Everyday Superbikes EDSBK

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 01:37:00 +0000

Rules on moving bikes through the EU in a van.

In 2023 we didn't have a road trip on the bikes. Partly due to the situation that Brexit has caused.

Since leaving the EU some of the European Agencies see moving motorbikes in the back of a van as moving goods, this requires a Carnet, which is a load of unnecessary paperwork and of course this extra paperwork has a cost... quotes I have seen are around £350 per bike.

It seems there is not a definitive rule about this and it can depend on luck once you get to the other side of the channel. Being caught without the Carnet could have your bike taken away and scrapped if you don't pay the fine which will be more than the Carnet. I have recently read about some cyclists who were hit with a £7k bill for transporting around £60k of bicycles in a van. For us at the moment its most off putting.

For now we are playing it safe and sticking to the UK. With the luggage we can carry on the sports bikes, realistically its only big enough for a few days away if you want some sort of normality and not live in your leathers. Travelling to Spain and Portugal which is where we would like to be, means journeys of 8 nights away and we just cant carry that amount of clothes in 1 oxford saddle bag.
To do that it would be better to use a bike dedicated to that kind of a journey such as a tourer/adventure bike with 3 fixed luggage containers and a more comfortable riding position.

When we go into Europe we like to base ourselves at a hotel, have 3 or 4 days for exploring that area, and find a road for our ultimate road list. Having the van there means comfort for the long journey there and back, security, more space to carry a suitcase and basic tools, and we have our own breakdown recovery vehicle if its needed.

Plus factoring in the fatigue on this style of bike, the cost of a set of tyres, the extra mileage and break down cover for 20 year old bikes, makes the riding the bikes from home to Spain and back more of a test of endurance than a trip to look forward to.

Another option is to fly to a destination and hire bikes to use when you are there. It would probably work out similar to hiring a van, paying to get the van over on the ferry and paying the tolls to get to where you are going.

With that in mind 2024's road trip is still in the planning stage.

Triumph Heated Grips Issue

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 15:33:00 +0000

My new Triumph arrived in the middle of a heat wave, as you can imagine there is no need for heated grips in July and August, other than pressing the button and seeing the little light come on on the dash I hadn't tried to see how hot they got.

It went for a service at 1000 miles in August and a new patch was added to the computer.

On my bike this patch has affected the heated grips. The dealer was made aware of the problem in September when I discovered it, they had the bike and couldn't fix the problem, they told me the grips were faulty so ordered a new set. 2 weeks later they fitted them and the new ones didn't work either.

The symptom is, you press the button on the handle grip to switch them on, the light illuminates on the dash to say its working but the bike fails to send the power to the grips to make them go warm.

The dealer says Triumph are aware of the problem and are working on a fix for this which should be available by end of October. At the end of October the fix was not included in their latest update so now its looking like the end of November 2022 and for me another month of cold hands.

At the moment these grips are a £200 option which is an OEM part. I did contact Triumph about this problem myself to see if they had an estimated time for this to be corrected, but unfortunately Triumph did not respond. The dealer has been very helpful though so cant fault them.

I have posted this as I cant find any reference to it on the internet, and the dealer says other customers are also experiencing the same problem.

UPDATE!

As its now early December 2022 I have contacted Triumph again about this issue and this is what I have been told:-

The Factory are aware of the concern and have been actively working on a software update to the instruments in order to reinstate the functionality of the heated grips. The cause of the issue was more complex than we first realised which has resulted in the fix taking longer than we would have liked.
I am pleased to inform you that we have an expected release date of the 12th December when we aim to release the revised software to our dealer network for them to update their customers' bike that require it. This will of course be carried out free of charge under warranty.

Fingers crossed I will be riding with warm hands in the next few weeks..

Test Ride Triumph Street Triple RS

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 18:26:00 +0000

While my Triumph Trident was away having its 1st service, I was given a loan bike to use, the Triumph Speed Triple RS.

I was told to be careful as the power was much different to the Trident.....

The Speed Triple has a very similar ride position to the Trident which I liked, instantly you could feel the difference in the initial grunt from the 121bhp 765cc engine when pulling away. Its not a massive difference to be fare but it is noticeable compared to the 81bhp 660cc engine in the Trident. On a ride you can leave it in the gears longer when accelerating and has a higher rev range which means you might get to 60mph in 2nd rather than 3rd on the Trident, and the sound it makes is very nice indeed. This bike had the quickshift fitted which felt smooth and gives that great sound as it changes gear.

The bike costs a lot more than the Trident starting from about £11,000 compared to the £7,400 for the Trident. This means you get some better equipment as standard, such as adjustable front forks and a bit of space under the back seat... I am sure there's other things too...you'll have to look for them.

Handling wise I thought it felt very similar to the Trident, both bikes score good points here, braking felt good going in and holding a line when cornering, the suspension definitely felt firmer than the Trident, if I liked that better though I am not sure?

The speedo has a lot of info on it, not over cluttered but lots on the screen at once, I didn't like it as much as the speedo on the trident though.

Now my personal view is it felt an awesome tool to ride, but its looks are of the type only a mother could love. I struggled to find a good angle to get a photo of it, as you can see. The headlights are definitely the love or hate item of this bike, and as you might have guessed they don't look good to me. The test bike I used was in black with green stickers here ant there, currently on the Triumph website you get the choice of just 1 colour which is black. I do like the number plate position and the wheels though. Infact if you could put the Speedo and head light from the Trident and smarten the plastic below the seat I might have gone for one of these next time, but never say never.

If you are interested in this type of bike, book a test ride, you wont be disappointed I am sure.

My Triumph Trident 660

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 19:09:00 +0000

As much as I like my Fireblade there comes a time where you want something easier to live with so with that in mind I have been looking at other styles of bike. After a while I've narrowed it down to the Honda CB650r or the Triumph Trident 660. I love the look of this style of bike, always have since I first had a ride on a Suzuki bandit 600 back in the late 1990s and my very first bike was a Yamaha RD50 with a single round headlight.

I took a test ride on the Triumph and loved it. I've always wanted to own a Triumph, so paid my deposit ordering a brand new one in white and added a few bits via the configurator, selecting the heated grips, the lower fairing, the quick shift and a couple of other bits that are cosmetic. Also added a short screen above the headlight, swapped the mirrors for bar end ones and changed the brake levers for adjustable black ones.

We have completed over 1500 miles together which means its fully run in, and now its time to share some of my thoughts and findings. I do like sports style bikes, its all I have ever owned for the last 25 years so can only compare it to those when ridden on the roads.

Coming from a 1000cc bike with 145bhp to a bike with 660cc and 81bhp was a bit risky as I didn't know if it would be powerful enough to be interesting. So lets deal with that first. The Trident is definitely no slouch, from 0 - 60mph is plenty fast enough, the figures say its about 4 seconds, following Col he is a fraction quicker up to road speeds and beyond but its not massively different if you want to keep your licence. It runs out of revs through the gears quicker than I am used to when getting up to 60 but the quickshift helps out in that area. The Trident comes with traction control and 2 modes, 1 for rain and one for.... when its not raining...

The handling however, I do prefer over the Fireblade's, the Trident feels so easy to ride, you can change your line around a corner, lean it in more and the power delivery works with the handling, Triumph really have got the mix of power and handling balanced perfectly.

The bikes built to a price, so no adjustable front forks which is a shame, but the ones fitted do work fine, and the brakes have plenty of stopping power, even ABS is included. The rear shock is adjustable in case you are heavier or have a passenger.

Mine has quick shift, it does make the bike for me, you only need the clutch when you pull away or stop, it will change up the box under power and down when you are off the power, just by pressing your foot up or down. It just keeps the power to the wheel when accelerating, no drop of power between the gears.

Mine is showing an average MPG of 66.9 I cant quite get it to 67, but this is riding the same as I would ride the Fireblade, not taking it easy. When I fill up Col tends to put about 4 pounds more than me for each tank full for the same journey, so owning this bike is saving me a little money in fuel.

The TFT is very easy to read and use, it has a number of "trays" Triumphs word for screens and you can set these up how you want them. It always shows which gear is selected which I find quite useful. When you get it you can enter your name, theres a big section on how to do it in the manual, but after the update it cant do it, the dealer couldnt explain it either, but that is not really a concern at all.

The seat is softer than the race bikes I have owned and the handle bars higher, this makes long rides so much more comfortable. I don't suffer with any of the complaints that I have done over the last 10 years, such as knee and leg ache, neck ache, wrist ache and hand ache, infact when Col has had enough I could do the same ride again. Its rekindled my love for biking it really has.

The lights are all Led and give a nice bright light, there is also self cancelling indicators, how I have longed for such a thing. There is 1 missing button, the flash button, you have to press the main beam button twice to flash, but that's nothing major.

Not everything is perfect, the throttle is fly by wire and has a small amount of lag when you first pull away, it makes me think of an automatic scooter I once road. There is no storage space under the seat, it would have been nice to get enough room for a disk lock, I have managed to get a smaller disk lock which will just fit on top of the battery. And the bit where the number plate lives is a love it or loath it part. It seems a lot of brands are building new bikes with a similar feature, I do quite like it but I can see it might look better with the number plate fitted under the seat, however, for now its staying as is. One thing that has improved it is to paint the back of the number plate black as it doesn't stand out so much.

It had heated grips as one of the options I ticked. They didn't work for 6 months, even though the light came on to say they were working. However, It was Triumphs fault, to do with a problematic update. Its fixed now. The grips get luke warm at best. Compared to the Oxford ones on the Fireblade, they are about like 50% so the faster you go the more useless they become. If I had of known I would have had Oxford ones and not worried about having the light on the dash.

The sound from the 3 cylinder engine is nice, and the exhaust is not loud at all when you are riding it. I do think about changing that but having seen the alternatives so far, they dont sound that great. If they could make it sound more like the street triple rs it would be more my thing.

Overall if you are after this style and size of bike, I would recommend you take one for a test ride. I enjoy mine and it makes me smile when I see it. Its more fun and comfortable than the bikes I have been used too and costs less to maintain too.

Road Trip 2022 Peak District and Snowdonia

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 21:41:00 +0000

Col and I don't live that far from the Peak district to our North. It's the kind of distance you could do easily in 1 day, but the journey to get there is kind of boring. Its either through the built up areas or along the Motorway and its a few hours before you get there.

The Peak district does however have the Cat and Fiddle road or as its correctly know the A537. We have often heard of this road mentioned in pubs and magazines so decided it should be on our places to visit list.

This was the first ride for my new bike, the Triumph Trident 660, I had only picked it up 2 days before. (there will be a review on that soon)

Day 1, Our first night was booked at Buxton in the Premier Inn. On the way we tried to avoid the motorways as I was running the bike in and we just didn't want to go via them, so picked a route around Wolverhampton and Stafford, through Uttoxeter, Ashbourne and on to Matlock Bath for some dinner. We found a chip shop with parking in front and sat in the street eating our chips. Col spotted 5 other chip shops from where we sat, they must eat a lot of chips up there!

After dinner we headed north west towards Lady Bower, the reservoir is there so we stopped to take a rest and watch the world go by for a while. There is a road called Snake Road (A57) to the north of the reservoir I had spotted this when looking for places to stay, its twisty so I thought perfect for us. It didn't disappoint and was the best road of the day. Eventually we found our destination which was perfect, the bikes were hidden and were undercover which was good as it rained through the night. While having a pint in the bar we commented about the amount of our route that had 50mph limits, nearly all of them North of Wolverhampton, which was handy as 50mph was about as fast as I could go before the rev counter flashed in annoyance for over revving during the 1st 250 miles of the bikes existence.

