MT-01 Fixed, Rockin. GSR Fixed. Crap.
Hi all,
Bit of a hoo ha really, but the long and short of it is that the MT has been fixed, wheel is true (unchecked as of writing) and although scuffed in a few bits, the wheel isn’t too badly mangled.
I have been commuting on the MT for the past 6 days and I am absolutely in love with my bike. It’s just the best. The comfort, the power, the dials (the smartest I have ever seen), the riding position, the sound, the vibration (with earplugs in the bike makes your brain vibrate out your ears), the feeling of utter joy as other bikers double take left right and centre.
A lot of bikers who normally fly past me in town or motorway will now sit behind me. It’s almost a respect thing, but I suspect it’s something more to do with the sound and looks of it.
When I picked up my MT from Sandy Bloys I dropped my GSR off as the head bearings have been shot for the past 6 months if not longer. I asked how much roughly and was told £100 – £120.
Go for it.
Got a call today to say the bike is ready. No price attached.
How much is it?
£185.
!!!
Again the long and short is that the GSR is apparantly a total bitch to get in to the head bearings. You have to take the ignition barrel off and everything and the mechanics at the garage said they never seen any bike as complicated as this.
I don’t know whether to believe them or not but it seems awfully expensive.
Nothing I can do now but I am a bit disappointed really.
GSR will go straight in to my Dad’s garage in preparation for it’s first oil change in over a year. Joys.
I’ll keep you updated as to whats going on but I’ve got to get my main website up and running after the powersoft fiasco.
Thanks all for reading,
Gordon
YamYam Installs an Alpha-Dot.
So the second of this fantastic double header is me installing an Alpha-Dot marking thing on my beloved MT-01.
I go by the theory that if someone wants your motorcycle enough, they’ll just take it. There’s nothing you can do about it, they’ll just get a transit, drive up to your bike and two heavies will lift your bike in to the van and be off. 20 seconds if that.
Obviously the MT is extremely heavy, so maybe 3-4 heavies would do it.
So what then? Well unfortunately I also go by the theory that if your bike is nicked, that’s the last you’ll see of it, especially if it’s of the MT standard (and by that I mean not a rusted knockabout…something similar to the GSR then)
But in a bid to make the possible breakdown and sale of my once loved motorcycle more difficult, I like to get a wee Alpha-Dot system in there. Just in case. As a possible deterrant.
It goes something like this:
You get the package through the post, it was £15….wow. I just checked the website and the price has went up to £24.99. Nice one!
Anyway, you get a wee credit card type thing with a registration code, 2 Alpha-Dot stickers and a tube that looks like this:
Inside this tube you can see lots of little black dots. These black dots are the Alpha-Dots. On each and every dot is the code that corresponds with the code tied to your bike. The theory is that when your bike gets nicked, broken down and tried to be sold, the police can shine a black-light on the parts and these wee discs glow, thus showing it to be a stolen part and the “perp” get’s a “cap in their ass”, or in Scotland they get a smacked bum.
Now, I like you, thought “aye, these dots are just black. I cannae see the code.”
Well today, with the help of my Da’s uber cam, I did a wee macro and wow:
See the codes yet?
No?
Well, how about now?
!!!!!
So these tiny dots of code are immersed in a PVA type adhesive with black-light reactiveness shit (technical term) embedded in. You then blob these all over your bike as thus:
The trick is to try and mark as many bits as possible on your bike with this stuff, thus making sure that if your bike does get broken down, there’s little that isn’t marked.
As you can see, there’s a lot to paint. It took me about 25 minutes going around the bike and I still had a lot of wee dots left in the tube should I want to continue or if I get aftermarket parts.
The blue liquid dries clear leaving a varnished like area with the dots molded within. Not sure of the durability or indeed the tamper proofing of these areas but its more of a peace of mind thing.
Lots of bits to paint.
As a wee testament to the minute size of these dots, here is one on the bar end weight….and here it is magnified:
So there you go.
When I entered these “secure markings” in to the insurance quote, it certainly did a bit to reduce the premium, so even if it doesn’t save my bike from being nicked, at least I am saving some money…
Brilliant.
Thanks for visiting all. I will update you with the results from the bent alloy issue when things develop. It’s late and I’m going to bed.
Night all
YY
50,000 miles and counting
On Sunday the 2nd May I crested the 30,000 mile mark on the GSR, just over 2 years after buying it. It was a weird feeling really, I was excited about it, enough to show Emma whilst we headed down the motorway sliproad (“Aye, very good” she said)
But at the same time as being excited about crossing another milestone I couldn’t help but remember what 30,000 miles has done to the GSR’s health. Anyway,
Since Jan 2007 I have covered over 50,000 miles on 6 different motorcycles: Yamaha MT-03, Buell Xb12Ss Lightning, Kawasaki ER-6N, Suzuki GSR600 and my latest Yamaha MT-01. It’s a good feeling knowing that I am beginning to get in to territory that relatively few bikers (in the UK anyway) reach, and I’ve only been riding for 3 and a half years.
It’s funny how I’ve come full circle from first getting my MT-03, and then swearing never to return to Yamaha after the way they treated the “incident”. But I am so glad I did, because my excitement for motorcycles and love of being a biker has been reignited, and it’s raging out of control. I had become complacent and the daily drudge in to work on my bike resulted in it being just another day whenever I sat on it.
I am also glad that I chose the MT as my new steed. It’s crazy how many people have gone out of their way to comment on it since I got it 2 weeks ago. I’ve never had anyone come up to me like that since owning the Buell 2 years ago. I think it’s something to do with the V-Twin roar, or the oddball looks but whatever it is, people warm to it.
So I shall continue on and on, sitting upon 2 wheels every day as my A to B.
