the only thing I haven’t had is a triple.I picked up my bike on the 24th of January 2008 and it felt good. The ER-6n was away and stability was finally here. And it stayed that way for 3 months.
The first thing to go was the electrics. And when I say the electrics I mean the whole thing. The garage replaced the whole wiring loom after a week of diagnostics turning up nothing. It was highly frustrating as we had booked our Scotland Tour for the end of May and I didn’t want anything to stop us from going.
Turns out that they couldn’t find out what the problem was but it was working now and I was happy. If I remember correctly the warranty bill came to something like £600 odd.
Debugging
A couple of months later my bike suddenly failed to start. After many attempts at the house to start it I was off, however on the return trip from work that evening I went to the petrol BP at the Forth Road Bridge and it wouldn’t start for love nor money. After half an hour of attempts it fired up and all was ok for the rest of the week. But then it totally failed to start and it was buggered. After another few days of non-biking bus journey to work the garage had fixed it, with a dirty starter coil or something like that the issue.
My bike then developed a knocking when accelerating in 6th. It wasn’t any other gear, just 6th. As you twisted the throttle I could feel through the pegs a “knock knock knock knock” which sped up as I accelerated. This grew over time in to a knocking at all revs and gears.
My indicators also broke but strangely started flashing really fast. A new indicator relay fixed this. An annoying trait started to appear as well with the mechanic at the garage. He was completely unable to fit my indicator pods back on properly, leaving a huge gaping hole between my tank and the indicator pods. Hair pullingly annoying to say the least.
The knocking became so loud that I had to do something about it. I bought a new Renthal chain/sprocket kit and got it fitted. Turns out my chain was totally feckered and my sprocket had 3-4 teeth missing. Problem solved and the shitty GSR stock drive system was OUT.
Whilst this problem seemed to have been solved, another problem was rearing it’s ugly head. The throttle.
Now I was fully aware of the throttle issues with the GSR and how it lurched forward and back when you accelerated/decelerated, but this was different. The throttle was sticking and I had to force it open and closed if I wanted to get anywhere. This was crap for a few reasons, the first of which was that it’s really unsafe to have to shut the throttle off manually whilst trying to slow down. A number of times I found myself having to brake harder to try and overcome the throttle being slightly open. Also when I am changing gear, the throttle will stick open and rev the bike to 8-9000 revs, which is shit if you are trying to be smooth.
After months of putting up with it I took it to the garage. A week and a half later the bike was fixed. The throttle bodies were siezed, making the butterfly’s stick open. This accounted for the need to force the throttle open and shut and after they were lubed/released the bike was running sweet. This also solved a problem with the bike cutting out in the morning. I would start the bike, let it warm up and then start off to work. I would get to the bottom of the road and change down the gears only for the bike to cut out. I would then have to restart the bike whilst still on the move. I had a suspicion this was to do with the idle speed and I was right.
How my GSR looks now, 2009
The brake switch in my front brake lever broke as well, rendering cars behind me oblivious to my slowing down. The back brake pedal had siezed up due to excessive lack of brake pad so I only had my front. This was replaced under warranty.
January 2009 saw me falling off my bike in the office carpark. This would have been a minor spill had it not been for the engine casings on my bike being corroded. And it was on both sides, and it was leaking oil. The first was fixed under my dollar, but the second corroded engine casing was a warranty job. The spill damage (rear brake lever, engine casing) as well as a 16k service came to £580, which was irritating as the only reasoon I fell off was because the office had left the entrance to the carpark un-gritted. There was not a sausage I could to to stop my front folding from underneath me.
How my GSR looks now, 2009 - The new non-corroded engine casing.
The rear left hand pillion footpeg mount then suspiciously cracked. It’s bizarre but the bottom of the casing has a big crack along it. I thought it would be covered under warranty but no it aint. £160 for that to be replaced by me and Em can’t get on it until a week today. What with the excellent spring weather we are having at the minute, this is a major annoyance.
How my GSR looks now, 2009 - Rusty. F*cking Rusty.
The finish on my right hand mirror is gone. This is frustrating but will be replaced under warranty with some K8 mirrors, which anyone who rides a GSR can do. There is a deal at the minute whereby anyone who has a GSR can get their mirrors swapped under warranty due to excessive vibration. I never use my mirrors for anything but seeing what’s directly behind me, so I wasn’t bothered. However for those who like to look at themselves or read the car numberplate behind them, this seemed to be a reason to get on to Suzuki. I can think of a few more important issues that they could attend to first though.
How my GSR looks now, 2009 - The frame saving R&G Crash Mushroom. Cheers!
And to top off all of this, the throttle issue returned. There seems to be a pattern of things happening twice, but this time it was the throttle shafts not being lubricated enough and now that they are, the problem is fixed.
How my GSR looks now, 2009 - Aye...build quality is an issue folks.
The real bone of contention for me is the crazy lack of durability with anything on this bike. It’s like the boy in the garage said, “They give you the bike for free and then rob you for parts” and I have to agree. I am a guy who takes pride in the finish of his bike and to see the paint falling off, rusting, flaking, cracking, badly designed parts on my GSR is a major issue. My rearsets are totally wasted with the paint finish blowing off with the wind to leave a nice fresh bit of metal to rust up.
How my GSR looks now, 2009 - Cracked footpeg, conveniently held up with a zip-tie.
I ride my bike 5 days during the week and then when it’s nice, some weekends. I try to wash it every weekend and when I don’t, it’s the 2nd weekend. A bike shouldn’t be this easy to ruin and a bike certainly shouldn’t be so easy to break.