Day 2, we planned to go to North Wales to spend 2 nights in the Premier Inn at Llandudno Junction. We loaded the bikes up with our luggage and head of to the A537 and the Cat and Fiddle for a coffee. It was only about 10 minutes from the hotel, the road was fun but has a 50mph limit on it and average speed check cameras.

We picked our way West on lots of roads with 50mph speed limits, via Macclesfield then Crewe, eventually finding our way to the Ponderosa café on the horseshoe pass near Llangollen. From there its West along the A5 and the A470. This was another fun road, which again, over a pint we decided was the best road of the day.

The hotel was fine for what we wanted it for, comfy room and the bikes hidden from the road. As the weather had been very good when we got to Wales we decided to get some chips in town, then take a ride to the top of the Great Orm and then follow the coastal road down around the back of the hill which was very picturesque.

Day 3, The route we took started by going back up the A470 until it meets the A5, then along the A5 to Capel Curig, staying on the A5 until it meets the A4244 following the signs for Llanberis, where we stopped for dinner, then continue along until it meets the A4086 and eventually meeting the A5 again. Then its back to the hotel. We fell lucky not getting caught in any rain, but missing it by minutes by the look of the wet roads.

Day 4, The long ride home. We came home via Bala, where there is another of our favourite places to get a coffee. By now Col was beginning to feel the problems that touring on a Supersports bike delivers. Stiffness in his legs and hands and an uncomfortable seat. Although Bala is only 90 minutes from home he needed a few stops to stretch his legs. I on the other hand was very comfortable on the Trident.

All in all we had a great time, we commented that we need not travel hundreds of miles to find some great rides, when just 2 hours away is the Snowdonia National Park with its beautiful scenery and look forward to heading this way again.

Summary

Date:- July 2022

Weather:- 4 Days 22-24 degrees

Hotel:- Premier Inn Buxton - Premier Inn Llandudno junction

Miles:-600 approx, all on bikes

Fuel Cost:- 1.89 approx

EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col

Aim:- To ride in the Peak District and the Snowdonia National Park

2022 and it's "Everyday Street Bikes?"

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 20:51:00 +0000

Triumph Trident

When you get in your 50's you're not as nimble as you once were, and riding motorbikes seems to get more uncomfortable when you have been on them for a few hours.

My reactions arn't what they used to be, and after recently damaging my arm thanks to the Fireblade my biking has been less enthusiastic. Myself and Col often discus the hand gripping the bars problem that many Sports bike riders get, its caused from your hands having to support your upper body weight the position also makes your shoulders and neck ache, then there's the legs, because of the tight angle your legs are in, after a while it seems hard work moving your feet off the pegs when you have to stop, and again from a previous injury my hip hurts after a few hours.

With that in mind I decided its time to try a different style.

I wanted something that is different, not a superbike wanna-be, but something that arcs back to the Suzuki Bandit I once lusted after in the late 90s. I read a few reviews and found myself in the Triumph dealer in Plymouth. They had the new Triumph Trident on display a rarity at the time as it was sold out everywhere.

I sat on it and instantly took a liking to its comfy seat and upright seating position.

When at the 2021 Bike show in Birmingham I put my name down for a test ride and it took until April 2022 for that to happen.

However I managed to get a ride on one. Thanks to the guys at Streetbike Halesowen for letting me have the ride. I rode the Fireblade to the shop so this test ride was back to back with the bike I am used to.

I was shown the controls and off I went.

The first thing I noticed was how thin it felt around the tank where your knees go compared to the fireblade. The mirrors are in a different place to what I am used too they seemed very close but the views behind are unobstructed and i quickly got used to them.

It picked up quickly from a twist of the throttle and for the first 10 minutes the ride was limited to just 30 mph as I headed up to Romsley. The clutch feels light and steering quick with a reasonable turning circle, better than a sports bike anyway. While going along this stretch of road it gave me chance to think about how I felt on it - hmm! Comfortable. Arms felt in a natural position and legs with not a to sharp an angle, but feet were definately lower than that of the Fireblade and the hand controls all in the right place, ohh and the seat, yes its almost sofa like compared to the fireblade.

Out of Romsley the speed limit changes and you can get up to 60mph, the Trident was in 6th and pulled upto the speed limit with no problem and quite briskly, maybe dare I say as good as if not better than my fireblade if it was in 6th.

The seat was soft and I felt myself slide back to the hump about half way along. A couple of twisty corners which it handled well around bring you to the end of the road and the first real use of the brakes. The front dipped and the brakes gripped nicely. The front suspension definitely travelled more than on a sports bike.

I pulled out onto the next road, nothing around so I tried a quick acceleration test - Quick! OK its not Fireblade quick but I would say upto 70 you would not see a bunch of dots in the distance as your mates disappear on their sports bikes on the roads.

After half an hour of riding I pulled into a layby to check it over and get a proper look at what I was riding. It looks nice, if you like that type of thing. Bit of a strange rear number plate holder - but you can get an after market kit to move it up higher if you dont like it. I do like the short tail end and how the exhaust comes out infront of the rear wheel. It sounds different to what I am used to but it has 3 cylinders, its not unpleasant sounding.

It has loads of features, such as ABS, Traction Control, Slipper Clutch, 3 cylinders, Nissin calipers, Showa 41mm upside down separate function forks (SFF) unfortunately you cant adjust them.

There is a fuel guage, it tells you your average mpg which told me 55mpg, it has 2 riding modes, 1 for rain and one for..... when its not raining.

The engine is 80BHP but Triumph have made it so the power is delivered at the lower end of the rev range giving it pleanty of power from the get go which dies off towards higher revs. The front tyre width was 120 and rear 180 similar to the fireblades. Its bound to have other goodies I havent mentioned.

I rode it back to the shop not an ache or pain after an hour on it. I stepped off with a smile under my crash helmet and gave it another quick look over.

Some of the things I took away from this experience were it was nice to see over the car infront, and over hedges so the view is better, you can cruise comfortably, its fast up to the speed limit, has loads of infomation on the tft speedometer, it felt so easy to ride and looks great.

You do feel the wind more than on my fireblade as theres no protection and the suspension seemed to travel more than what i was used to.

Theres some nice after market parts and on the triumph website you can build it how you want it which is always fun to see what it would look like with the added extras they sell.

The last ride Col and I went on we both commented about new speed limits cropping up on some favourite roads of ours, maybe a more easy going style of bike would make the ride more fun again?

What I do know is I like the Trident, I like it so much I am very tempted to buy one - watch this space!

BUT I want to keep the Fireblade a bit longer yet.

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 15:23:00 +0000

ABBA Superbike stand

A few years ago Matt was selling one of his ABBA superbike stand's, I had seen these in use in different videos online and to save a space in my garage I thought I would buy it.

What a great bit of kit they are, much easier to use than the old paddock stand I had and can be attached when the bikes on its side stand. The bike feels steady and safe when in use.
The stand comes with 2 main leg pieces, a threaded T bar and thumb screw, you also need to buy the adapters that fit your bike.

First the L shaped leg is put under the bike ( the left side on the picture), then the second leg is attached to the L shape and tighten the thimb screw.
Next attach to the hole in the frame where the swing arm pivot bolt runs through and lock in place( on the right in the picture).
Once its properly attached pull the handle up and the bike lifts up!

These go for about £75 in the UK. It makes working on the bike easier and does not fowl either of the wheels.

When we use the van to take the bikes abroad we take the ABBA stand along for a ride, just incase we need it as its not heavy and doesnt take up much space.

EDSBK 5/5

2020 Cancelled.... Or is it?

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 23:02:00 +0000

Covid -19 has put a stop to almost everything we like to do, not just for us at Everyday Superbikes but for the World.

Any trips abroad or nights away we had planned for 2020 are not going to happen, we are hoping for 2021 to be able to travel abroad and put another tick in the countries ridden in list, but as for this year we are just having days out instead. Here are some of them so far.

Clun

Towards the Middle of May the restrictions were lifted, though still on furlough Col and I decided to have a ride out to Clun Castle, it was closed as we had expected but the carpark was open, even thought he toilets were locked up which made things a little despirate. Myself and Col are at the age where toilet stops are needed more frequently especially in my case. We stopped on the carpark and found a nice seated area where we could be 2 metres apart incase anyone reported us, as this was something that was going on, opened our lunch boxes and had some cheese and pickled sandwiches, (the homemade sandwich of choice for us bikers).

We used the A489 out of Craven Arms, it never fails to impress, It was good to be back on the bikes.

The weather was good as infact the whole of May was.

One good thing about the world in lock down was fresher air, there were no planes and only a few vehicles on the road, if this had an effect on the weather I dont know, but as we were on furlough the nice weather was welcome, and let people like me get some nice outdoor jobs done and bike wise it was looking good form the cleaning it had had over the last 4 weeks.

Malvern

A few days later Col suggested a trip down to Malvern. Its only around 60 minutes from where we live. Its not usually a destination we would go to as to get there its not along the most exciting roads compared with our usual ones, but we hadnt ridden there for years.

Cafe's still weren't open so we decided to make use of the bum bag we use when away on our european adventures again and carry our flasks.

The B4232 (Jubilee Drive) seemed to be the impressive road of this ride, having a few good twists and turns as it followed the contours of the hill.

As social distancing was still at 2 metres we found a carpark with 2 benches close to each other so we could have a chat. Col said he would be back to work in 2 weeks, but I was going back to working from home the following day.

We headed back through Bromyard and Tenbury, the roads were quieter than usual but the traffic was definately busier than the few days earlier as restrictions were slowly being lifted.

When I got home I discovered a leaking fork seal, so booked that in for a repair for later in the week as the local bike shop had managed to stay open through it all.

Evesham and Stourport

I had been called back off furlough but had 3 days holiday to use up so took them the week after going back to work, Col was still on Furlough but was due to go back the start of the following week.

I suggested we could try a route we hadn't done before, this took us to Evesham's Hampton Ferry, I place I spent alot of time at when I was a kid, and where I met my first girlfriend.

We parked up by the river, sat the 2 metres apart and watched a family of Swans on the water and the world go by for a while before headed to Broadway, Bidford on Avon and then to Stourport Common.

There were a couple of good roads worth a mention, the A44 up fish hill by Broadway, and then the A422, neither would make it onto our best road section, but the curves on the A44 going up were quite fun.

Up on top of Broadway by the tower the carparks were full, people were flocking to places of interest where some social distancing was being practiced but not by everyone, Bidford the carparks were closed to all vehicles which is why we headed back to Stourport where you were just warned to social distance. So we ate cheese and pickle sandwiches..well Col did as I had forgot to take mine out of the fridge so ended up with a bag of crisps and a cake.

Bike felt good now with fork seal fixed.

Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle

In June Wales was still in lockdown, so we couldnt go there as we would usually tend to try and do as its not that far to the border from where we are. We decided to use the A488 a favourite road of ours that goes up through Hope Valley which is near Shrewsbury. Once you have gone over the top of the hill at Hope you see a sign for a stone circle, this is in England however you need to cross the border for a few hundred metres. Then follow the path back into England to the carpark. This was a beautiful spot with great views in all directions. Again everywhere to get a drink from was closed so we sat there for a good half an hour, with flask in hand and breathing that lovely fresh air.

From here we headed back towards Ludlow and home. For me this was my favourite ride fpr as long time.

Long Mynd, Bur Way

We set out with plans of watching the gliders taking off from the glider station up on the top of the Long Mynd. The run of good weather had took a turn for the worst over night and the winds had picked up to what the phone app said was a light breeze, no mention of any rain. We made the trip and as we got closer to Church Stretton we found that the hills had heavy clouds around them which let go of its payload just as we arrived.