I must say a little word about the tragic death of a biker just down the road from me. Saturday was a glorious day to be out on the bike, and we were out as well. It seems that no matter how nice the weather there are still people dying on their bikes. I always feel sad for these unfortunate people, but always always sceptical. I don’t know why really, but whenever I hear of a biker dying, I always think of the biker doing something wrong or riding beyond theirs or the conditions limit. Sometimes its just a freak coming together in the middle of nowhere.
My scepticism isn’t helped much after witnessing a bunch of high-vis clad bikers wobbling all over the road on Saturday, one of which left his indicator on for 10 minutes. I want to stop these bikers and slap their dishes. Get a grip. Ride safer. But then why should I?
Take care out there please, and keep your head screwed on.
Onward.
YY
Yamaha MT-01 Review – YamYam is BACK!
The last post on YamYam finished like this:
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.
Well I did go for a test ride, and here’s what happened.
Friday (23rd April) I decided to head up to Sandy Bloy Motorcycles, Perth, after emailing Gary regarding the MT-01 they had in their shop. Gary said come up Friday.
Arriving on the GSR with the rain in full swing, I wondered what it would feel like to sit on an MT-01 after all these years of wanting one. Well it seems like I wouldn’t get the chance, because when I entered the shop the MT was sitting there, looking amazing…with “SOLD” suckered on the light.
Gary emerged after a lengthy wait and I introduced myself and said “well, it seems like I won’t get to test ride it” and pointed to the beast sitting unavailable.
“We’ll…” Gary started, “It is…and it isn’t.”
Oh? I said, feeling a small glimmer of light appear at the very end of a long tunnel.
“Yeah, the guy who was in has since said he can’t get finance, and I have told him that if someone else comes along, then I won’t be waiting for him to get his act together. So as far as I am concerned, the bike is still for sale.”
Well then, lets get a test ride! I filled in the standard “if you deck the bike you’ll pay for it” form and round the bike came, sounding amazing as it did so. This was the first time I had seen or heard one up close, so everything was a new sensation.
By now the rain was getting quite heavy, so Gary said take it easy, handed me a £5 note and said put some gas in it. Off I went, and immediately I could feel the power that this thing had in store. Burbling up the first junction I had a bit of a time getting the old clutch-in action smooth, and indeed the fantastic twin engine braking was quite harsh on the MT.
Anyway I toodled about and after a whizz around Perth I got back to SB’s and in I went. Gary was there to greet me and I said how I loved twins and to cut a long story short, he was chuffed to have someone ride it who knew what it was about and I wanted it. I said that I had the finances ready (The loan form was sent and I was waiting back for the approval) so took a gamble on them being successful and put a deposit of £100 down, after haggling a bit with the price.
He showed me a dent in the exhaust headers from where someone has laid the bike down at rest, and a chip on the tank.
So I left it at that, said I would be back up the next day with Emma and w0uld keep him updated as far as the finances go.
Parting test ride thoughts: Well the MT looks absolutely gorgeous. It sounds absolutely gorgeous. It feels absolutely gorgeous. It’s just a shame I didn’t get to test the instant thundering torque and fantastic brakes that everyone raves about. Fingers crossed the finances come through because it’s rare to have an MT come up for sale in Scotland, and I would be pretty sad if I didn’t manage to realise my 4 year want.
——————
Well. The finances did come through. And I went up on Saturday 1st of May to pick her up.
What. A. Beast.
Of course, Saturday was raining as well, which was great. I was hoping to get some full throttle’s going but anyway, we headed up sharp as I wanted to get a good day of riding on it before we headed out to see the Doves in Glasgow at night.
Got all the paper work sorted, paid the remaining balance (£5400) and that was that! Emma had never heard an MT-01 so when I fired it up and the bike sat and shook, Emma just burst out laughing. She was even more excited than me.
On the way home I gave it some licks and it sounded so good I burst out laughing, shouting “THIS IS AMAZING”.
But. Twice on the way, in 2nd gear and giving licks, the rear spun up in a controlled wheelspin. The rev’s rose to a constant hum and the rear stepped out. Giving it a bit more throttle the rev’s rose more and the rear straightened up, leaving me feeling even better. It did make it perfectly clear however, that there’s enough power being transmitted to the rear tyre to make it dangerous, should one forget and open the taps whilst leaning over.
I took it out on Saturday for a while, fitted the new tax disc on (with the ridiculously complicate 8 bolt tax disc holder) and then rode home to pick Em up to let her experience the MT first hand. She was slightly worried that the pegs would be too high or she wouldn’t feel comfortable, but after getting on it and riding down to Blairs (to surprise him) she felt fine.
I explain the surprise for Blair in the video at the end, but basically I said that after I got to Sandy Bloys and saw it was sold, it was actually sold and that was it.
We got to Blair’s street but went round the back street and I revved the MT up knowing that he would hear it, and he did. By the time we got round to the front window he was standing there waiting to see what it was. You could see the cogs turning as he stood there open mouthed in amazement!
Well as I thought, he absolutely loved it and I took him out for a spin during which he felt the full beast unleashed and although there was 2 fatties on it, it still shifted like nothing else I have ever felt. He was astounded at the instant power, the gorgeous v-twin sound and the gobsmacking strength of the brakes.
What a beast.
The bike is in fantastic condition, with the above mentioned scuffs on the exhaust, the bike is pretty much mint. After cleaning it today I did notice that there’s a few more scuffs, on on the front rim and a few other wee bits, but nothing that is noticeable.
So there you go. I finally have an MT-01, after 4 years of wanting it. The good thing about this is though, that the MT will be a Summer/nice weather bike, a bike I can keep looking gorgeous and get the enjoyment of it, but then put it away in the Winter.
I can then use the GSR as a Winter hack and a learning tool for changing the oil and other servicey things.