How my GSR looks now, 2009
That’s the negative out the way, and when I say negative I mean in excess of £1500 worth of warranty and non-warranty negativeness.
How my GSR looks now, 2009
So now after I have stated all the problems I have had with the GSR, where does that leave me? Well to be honest I like my GSR. If you ignore all the issues the GSR is a nice bike. The throttle issue can be worked around but now and again still catches you out.
The looks of the GSR are still one of the reasons I love it. It’s quite unique and still get’s a lot of attention, but I suspect it’s people thinking it’s the B-King and not the GSR.
How my GSR looks now, 2009
The power of the GSR still makes me smile with the bike really coming alive after 9k all the way up to the redline at 13.5k. The roll on speed at 70mph is brilliant and leaves nothing to be desired for motorway duties, with low speed stability and controlability superb, so long as you use a good helping of back brake at 3-4mph.
The running costs of the bike are pretty good. I pay circa £224 a month for everything, bike £80, insurance £30, petrol £110 (varies), tax £48 (yearly) so this is a big positive.
The time saved in rush hour alone is enough to justify the expense on parts braking and consumables like tyres and services. I can’t really picture what it would be like commuting to Edinburgh in a car. I would have to leave at day break and get home at sunset and this would drive me mad. With a bike I get up and out to work in 20 minutes and am in the office 40 minutes later. The return is pretty much the same and there is absolutely no waiting in queues at all.
Also as a point in favour of the GSR: It took me and Em around Scotland, laden with luggage, camera gear, sweets and maps unflinchingly easy, and gave us the best time on my GSR, including some sweet handling, power and lack of fuss that we would have wanted. This was a big ask of the GSR and it didn’t even break sweat. Thankfully…
So in summary then, how has the GSR performed over the last year/16,000 miles?
Let us not forget first and foremost that the Suzuki GSR600 is a relatively cheap JAPANESE motorcycle. The finish on the parts is to a budget and it almost certainly, everywhere, shows. With exception to the wheels and handlebar, there is not a part on my bike that isn’t rusted or showing signs of deterioration, whether it be finish flaking off or just turning nasty due to cheapness of material.
There are a number of design touches that are completely stupid and worth slapping the designer over the face for. First is the rearset, which is a cast block of metal. This block holds both sets of pegs and the finish on it is a very nice easy scratch silver paint. If you happen to snap a peg mount point, you have to replace the whole damn thing.
The next is the seat, which is paper thin exactly where your bits naturally sit when you are on the bike. After prolonged periods on the road or if you wear thinner trousers, this can be excruciating very quickly. Not only is the seat thin, but it’s also angled such that your body slides forward in to the tank at the whiff of slowing down. A bit of a flatter angle on the seat would irradicate both problems.
The clutch cable obstructs the temp gauge on the dash. This isn’t so crucial but is annoying.
The clock pod vibrates at exactly 6000rpm and it’s LOUD AND VERY ANNOYING. Something has broken off inside this part and is causing it to vibrate, but I haven’t hit it with anything or tampered with it at all, so there’s obviously an inner stress within this part that fails whenever a mildly big bump is hit.
The throttle issue is something that I knew about and folk who know what a GSR is know about. The fix (looking at the GSR forum) is the throttle position sensor being manually set in the build stage of the bike to a preset place. If you get your bike apart and override this setting by adjusting the position of a lever, the bike runs fine. How Suzuki couldn’t advise their garages to fix this themselves to eradicat this highly irritating and potentially dangerous issue is beyond me.
Ridden 50%, broken 50%
Well, there you go. The GSR is a decent bike let down by STUPID build quality issues and a severe lack of durability to their parts. When I am due for a new bike I wont be looking to Japan for my new metal, I will be looking to either Austria, Germany or Italy…although I am sure I said that if you want a cheap bike you need to look no-where else but Japan….who knows. One things for sure, Suzuki really have something to answer for with the GSR and it seems that when Suzuki released the GSR to the world, the didn’t expect anyone to actually ride it that much. For example Blair’s bike has 4,000 miles on it in a year and a half, and it still looks fresh as a daisy. I’m hitting 17,000 in a year and it looks like a pile of rusty ming. I dont want to even think what it’ll be like this time next year…oh dear.
The Summer Luvvies are BACK…
…and I’m annoyed.
Well hello folks, it has been a very frustrating 2 weeks in YY’s life. But hey, whatever.
The summer luvvies are back, resplendant in full race leather, knee sliders ‘n all and it’s havoc! This morning I finally got my bike back and I was up in good time to get going (instead of waking up and getting out the door in 10 minutes.)
It was still quite cold today, a temperature that made me swither on wearing my summer gloves, but I opted for my winters, which was a good choice. As I was cruising along the motorway a guy on an old Kawasaki (i think) went shooting past me wearing a leather jacket, cream jeans and some Timberland boots.
Reaching the city another guy with pillion went weaving through the traffic at high speed, not even flinching as he flew past a bike cop.
It’s been so quiet for the past 3 months and I miss it. I miss seeing the regulars and us both enjoying the fact that we were among relatively few (out of the whole biking frat) that were out in winter weather. Anyway, it’s all good.
The spring is arriving and it’s feeling milder, considering it was only 2 weeks ago I dropped my bike in snow and ice. The sun is out most days and I am loving it.
Bike has been fixed after the small spill.
So the 16k service was done, complete with a new set of brake pads front and back.
A new air filter was fitted and the spill damage was repaired; a new engine case/seal/bolts, new rear brake pedal. Then I got a call last minute to say my valves need shimmed, which would take a wee bit longer.