We rode up the Bur Way and found a parking spot, it was blooming cold and wet, the winds were definately not light, you could feel it slowing the bike as it hit us head on.

We didn't stay long as the wind bought the drizzle and it was starting to soak through our leathers, just down the road is the Lazy Trout cafe, which according to Facebook was open. It was like being hundreds of miles away, the sun was out with the light winds the phone app had promised, yet was only 10 minutes away from that wet and windy hilltop. We parked up, social disatnced and enjoyed our first cafe mug of coffee for months, things were getting better!

Kynnersley Arms

This wasnt really a destination as such. We had rode past this place in the past and as I share the name thought it only fitting that I had a photo of my bike parked outside.

It wasn't open yet, pubs were still in lockdown but I would like to come again when it is open. Apparently my ancestors lived in the Hall at Leighton and the pub was named after them.

Bala and Barmouth

July we had discussed that it was looking like trips to the coast were not going to happen and were saddened that we wouldn't get to see the sea this year.

The news announced that Wales was back open for business, thank goodness, so we headed off to Bala using the B4391 a favourite road of ours, stopped at the lake for a coffee, then followed the road for another 45 minutes on an nothing special road down to Barmouth and to see the sea.

At Barmouth we found the shops on the sea front were open so stopped for an iced cream and watched the sea for a while, the skys were threatening rain so headed back over Dinas on the A470 and then to Welshpool on the A458 two great roads apart from for the roadworks.

My bike needed a new rear tyre and on the last MOT the guy told me the chain would need replacing soon, As I had a week off I got both jobs done the day before we went for this ride. I was impressed how much quieter the new gold coloured chain appears to be yet it was a DID the same as the previous one, no one mention stiff links! It had been an expensive week.

We have done rides to other areas but nothing new that I havent wrote about before.

We have a few more plans to visit new roads in the UK this year, depending on the covid situation ofcourse.

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 18:38:00 +0000

Oh Crap!!!

Well Col and I have made it out on 1 ride this year which was the day before the country went into lockdown as Covid-19 was here. We had been advised by the Government to stay indoors but thought as the Sun was out and was the perfect day for a ride, plus I wanted to test the bike after changing the brake pads and adding some K&N filters and giving it a service.

Not sure if the self isolationg rules applied to being out on a motobike or not we checked with a couple of motoring websites who said it was still acceptable as you would be more than 2 Mtrs apart and not to head to anywhere that could be crowded.

All the cafe's and shops had been told to close so decided by phone we would meet up in the street and head of towards Cleobury Mortimer and take our own drinks with us.We headed off on a reasonably quite road but after a while came across many people out and about in cars obviously not following the governments guidelines. Four lads in a Mini, 3 caravaners off to escape the madness of the empty shelved supermarkets and people out for the day to enjoy a day by the river.

The carpark as usual was empty so we stopped and drank a coffee from my Army supplies flask (Web-Tex 5* EDSBK recommended)

Now Col is my best friend and we see quite alot of each other but we were practicing social distancing sat over 2 mtrs apart and got talking about bike related things such as road trips and how this is all affecting what we do with the Motorbikes.

The main thing we thought of that is a worthy point about riding under the current restrictions is if you were to have an incident RTA related, the ambulance would come and collect you if you survived only to take you to the hospital which has the Covid virus then putting you at extra risk, also the staff could be better used treating the poor people with the virus than having to deal with a motorcyclist who went for a sneaky ride out which went wrong.

Next we got talking about road trips for this year. We had planned a trip to Ireland as we have not been there and they have so many road race circuits we can look at..and Guiness.
We dont know if that is completely off the table, we have a back up plan of a ride to Devon in the south of England. But its all on hold due to Covid.
The whole ride was more cautious than usual partly as its the 1st ride of the year, but with the disease the world is changing even if its only temporary, but now on the Governments advice we are Staying home.

The Biking race calender is postponed/cancelled including the TT so theres no new stuff to watch.
The Ride for life event is postponed/cancelled and as the year goes by I dare say more events will be cancelled aswell.

So what can you do to get your biking fix..? Well it depends some suppliers of bits are open, some aren't, if they are open you could get new trick bits and fit those, like heated handle grips, a great investment.
For me its do the little jobs such as remove things and clean and polish the bits you dont get to see very often... well until my cleaning supplies run out.
Its times like this I load up the videos from the go pro camera and reminiss. Good Luck Everyone.

Stay safe especially if your out on a motorbike wherever you are in the world.

2019 Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 15:44:00 +0000

2019 Pyrenees, Spain and Andorra.

This trip was actually arranged as our 2018 road trip but as Col had had his Incident only 5 weeks before our trip date it had to be cancelled. It was so close to the departure date we couldn't get the ferry or channel tunnel refunded so were given credit notes, this left us with only 1 option, to do the exact same trip.

We decided some years ago that superbikes are not great for touring on, they cause knee, wrist and neck ache after a couple of hours so you have to keep stopping, making long trips even longer.

So with that in mind we went to Europcar a few months earlier to book a van. As they couldn't promise what sort of van we would get when booking we ended up with a van that had previously spent time with a builder by the look of the dust under the seat, not exactly what we expected to use for a holiday, especially to Spain with temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s and worst of all it had no aircon...!
We took it anyway and it did drive very nicely, didn't let us down at all, and Naz from the branch was most helpful.

We planned to travel by van to Portsmouth, cross on the Ferry to Bilbao which involved 2 nights onboard, it was like a mini cruise and if you fancy going to that area it is a well recommended relaxing journey, and not having any driving to do the following day gave us chance to get in a few beers.

The alarm sounded Tuesday morning at 5:30am telling us to get up and be ready for a 6:45 departure. We disembarked and soon were on route to the Castellanu hotel in Escalo, this was around 6 hours away. The Spanish and French motorways got us to the mountains in a few hours but then the journey got slow. So many little villages but beautiful scenery. Eventually we stopped for a rest in a pull in halfway up the steepest climb to the 2072 mtr road height of Bonaigua. Another half an hour saw the Hotel Castellanu, which looked nice but builders were busy making a new swimming pool from 8am till 7pm and there was no AIRCON!

The hotel is owned by a biker and he gave us 2 routes to try, earlier research had also led me to the same routes but having a local tell us to use those same roads was most reassuring.

We unpacked our luggage leaving the bikes on the van and were now getting hungry so went to the restaurant for dinner, it was closed. Col meanwhile scouted the internet to find somewhere suitable for a meal, so back in the van and we headed off back towards the mountain to Espot and found a brilliant little place called "The Burgerplatz" and quote " Mother of mine they have the best burgers ever I have tasted" whoever wrote that review was 100% right we went back the next 2 nights... and the road leading up to it was another stunner!

2019's Everyday Supervan.... well it would have been if it had aircon.

Ride 1.

The following day we started the reason for all this travel, to ride some awesome Spanish roads in the Pyrenees. The route took us North on the C-28 back over the mountain we had climbed in the van the day before and towards a town called Vielha.

A left onto the N-230 took us up another mountain and through a long cooling tunnel which was most welcoming as the bike engines were now running at about 109C and the fans on at a constant. The road crosses out of Catalonia and into Aragon, the bends were sweeping and fast compared to the C-28. We stopped to take a photo and re hydrate then continued along to El Pont de Suert.
A left turn onto the N-260 headed towards Sort takes you along one of the areas best biking roads and through a village called Perves, the roads here were fast long corners mixed with tight twists with the odd 50kmh speed limit thrown in along it.

After getting to Sort where a chemists digital sign was showing a huge temperature of 38C we took the C-13 back towards the hotel, this road was near perfect, the bends seemed to stay on a constant radius as it followed the river back through the valley.

The ride was great, just hot. The roads were twisty and the sections where they climbed up and down the hills just seemed to last for ages. From Sort back to the hotel the C-13 was similar to our Welsh favourite the A483 but on steroids!

The river runs along side the road often swapping for one side to the other, a perfect place to hoilday if you are into canoeing or cycles/motorcycles.

Ride 2.

Thursday we somewhat lazily put on our leathers, gloves and helmets as it was already too hot. We planned on going to Andorra again a route recommended by the hotel owner.
This time we headed South towards Sort and rejoined the N-260 going East.
What a road!...what a road! You could easily just spend the day riding back and forward along this 45km section. Imagine every great corner you have enjoyed, stringing them together and riding them, this road is that one. I think over the 2 days riding this part of the N-260 had to be my road of the trip, but they were all good.
We arrived in Andorra, it was too bloody hot. The heat from our engines funnelled up through the fairing in the slow moving traffic, the traffic was heavy and the area not a biking paradise, however it boasts some great bargains as its a tax haven. We didnt stay long enough to check out the shops, we wanted more of the N-260 and the cooler mountain air so headed back the way we had came.

After a fair bit of throwing the bike to the left and right and on and off the throttle and brake we were ready for a break, Col was in front and spotted the only layby with some shade, well just 1 tree but who cared we needed to re-hydrate.
As we pulled up behind 2 other motorbikes we noticed the yellow UK number plates and heard the welcoming English voices of Gregg and Simon so chatted about most things bike and area for about half an hour as we all cooled in the shade of that 1 little oak tree. Simon suggested it would be a good place to open a roadside burger van, we agreed even if just for the great view.

The view from the oak tree, the road snakes up the mountain opposite

The only shady place

We headed back to the hotel and passed the chemist with the temperature displayed as 44C, and there we were in full leathers, gloves and a helmet!
As it was our last chance to ride the bikes, we filled up with fuel which turned out to be a mistake, then had a ride up the twisty hill to Espot and another drink of refreshing fruit drink, back down to the hotel I thought "I like it here". We parked up and got back into our shorts before reloading the bikes in the van, they were covered in builders dust which was now over me, i went to the edge of the river to wash it off and slipped in. My trainers dried very quickly, good job as they were all I had. Later we got back in the van to go to Burgerplatz again but the van smelt very strong of petrol we decided it must be the heat was causing it and went on our way.
The following morning the smell was just as bad but as there was no sign of any leaks what could we do other than open all the windows and crack on with the journey North.

The next stage of our trip was heading home, but we wanted a place to stop off and break up the 16 hour journey. So we went to Le Mans.
I have always wanted to go there as I enjoy watching the 24 heurs du Mans also known as Circuit de la Sarthe and all things to do with LMP and prototype racing.

9 Hours later we made it to the Le Mans Museum as we wanted to look at the race cars. Again I enjoyed this, but the heat caused me some problems, lack of drinks had given me heat exhaustion, so re hydrated slowly in their canteen which didn't have aircon!

We had booked in to stop at the Brit Hotel and as we walked through the door we were greeted by cool air...AT LAST!!

After a quick unpack and shower the bar was calling so went and sat in what I call heaven, surrounded by pictures of cars, in furniture made of old oil barrels surrounded by like minded people, with a refreshing beer or 2.

The last Day, we left the cool hotel and sat in an already warm van then did 2 laps of the bits of the Le Mans circuit we could drive on, I have always wanted to drive along the Mulsanne Straight and along the public road area of this track, and now I partially have even if its not in the vehicle of choice.... a Ford GT40 .. no I mean a Ford Transit van.
The place does have the feeling of a racetrack having the gravel traps and painted areas at the side of the public road. Wish we had had a full day here to explore the circuit a bit more.

The journey home from here was a rush we had a 4 hour 10 minute journey to get to Calais and make our booking time, the sat nav said it was going to take 4hrs and 11 minutes we needed good traffic flow, we arrived at Calais with 10 minutes to spare unfortunately so had 200 other vehicles and they were all trying to get into 3 entry gates which made us late.
France has some great Motorways, Britain could learn a thing or 2 from them, after getting a few miles from the Channel tunnel the 15 miles of cones on the UK's M20 started and as usual there was no sign of anything going on.