YamYam is now a 2 bike outfit, and I am so very excited about it. I will be posting up my experiences with the MT regularly and I am suddenly really excited about being on 2 wheels again. Staying on 1 bike for so many miles really does take the fun and enjoyment out of it, but now I have the beast to go to when I am feeling down, I can see things being different.
More pictures and the video review, including some derogatory comments and some funny voices. Oh dear. Thanks for visiting and look for the MT related posts, of which there will be many. I’ll be doing a bit of maintenance on the site, weeding out the lesser viewed stuff and re-arranging some bits and bobs to make posting a bit swifter.
As a wee testament to the quality poured in the MT-01, the dials as seen above are adjustable for light intensity. But not just as a whole, you can adjust the tach, the main bit at the bottom AND the needle for brightness! The needle! Makes my day, that does.
What a ripper. I just LOVE the MT styling. Always have, always will.
Video below.
(Will add here once it’s finished uploading.)
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.
#002 Ben Spies – Yamaha Italia (Artwork)
Hi all,
I am still alive, just tied up…
I have had a post titled “GSR Fixed (again)” in my post editor for the past month and have never got round to writing it.
The reason for this is my artworks and the fact that they consume every last spare minute that I have. I’ve been painting away for the past month and finally, after hours and hours and hours (around 500 hours), my #002 artwork is finished and ready for all to see.
I am finished this artwork after 1 1/2 months of work and I think it’s the bomb.
Go to my website to see the details.
Yamyambiker.com will be up and running shortly with fresh posts and lots more opportunity for summer bikers to tell me to get a scooter because obviously I can’t handle it…
Thanks all for visiting,
Gordon
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
Thoughts: Rev-It Apache Boot & Dainese Virlunga D-Dry
After my Desmo’s packed in, the Airtech GTXs disappointed and the Sidi Rain Evo’s got sold on eBay (times are tight) I had nothing left but to get the Alpinestars Effex GTX back out of retirement, complete with mud and cobwebs from working in the garden with them on.
The only issue however is now the Effex boots are wasted. There are still two holes in the shift patch and the sole (the reason for the retirement) and the sole is compacted to a wafer, so comfort isn’t really what you would call comfortable. Not only that, they are cold and leak like a pair of boots with two holes in them.
So I got thinking about what was out there now that could possibly fill the void left when my Desmo’s packed in. What kind of boot could be worn day in day out, in Scottish winter weather, as well as walking about in them, washing my bike in them and generally living in them. What boots are there in the market RIGHT NOW, that could possibly fit the bill?
What do you think of these then?
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT!! Wow.
I stumbled across these boots when searching for another boot that I liked the look of. I’ll come to those in a minute.
These Rev-It Apache boots are precisely what I would imagine a boot to look like, should it fit the requested spec I mentioned before. It looks rugged. But it also looks comfortable. It looks solid. Most of all, it looks really quite smart.
These retail for around £160 in the UK. There’s a variety of tech going on in here, including a sole that was derived from hiking boots. WebBikeWorld calls them a “Mashup” in that they merge off-road boots with hiking boots with touring boots and racing boots. It’s a best of all worlds type boot.
I am really intrigued by these. Could they be the answer to my Scottish boot nightmare?
The other boot I mentioned was the Dainese Virunga D-Dry boot. It looks like this:
These boots look like comfy bams I have to say. I also like the combination of soft materials combined with ratchet style closure as an extra security feature.
They don’t look as solid as the Apaches but I prefer the softer look.
I’m going to try and get my hands on either or both of these boots and give them the YamYam review treatment. Fingers crossed because I am really starting to tire of having cold wet feet.
Stay tuned!
Winter Hack
What what what.
My last post to have the blue banner of information said that I was in a so-so mood, had done 24486.3 miles on my GSR and…go to yamyambiker.com.
Since then, as you can see with my new blue banner of information, I have increased in mood by 3 bars, I have covered 2619 more miles on my GSR and you’ve still to go to yamyambiker.com.
So what’s the chat? What have I been doing that’s so damn interesting to keep me from my YamYam duties. Well as you know, I sometimes go for ages and then end up writing a long assed post, so perhaps this might be one of those moments. I’ll start from where I left it…that is I had just reviewed my current jacket (Wolf Titanium if you ask), I had been told I would be better suited to a scooter because I couldn’t handle my Kwak ER-6n and I was off to Tenerife. Not before emailing West Coast Harley about their current Buell stock, a small yamyam probe to see what the deal was (deal…get it?)
Well I got back from a spectacular 2 weeks of sunshine, sleeping, eating (a lot) and bobbing in an extremely cold pool. Like a true Scotsman, I sucked it up and I was in there pretty much every day, floating like a fleshy coloured iceberg, whilst others sat shivering on their sunbeds. I didn’t care. I wasn’t thinking about work, I wasn’t thinking about the thousands of troubled thoughts that plagued my mind on a daily basis. For 2 weeks (well, 1.3 really) I was awol from my mind, from my life back in Scotland and all that was really to do was decide what to eat (crisps or bread), what to wear (usually just shorts…easy ladies, and a t-shirt) and what to do; float or read…or watch a film…or go for a walk.
We arrived back in Scotland to an extremely cold, windy, wet Saturday morning, having had our plane delayed a wee bit. I sat on my couch at 6am deliberating whether or not to go to bed or just ride it out and see how far I made it. I went to bed.
It was great being back really. I love Scotland and no matter how many Hunters Chicken I ate (a delicious meal prepared by someone other than me in a restaurant filled with alcohol and sunshine), it’s still no match for the stiff, crisp Scottish air. Refreshing some might say.
Before heading away on holiday I had realigned my broadband duties from Virgin to O2, because I found Virgin’s internet to be slow in the evenings, slow enough that I had to buffer some films from Sky Player a few times.