The bike was ready last night, having been road tested and cleaned (which was great as it looked ace) and the bill came to circa £580. I have gotten used to this figure so don’t flinch when I see it, but when I first was told I almost ate my phone. This biking lark is expensive! haha.
The bike feels great, really solid again. It’s amazing how quickly you can adapt to failing mechanics. It’s like the short story “The Machine Stops” where the machine starts to fail, but they find ways to adapt to it’s failings and make do. That is until it gets ridiculous and the machine fails.
I think it’s safe to say that riding with brakes on the steel is a wee bit harder than riding with new brake pads.
Anyway, biking is ace, and I would never change it for anything. 16,000 miles and counting. I promised you a review of the GSR and that will be the next outing.
Thanks for reading guys, (and girls)
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.
I’m still alive!
Hello!
Happy New Year!! HA! 22 days late but hey, what can you do.
I am extremely sorry for all my fellow bikers for the complete neglect that I have shown for the past month. There really is no excuse and I apologise sincerely.
So what have I been up to for the past month then?
Well Christmas was a good relaxing time off. I didn’t use my bike at all! Along with the usual lazing about I also went walking up a Munro with my Dad, Brother and his girlfriends Dad. It was phenomenal being above the clouds in unspoilt air.
Back to work on the 2nd which was crap.
The GSR has has lots of problems over the past month. The first of which was the chain which was sorted before Christmas. That’s been great and there’s no problems now.
However there was still the issue with the sticky throttle. Basically when I rolled off the throttle the rev’s would either climb to 6-7k or just die to below idle. When I started my bike the engine would just rev up and sit at 7ooorpm. It was like the throttle cable was stuck. There was an “edge” where you would twist the throttle and nothing would happen, but then you would force it over this edge and it would rev like mad without you touching it.
Very annoying and extremely dangerous, especially as it was essentially an uncontrollable cruise control. I had to constantly force the throttle back, i.e. in to negative throttle to keep the revs down or to slow down.
Anyway,
I dropped it in to the garage and the morning of the garage drop off I noticed that my front brake wasn’t illuminating the brake lights. The back brake was but the front wasn’t. So I got to the garage on the Saturday and dropped the bike off, picking up a Suzuki SV650 in bright Yellow.
I was told the bike would be ready later on that day and off I went. Usually when I get a SV I can’t wait to give it back but this one was somehow different. The bars were lower for a start and the tyres seemed to offer a more progressive lean, instead of the usual turn in turn in flop style of 160 rears.
I love the sound as always with a twin and the instant power was good, although overtaking was a struggle.
Saturday evening came and I had a call from Suzuki saying that they couldn’t find out what was wrong with it, having checked the throttle cable and throttle tube etc so were having to look deeper in to the engine. Should be ready Monday or Tuesday.
Oh dear.
Monday came and the bike was ready to go, with seized throttle bodies the cause. Basically the things that control the butterfly valves was sticking and this is the reason I had to force the throttle back to close them. This also explains the funny lip that I had to get over in order to accellerate.
So that was that, and then I asked if it was covered under warranty, which I assumed it would be. They didn’t know and had to go off and email Suzuki.
3 days later I called the garage and it was covered by the warranty which was great! So I went in on the following Saturday to pick my bike up.
Sitting on my bike again was weird. I had become used to the lower bars on the SV along with the pretty good brakes. I now realised just how bad my brakes had faded, I desperately need new brake pads. I also noticed how high my bars are and how upright I sit. I feel less comfortable now for some reason.
I do however, love having the extra power back, along with the marginally more comfortable seat than the SV’s wafer.
When I started to ride off from the garage I put my right foot down on the brake only to have no movement at all from the brake lever. I stopped and tried to loosen it but it didn’t move. It wasn’t enageged but it wasnt moving either so I dont know what the deal is. I remember Stuart (Jackson) mentioning to me that my back brake pad was almost spent, so to think about replacing it soon. I might call him up and get him to fit some new ones for me.
So really that’s about it as far as my bike goes. The GSR is still going strong and after nearly a year of ownership I have crested the 15,000 mile hill. Next service is at 16,000 which will be mid February.
The weather in Scotland has been SHIT. Icy, rainy, windy…it’s all happening in January. It was over a year ago now that I had my accident on the Kawasaki and it was around this time that I did it. Hopefully I can remain crash free on my GSR!
I am looking forward to the warmth of Spring arriving so I can stop wearing 4 layers.
My AGV is starting to fall apart, so I will update that soon.
Thanks for the comments all and please do keep visiting. I am still getting back in to things after Christmas and New Year so posting will increase.
Hope you are all well,
Gordon
———-
Please visit www.gordonfraserphotography.com to check out what I do when I am not riding my motorcycle.
December 2008
“It’s Christmas don’t you know!” said one of my friends today.
Christmas. 2008. It’s over AL-FREAKIN-READY!
I guess as you get older the years get shorter. I need something to slow me down or I’ll just speed up till it’s over. I am looking forward to the week and a bit I’m off over the Xmas holidays. Looking forward to eating so much that I’ll burst. Looking forward to chilling with Blair.
Got my new chain and sprocket kit on last Thursday. I went to Jacksons bikes to see Stuart and have him fit my kit for me. I was hoping I could watch him do it and I did, so that was ace. I asked him what would have been pretty idiotic questions but for me they were important.
One such question was about adjusting the chain. “I haven’t really thought about it because I need a torque wrench.”
Stuart laughed and said “Eh…no you don’t. Tighten that thing till you can’t turn it anymore, then give it a few kicks as well and that’ll be more than enough. I can get the manual out the now to check what torque setting it ‘should be’ but I bet you it’ll be a bawhair* more than what you can physically do.” Excellent.