A great time and glad I got to spend it with Col, but the sticky heat when travelling in a vehicle without aircon in the hottest continental summer for years and being woken by builders every morning before 8am again in a hotel without aircon dampened our spirits,
but you cant fault those roads!

Summary

Date:- July 2019

Weather:- 6 HOT Days 26-42 degrees

Hotel:- Hotel Castellanu Spain - Brit Hotel Le Mans

Miles:-2600 approx, 1000 on a boat, 1250 in a van

Fuel Cost:- 1.38 approx

EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col

Aim:- To ride in Spain, Andorra and the Pyrenes and visit Le mans

2019 Cols New Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 15:44:00 +0000

Meet the newest bike in Everyday Superbikes.

Col has made an almost full recovery from the incident where he lost the Black Fireblade in June 2018. Only a problem with his shoulder remains which doesn't seem to affect him too much and is better to be left as it is according to medical experts. The accident has left him with a metal plate in his arm, and on a recent trip to Stuttgart to the Porsche and Mercedes Museums it didn't set the alarms off the airport security.... slightly disappointing.

We obviously haven't done much bike related things since June, apart from visit the bike shop and the Motorcycle Live event in November of 2018. This was the point Col decided the time was right to look for another bike.
He had spotted a race rep 2006 Fireblade which looked nice, but the insurance was not that interested in insuring a race rep, so a few weeks later he looked at a standard one and bought it (pictured above).

Its a 2006 Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade with a yoshimura exhaust, which sounds great.
Currently it has odd tyres on it so that is going to be sorted out soon as that's a motorbiking no no. He has ordered a few bits and has a few plans to personalise it to his taste.

We took it the bikes out for the 1st ride together between Christmas 2018 and New Year, It was good to be back, even if it was a bit of a cool day. He has had some Oxford heated grips added like mine so he now can enjoy warm hands too, he says this is much more civilised than holding the exhaust pipe when your stopped in a layby.

I look forward to the New Year and hope to make some more good memories and visit some new places in our continuing search for our favourite road.

June 17th

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 22:49:00 +0000

On June 17th Col and I headed to Dom's food stop near to Leominster.

We pulled onto the A44 at Bromyard and Col was about 1 car length infront of me, we were doing 30mph in a queue of traffic also doing the same speed. I passed a bollard in the middle of the road and then things went strange, a bike appeared along side me, I didnt see this bike as I pulled out but he may have came from the petrol station, it passed me on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic and pulled infront between me and Col, I thought the rider had pulled a dickhead manoeuvre so was shaking my head. The rider was on a sporty cruiser style bike and had a chrome helmet which was hard to look at and 13 on the back of his leathers.

We got to the end of the village and the road opened up to national speed limit. So I thought I will go passed him. He accelerated faster than my Fireblade could, however the rider was useless at cornering, The rider seemed to be purposely slowing me down for the next few minutes and I was half expecting another bike to appear and a theft to take place so in the 2nd following corner I saw the road was clear and passed him, I checked the mirror and the bike was gone as he had turned off.
At Dom's I told Col about this and he confirmed he saw the bike and the headlight was very bright so couldnt see what was going on behind.

I use a Go Pro camera when I ride but for all the time this bike was infront of me the camera didnt record.... Wierd!

Coming back from Dom's we used the A456, a road we know well and use most weekends, Col passed a car going up the hill towards Clows Top and I followed not too far behind them both.

I came to the corner with a junction towards Rock and there was a car with the front smashed in, a bit further along was Col's bike on its side, steam pouring from it and the front forks snapped back so the wheel was above the tank. He had gone head on into a car coming the other way.

Further along the road was Col lay in the road, at first not moving and I feared the worst.
I parked my bike and dazed walked towards him taking in the scene, not feeling anything, just saying "Oh Fuck" over and over. I saw Col's leg move as I took my helmet off and with the ear plugs out could hear the other vehicle drivers already on mobile phones asking for Police, Ambulance and Fire Services. I shouted, "Col can you hear me?" trying to remember basic 1st aid, to which he said "yes", he then started to try and get up, so I held him down and told him to stay still as the Ambulance was coming.
From the village came a Nurse and from the stopped traffic came a Dr who thankfully took over the holding him still part while I kept Col talking and found his phone to call home.
The Police were 1st to arrive who closed the road and a few minutes later the Ambulance arrived, I was relieved as soon as they were on scene.
A second ambulance arrived and I overheard them say to the Police officer they were on their way to a motorbike fatality a mile away in the direction we had came from.

Col had been very lucky to get away with a broken arm, shoulder, and foot in this incident, no one else was injured. He cant remember how he came to be on the wrong side of the road or any of the accident, just waking up lay on the road with me and other people around him. The corner is quite sharp and uneven so both vehicles speed was lower than the speed limit for the road. The black fireblade was too badly damaged to be repaired so is now with a breaker.

From my point of view, I didn't witness the accident as I was about 100metres behind, but seeing your best friend in this position is a horrible shock, the following day is when it hit me more, I felt a wreck.

Col is now back at work and able to drive, but his injuries are slowing him down when walking.

I have rode my bike once since the accident, its not the same without your wingman when his always been there for the last 20 years. Col and I still have unfinished business with motorbikes, we both still enjoy them and Col talks about getting another, but we will have to see.
I have delayed putting this post up as it could be the last... I dont know if Everyday Superbikes will continue, but if and when it does I will post it here....

Thank you to the Emergency services for everything you did.

Ride4Life

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 16:22:00 +0000

On 22nd April 2018, Col and I took part in the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s Bike4Life Ride Out and Festival. This was a route from Bayston Hill in Shrewsbury along the M54 motorway to Cosford near Wolverhampton.

Visit their web page here

We had pre booked our tickets online for just £10, the weather forecast was possible rain but mostly dry, and they got it spot on.
The bikes were gleaming as usual as we pulled onto the over flow car park near Bayston Hill shopping centre. The figure quoted by the organisers were over 5000 bike were in attendance and raised over £87,000.

Steve Parish and Carl Fogerty were to lead the convoy of bikes from Shrewsbury to Cosford which was due at 12:00. The organisers sent them on their way and slowly let all 5000 bikes leave the car park.

Col and I were some of the first of the last 3rd of the bikes to be let off the car park which was some 20 minutes after Steve Parish and Carl Fogerty had left, infact they had probably got to Cosford when we were just leaving Shrewsbury.

Having never took part in an event like this it was quite overwhelming to see the support it gathered. Every junction or bridge there were stood onlookers waving as we passed underneath them. It was a really nice thing to be a part of.
The ride took a little over half an hour, the motorway was full of bikes all doing the 70mph speed limit, but 5000 bikes on 2 lanes of motorway then into 1 single lane caused a bottle neck around Cosford.
We parked up in the field by Cosford airport and went for a walk around the stalls and stopped to watch some stunt show and listen to Steve Parish and Carl Fogerty story's of racing and promoting their books.

It was a really good day out which raised a lot of money for a good cause, if you have never been to an event like this its well worth attending an event close to you.

Col and I on the M54 Col at front Me a bit further back (Circled)

A good cause that at the time we didn't realise how close we came to needing....

2017 Clermont Ferrand & Millau

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 12:36:00 +0000

Col and I couldn't decide where to go for our 2017 trip, we talked about Ireland, Scotland and

Le-man all because we wanted a cheaper trip than the last 2 years. Eventually on a cold December night in the pub and after watching a re-run of a Top Gear episode, we came up with the Millau Viaduct and Tarn Gorge in the South of France.

The plan was to do it over 5 days, 3 days of riding once we had got there and again this involved the van and a 13 hour drive.

The Viaduct has been on our visit list in the past, but we have not been quite close enough to it before. In January I looked for a hotel with secure parking, that was bike friendly and not too far from civilisation so we could enjoy the area when not on the bikes and the obvious choice was Clermont Ferrand.

When I looked on Google maps it was about a 2 hour ride down to Millau and the viaduct, so thought that a far enough distance for a day out. The rest of the area closer to the hotel on the map had some bendy looking roads, so thought it seemed a good destination.

July came and we collected the van. Eurocar again supplied us with a van with only 1000 miles on the clock, unfortunately for the 2nd time, it didnt have air-con which is what we asked for, or cruise control and worst it was also a transit custom, which I know far to well as being the most broken into van on the market and it can be done in about 40 seconds, so we were rather disappointed as we loaded the bikes.

We set out at 4:15am made our booking on Euro-tunnel and headed off deep in to France. The journey was event free only traffic we encountered was through Paris which lost us about 45 minutes.

We pulled onto our hotel carpark at 18:15 French time. We used The Comfort Hotel next to the hospital and a petrol station, its not far off the main roads out of town, has a tram stop outside, some English speaking staff, was clean but tired looking and the car park was secured and kept the van hidden from the road so just what we wanted. 3 stars ***. The tour de France also used the same hotel the 1st night we were there.

Day 1

We were asleep for 10 hours so when we woke up it was after 9am, it was raining when we opened the curtains and we watched the sky as we ate our cornflakes. There was alot of blue heading our way so looked at the map and spotted a race circuit not to far away, I said lets go see whats there. It was closed and we could see nothing, apart from old volcano stacks, lots of them, I said lets wing it, we will just head up and eventually find something to look at, Col agreed as there was not much option. I lead for most of this ride, taking the N roads which looked like they were headed up hill, eventually we came across a shop, which looked good to get a drink from, but it only sold cheese.

I took out my smart phone, looked at the maps and noticed we were close to a road called the D996.
"This looks twisty, its gotta be good, its named after the Ducatti 996" I said, and was only 6 miles away, so we set off in that direction.
To get there we followed the D983 which takes you to the top edge of a volcano, we stopped for a rest and to admire the view. The cauldron was along down to the left and full of trees.

Eventually we reached the left turn onto the D996 which in reality seemed better than it looked on the map, the corners just kept coming and the ribbon of tarmac was race track smooth, the road kept climbing taking you to heights where your higher than the low lying clouds covering our visors with a layer of drizzle, eventually we came out the top of the clouds and found the 1401 mtrs summit of col de la croix Morand and stopped for a magnum at the little gift shop.

The clouds lifted as we sat there and we could see a lake bathed in sunshine along way below us, so Col said shall we go there.
I looked at the map and the D996 went passed the lake so we set off down the hill to Lac Chambon. We found a Lakeside hotel called Belle Vue and stopped for a drink watching the world go by for over an hour. The clouds on the mountains started to look threatening so we continued our journey back towards the hotel.
A few more miles along the road was the Chateau de Murol, an impressive looking hill fort, the clouds were gaining on us so we moved on, but the clouds had straight lines to follow, we had the twisty road and inevitably they caught us, we took to hiding under the trees until it stopped raining and headed back to the Hotel.

D996 9 out of 10.

Day 2

The weather app said that day2 was going to be the best weather of the 3 day, this was going to be the day to go on our longest trip of our few days away. We got up early opened the curtains to a grey clouded day, but at least it was dry.
We set off in the local rush hour traffic which was like a Sunday morning in the UK, headed down the A75 towards Millau, as this was the purpose of this trip, to ride over the Tallest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduct. The previous night we watched how it was built on Youtube which put us even more in the mood for seeing it.
The Journey there was around 2 hours, it threatened to rain numerous times, even dropping cool over the taller mountains that the route took us. The dark grey threatening sky seemed to be endless and I was fearing the worst for the photo opportunities.
We were only about 5 or 6 miles from the bridge when it first came into sight. The grey clouds came to an end and blue patches seen here and there, and bigger patches of blue over the bridge and the gorge below. I saw the turn for the visitor centre and we went to have a closer look.
We left the bikes on the carpark, the walked up the hill to the viewing platform which is just a bit higher than the 245m high road deck of the bridge. The Viaduct is built over the river Tarn, and was built to re leave the traffic problems through Millau.
The Millau Viaduct is 2460m long, has 7 pillars, The tallest pillar is 343m tall which makes it taller than the Shard in England and the Eifle Tower making it the 4th tallest structure in France, the shortest pillar is 77m, which is still a long way up!