What a mistake that was. From the get-go O2 were dismal, utterly dismal. Think along the lines of trying to open a YouTube video, only to have someone actually come out of your screen and scream “Who do you think you are!?” at you for even trying. I couldn’t load any videos, surfing was a task and I was totally fed up. However I had a 30 day “Happiness Guaranteed” period where I could opt out and nothing would be said of it. I gave it a little while as I was promised that the service would start to pick up shortly because of some maintenance they were doing to the lines or something.
Well guess who got their math wrong? ME. I got back from Tenerife thinking I had a good week left of my 30 days, only to find that I was actually, from Saturday of my arrival onward, 1 day in to my contract. The service was no better by the way, still as crap as always. I should have been getting 8mg. I was getting 0.3mg.
So with no time to lose, I called them up and got my MAC code, then requested my account be cancelled to be told that I am now “within contract period and it’ll cost £160 to get out of it.” After much argumenting and deliberating from O2 I got out of my shockingly bad contract and luckily I was able to go to a more safe bet, BT. Now that I have, my internet is ace, I can watch films, watch YouTube and I’ve even updated www.gordon-fraser.com to celebrate.
But all this has taken it’s toll on my time available to post here, that and just getting on with riding my bike every day with pretty much no incident.
Since getting back the weather has steadily decreased to the point of no-feely-handies. So I decided that it was time to forget looking swish, and buy some hand guards for my Gisser. I did buy them (£38) and fitted them with Dad with a little trademark Fraser persuasion.
What a difference, my hands are now wind free and really a lot warmer. Then the weather got to the point that in the morning my bars would be iced up, so really even though my hand guards were preventing wind and rain from chilling my fingers, I was still holding on to a frozen piece of metal, so my hands still got numb. The ride home however is a different story and I am ever so thankful I took the plunge and fitted them. I also re-fitted my screen unit and it’s keeping a lot of the rain and draught off me so that’s ace. The only problem is the increase in ease of speeding. I am always so used to having the drag on my body that the position I sit at naturally on the throttle is causing me to cruise faster with the aerodynamic advantage of the fairing. It has been a few times I have glanced down to see that I am not sticking to the speed limit without knowing it. ANYWAY.
Hand guards were from a V-Strom 650, for all you like minded GSR riders, and can be picked up from your local Suzuki dealership.
I mentioned the email to Buell Glasgow.
Well I sent a wee informal “Now that Buell is going south, what deals you got?” email to them and I’m not exaggerating here, 8-9 calls later they are still trying to get me in to have a chat. I’ve decided to forget going for a new Buell because I spoke to Stuart @ Jacksons Bikes about it and he said that because of the miles I do, I could quickly find myself in a position that I need a part and they can’t supply it. Say if the engine management computer packed in, and I couldn’t get a replacement, that’s my bike written off, even if the rest is in mint condition. So aye, even though I LOVE LOVE LOVE Buells, I just can’t justify it really. I’ll stick with the pain in the arse and rusty boy until it packs in (it’s been a while so touch wood nothing will happen…)
So that’s really where we are at. It’s a week until christmas, Blair is soon to be a Daddy (it could hit off anytime now) and work is busy as feck.
In a week there could be a small, brand new Fraser in this world. After a year of utter SHITE, I am desperately holding on to the hope that it’ll end well. I am hoping.
2010 is a new year. It’s a fresh start. One things for sure, it really couldn’t get any worse than what 2009 was. If it does, there’ll be bigger problems than my hands getting cold, or BT internet. 2010 could be the greatest year of everyones lives, purely for the fact that we had one of the worst years just before it. I hope for all our sakes it will be.
AHHHHHHHHH
It’s definitely time to draw a line under this post. Word count is 1308 as of this word HERE.
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Go check out my home website WWW.GORDON-FRASER.COM and feedback me.
All the best for the remaining 2009. I will speak before the bells.
Thanks for visiting all,
GORDON!
Commute=Bums
Hey!
I’ve been commuting through to Glasgow the past couple of days, it’s a real drag. The weather has been getting progressively colder, wetter and darker. I’ve switched to my clear visor permenantly now and it’s a shame, the Summer is officially over…already.
Me and Blair washed out bikes at the weekend, Blair washing his to go in to winter storage, me washing it for the…3rd time this summer. It was MANKY. But the Bro’s got it sorted and it looked smashing. Wheels were gleaming, chain was slick and smooth.
I got up this morning, chucking it down and within 10 minutes my bike was as manky as it was before we washed it…it’s hard work this motorcycle lark.
Not to worry though, because in 2 weeks I am off to sunny Tenerife! Oh AYE!
Had a quick message from Leigh on the Kawasaki ER6 page saying I would be better suited to a scooter. It made me laugh, but maybe he’s right…could this be the end of all my worries!?
Watch out folks, YamYam’s going 2-stroke…
Keep coming back folks, it’s getting to the time of year when YY goes nuts with the post count!
Gordon
Review: TCX Airtech Gore-Tex Boots
One month off. A whole month of non-yamyam action. That’s bad.
Let’s rock.
I give you, The TCX Airtech Goretex boot
So after a while of waiting and various calls to J&S, I got the TCX Airtech Gore Tex boots through in the mail. Upon initial inspection I noted to myself that these were nowhere near the effortless cool of my beloved Puma Desmo GTX.
The boot felt stiff in the hand and the rubber was really…rubbery. It reminded me of something that perhaps a fireman would wear, or a fisherman… After a few moments of visual disappointment, I unzipped those suckers and stuck em on my feet, after all it’s more about what they feel like…right?
There's only so much rubber you can take...
After struggling to get the massive velcro patch off the boot, I slipped my foot in to a very vacant feeling interior. Vacant in the sense that the boot didn’t really fit my foot, it more hovered around it. There was a lot of space for my foot to move horizontally, waving a stick in a cave…what…oh. The boot also felt really hard, rigid and not very pleasant. Nevertheless, I soldiered on and zipped them up…oh dear.