So he began by getting the back wheel off and then the rear sprocket. By the time I had made it to Jacksons, my chain was practically hanging off, something which Stuart found pretty funny. I said that there was some clicking going on and he burst out laughing, “I’m pretty sure it has something to do with your chain.”
So upon inspecting the rear sprocket there were a few missing teeth, something which would have contributed to the clicking I felt through my pegs.
The chain was wasted, and some links were seized, again contributing to the noises.
The front sprocket was pretty good, but the new Renthal one went on anyway.
I learnt about a “Cush Drive” which was new to me. I noticed that when Stuart was removing the old sprocket, the whole hub came out of the wheel! I said, “Bloody hell, is that not attached?” and he said, “no….it’s the cush drive.”
“What the feck is a cush drive?”
And it turns out that the sprocket is sat in to a bed of rubber blocks, with opposing rubber blocks on the sprocket side and this “cushions” the drive train, removing any unwanted stresses or vibrations etc from the throttle/gears. This is all held in place by the axle/swing arm. Every day is a school day. Never forget it.
So he assembled the wheel back on, with the new chain fed through which looked amazing. Whilst he was fitting that I had a look around his workshop at his race bike. Stuart sponsors a race team and there was the racing R1 bike. He said that it’s got about £25,000 worth of stuff done to it. It looked amazing and it had a similar chain to mine.
Once Stuart had finished I made my payment of £15 and off I went. Immediately the bike felt smooth again, but it highlighted the throttle issue that I’m having just now. It’s not the usual jerky throttle issue, but it’s the idle speed. When I close the throttle the bike revs to 2,500rpm. If I roll the throttle forward i.e. negative throttle, the revs die to where they should be sitting. It’s weird but I haven’t been able to fix it yet. It’s not the idle or the throttle grip, I think the cables need re-setting.
Anyway,
Today is Christmas eve and I had the worst ride in. I have a cold. Cold + Bike = Eating your own snot. It was pretty bad and the only positive thing was that I managed not to sneeze. It was crap.
I am sitting in work, its quiet and I feel shit. I want to go home, but talk of the management releasing us at lunchtime is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Anyway, I’m signing out.
I will post before 2009, so have a wonderful Christmas and Santa is good to you…
thanks for reading all,
Gordon
Winter is nearly here…again.
Well it’s now official. Autumn is happening and it’s October tomorrow, which means pretty soon it’s winter. Great.
The life of a 365 biker is complex. Many a time when I have arrived at work, hands blue from the frost, tears and snot running down my face, with ice formed on my visor, people have asked me, “Why don’t you get a car!?”
It takes a certain love of 2 wheels, a desire to ride that makes someone endure such weather. It also helps if it’s your only mode of transport. Why don’t I get a car then?
Well cars make you warm. They make you (relatively) safe. They entertain you with music, sometimes more. You sit, comfortable in your hugging sports seat with tinted glass windows, offering you a crisp aperture of the world whooshing by. You may have a fast car, which then adds an element of thrill to the whole thing. But then, after you are settled in for the drive and have your stainless steel travel mug firmly positioned in your cup holder, you hit what is known in the automotive world as a “queue.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, if it’s snowing, if it’s sunshine and beautifully warm, one thing above all keeps me smiling; I never have to stop in a queue. I never have to drawl along at walking pace for hours. Yes I may have blue fingers and frozen snot on my face, but I left my house half an hour ago, which was 15 minutes after waking up. When did you leave? “I left 2 hours ago to beat the rush hour.”
Why am I saying this again you may ask? Because I am now coming up to my third Scottish winter, a thing that over the past 3 years has gotten colder and colder, earlier and earlier. And I don’t feel down about it. I don’t wish I didn’t have to go out in the frost to sit on a cold bike. It may make me bonkers, but after nearly 2 years of all weather biking, I am still as passionate and excited about my bike as I was when I first started.
But one things changing this year, and that’s the handlebar muff situation. I will be getting some fecking muffs and have my heated gloves wired up because DAMN it’s cold!
Anyway,
I have been totally enveloped by my new camera. I am going crazy over it. I have always wanted one and now I am having a blast with it. I love having the means to stop anywhere and take a photo, and know that it’ll be super sharp and super big. I took lots of photos on the Scotland Tour 2008 (980 to be exact…) and it beats me up that although the pictures are really good, the quality of the image isn’t. If only I had this camera to go around Scotland, when we had some unbelievable weather and saw Scotland in breathtaking style.
But there you go. On Sunday I went out and took some quick shots of my bike after I gave it a BIG clean. It hadn’t been cleaned for weeks and the chain was sounding a bit wierd. So Sunday was all about getting my baby back up to scratch, and fitting the screen again in a bid to try and take some of the weather off me.
It still looks as good as it did new!
The GSR is holding it’s finish superbly! That’s nearly 12,000 miles and apart from some scratches on the swingarm from bobbins and feet, the rest of the bike is in excellent nick.
Fresh off the cleaning wagon.
The evening light made my bike glow. It also showed up my amazingly bald front wheel...
Over the motorway.
My front tyre is on it’s last legs. It is the original tyre from when I bought the bike! That’s nearly 12,000 miles on 1 tyre! Wow.
My bike goes in for it’s service on saturday, and will get a new tyre on it. The bloke at the garage said that I need a special type of tyre, made only for the GSR. I don’t know if he’s spinning me a line but whatever. For 12,000 miles a tyre, I’ll pay that extra £20!
So yeah, all in all it’s all going well…all.
I’m at the stage just now where I am just chewing up weeks and miles. Work is going so fast and nights are lost to tinkering or surfing, the last time I looked at my ODO it was 11,300 ish. It’s now just about 12k so that’s 700 miles of autopilot.