We took the photo's and headed back to the bikes to ride over it. There was a Toll to pay, this was a little confusing as it didnt show what vehicle you were paying to take over the bridge, we went to a lane that showed a picture of a car and a bike, posted your credit card in the slot and the barrier lifted so we pulled away, not until you get home do you actually see what you paid, we both paid 8 Euro the price for a car....

We crossed the bridge and gave each other a thumbs up, as if saying "thats one more thing off our bucket list!" We took the next turn off and followed the road so we could next ride under the bridge for a few photos, refuel and dinner in an air conditioned MacDonalds in Millau as it was warming up quickly.

After Dinner we followed the road up through the gorge to a road that had appeared on an episode of Top Gear where the 3 presenters had some fun on a zig zag of a road running up the mountain. This was the village of Les Vignes and the road the D995. The Gorge was lovely the river runs to the right of the road which had a number of tunnels and hairpins, its very touristy and there were a lot of camp sites, so the road speed was limited.
We took the left turn onto the D995, by now it was hot the forecast had said 29 degrees but in leathers it felt hotter. We climbed the road out of the gorge, the heat effecting Col more than usual so I stopped and waited for him in the lay by near the top, where the Top Gear presenters had filmed part of the show. The journey back from there was another 2 hours, but the cooling breeze helped make it more bareable.

Day 3

We had no plans for day 3 just to ride around and explore similar to day 1. We set off in a different direction, after spotting on the map the D216 another twisty bit of tarmac to the south west. This road was nice and the weather was good at this point.

At the time I didn't realise where it was headed only to end up back in the same place as we did on day 1, which wasn't all bad as we got to ride the D996 again, but this time it was wet. Infact so wet we had to get the waterproofs out which is a mood changer and the ride is more for the hell of it than enjoyment. We called it a day in the early afternoon after another stop by Lac Chambon and went back to the hotel and planned to spend the evening in the city, which was most impressive.

All in all I enjoyed the trip and would definately head to that area again, the weather could have been more generous to us, but we have some new roads to add to our Ultimate Roads section.

Summary

Date:- July 2017

Weather:- 5 mixed Days 22-26 degrees

Hotel:- The Comfort Hotel - Claremont Ferrand - gated parking

Miles:-1860, 1370 in a van

Fuel Cost:- 1.22 approx

EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col

Aim:- To ride over the Millau bridge

A4069 Black Mountains

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sat, 15 Jul 2017 20:36:00 +0000

June

With the hottest day of 2017 so far forecast for a Sunday, Col and I decided on an early start and a trip down to the Black Mountains in Wales, we were looking for the Top Gear / 5th Gear favourite the A4069.
We left home at 6:45am and the skies were blue and it had already began to heat up, the plan was to incorporated some other of our favourite roads along the way and after a couple of hours riding we had arrived at the start of the road in the village of Llangadog.

The A4069 for about 5 miles passes fields of sheep and sleepy villages before it gently starts to climb the hill, some road works gave us a short rest and Col shouted across to me,
"this is where its supposed to get good!"

We both gave the throttle a sharp twist making the engine revs climb to the middle of the rev range as we followed the road. It went around a sharp right hand corner and climbed quite steeply and then there it was.......the spoiler........ a 40mph speed limit sign.
We followed the road along while it continued to climb and twist up to a sharp left bend, and then it climbs further up passing a few parking areas and over the 493mtr peak.

The road then twists along the landscape for a few miles and came to a village called Upper Brynamman, so we stopped and looked at Google maps on the phone.
"So... thats it?" I said looking at Col who just shrugged.

We rode back in the direction we came from, this time less focused on the road and took in the scenery which was very nice, then stopped in a pull in to take a few photos.

We were expecting the A4069 to be a contender for our ultimate roads list but left feeling disappointed, the good bit is only 5.1 miles long and its had a 40mph speed limit added, even if you ignore the speed limit and ride it how you want to its still nothing more than an OK road with some nice scenery.
The day we were there was hot, 27 degrees and while we were there we only saw 20 or so other vehicles so couldn't understand why it would warrant a 40mph limit.

In our opinion if you have never been, go take a look, but the road itself is not as much fun as some of the roads we used to get there.

BUT there is a saving grace for the bikers who do go there, we came across the Owls Nest cafe, that place is worth a visit.

Trip 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 22:51:00 +0000

The Jura Mountains.

In January we put a few ideas forward for the 2016 road trip and only Col and I were going to be able to go. So we decided as in 2015 the temperature had been so hot in Geneva so we decided to go back and hope the freakishly hot summer of 2015 was going to be more to our liking this year.

We planned to use the same hotel as last year as we knew it was good and had underground parking for the van and the bikes.

We set off in the VW van at 4am headed to the Euro tunnel to find we have the wrong sized van. The lady in the Kiosk was helpful and told us to go to the help desk. At the desk another lady told us we had to pay an extra £70 which was fine, but she said, i am struggling to find you a space on the train, however 30 minutes later we were in the tunnel and Calais bound.

Its a blooming long way to Geneva, we watched the temperature climb to 37 degrees as we crossed France and were thankful that this van had air-con.

We arrived at the Hotel at 18:10 to the sound of a crash on the back of the van as we went around the last 2 roundabouts. We checked what had happened and the strap holding the bikes inplace had come undone sending my bike into Cols as we cornered causing a crack in the fairing and a broken indicator on Cols bike and scratches to mine, we both were gutted as we had checked the bikes were ok at every stop we made for the last 14 hours. We ate our Pizza thinking of better ways to secure the bikes for the return journey.

The next day, we got the bikes off the van and assessed the damage, it didn't look quite so bad and we managed to do minor repairs where needed, then headed to the nearest fuel station.
The plan was to ride the Jura mountains and go to St Claudes as this road was our favourite of the 2015 trip and well worth a 2nd visit. That is until we discovered the main road had 3 sets of roadworks spoiling the flow, and the clouds were gathered at the half way height which let go as we arrived, so we had our first soaking of the trip.

After the 1st down pour

The botttom of the hill down to St Claudes

The afternoon dried up nicely and we found the good roads from last year and had a good time in the afternoon sunshine. We stopped at the top of the road from Gex for an drink and Ice-cream and noticed a leaflet for the Jura park and Jeux Chateau so decided that was tomorrows destination.

Stopped by the lake

The next day we awoke to the sound of heavy rain. The mountains behind the hotel could not be seen so after a late breakfast we waited at the hotel for a while and chatted to some English people who were going home after touring for 3 weeks on their bike. They were telling us how many people wanted to talk to them about Brexit but not in a positive way.
The rain stopped so we headed to the Joux Lakes crossing into Switzerland for a few feet, and then made a run for it back to the hotel only stopping to put on the waterproofs under a bridge as heavy rain, well i say heavy rain but actually it was very heavy waterproof penetrating rain which came and spoiled the rest of the ride.
Back at the hotel the sum came out so we went to talk to the Bike Shuttle crew that had come to take the other bikes that were parked in the underground car park.

The last day we thought we would give the Joux chateau another chance, but the rain was so heavy on the mountain we decided to go to Annecy in the opposite direction. As we got within 2Km of Annecy the rain started and lightning streaked over the black sky ahead so we changed our course and rode around some of the lesser know areas of the French Alps and Jura mountains until we found a sign for somewhere we had heard of.

The darkest of dark clouds was hiding out of shot to the left

All in all we didnt find any new roads worth a mention, but at least we did ride some good ones again that we rode last year.

The sun arrived as we waited to get on the train back to the UK

At Calais we were held up for 2 hours which caused us to hit Londons M25 at rush hour, what joy. The journey home was 15 hrs.

Summary

Date:- July 2016

Weather:- 6 Hot Days 22-32 degrees

Hotel:- Business Park Hotel - Geneva

Miles:-1900, 1560 in a van

Fuel Cost:- 1.22 approx

EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col

Aim:- To explore more of the Jura mountains

Heated Grips

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Fri, 06 May 2016 18:32:00 +0000

Back in the Autumn of 2015, I had a ride of Matts BMW S1000rr which had heated grips as standard. The day wasn't particularly cold but the heaters on the low setting felt most welcome so I decided that I should look into a pair of these.

Whilst at the Motorbike Live show at the NEC a month later Col and I came across the Oxford stand and spoke with the salesman who told us all about them. A few stands away was a company selling them at a discount, so we bought 2 sets, saving £20 each. These were the new Oxford Hot Grips for sports bikes.

Fitting them

The following weekend I went to Cols and we started to remove the old handle grips and bar ends. Well I did. Col couldn't undo the bolt to get his bar end off on the throttle side and gave up after 20 minutes of muttering and throwing of spanners.
So I continued to fit mine. In all it took less than an hour, the hardest part was removing the old rubber grips.
The Oxford Hot Grips come with a neat looking, rain proof control unit that mounts to the handle bar, the grips and all the electrical bits you need to connect it up.
It draws less than 4amps so is not a huge draw on the battery. The control unilt has a battery guard system, it detects if you forget to switch them off and automatically does it for you after a few minutes if the engine is not running.

Riding with them

The first thing you notice is the bars feel a fraction thicker to hold and the rubber is harder.
The buttons used to set the temperature are easy to see and get at giving you the choice of 5 heat settings. The lowest is 30%, 40%, 50%, 75% and full power at 100%. I have never used more than 50% as that is quite hot with my favourite summer gloves on even on cold slightly frosty days. The grip gets noticeably warmer after just a couple of minutes.
When your hands are warm the rest of you seems to also be warm, it seems that the warmed blood in your hands must carry some of the heat round your body with it as I do feel warmer than when its switched off but that could be my imagination!
There is no negative that i have found over the last 6 months using them, but if i had to offer something it would be that the control unit was slightly narrower, such as if you look at the picture above it was only half as wide as it is.

The fact is though that when Col stops and grips his exhaust pipe to warm his hands when the mornings are in single figures, my hands are toastie..!

4/5

Bike Safe

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 21:08:00 +0000

In December while at the NEC Motorbike show we came across the Bike Safe stand. We sat and listened to a short talk on cornering and decided we would like to attend a full day.
On Sunday 17th April a cold and frosty but clear morning Col and I set off to the Police Training centre called Tally Ho in Birmingham. We arrived and met with some of the guys who were at the bike show, Richard, Paul, Stuart, Glyn, John and the others.

After a brief introduction we were split into groups and ours was first out on the roads. A Police rider named John was stood by me and said "right your with me". He told me which way to head and I set off with my own Police escort. The first time you look in the mirror and see a marked Police bike close behind you is a little strange, but then you remember that for this ride this guy is your friend. For 2 hours we rode around Birmingham, Redditch and surrounding areas, on all types of roads, around town and twisty country lanes. Most car drivers see the Police bike and just quickly got out of our way, as we passed everything we wanted too where the road permitted.
We stopped for a chat for 10 minutes and John told me he thought I was doing good, but offered some useful feedback about positioning when passing side roads, looking further away to give myself more time and to use the throttle to pull through the corners.
Next was the course on the carpark through the cones with Stuart and Glyn. For this we were to use only clutch and rear brake. Apart from a couple of engine stalls when turning right, we both managed to do a clear round, even though Police rider Stuart made me laugh when he told us we missed a cone out....yeah right superbikes steering locks aren't that tight!
But we were filmed doing it and put on the Police twitter feed, (below).