Initial feeling was “oh, that’s not really good” as the interior fabric that’s fashioned around the lip of the boot scraped against my leg. I unzipped it again thinking I had messed it up but sure enough, at the top of the boot was a ragged edge that was rough to the touch. I am not enjoying this experience.
Walking back in forward in my kitchen I was completely turned off by what my feet were saying to me. Absolutely no movement in the shin area forcing an awkward cowboy stride and moon-landing plant of the feet, albiet with a “SLAP”.
As you can see, I took photos on my wet patio table. After doing this, I put them on in my kitchen and immediately my grip was lost, due to some moisture being left on the sole. This was not a good indication of the available grip for say, when you put your foot down at the lights when there just happens to be some diesel spilt on the wet road…
Bugs eye toe cap...mmmm. Not.
There is a natural “That’s enough” point in a products design. With the Puma Desmo it wasn’t ever crossed, I wanted more of it and would have lapped it up with a squint face.
With the TCX Airtech GTX, the point at which “that’s enough” was reached happened as soon as the box was opened and eyes were rested upon the feast of rubber and mesh.
It may be slightly harsh to say it, but I will say it. On a web shop with the Airtech at a 45° angle and the right lighting this boot looks pretty good. In reality, this boot should never have left the design office. It’s an over stiff, non-user-friendly lump of hard rubber and mesh that makes you partially vomit in to your mouth, and then, after you have wiped the barf off the floor, you try the boots on and you suddenly have the urge to scoop your eyes out with a spoon, only after you have picked yourself up from slipping on the slightly damp floor.
A boo-boo if ever I saw one, and a real shame. I never wore these on the bike. I made the pose of being on my bike, using my kitchen bar-stool as a make shift peg and I immediately knew this was a no-go. And to top off all this lovin’, you then have that annoying rubbing on your leg from the really really reeheeheeeelly (too much Scrubs) bad craftsmanship and materials choice.
Bad one.
Sorry TCX, you’ve blown it.
Fuel Light Challenge #1 RESULTS!
Read it and weep.
As Aaron said on the first post, this was quite a hard challenge to stick to, not to mention boring. It was amazing just how slow it felt going 70mph, not because I am so used to bombing along, but because everyone else was bombing past me at ridiculous speeds. Does anyone stick to the speed limits these days?
I would be tooting along at 70mph and I was able to look about more, noticing things I hadn’t even seen previously. An added benefit to watching your speed: you get to sightsee more. 
So how did it all work out then? Well from the chart you can see that I did 39 more miles, it used 2.2l more fuel and returned just about 10mpg more. I used the MPG calculator here to calculate these figures.
So in the end was it worth it? Well I have to say yes. It got me further on less fuel and I was able to relax a bit more on the journey. It would save me £300 a year as well which may not seem like much but it’s something.
Hope you found it useful!
Gordon
50% Off All Prints
Well well,
As you may or may not know, I have a wee shop where I sell my wares in the shape of photographs. These are available immediately to buy, and as of this very minute are on offer of 50% off all orders.
If you use the code: YAMYAM at the checkout, you will get a whopping 50% off. Now that’s a good deal. Some examples of the great stuff you can buy are below. Click HERE to go there right now!
All images are available in 15″ x 9″ glossy photo prints.
2009-06-22 – Thoughts
My mood is pretty low at the minute. Maybe substitute mood for morale.
It seems to be getting windier every day and although today was the first dry commute this week, it was still not very pleasant.
The bike is still playing up, cutting out, indicators flashing fast or not working at all. The Bridgestones (BT021) are working a treat though, Stuart was right; I wasn’t on the right tyre for my needs. The rear still has similar grip levels but are not wearing half as much as my old 16′s. I’ve had them for over 2 months now and there is no apparent squaring.
Riding through Tillicoultry the other day I saw a boy on the back of a bike wearing a t-shirt. I instantly wanted to slap the helmet off his head…would’ve been easy as it probably wasn’t fastened. Why bother?
On Sunday for the first time in A G E S me and Em went out on the bike and I cruised. No red liners or the need to go fast. I bumbled along and I felt really relaxed, allowing time to take in what was whizzing past instead of looking for the next point to ATTACK!
We headed over to Stirling via Crook of Devon, Alloa etc and it was great having no agenda, we were just out for a Sunday totter. There was a load of bikers out, all shapes and sizes, sportsbikes, harleys, tourers, trailies.
Em got a new dark visor for her Shark RSi Eden helmet and it looks smart as feck. I’ll post up a picture later.
Saw a Kawasaki 800 Drifter at the weekend and couldn’t help but imagine myself cruising about on one. Sounded beefy and looked like a lazy boy. I don’t know if I’m starting to gravitate towards a more relaxed bike, MT-01 perhaps…can you call the MT-01 relaxed in any shape or form? Maybe not.
I’m going to Tenerrife in November. This may seem like no big deal, but the whole scenario takes on a different meaning when you realise how quickly I burn. I won’t even be off the plane and I’ll be in need of some medical attention. It looks not to hot though in Nov which is a good thing. The place we are going looks fantastic and behind it sits an active volcano, something which I will be heading up. This holiday can’t come soon enough.
British Superbikes come to Knockhill in a week or so, really looking forward to that. Hopefully the weather will remain somewhat dry and we can get some good racing. Last year was quite wet which spoiled a lot of it, but I’ll not forget the demonstration by the rescue helicopter right above us. Amazing.
Anyway,
Thanks to all that have left comments and check out my various links to Flickr and whatnot.
Gordon
p.s. check out the new sticker for my helmet:
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 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.
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.
RST Motorcycle Clothing vs YamYam
Hello all and apoligies for the complete lack of text since my last post.
I have been busy! So to make up for it, here’s a ridiculously long post for your viewing pleasure:
On Monday 24th March, I had a crap end to my day at work. I finished at around 5:30pm and got all my gear on, rucksack and got my helmet and gloves, but couldn’t find my key.