I have some new gear which has the Outlast material in it. If you have never tried it, I suggest you stop reading this and go and get some. It is amazing.
It’s a thermal regulating fabric. So if you are cold, it makes you hot and visa versa. And it works like a dream. It’s been quite cold recently and I have noticed my arms warming up as I’m riding along. It’s simply amazing!
So yeah, Outlast rocks.
I don’t really have anything else to say at the minute. Life is just churning past at a fast rate of knots and it’s sometimes difficult to steal 10 minutes to update, but I’m pretty sure when the Winter starts coming, I’ll have lots of stuff to say! Because when the nights get dark, the car drivers come out to play.
Thanks for reading guys and all the comments you keep sending in, I really do appreciate it.
Gordon
4 years worth in 6 months…
Hello all,
Hope you are all well and enjoying the current weather. It’s great! I think this will be the first of a long list of updates, product reviews and other stuff, so hold on to your hats.
Sunday was the 2nd day out of 14 that I had off, so I took full advantage of it. I had a good lie in and was heading over to the garage with Blair to get his bar end weight looked at. He said that he was riding along, and Kirsty suddenly went “I think a bird just hit me!” So they stopped and couldn’t see anything, and continued on home.
Then B realised that he had a mega numb right hand, and finally noticed the lack of bar end weight on his grip. Hmm.
Very odd. Although B does sit with his hand over the bar end weight…
So he wanted to head out to the garage to get a new one under warranty. It was a really nice day and whilst I was waiting for blair to arrive I sat on the front grass and listened to the birds and trees… Blair arrived and grabbed a quick cig before we headed out. It was a cracking day!
Once we arrived we checked out the metal sitting out the front, including the GSX1400 which was nice, and the boat, also known as a B-King.
May not look like much, but sounds amazing and goes like stink…
So after looking at the nice bikes we headed inside and B started his story up, which resulted in the guy saying (without surprise I may add) that B would have to come back in tomorrow to see the guy that deals with that particular type of request….
It’s really annoying that when someone asks if their bar end weight that fell off can be replaced under warranty, that they all can’t go, “yes” or “no.”
Whilst there, and remembering that my 7500 mile service was on Thursday, I asked if I could have a rear tyre changed at the same time as…well….look at it:
This was a week ago so it’s even more bald than this.
He said “Aye no problem” and I thought I’d better ask how much it will be.
“Well it’s £220 for the service and another £140 for the tyre”
“………well forget the tyre then.”
Bloody hell!!! Upon me asking why it was so expensive, he said “Well you get the spark plugs changed, and they cost £31, and then there’s the added labour of lifting the tank and removing the airbox.”
“Ok.”
I have lifted my tank 5-6 times now and I can now go from bike fully assembled to tank up and airbox off in 15 minutes. Now if you go on the price of the 4k service, which included the oil & filter change etc etc, that was £140. So it’s costing £31 for the spark plugs, leaving £50 for lifting the tank and removing the airbox.
My garage thus charges £200 p/hour labour. Brilliant.
So after I stopped crying, we went out to the bikes and Blair had a smoke and we talked about their complete lack of help…but that you already know about.
We then thought, whilst its such a nice day, that we would go for a quick blast up to East Lomond and then home again, which we did and it was ace.
There was a few police bikers out, but they were on one of those police training day things, where the police man takes you out and teaches you how to ride fast and safe. Both Blair and I went past them at a brisk pace, then thought, “I just went past a police man at more than the speed limit and he didn’t chase me.”
The thing with these courses is though (bearing in mind I haven’t been on one, I have just read about it) is that they don’t worry about you speeding. They actually encourage you to so that they can show you how to safely do it. It must be weird for you to be followed by a police man, doing more than the speed limit but he’s not pulling you over.
Anyway, after we got to the top of East Lomond, we stopped and had a chat about bikes and stuff. We then started talking about the service again and how I have actually done just under 9000 miles (and I’m just getting my 7500 mile service…oops. But I had my 4k late anyway) and wondered how many miles B had done.
He said that if we take off the Scotland Trip, he has done 2500 miles in nearly a year. I said that he was the UK national average biker and when we sat there thinking about it, we worked out that I have actually done 4 years worth of riding (on my GSR, which I got at the end of January, 08 ) in 6 months. All in all, I have done around 12 years of UK national average biking in a year and a half. That’s pretty scary.
He then quipped, “at least it’s cheaper. I’ve not even had my 4k service yet.”
Great.
East Lomond. Where brain’s get fried.
We then headed home and as we approached the road to my house, a Kawasaki naked old thing pulled in in front of us and it sounded amazing! We all then stormed along the road and it was a great finish to a nice ride out.
I fancy a 1 piece textile suit. For the reasons that: there’s no 360 zip to let water in, there’s only 1 entry zip that is super re-inforced, there’s more insulation thus warmer winter riding and finally, it’s smart.
I guess I’ll have to see what happens after we move in to our new house in August.
More updates soon!
Thanks for looking all,
Cheers
Gordon
Suzuki GSR600. Just plain weird?
Hello everyone.
I have my bike back and it seems to be “fixed”…
After a mammoth day of bank managers, lawyers and IKEA, Em and I were pretty tired. But I gave the garage a quick phone call to see if anything had been done. The bloke said aye, my bike was ready to go. They cleaned the “pick-up and rotor and it fired first time.”
“Great!” I said, “I’ll be along in 20 minutes. And along I did go.
After the usual key giving and me requesting a copy of the job sheet (you would think they would just give you one anyway instead of me having to request it) and then I headed out to my bike…which wasn’t there.