Finally we attended a 2 hour class room session, with Richard and Paul (or Marcus) who went over hazard perception, cornering, Junctions, Overtaking, Filtering and Group riding. They us about the method that Police riders use which was very interesting and informative.
We paid £35 each as we bought it from the bike show but full price is only £50 and its definitely worth it. The guys really know their stuff, they do this to help inform riders of the hazards out on the road that come in many shapes, they show you how to control your bike at slow speed and assess your riding. Personally I think however good you think your riding is, there is always some advice or something you can learn from attending this type of workshop.

Thanks to all involved with Bike Safe.

Money well spent!

Head to Bike Safe for more information and to book yourself on a Bike Safe Workshop.

Thats Me and Col in the middle in black.
Video and photo from Police twitter feed.

Trip 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 18:17:00 +0000

The French, Swiss and Italian Alps

In November of 2014 I was at the motorcycle show in the NEC in Birmingham with Col and came across the guys from Bikeshuttle. The plan is to put your bike in the back of their purpose built truck and take it to Geneva, leaving you to make your own way their by train and plane then meet your bike the following day. We thought the idea had promise so decided there and then that Geneva was on the table for the 2015 road trip. In January we put the trip to Geneva idea to the others, and forecast our costs using bikeshuttle and only myself and Col were going to be able to do this one. The were afew other issues by using the Bikeshuttle service we hadn't thought of which when we weighed it up shoved our costs up and the price out of reach.
Still determined by the idea to ride in the Alps we looked at other ways to get us there. Riding the 740 miles eachway was not what we wanted to do, so we decided to hire a van ourselves, stick the bikes in the back, along with anything else we needed but we would still use the same hotel Bikeshuttle use as they have underground parking. So through the early parts of the year we hired a van from Europcar, booked the hotel and Eurotunnel and our trip was made.

We set off at 4am heading to the tunnel, the news was reporting strikes in Calais and the illegal immigrants were also up to no good, so we were expecting to be part of "operation stack", but along the M20 nothing was left apart from a portable loo every half a mile.

We planned to visit the old Grand Prix curcuit at Reims on the way as Col and I both have seen it on television and wanted to do a lap, also to Ride the Italian Jobs Grand St Bernards Pass and find some roads to add to our Ultimate riding roads list.

The van seemed to be a great idea as we arrived at the Eurotunnel only 3 and a half hours later which on the bikes in the past had took a further 1 hour due to fuel stops. It felt great not to be sweating and stuck in leathers on the back of the train.

We arrived in Reims at dinnertime and made our way to Gueux where the old grandstands are still standing and had a look around before taking the van around for a few laps of the 1952 layout of the circuit.
Time was rolling on so we continued on across France and the temperature on the vans read out went from 22 up to 29 degrees, again we were glad not to be in leathers at this point.
We arrived at the Business Park Hotel at 18:30 local time, its just on the outskirts of the French part of Geneva. A brief cock up took us into the Swiss part and the City centre which meant we had to buy a Vignette from the Police for 40 Swiss Francs (about £28) this meant we could use the Swiss motorways for a whole year, even though we only needed them for all of 5 miles. The room was nice on the top floor and we dropped our luggage then went to the restaurant next door for Pizza and Beer.

We woke up to blue sky, I suggested we went to the 3rd highest of the mountain passes Grand St. Bernards Pass as it was the closest, just 2 hours 10 minutes away from the hotel of which 90 mins are on the motorway. We arrived at a town called Martigny and I put the camera on the bike. The climb started and a few long bends that doubled back on themselves got us back into riding twisty roads again, Snow could bee seen on the mountain tops in the far distance and I pressumed that was where we were headed as we followed the river then through a few tunnels before taking the turn that says Col de St Bernardo, it got steeper and tighter, the road surface was a bit broken and patchy in places and the bike was in first gear alot suddenly you see the buildings at the highest point of the road and we stopped on the carpark to look at from where we had came. The temperature was a good few degrees cooler, and with your leather jacket off a definite chill could be felt at 8100ft. Snow was left in patches here and there but not on the roads. I bought an over priced drink from the restaurant and then we set off into Italy to see the bit from the film " The Italian Job".
The tarmac was very good over the border, imagine someone has just dropped spaghetti onto the

The high road zig zags up the mountain

mountain is the best way to describe the way the road had been laid. It just kept twisting left and right, some corners were into huge rock faces and others were onto huge drops with nothing but a small fence to stop you going over the edge. After 10 miles we came to some roadworks so turned around then headed back to the top. Col wanted to do it fast, where I went for the quick but scenic version, trying to look at the views as well as keep a reasonable fun pace, Thank you Italy, the road was great fun.We both enjoyed the Italian side but my mind was now on the journey back to the hotel as it was getting a bit hot. We stopped for fuel on the route back, the local temp was now 32 degrees, even with the visor open and my jacket undone it was not cooling down. The motorway was busy and the engines were running over 100 degrees for a lot of the time the fan was on trying to keep it cool but all it was doing was using the battery up. We hit Geneva at 17:30 rush hour and in the queue Col saw 117 degrees on the temp gauge, We got back to the hotel our leathers stuck to us and our faces covered in road dust stuck to sweat. I checked the weather app on the phone. it said the next 3 days were going to be 32,34 and 37 degrees!
Our UK all year round leathers are not designed for that kind of heat, there's no vents only a zip out inner lining, so out it came.

Next day we looked at the map and headed for the French Alps and Annecy Lake, we noticed a

Mont Blanc in the distance

Lake Annecy behind the bikes

mountain called Semnoz with a twisty road on the map so after a drink and cooling Ice cream we climbed the 16km route along the D41/D110 to the top at 5446 feet. Another great bit of tarmac through the forest with plenty of turns to keep you busy. Not quite so exciting as the previous day on St Bernards Pass but still entertaining enough and cool enough on the top to be bearable.

Down by the lake it was 34 degrees the clear water looked inviting as we sat on a bench in the shade our leather trousers and boots not giving us a break from the heat. We needed petrol but neither of us wanted to summon up the will to go looking for a garage and to go on the journey back to the hotel.
Back in the village St Genus Poullity we used a pub called Charly's, a guy from the USA got chatting to us about bikes and his mate lived locally so told us to try a road I had been looking at earlier from Gex to Saint-Claude. This became our plan for the next day as it was not so far and it was gonna be hotter again. So we discovered the Jura Mountains.

The road leaves Gex and snakes its way up the mountain, through a few villages, over some fresh tarmac and then over the top.
Its around 4650ft so was nice and cool, which was a relief as the temperature was forecast for 37 degrees. We took a left and dropped down the mountain another twisty road with a couple of tight bends and a hairpin thrown in for good measure before we rode through the village of Mijoux. The climb starts again and the road now with race track smooth and fresh tarmac which had the banked corners you would expect on a track, weaved its way up through 5 hairpins in the forest section. Over the top the road opens and dips slowly down and eventually you get to my favourite part called Les Moulins,

this doubles back on itself and has 9 sharp bends all very close to each before it goes through a few more villages, one of which I liked the name of called Mont Brilliant. We pulled into the little picnic area just before arriving at Saint-Claude and threw our leather jackets on the ground, the sweat was dripping out of us but we both enjoyed the ride.

The Journey home was 14 hours long, it could have been 80 minutes shorter but there was an incident on the M25 causing tail backs for 4 junctions and unfortunately we were stuck in it.

We found some great roads, its such a shame that none of them are just up the road from where we live!
I think there will be another trip in Switzerland yet.

The whole trip for 5 nights cost us just under £750 each, (not inc spending money)

Summary

Date:- 12th - 17th July 2015

Weather:- 6 Hot Days 29-37 degrees

Hotel:- Business Park Hotel - Geneva

Miles:-1900, 1560 in a van

Fuel Cost:- 1.20 approx

EDSBK Riders:- Phill, Col

Aim:- To ride in the Swiss Alps

At the 2014 bikeshow we met bikeshuttle, so we tried to book a week in the Swiss Alps using their services, but it was going to cost too much. We liked the idea so hired a van and did the trip saving a few hundred pounds. Riding in Italy, France and Switzerland we discovered some amazing roads and scenery. Even saw snow in July.

Spring 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 17:43:00 +0000

Well Spring has arrived at last, the thicker gloves have been put away until next winter, my leathers have shrunk *coughs* so I bought an exercise bike and a pair of Joe Rocket leather trousers with the armour that fit much better!
We have been making plans for rides and places to go in 2015. Col and I are looking at doing a tour of the Swiss Alps trying to visit the most popular of the mountain passes, taking some inspiration from Top Gear and the Italian Job along with a website called AlpineRoads.com, and then so the others can come on a trip later in the year, a 1 nighter in Wales going to the places we are just to far from to do on a Sunday morning which has the others intrested in aswell.
We aim to ride the A4069 over Brecon Beacons, the A483 as usual and the A5 through Snowdonia to mention a few.
The MCN fantasy road race manager has started and we have set up our own league, During the 1st game round Ryan has come out on top. (see the news section)

So far in 2015 Col and I have had a few rides out. The first of our longer routes of the year when the sun made a welcome appearance was on a trip to Dom's in Leominster for a coffee, unfortunately Sam his little dog is no longer with us, RIP little buddy.
The sun had put a little heat onto the tarmac and the new Pirelli tyres I have bought gripped well and we had a fun morning along the Worcsester side of the A44.

Dom's Cafe Leominster

While on the carpark outside Dom's cafe we saw a Fireblade with rebound adjusters on the top of the fork legs which looked imressive so Col has bought some and is trying them out.

On the look out for places to get a coffee we came across the Station at Arley and watched the old Steam train go past.

Arley Railway Station Cafe

We also made it to Shobdon airport to the cafe there, this was during our coldest ride this year, the temperatures promised to be 8 degrees but in reality with the wind chill etc it was more like 4, we were miserable, and bloody froze when we got home.

Matt has done a few evening rides with some friends over his area, Rich and Jon are both yet to make an appearance but both are talking about a few weeks from now, we will see.

Camera

I have been experimenting with different camera mounts for my SJ4000 digital video camera we use to take onboard footage when on our trips away.

(an excellent Chinese alternative to the more expensive GoPro, which uses Go Pro fittings)

I have stumbled on to the perfect mount, again it fits into the side crash bobbin and uses a rubber transit bolt from a Bosch washing machine, the footage even at above 7000RPM has next to no distortion unlike the previous versions which distorted as soon as you moved away. (I have an endless supply of these bungs if anyone needs one.)

Believe me thats 7000rpm and hardly any distortion

Dyno Run

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 21:58:00 +0000

When a group of us get together we often get round to talking about the power of our motorbikes. Its been on the cards for a few months to go and do a Dyno run over at Projex in Cradley. Col booked us in and myself and Col went over. Matt, Jon and Rich all have plans to give it a go.....one day!

Black Blade vs Red Blade

It was our first outing on the bikes of 2015, bad weather had scuppered any plans on all other weekends so a short run to Cradley sounded like a good plan.
I arrived at Col's to find his bike on the drive gleaming after an earlier wash. We set off to Cradley with a petrol stop required as we thought fresh petrol would help produce more power out of the engine. I have always been a fan of Shell petrol and as coincidence had it that was the fuel the garage was selling. We pumped the tyres up so that both the bikes were the same.

We arrived at Projex and the guys there started to get interested when they saw two identical model Honda CBR1000rr Fireblade's that have the same exhaust system and with similar mileage, so the competition started. Its the Black Blade vs the Red Blade.