Then I found it after 30 minutes of faffing around in my winter gear in a hot office, so was in a bit of a state. Then I get out to my bike and as go to swing my leg over I hear a RRIIPPP…I take my right glove off and check the crotch as I knew exactly what had happened. Big rip where one material was stitched in to the other. Funny that! (see this post)
Here’s a wee quote from that post:
Here’s hoping the “Pro” range will last longer than 9 months or even 2 weeks!! We’ll see.
Well I got them in September and it’s now the end of March…that is…..(where’s my calculator!HAHA!) 6 months. Now I was really angry, but after ripping the crotch, I didn’t have a melt down at all, actually I was pretty surprised at myself. I just got on the bike and said so what, Ill just take them back and the boys at Scott Murray will help me out. But I tell you what, by the time I got home it was a different story. It just so happened to be 1*c and the hole acted as an air-vent…=extreme freeze.
If you read that linked post, you’ll see that i have already had my fair share of RST stuff failing on me, and every time something failed I just took it back to SM and they either returned it, replaced it or refunded me. So usually I wouldn’t be too upset and go see the boys. But I had enough this time, and was so disappointed this time, with the Pro Series as well, that I wrote a letter to RST!
Now after my last attempt at a letter about my misfortunes, you would have thought I didn’t think a letter would do much good…and you’re right! But I didn’t know what else to do because I was so fed up with this RST problem that I needed to do something.
So I set about writing a letter, perhaps a few pages long and I wanted to achieve an overall feeling of disappointment with it. I tried to document exactly what my experience with RST has been like and show them where they are perhaps falling short of the mark.
2 hours and 4 pages later, I had finished. I never realised up until now just how much trouble I had had with the RST stuff! Well at least it was all in black and white now.
I let Blair proof read it and I saved it ready to be printed and posted first class recorded the next morning.
A wee excerpt for your viewing pleasure:
“…Since January 2007 I have had an Electric Jacket whose zip fell off, 2 pairs of Syncro Plus jeans that detached themselves from themselves, a Cruz Leather jacket which I sold because the collar bugged me, 2 pairs of SRT6-7 gloves which fell apart, 2 Pro Series Paragon Jackets one of which broke, a set of Pro Series Paragon jeans which have now burst and a pair of GP Pilot gloves, which are excellent by the way. I am 100% chuffed with them so far and they seem to be of great quality. If you total all that up, I have used around £500 of my hard earned money, with my girlfriend adding another £200 on to that, include another set of RST gloves for her and we are looking at around £700 of RST products that have either failed or are failing.”
So that was that!
I printed it out on nice paper, got a “Do Not Bend” envelope and posted that bad boy off to MotoDirect, the address of which I got off of the RST website under UK Distributor. I had no idea if this was even an office or anything, but there wasn’t anywhere else I could post it, so I marked it for Customer Services and off it went!
Saturday came and I headed to Scott Murray to let them know about my trousers. It was Blair and I, and I was looking forward to telling the boys I had sent a letter to RST.
As we entered the shop Ian immediately said “Mr Fraser!” He mentioned he got my email and I was like “What are you talking about?”
“The email that you sent to RST!” I didn’t send Ian a copy of it, so how the hell did he know about it!?
“Yeah, the letter you sent!”
“I didn’t send you it, did I?”
“I’ll be with you in 5 minutes I just have to see to this customer here.”
Fair enough I said and Billy was just coming off the phone. Good chat ensued and I showed him my trousers. He said that unfortunately RST have changed their returns policy and I would have to return them. Fair enough I said, but I needed a pair of trousers to get to work in. Billy showed me some leathers stuff, all nice but a bit out of my price bracket @ £260. I didn’t want to buy any more textile trousers as then I would have 2 sets when my broken ones returned.
Anyway we had a chat and Billy left to sort out the duff trousers. Then Ian came along and we started chatting about the whole RST letter deal.
It turns out that Ian was actually down at the RST HQ last week, and he was actually standing beside the manager when a girl from marketing/customer services handed him my letter. As he started to read it he noticed “Scott Murray Motorcycles, Dunfermline” in the second paragraph and said to Ian, “Here, you’re in this letter!?”
Ian had a look and immediately said “Ah Gordon! I know him!” then continued on reading the letter. Ian said that he agreed with everything and that the manager also read it and agreed with all of it as well! He said the manager was actually really pleased to have received a letter about his RST stuff!
After reading the letter the manager went down the list of stuff I had had from RST and he was like “Electric jacket, yep, agree with that, Syncro jeans, yep, agree with that…” Ian then told the guy, “This guy rides his bike 24/7, so he knows what he is talking about.”
WOW! I don’t think that one could imagine a better scenario when writing a letter of complaint. I mean, here’s the manager bloke of RST, having a meeting with the owner of my local shop, my letter comes in with the local shop owners name in it and they both read it and agree with everything! MEGA. Blair still can’t get his head around it.
Ian then mentioned that he went to the various departments within RST and they all had my letter and mentioned to Ian that he was in it! He was laughing saying he was fed up hearing about it by the time he was done! HA!
I was gobsmacked! How perfect could it get!? Well I tell you, Ian then said that all the various departments were all going to get together and putting their heads together to offer me up a solution and that they would definitely be getting a letter out to me asap!
I couldn’t believe it! We laughed about it for a bit and then me and Blair went to look at some gear. Billy came up and said that the trousers would get sent off Monday and that it should take around a week to process…then he stopped mid sentence and said “actually, I will put a note on it that these are your trousers and I’ll hand them to the UK rep who can get them pushed through quicker”
Brilliant!