It was in the workshop still and the guy wheeled it out to me. Em was waiting in the car and I got my helmet and gloves, gave her the job sheet and headed over to my bike. I put the key in, held the clutch in and pushed the starter button.
“eeee…eeee…eeee…eeee…thud.”
Oh dear. Why isn’t it starting I wonder? I thought they had fixed it!
“eeeee…eeeeeeee…brrrrvvvvvvmmmmm”
It finally caught on after a long blast. Really stranger but I thought, I’ll get it home and if it fails to start, there will be some serious yamyam rage to deal with.
I drew up along side Em and tried it again. It took a wee second to catch, and when it did it was really low revs to begin with, however it stuck and we headed out.
The ride home felt good until a massive flash rain shower started and I got soaked.
Once home I tried the starting sequence again and it was fine, and even later on when the engine had cooled down I tried it again and it fired first time. So it seems to be working ok.
I guess I’ll see tomorrow morning when I try it to go to work!
So I am glad I have my bike back and I am glad it’s working now. I am looking forward to not getting up at 6:30am, and will instead enjoy a leisurely 7:45am rise. Ahhh the joys of motorcycling.
I need to get another new back tyre. I am thinking dual compound. The question is, Michelin or Bridgestone. Pedrosa or Rossi….hmmmm
Tough choice!
Thanks for looking all,
Gordon
It all started so promising as well.
Well good evening.
I don’t know if you recall but when I was arranging the purchase of my brand spanking 57 plate Suzuki GSR 600 from my Suzuki Garage I was a bit on edge. This was the last chance for me to get a motorcycle that I liked and could use for the following 3 years, until I had paid off my 3 bike debts.
I had spoken with honesty with the man there about my disappointment with being treated like a fool and not really feeling like I was a valued customer. “Don’t worry, we will look after you here.”
My bike is still sitting outside. It has remained in that very position now for 4 days. In brief, this is what happened.
Sunday: I washed my bike and polished it to a high shine, catching every detail with timeless beauty. But then it didn’t start, so was pretty much motionless as well…(unless you count me pushing it up the steep drive because I had tried to jump start it…) A call to the garage was needed and was met with a pretty disappointing result. There was a slight edge of story telling going on, and the gist of the story was that they couldn’t come and pick my bike up because the van collection wasn’t covered under warranty. This was an issue really, because without the garage’s van, I couldn’t get my bike to the garage to get fixed…Not to worry though, because if I call back tomorrow and ask for Alan, he will be able to arrange for the van to come and pick my bike up under warranty…o.k…
Monday: I call at 9:30am and ask for Alan. “Alan has just stepped out for a second. He’ll call you back” 2:30pm, no call. So I get on the phone and ask for Alan. He hums and haws and says that he will get back to me about collection. Which he did. At 4:59pm. I missed the call as I was speaking to my boss, so he left a message. It was kind of hard to understand him but basically he said to give him a call back and he would arrange for the bike to get picked up. But the bike shop was now closed.
Tuesday: Ring Ring, “Hello, can I speak to Alan please.” “Alan is off today.” My bike needs to get picked up today because it’s not starting and I need it fixed because I USE IT EVERY DAY FOR MY JOURNEY TO WORK 38 MILES AWAY. “Well you’ll need to call the driver then. I’ll put you on hold.” Then I started thinking, why the hell should I call the fecking van driver? “Hello, yeah the van driver will call you today to arrange it.”
Wednesday: Well after yet another call-less day, I called back yet again. I asked for Alan. Not in. This is ridiculous. So I finally got the guy to get the van driver to call me and he said “Hello, I understand you need your bike picked up. Well I am going to Edinburgh Saturday, I can pick it up then or before if you like because you are just down the road…” TOMORROW PLEASE, BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN ASKING YOU FOR THE PAST FACKING 3 DAYS. “Yes, can you pick it up Thursday?” “No problem”
No problem. Yeah…ok.
So hopefully I will return tomorrow night and my GSR will not be sitting there. If it is, my head will explode.
I am so disappointed with the reaction from my garage. I bought this bike in January, brand new. And so far it has been fine. But now this is the second time that it has broke and I am getting slightly fed up. The bike is great, but if I have to go through this hassle every time something happens, I just wont be bothered with it. This bike is under warranty for 2 years and rest assured that other things will happen to it. So much for the “Don’t worry, we’ll look after you.”
I spoke to Blair about it and he reminded me of a chat that we had when he was after a GSR. B raised the question of buying from down south cheaper and we were told that “If you buy from down south and you get a problem, I wont be as quick to help you out than if you bought from me. If you call me up and you have a problem, I will not hesitate to get the van out to you as soon as humanly possible.”
Well it seems like the humans react very slowly to problems. That’s 4 days.
Anyway!
Life is very complicated at the minute. I am trying not only to deal with difficult bike garages, but me and Em have just purchased our first house. It’s something that all humans go through, but boy oh boy is it draining on the system.
I have never been so nervous, exhausted, elated, disappointed, taxed, confused or stressed in my life. But today we got news that we had got the house that went to a closing date. I am so excited I can hardly sit still.
Work is very busy at the minute as well, and I am getting the bus to work. That means 6:30am wake up to get the bus at 7:30am to arrive at work at 8:00am, only to start work an hour before anyone else arrives. Then it’s a bus journey home at the end. I miss my bike.
So tomorrow we get the survey back and I am shitting myself that it’s below our offer. The house market in Scotland is in such a dilema, it’s a minefield. Fingers crossed.