We checked online what the bike produced from new.......172BHP at the crank.
Kev told us to add about 11% to the reading we were going to get as his machine measures BHP at the wheel.

Col's Black Fireblade got strapped in and then he put the bike through its paces, doing the same test 3 times. Then the average would be worked out. Kev had lots of good things to say about the power delivery and how smoothe it was running.

When he was done the printer fired up and printed a graph with the number we wanted to see............
Black Blade....149.4BHP add 11% is 165.8BHP approx at the crank a loss of 6.2BHP in 10 years. Not bad...

We had a cup of coffee and Col told me with a grin over his mug, he had sneakily put the higher octane petrol in at the garage. I felt robbed, how was my bike going to compete with that? We mentioned it to Kev who told us it wont make a noticable difference so the competition was back on.

My bike was strapped in and Kev started run 1, he shouted that he thought Cols felt slightly smoother at low revs. Again I thought the Black Blade was getting all the good vibes.
Run 1 done and Kev hid the screen.Run 2 he came off shaking his head and Run 3 and the printer fired up, we waited.........
Red Blade....152.62BHP add 11% is 169.4BHP approx at the crank a loss of 2.5BHP in 10 years.

Obviously it would be wrong of me not to bring this up from time to time : )

It seems people spend lots of money to make the bikes have more power, when really unless your a racer your not going to see much benefit on a Sunday morning ride. So if you want a faster bike than your mates for the road and leave money in your pocket, gain some teeth on the back cog.

If / When any of the others give it a go, I will add it to the competition.

If you have done a Dyno run and want to add it to our site, contact me here for details.

Watch / hear our dyno test video here:-

DYNO RUN's

Col's Honda CBR 1000rr Fireblade 2004 - 149.4 BHP lost 6.2BHP
Phill's Honda CBR 1000rr Fireblade 2004 - 152.62 BHP lost 2.5BHP

Mark's Kawasaki ZX10R 2004 - 152.43 BHP lost 11.8BHP

Honda CBR 1000RR Fireblade 2004

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 19:13:00 +0000

This is the 2004 Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade.

The Black version is Col's and the Tri-colour (Red one) is Mine (Phill's)

Col bought his in 2013 with 11000 miles on the clock from a local bike shop after spotting it on Ebay. We called into the shop one Sunday morning in January and as soon as we saw it Col decided it was the one.
The snow fell and stopped him from collecting it for 2 long weeks, but eventually it arrived and he turned up on it the next fine Sunday morning.

A cold Sunday morning in late January 2014 myself and Col visited Streetbike for a look around the latest bikes and a coffee. A Honda Fireblade had just arrived as a part ex against a newer bike, so I gave it a look over and booked a test ride. Streetbike refitted the standard rear shock as it had a lower one fitted and fixed a few little problems and I collected it the first weekend in March with 16000 miles on the clock.
I have enjoyed every ride on the Fireblade, the performance, rider comfort and handling suits me fine.

The 2004 Honda Fireblade was the first of the totally new design Fireblades and the 1st that was not designed by Tadao Baba the designer of the fireblade from the original 1992 model. It was designed by the team responsible for the 2003 Motogp bike RC211V and shares some lines and technology from the swing arm and rear shock. The model stayed similar until 2007 only with a few cosmetic changes to the front around the headlight, slight geometry changes to the frame and improvements to the engine and a larger rear sprocket.
Personally we like the smoother lines on the 2004-5 version to look at.

The Honda 2003 Motogp winning team was Nicky Haden and Valentino Rossi.

Controls
The Instrument display has a rev counter and a digital read out of the current speed. The select button scrolls through 2 trip counters,the Odometer and displays the time. The brake lever has an adjustable postion, The bike has twin headlights of which only the one side illuminates when the engine is running and cannot be turned off, the other side comes on when man beam is selected. The rear section of the seat lifts off to reveal a compartment big enough for the tool kit, a rag and a bottle of visor cleaner, but don't think of putting any thing to eat in there as it will get very warm having the exhaust silencer right below it.

  Riding it

  The seat is nicely positioned, but is firm, and the reach to the bars is comfortable. The foot pegs are quite high and back giving it an agressive feel. On longer journeys or sitting in traffic can cause wrist and shoulder/neck ache. Out on the road the bike has a lot of punch when you open the throttle, turns quickly, yet feels stable at the same time. When I have ridden it, i thought it felt as though 70mph was its happy speed, where the engine picked up instantly. The default suspension setting are a little soft so we adjusted them to a few clicks stiffer.
Since owning my Fireblade we have noticed that Col's bike uses more petrol than mine roughly working out at an extra £1.50 per tank. A service may help.

Stats

Engine size - 998 cc
Top Speed - 178mph
Power - 172 bhp
Weight - 176kg
Fuel tank capacity - 18ltrs
Av MPG - 35mpg
Tank Ramge - 135 miles
Ins group - 17
Tyres - F 120/70/17 R 190/50/17
Suspension - Fully adjustable

The Original Exhaust

The New Exhaust

Modifications.

Both bikes have got Scorpion exhaust silencer's fitted, these take about 2 hours to fit as most of the rear of the bike needs to be removed. We opted for them as we liked the look better that the other brands available at the time. They have the option of removing the baffle which makes it sound racier but not so loud to give you a headache. They also look better and weigh a lot less than the standard type.

Common Problems.

Check the Fireblade owners forum for information that may help solve any issues you may have.

Problems this bikes has Encountered

When Col bought his, the breather pipe to the fuel tank had come off, so it leaked petrol when the tank was full.
The stator packed in on Col's, Honda have now released a fixed version that stops them from burning out.

Our Photo's

2014 Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 19:00:00 +0000

Galloway

For 2014 we decided to re visit Galloway as we had unfinished business on the Dalvine pass (A702).
When we were there in 2012, we had 4 rain filled days somewhat spoiling the twisty roads promised by magazines and internet site, so we planned to return. To save some money we only did a 3 night trip which gave us 2 full days in Galloway.
We set off on a hot sunny afternoon, but an hour late as Col had an issue getting his pants into his luggage bag, we had arranged to meet Rich up on Junction 38 of the motorway by the lake district and we made good time reaching him. We refueled at the next services on the motorway, heading off Scotland bound. After about 40 minutes I realized I still had 1 more gear to go and had been running in 5th gear since the last fill up. We had to stop once more for fuel and that had cost me £1 more than Col on the same bike.
We arrived at The Buccleuch Arms in Moffat and was met by John who showed us to the bike garages. We unloaded checked in and enjoyed our first taste of Innis and Gunn beer (Recommended).

The following day we got up to a dry sunny day, the sky had a few big dark grey clouds lingering around but it looked mostly dry. Waterproofs strapped to the back seats just incase we set off straight to the Dalvine Pass. We decided "lets just do what we came for while its dry!".
The road out of Moffat (A701) is a good warm up with plenty of twists to get you started. We then turned onto the pass which starts under a motorway bridge. We stopped under the bridge, reving the bikes making them sound sporty as the noise echoed and bounced off the bridges walls while we cam'ed up.
We pulled out into sunshine, and headed for the hills. The scenery here is beautiful, but the road didn't give you time to see much as the ribbon of tarmac was smooth, dry and twisty. Col and Jon passed me as the road became damp and the pace was a little more careful.

We head west and down the valley eventually joining the A76 and turned right up to the next road that took us back towards Abington. This road was similar to the pass through the lake district, with a Welshmans fantasy having lots of sheep on every corner. They were even waiting for a bus!

Locals waiting for the bus!

We got to Abington and decide its was coffee time, so found a truck stop for a brew. Rich is not big on road signs and this became obvious when stopped here.

We set off in the direction of New Cummnock and joined the B741, definately the worse road of the trip. On the map it looked nice and twisty and scenic in reality its a patchwork of poorly filled pot holes, we were pleased to see the end of that section of road at Dalmellington and joined the A713, which was a little bit better but still had poor tarmac. We stopped for a chat along side Loch Much and noticed that we were in Ayr, the Tarmac for Galloway started only a few metres away and it was perfect.

We crossed the boarder, hungry so found a place for dinner in a village called Carsphairn. We set off and as about a dozen guys on BMW touring style bikes went past so tagged onto the back of them. 10 minutes later i cornered to find one of them had come off around a bend and was in the ditch at the side of the road. Two of his mates had pulled in just infront of him so we stopped to check all was ok. His bike seemed to be mostly covered in dirt and the guy was a bit dazed but no serious injuries were obvious so we carried on on way.
We headed back along tha A712 to Dumfries and then back to Moffat. We had been lucky with the weather only encountering a few damp roads and dodged the rain all day.

The following day we decided to visit Caerlaverock Castle after seeing it in a magazine in the hotel. We headed off via the Dalveen pass and hit some heavy rain so stopped to shelter under the motorway bridge. The sky was blue over the pass so as soon as the rain cloud had passed we set off riding through some prettys damp conditions but fun was still had. We rode down through Dumfries and down alongside the river Nith eventually arriving at the castle bathed in hot sunshine. We stopped for a coffee before having a look around and then using the castle which made a stunning backdrop for some photo's.

We headed back the way we had came, the weather now was with us, we turned onto the A702, stopped at the bottom and prepared for a dry run.
I had the camera on the bike, so sent Jon 1st, then Col, Rich and me at the back hoping to get some good footage of the bikes leaning one after the other into the corners.

We got to the best bit just at the bottom of the climb over the mountain, I saw Col pull out to pass Jon and thought I am going too. I knocked it into 2nd and opened the throttle, my bike kicked into action and 170 horses all sprang into life, Col was now passing Jon. I quickly passed Rich and caught Jon at the next bend, out of the bend I could hear the GSXR's exhaust wailing as he tried to keep infront but my Fireblade was in a gear lower giving me the run on him, the next corner approached and I followed him around opening the throttle slightly earlier and got past. Col was now 50 metres ahead, I hung onto the gears catching a metre here and there until the unwelcome damp roads stopped our fun about three quarters of the way up. We slowed to a more suitable pace for the conditions stopping at the bridge with big grins and heroic stories.
We decided we had still time to go to St. Marys Loch, for a coffee and another great photo opportunity. The wet weather was catching us, so we split up. Col wanted to go back to the hotel, the rest of us wanter to pass the Beeftub along the A701 another cracking bit of road. Col left us and we carried on. The A701 was fun the corners are all open and easy to read we were getting some good lean angles along there until we caught up with some traffic. Jon was at the front but passed the Beeftub layby so Rich and me pulled in for a look. After a few minutes we carried on back towards the hotel and the rain started. I absolutely hammered it down. I dont think I have ridden in rain that hard since the first trip to Germany. It lasted all of 5 minutes but the water was dripping inside your boots and i could feel my toes getting wet.
We arrived at the hotel, it was hot and had missed the rain so we put the bikes away, hung the leathers in the shed and went to find our evenings entertainment.

Jon told us the next day he needed to get moving early as he was doing a night shift at work when we got back!
9am the bikes were loaded and ready to roll, Col sat on his bike but the rear tyre was flat, but not totally so we went to the petrol station filled up with air and fuel and set off to the motorway and the 1st services. Cols tyre was holding up, loosing 5lb pressure here and there but we got back just in time for a last 10 minute soaking. Cols tyre had started to degrade having lots of tiny splits around the centre for about half the circumfrence. Rich's front tyre is now done and needs replacing. Jon's and My bikes both went good.

Fuel wise.
Rich's ZX6R was cheapest to take
My Fireblade was next (apart from the 1 section of motorway where it was in 5th gear)
Jon was next
Col seemed to be putting a minimum of 50p - a maximum £1 more than me on most fill ups.