Even now I am still amazed at the unbelievable chance that Ian was visiting RST on the day of my letter arriving. I mean he could have visited the day before and they would have known nothing more about it. But because Ian was there to say, I know this guy and he is telling the truth, it made the impact of my letter 1000% better! The universe aligned and it was like it was meant to be.
I joked with the boys that I had bigged their shop up and Ian said cheers for doing that, its great! Billy was even more chuffed as I gave him a special mention! Giving a tiny something back to the boys who have given me so much.
So there you go!!
Over the weekend, despite having food poisoning, I managed to purchase some Puma Desmo 800 GTX boots and some Hardas Elite Kevlar jeans. I will post some pictures up when they arrive!
Thanks for reading this ridiculously long post, but I appreciate it!
Ill keep you up to date on what happens with RST and what the outcome is!
Cheers
Gordon
We have clearance Clarence
Hello all.
First things first, you will notice that to the left is a wee picture. This is a new feature with my blog, patented and copyrighted by me, so don’t even think of copying it.
For every new post I make, I will include said picture which should give an accurate representation of what my mileage is with my new bike. So there you go! I am quite excited to track just how many miles go on to the GSR and this gives an easy way of doing it.
Anyway, on to the post: NEW STUFF.
The Scotland trip is coming up in May. We are heading out on Friday 23rd, early doors and head for Inverness. Anyway, Blair and I wanted an intercomm system because we were fed up shouting stuff to each other and if we are on the move, which we will be 99% of the time on the trip, we need an efficient way of saying, “I need petrol” or “look at that 15ft Hawk about to eat your head off…”
So we looked at intercomms, and there were some good, some obviously bad, cheap, expensive and odd. Some names to mention were AutoComm, StarComm and IntaRide. I was really up for IntaRide, we used them when on the DAS course with ProScot. They were really clear and although we had the duff, bare plastic edged logistical earpiece on, the sound was excellent at all speeds, including the faster, country road sections. However, the IntaRide stuff starts at £130. Now, I was up for paying that because I want a system that works when I want it, every single time. I understood that you get what you pay for and that was that. But Blair being Blair, he wasnt up for the out of pocket expense, and fair enough, £130 is a lot of money, and this trip is going to cost a bit anyway.
So we looked to other methods. How about getting them all seperate then? Ok, well what radios should we get? We looked at Motorolas, Alans, Midland and Philips. The Alan G7′s got a really lengthy consideration, but then I stumbled across the Alan 777′s. These were really smart, very compact and would be perfect for what we wanted, a small radio which could be on the person, thus not too big and heavy. The 777 also had new tech in it, like a mobile phone lith-ion battery thingy and a host of features that sounded good…like 38 CTCSS…who knows, but it sounded good.
We found them here, which worked out as £60 for 2, £30 each for radios, instead of £100. So far so good. What about headsets? well again, here for £19.99 each! So for £50 we were getting a full rig! Plastic money was produced and virtual money exchanged virtual hands. CUT to today, when I opened them up and seen what it was all about:
This is the Alan 777. It is tiny, has a small inverted LCD display and a nice cherry red paint finish
Click below to see the rest of this post and tonnes of pictures…
O2 Eliminator Mod
Hello folks.
Having ridden a week with my new GSR600 I was already getting fed up with the snatchy throttle. It was the reason I didn’t get the GSR in the first place and I was getting frustrated. However I ordered something called an o2 eliminator before I even had the bike itself. The o2 eliminator is a small plug which you put in place of the cable that runs to the exhaust sensor. I am not entirely sure what it does, but assume it loops the circuit in some way to fool the engine in to thinking that it needs to run rich. Because the snatchy throttle was caused by the engine running lean, the o2 eliminator would remove this problem, or so I hoped anyway.
So on Thursday last week my stuff arrived, forks for my rear paddock stand and the o2 plug. I had ordered bobbins but they were suspiciously not in the parcel.
This is the o2 eliminator, and even though it says “Honda” on the packet, it’s designed for many makes and models of bikes.
So there it is!
I had spoken to my mechanic about getting him to fit it and he said it was easy, but shouldn’t be any more than £30.
Click below to see the installation and tonnes of pictures…
New bike, New rules.
Hello
Saturday 26th January was the day I would or wouldn’t get a new bike. It was a mix of emotions. On the one hand I was really excited about a new bike, I was glad to be away from the ER6 and I was excited because I liked the GSR. I wasn’t so excited about the radiator problem, the Suzuki workshop check on the ER6 and the possible snatchy GSR throttle issue.
I headed out to my mechanics shop to have him look at the radiator, which had a problem of steaming a lot. When I was on my way to work the other day it was chucking it down with rain and when I stopped at a set of lights, the whole front of the bike was like a kettle. I was worried that it was a burst radiator having just forked out £300 for new parts. Fortunately when I got to the shop and Stuart had a wee look, he said there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. One worry was off my mind, but now the real worry was ahead.
I was worried that because I had said there was a crack in the fairing, they wanted a “full workshop check.” What is a full workshop check? Do they go over the bike with a fine toothed comb? Do they just run some checks? It was this unknown that made me most worried.
I met my brother on the way to the garage and we tootled along, arriving 30 minutes late. We headed inside and spoke with Roger who said that he would take the bike in to the garage and had I seen the silver GSR out front. I noticed it on the way in and it looked pretty smart, and I knew that it was my GSR. Bro and I headed round and he was amused that I had managed to get so many add ons for less money than he paid 3 months ago.
We hung around for 20-30 minutes, went back inside and Roger called me over. I signed many bits of paper and everything was checked and okayed. I then noticed that under the part exchange price there was £1950, which meant I was good to go! We headed out to the bike and Roger went over a few bits with me. Then I was all set to go!
It was a brilliant feeling riding out on a bike that had 0 miles on it. (It actually had 4, for checking the bike and a fuel run in) Off we went, two GSR’s in harmony. It was funny as whenever we pulled up to lights or stopped, we would be side by side and the engines would run at the same idle speed, creating this deep rumble.