On a different note, Scottishbiker has updated his site. In a nutshell SB is a man not dissimilar to myself in which he runs a blog about motorcycles, however he is clued up to the nines about the world motorcycle community and offers updates on new bikes, gear, events and news. A very informative website and one which is a one stop information overload. Check it out because it’s great. And he’s Scottish, which makes him one of the coolest folk on the planet.
Click image to head over to his website.
So there you go. Sorry I haven’t been updating for a few days.
I need to sleep because I haven’t for the past 4 days.
Thanks for stopping by folks!
Gordon
Quick Update
Just a quick update,
Been reading a lot of interesting motorcycle blogs over the past couple of days. It’s good to read other people’s perceptions of situations similar to your own. I’ll add a few in the links to the right…I might start a new section for it as well.
The GSR has now become an extension of myself. I find myself riding to work these days in complete harmony with my bike. I know the exact precise position that I need the clutch to be in to give me a slick shift, and I am able to instantly go there whenever I want. I know the inner workings of the stupid throttle snatch and can work around it on the fly…it’s almost as if I can see it coming and take measures to prevent it. There is a funny tapping that is going on in 6th. If I open the throttle I can hear a regular tapping. I have no idea what it is but I’ll bring it up at my next service…which is due pretty soon.
I read with interest on someone else’s blog about back brake and what it’s for…which got me thinking about how some people actually don’t use it. I know that Blair doesn’t use his back brake as much as I do but when you see how easy the bike is to control when you do use it…it’s a wee bit baffling why people dont use it.
After updating the logo of my website I looked at getting a new sticker for my helmet and so headed back to Diginate (www.diginate.com) the place I got my first set of stickers.
They had said on their website previously that they would soon be doing contour cut stickers…well that time has arrived. I created my artwork in Photoshop, got an instant quote online and then sent it all through. I got a confirmation email to say that my artwork was ok and that was that. 1 week later they arrived and I have to say, they are pretty good!
Pictures are below and with a deal of £20 for 100 of these full colour bad boys, it’s a win-win situation…now where can I stick 100 YamYam stickers….?
Filter Tip: Expect the worst
Filter tips. They provide a “safer” way to enjoy tobacco. Another filter tip is one that helps bikers avoid death.
Here’s my filter tip: Expect the worst. That way you can avoid situations like tonight.
So there I was doing ~23mph between stationary traffic. All was right in the world and I was hungry and looking forward to my tea. I approached a bus on my left and a car on my right.
Then out of fecking no-where, a small Peugeot 206 appears, blocking the space between the bus and the car. Now it wasn’t like the car slowly edged it’s way out and looked. No, the car bombed it across our 2 lanes, then stopped, looked left and then carried on in the opposite direction.
I have no idea how I managed to stop, and my brakes aren’t what you would call sharp, but instinct took over and I managed to stop in about 12ft. As I came to an abrupt standstill I looked to see how close I was from this guys rear arch; 1cm.
1 unbelievably , amazingly close centimeter.
I sat for a second to let my brain catch up and then sat some more. The guy in the Peugeot was totally clueless and continued to look left, only realising that there was a man sitting in a white helmet staring at him when he started to drive away.
Now some may say that I shouldn’t be filtering and that it was my own fault. Some may say I was going to fast. I disagree with both statements and add that I did fabulously well to avoid an accident and should actually get a medal for it…
As I put my bike in to gear and started to pull away I could feel the slight sensation of adrenaline, but unlike all near misses and actual accidents that I have had, the adrenaline was a vague sensation and disappeared within minutes of the incident. I then carried on my way as if nothing had happened. Amazing. This now however throws up a few questions:
Have I done so many miles now that I am able to calmly and efficiently deal with anything that gets thrown in my direction or;
Have I done so many miles now that I am numbed to the whole motorcycle/danger thing?
Whatevet the answer is, I know one thing: I was able to quickly, efficiently and safely stop my motorcycle from ~23mph in 12ft, with absolutely no warning whatsoever and cause no commotion at all.
I F*CKING ROCK!
Scotland Tour 2008 – Day 6/7
Day 6 – Isle of Skye to Lochgilphead
Well it was the last day of the trip before heading home tomorrow. We woke up to a nice day again, with the sun shining and the wind soft but warm. We had breakfast inside today and although I liked it, the others felt it was lacking. Anyway, we had a bizarre sending off when the hosts had to rush out to catch the last ferry to Fort William at 9:50am. There were still guests in the house but off they went, leaving the house completely open and available for anyone…
Anyway we headed off with the sun still shining but it was looking pretty naff over the west coast.
We decided to stop at Eilean Dornan for the toilet as Em and K needed after an hour. As me and Blair were sitting there, we thought why don’t we just go in. It’s only £4.50 and it’s not like we will be back here any time soon. So we did…
Eilean Dornan Castle on a crap day. Tourist trap.
Eilean Dornan Castle. Unfortunately Conner MacLeod was ill that day.
Well it was pretty cool to see it but not really that interesting. I felt a wave of patriotism as we entered the banquet hall, and was bursting to shout “MACLEOD!” at the top of my lungs but resisted. However I did have a hanckering to watch Highlander all of a sudden.
We went around the designated tour path, and at one point I think we strayed as we ended up in a viewing gallery looking over the banquet hall. There just so happened to be a tour guide talking shite as we entered…and then I got my water bottle out. As I was drinking it the tour guide caught a glimpse of some shadowy figures in the gallery and did a massive double take followed by a very confused look. Then all of the punters turned round to see 4 of us standing there like tubes with all our gear on. Quick exit with lots of rustling followed. I then banged the crown of my head off a low doorway and that was sore.
Eilean Dornan wasn’t falling down, it’s just the crappy photography…
We spent a good 15 minutes going round the castle and then headed outside. We had a wee walk around and then headed back to the bikes, stopping at the reception first where the bloke behind the desk had generously offered to keep all our tank bags and helmets for us. Nice guy and nice offer.
We then got on the bikes and started the long road to Fort William. Then the heavens opened up.
As we rode through a massive glen I was suddenly aware that Blair wasn’t behind me any more. I pulled in to a layby and waited for 10 minutes. Still no show, so I turned around and headed back to where he was. As it had started raining he had decided to put his waterproofs and waterproof covers over his luggage. I decided to do the same and then walked over in to the wilderness for a quick toilet stop. It was during this quick loo stop that the jet arrive, cominig in from my left on it’s end, the jet was in full ripper mode, with the wings swept back and full throttle engaged. It was low, it was loud and it was one of the smartest things I have ever seen. Shame I was doing peeing at the time. It then shot off in to the distance where we could see it going up and down over the crests of the landscape. Amazing!
We eventually got to Fort William and by this point it was teaming down. We searched for a place to eat and eventually we found a Brewers Fair type place and got in just in time for the heavens to really open up.
A great lunch was had and after the rain calmed down we decided to crack on. Not before swapping my waterproof trousers for Blairs waterproof suit, which was slightly too short for me. It was pretty uncomfortable but couldn’t be bothered stopping to sort it. I eventually did however because circulation had stopped going to my lower body…
A couple of hours later we arrived in Oban and stopped at Tesco to grab a bottle of wine for my Auntie and some munchies and then we were off again, edging closer and closer to our destination.
Eventually we arrived to a lot of relieved faces and although the midges were out in hordes, we got in and settled down for the night. It was great to be back in familiar surroundings. I love it there and they have an amazing house.
Blair and Kirsty were heading home tomorrow but me and Em wanted to stay an extra day. So we did. We took a wee trip down to Tarbert for the afternoon, had an ice cream and a nice relaxing stroll around, then headed back for tea. We had another ace night, watched House and went to bed as we were up early tomorrow to unfortunately head home…
Invarary, stunning.
The final day was better, with the sun shining when we woke up. We had a nice breakfast and got everything sorted out for returning home. We had lunch with my auntie and uncle then got on our way. It was really sad to leave their house but we had to head home now.
A quick stop in Invarary for Em to go window shopping again. She saw a nice crafty shop up beside the Jail, so I headed up with the bike and there happened to be a bin lorry blocking the whole street. I parked my bike in front of some parked cars and waited for the lorry to finish, and noticed that there was a woman in the car I was parked in front of. As the bin lorry started to move I got my gloves on in preparation to move too, but then this STUPID woman peeped her horn to tell me to get out the way! I looked at her and she just sat there looking back at me. I pointed to the bin lorry and saw the driver laughing at me sitting there in amazement. I then rolled forward just in time for her to bomb out of the space. Totally ridiculous and completely unnecessary.
It was then the back road to Lochearn and then on to Crieff, by which point I was extremely low on fuel. My seat was also fecking sore, so I had to improvise again with a towel to make it remotely bearable. Finally a Shell garage appeared and I was relieved to say the least. I was well in to my reserve and had a max of 3-4 miles left. Once I had filled up I asked the lady if there was anywhere nice to eat and she suggested an italian place down the road.
What happens when warm rubber meets warm roads.
Final leg of the journey. Note the improvised seat. The comfy towel.
We had a fantastic lunch at this place, I had some pasta stuff and Em had a ciabatta filled with Coca-Cola smoked ham and some other bits and pieces. Tasty.
It had started raining just before we had got to the bistro, but had now stopped so began our final leg back. The rain had started again by the time we approached my turnoff, but I didn’t care, because I was nearly home.+
The final photo from the Scotland Tour 2008. It’s a photo of a parking ticket that I got when we went to the deli-bistro. You can never be too careful!
So there we go! It is all over.
After 1226 miles of amazement, joy, wonder, awe, tiredness, hunger, scents, sights and sores we had successfully completed our round the coast tour of our homeland. I saw things that I had never believed were in Scotland, things that took my breath away. I feel ashamed that I had never known about the places we went to and the various gems that we found. The Bealach Na Ba was one of which that amazed me. I think what made it so much better was the weather. When we were on top of the Bealach Na Ba viewpoint, we overheard a biker saying “the last time I was here we couldn’t see in front of our faces.”
Everything that we wanted to see and do, and even the surprises like the John O’Groat sea stacks and the Bealach Na Ba pass were viewed in the perfect light. Sunshine and nice temperatures made all these places come alive and I will never forget the things that we saw on our trip. I know that if I go back again it will probably be raining or foggy and will not be as good. This was a trip of a lifetime and I am just so happy to have been able to experience it with the conditions we were given.
The people we met were also fantastic. As soon as they saw our bike jackets or helmets, everyone seemed to open up to us. They must get a lot of bikers coming around their way, so usually when we said we were just from Fife, they were surprised. Maybe more because we were so exciteable about what we were experiencing.
My favourite place on the trip was Durnamuck, with the amazing house and view. Skye was close second and the north west was just fapping gorgeous.
Look out in the next few days for my photo stitches. Also the Bealach Na Ba footage and some other trip footage for you as well. I also have a lot to report back on the gear I used on the trip and my new AGV GP-Tech helmet, which was a bit of a disappointment really.
Anyway,
Thanks for looking folks, I hope I could convey even a smidgeon of what we experienced. I know that there is no possible way for me to tell through words or even pictures the beauty of my country. You’ll just have to come and experience it for yourself!
Gordon