I had a smile on my face all the way to the Shell garage where Blair needed to fill his bike up with petrol.
So there we go! A new bike! Hurrah!
I have done 300 miles on it so far, but I haven’t been able to ride it the past 2 days due to the horrific weather hitting the west of Scotland.
The snatchy throttle is starting to annoy me, but I have ordered the O2 Eliminator and some bobbins so that this weekend I can hopefully get it nice and clean and working how it should.
Here’s a few pictures of my new GSR600s, and here’s to a bike that I will have for the next 3 years…..hopefully!
Click below to see the rest of the pics…
January 2008
2008 got off to quite a bad start, but I’m past that now and want to look to the future. I will now do a monthly post as well as the random through the week posts so I can talk about the month and what’s to come for YamYam.
I have commited to Suzuki now, the details have all been set up, the finance agreed, the insurance fixed and the Kwak ready to go. The story for getting the GSR went something like this:
I emailed the guy at the garage and as stated before the deal was £1900 for my bike in exchange for the GSR @ £4295, leaving £2395 to pay. After speaking with my mechanic and a few other folks it turned out I was getting offered shit for what is really a good bike. So I emailed the garage back and asked if there was anything that they could do price wise, for either bike. I said I felt a bit disappointed about not getting a comparable sum for my bike as was offered from other dealers.
A firm “no” was given, but I was offered the explanation that the reason the bike part exchange price is so low is due to the prices of their bikes being so low anyway, so in actual fact, it’s all relative. I was also given the 0% finance lark and the cheapest price for a GSR in the UK as additional reasons for going with them.
I emailed back saying fair enough, I agree that the 0% is good etc etc, but I am really at the last stop as far as bikes are concerned. I explained about what happened with the Yamaha MT-03 and how Yamaha handled it, then about the Buell disappointment etc and that I hoped Suzuki would take a more vested interest in their customers etc. This would be the last bike I could possibly get so I hoped it would be the right choice.
Then I got an email thanking me for my understanding reply and assured me I would be looked after properly. Then he said as an added bonus, they have now upgraded me to a GSR600s model, with the additional nose screen worth a whopping £250. Which I checked out and he was telling the truth!
So that has really made it for me, I have been given the crash mushrooms and the “s” model upgrade to sweeten the deal, as well as the Alpha Dot etc etc. It really doesn’t matter now that the Kawasaki is going for such a low price, it’s been balanced with the options I have been given. So there.
I will pick up my bike tomorrow morning @ 10am. It’s due to be pi$$ing it down but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that something changes.
Insurance wise I got fully comp, helmet and leather cover and NCB protection for £420, which is an absolute steal compared with Bennets @ £595 standard (i.e. no helmet cover etc) and ebike @ £650, same as Bennets, no helmet cover. So I am chuffed about that. Plus the Express Insurance that I went with are official Suzuki partners so they do deals on Suzuki’s. Done.
All in all I am really excited about tomorrow, I am excited about a fresh start, I am excited about the faster and better handling bike. I am excited about the dials, which is like a mega computer compared to the ER6′s bog standard dials.
What will 2008 hold for YamYam then? Well the Scotland trip is a go-er. We still haven’t planned the route but we are going for around a week, counter-clockwise around the Scottish coast. I really can’t wait.
I’ll keep you updated with the new bike thrill.
Thanks for looking folks, I really appreciate the comments and views that you give.
Cheers
Gordon
Repair Bills and Suzuki
Goodevening all.
This weekend was a mixture of good and bad. But lets be positive and start off on the good.
Got the ER6 back on Friday, one of the windiest days so far this year. It was looking ace in the dark, really shiny and it was cleaned quite well. Got all my still dirty gear on and headed home from the Garage. It was a weird feeling riding for the first time after the accident. But moreover it wasn’t a secure feeling on the ER6. Really twitchy.
The repair bill was quite reasonable. The parts list was as follows:
-
Gear Lever £25.98
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Generator Cover and Gasket £52.62
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L/H Front Indicator £23.67
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Front Brake Lever £25.45
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Rear Brake Lever £20.30
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R/H Footpeg and bank sensor £46.62
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Clutch Lever £7.67
So there you go.
On Saturday I went to the Suzuki garage and started arranging the GSR. I chatted away with the guy about it all and gave some details, £200 holding fee which they refund me in a weeks time….silly, and some details about the ER6, at which point he asked what the condition was of it. I said that it was good condition and that it was a test ride bike so has marks on the footpeg hangers. There is also a crack on the fairing. At this point he took interest and asked what sort of crack etc. And eventually he said well we need to do a workshop check before agreeing on the price for the ER6. He wants it in showroom condition so may need to order some parts in. Ok I said and off we went, agreeing that Saturday was the time to do it all.
When I arrived home i went out to the ER6 and took the front fairing off to inspect in in the kitchen and it was scraped to buggery. If he sees this he’s going to know that it was dropped etc so I need to replace it.
So I will call the Garage tomorrow and get one ordered as I dont really want to go in Saturday and they say “ooo it’ll cost you £200 for a new one so we’ll take that off the part exchange price..” when it actually would have cost me £50. At least it gives me proof of them trying to pull my pants over my head. But it’s all depending on what the boys at Suzuki deem to be “Showroom Condition.”
We’ll just have to wait and see. Me and Em went out for a 2 hour ride today and I put the helmet cam on her this time. Which shows a really smart angle. I’ll convert it tomorrow and post it up to let you see. However the lens gets dirty again. I am starting to think that this camera will only be really good in the complete dry weather. But it was a good ride out and already my confidence has came back.
I also got my quote through from Express Insurance, with £395 as the official quote.
So yeah, I’ll keep you posted on what happens with Suzuki.
Thanks for looking folks,
Gordon