All in all it was a good few days, I wouldn't have been the same without you guys, thanks and see you next time : )

Summary

Date:- 5th July - 8th July 2014
Weather:- 4 dry days, occasional drizzle
Hotels:- Buccleuch Arms - Moffat
Miles:- 811.
Fuel cost per litre:- 1.26p to 1.36p a ltr (8 petrol stations)

EDSBK Riders:- Phill,Col,Jon and Rich
Aim:- To ride the Dalveen Pass A702

We decided as we had unfinished business still over the boarder of Scotland that we would return to the area and try to get a dry ride along the A702. The section of road we wanted was the part that ran between A74 and A76, which winds its way through the mountains, we had 4 attempts did we do it?. Click here to find out more.

Chicken Strips

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 19:20:00 +0000

Incase your not aware, Chicken strips are the area on each side of the rear tyre that doesn't get used. We often gauge a ride by how wide these strips are. For example if a road is good we expect to see a very narrow band at the edges of the grip and if the road has been rather boring and straight then the band is wider.
Heres our video of night in the pub part 2

The EDSBK 2013 Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Phill) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 22:14:00 +0000

The Black Forest and Eifel Region Trip
On the afternoon of Sunday 30th June we left home in the glorious hot sunshine and headed for Ashford in Kent as from past experience its nice to break up the journey and have an early start when going through the tunnel into France. On the way down we put up with lots of heavy traffic on the M40 due to the F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone, then the M25 was very slow and eventually we came to a complete stop for just over an hour on the M26 due to a fatal accident, a poor guy came off his motorbike, quite alot of people seeing us on motorbikes came to tell us the gory details and told us to be careful... RIP rider.

We arrived at the hotel hot, tired and hungry. The accident above was definitely on our minds as we sat in MacDonlads and we discussed what could have happened. We had an early start the next morning so called it a night.
Up at 5am, we set off to Folkestone. I checked the weather app on the phone, rain due everyday and all day on 2 of the days we were away when in Germany, great I thought another damp trip. The Kent sky was heavy with dark grey clouds as we boarded the train. The train pulled into the tunnel and I said we had better decide on our route to Strasbourg. The sat nav suggested 3 ways the shortest was the A26 Toll road through France a 6 hour 20 minute journey, so we opted to take that.
Having never used a toll road before we approached the 1st set of booths with some anticipation and wondered what to do. A press of a button and a ticket arrived, that was it, no need to pay yet so we headed off with tickets in safe places.

1 of the many fuel stops along the A26

Drizzle covered the visor as we pulled in to our 1st petrol stop. We stopped for a while watching the sky and Jon said I am gonna risk not using water proofs yet, a good call as the sky started to clear and patches of blue appeared. We came to the 1st set of pay booths 13 Euros it said so entered the cash into the machine and collected a new card and set off again heading towards Reims some 240km away. More fuel needed so we stopped again, Metz had appeared on the signs over 300km away. We realised the journey was gonna be a long one, but with each fuel stop we made the weather got better.
We eventually arrived at the last set of booths Jon and Rich went to a different booth and that's where I messed up and was in the credit card payment booth. I inserted my ticket and a price appeared on the screen but I couldn't find my credit card quick enough and the price disappeared. I had to call for assistance as I wasn't able to get through the barrier without paying, luckily someone came to help even if she was pretty useless and kept me waiting ages in the now very hot sunshine. Col had his credit card ready so paid for us both and we moved on somewhat frustrated with the system.
Some 45 minutes later we arrived at the Pension Williams in the Black Forest. Nice, I thought as we pulled in.

We were greeted by David one of the hotel owners who gave us our room keys and told us where to get a meal. We showered and changed and set off to the restaurant to have dinner, "drie beers bitte" and a tea.
"A what?" the owner asked,
" A Tea ", Rich said
" oh!" she replied.
The next day at breakfast I asked David about the B500, he told us that at the end of the lane if we were to go to the right, that was the bit that people come to see. He says that an unpopular politician with a funny mustache had had the road built back in the 1940s as a training road for the motorcycle police to practice high speed pursuits and each corner has a constant radius which enable riders to find the best approach and hold corner speed. I thought that sounded good so we headed straight there.
What a road! why cant it be in England? stuck somewhere down by the cross gates Cafe end of the A483, it would make the best road better.

Part of the 10km best bit of the B500

Black Forest Gateaux in the Black Forest

It twists up and down the hills and every corner is just perfect, apart
from the cars, buses and lorries that keep getting in the way. We all enjoyed that part of the road. We then headed towards Baden Baden, the road was still twisty, more enclosed and tighter corners, but with a lot of speed limits and other traffic, so not quite so much fun.
I noticed a place near the top so we headed there for some food and a cool drink. Jon and I decided it seemed appropriate to have a slice of Black Forest Gateaux in the Black forest.
The views were great from up there. I wish we had of had more time to explore the area as there was a lot more to see. (maybe another time) We headed back to the hotel for a beer or 2 and soaked up the sun, we were on holiday!

A view of France from the B500

The next morning we awoke to the sound of running water and looked out onto a miserable day. We were moving north to stay at Dollendorf by the Nurburgring so packed our things and headed off.

Jon had the sat nav on so we were following him, we got on to the Motorway and headed south, the wrong way, 10 km later we turned back and headed North. The journey was horrible. It hammered it down at times, our boots had water in them, the route was heavy with trucks and the spray made the guy in front almost disappear. Eventually we arrived at Sliders Guest House and Brendan the owner met us and showed us to the rooms. I noticed the Berlingo and remembered the ride we had in it 3 years ago. (see trip 2010) I said I don't want to go out in that this time to Col, and he laughed. It carried on raining so we put the bikes in the garage and stopped in for the evening.

We awoke the following morning to the smell of breakfast cooking, Brendon does a great full English, and he gave us a route to try out to while waiting for the Nurburgring to open. We headed off and 15 miles later my R1 flashed up ERR 1 on the display and shut down. Remembering my IT trainging, I turned it off and on again, it started and I thought just a glitch maybe yesterdays rain had caused a problem.

2 minutes later the bike stopped again, I noticed the electrics were going, so pulled the headlight connections off to save some power. I said to the others I want to head back to Sliders and check it out. Unfortunately I didn't make it, as it stopped time and time again until the battery was totally flat.

Jon and Rich headed back to see if there was a battery I could borrow, as we knew Brendon liked his R1's using them to do many of the fastest of fast laps of the Nordschleif and there was a few bits of R1 knocking about his garage. They returned in the Berlingo, saying Brendon says bring it back in here, we loaded my bike and we headed back.

Berlingo's Ideal cars to move motorbikes in!

We got back to the hotel and I took the bike to bits, trying different regulators, batteries and cleaning connections but nothing fixed the problem. I said to the others to go and have some time at the track then bring me a Subway while I tried to sort out the bike, but had already decided the problem was more serious than I was going to be able to deal with.
I rang the RAC breakdown for assistance and then the true meaning of fully comprehensive European breakdown cover was discovered. Repatriate only means me not the bike. The nice lady at RAC in Lille told me the bike would need to be fixed before it could return home and I was going to have to fly home then come back to fetch it once it was fixed. They said the cost was going to be 500 Euros to fix it, plus this and that and storage and this and that and the figures she quoted went up over 1200 Euros! She said she would send a mechanic to look at it first but he would need to take it away. 90 Minutes later he arrived with a car and trailer, but no tools.
He said "I have come to collect the bike and take it to a Yamaha dealer in Cologne who will repair it".
I was not going to be able to collect it for over a week and weekends were no good as the work shop was closed.

Shite, I thought.

I said wait here and went to see Brendon to ask if he knew a van hire company that might be a cheaper option to get me to Calais, and he said, tell you what you pay for a driver and the fuel and you can take it in the Berlingo! I couldn't believe it, this was the best thing I could have heard at the time :) I told the RAC guy to go away and spoke to his boss on the phone, who said we will reimburse any costs.

I spoke with Brendons friend Roy who was going to drive and arranged to set off at 9am the following morning. I rang a guy at work (Goughy of CG Transport) and asked if he might help me out and send a van to pick me up and he said,

" leave it with me, dont worry, I ll sort you out."

My battery was on charge and we shut the garage, I sat down for a beer with the guys and thought I hope this is all going to go to plan.

The guys told me about there lap on the track, Col was well impressed with his new Fireblade and Jon found some new vibration that put him off. Rich waited on the car park for them to return, unsure if he wanted to try a lap and see what speeds over 150mph felt like.

The following morning Roy was there 10 minutes early, he didnt look like I expected him too after speaking to him on the phone. He turned up on a Ducatti 996, and I thought great a biker, we have something in common, as it was going to be a 270km drive to Calais. Roy was great and I enjoyed the few hours we spent travelling from Germany through Belgium and into France, but all the time I was thinking how are we going to get the bike out of the Berlingo? its too heavy for just 2 of us and the other 3 guys would need to make 2-3 more fuel stops than us, I didnt want to hold Roy up as he was going to have to drive back and was working that evening.

Roy said " Hows your French?"

I said "not good ",

I could ask the way to the butchers shop, the time, tell someone to open the window and string together a few words but not really understand what a French person says back to me.

"oh, same here" Roy said.

Roy suggested we stopped at the junction just before the entrance to Calais end of the Channel tunnel and asked at the Honda dealer to help us out with the bike. I thought that was a great idea and Roy pulled off the Motorway.

The French guys we spoke too didn't understand what we wanted but eventually an English speaking guy came and said,

"So you want the bike out of the,CAR!, Ah! a Berlingo, what a great car, its made in France you know", We both agreed it was a good motor and he looked at the bike.

"Hmm!" he said

"wait here"

He came back with a ramp and said,

"let me wheel it out."

The R1 was back on the tarmac, I put my leathers on shook hands with Roy, paid him his money and pressed the starter. click it went.

Shite,I thought.

Roy said," I ll push you, if it starts just go", so he gave me a shove and it started and I was off.
I checked in, the queue was huge for passport control, then a further check of the ticket and then I waited for all the cars to get on and then got on the train. I turned off the engine and we headed off to England. I text Jon to say see you in the UK and he said they had just arrived at passport control and were booked on the next train.

Back in the UK I tried to start the bike but it would go, the Guy cleaning the toilets came and gave me a push and the bike started, I knew it might not start again if I stopped so hit the motorway fast, I needed 13 miles of power, 10 minutes I thought, come on battery you can do it. At 11 miles the dash went off and half a mile later the bike came to a stop about quarter of a mile short of the junction. I found some shade and waited for the others to give me a push. Jon arrived 1st and then Col and they gave me a push and the R1 fired into action giving me another 2 minutes of power and getting me almost to the end of the motorway slip road. I wait ed for them to catch up to get another push. Col suggested I wait and watch the sequence of the traffic lights and time the next part so I didnt have to stop. His plan worked great, as soon as I got going the lights changed and I made it off the roundabout before the bike gave up for the last time of the day but it was all down hill to the hotel so I rolled my way there. I arrived on what looked like an electric powered bike, silently.
The following morning CG Transports van was there waiting for me and Grant took me home with the R1 in the back. The others all arrived back at their homes an hour later than me, their bikes had covered over 500 miles more than mine.

Once at home I got the workshop manual out, checked the readings and found the fault was definitely as Brendan and another Guy at the hotel had suggested, the Stator/Generator/Windings/Altinater had had it. Mark suggested a local bike mechanic to do the work. Kev from Projex in Cradley, he got the parts and fitted them for £150.
The R1 is now back on the road!

I want to say a special thank you to Brendan from Sliders Guest House in Dollendorf, Roy, Chris(CG Transport) and Grant for getting me home and to Jon, Col and Rich for their help and support, and sorry that I couldn't ride the whole trip with you.
Thanks Guys :)

The Eco challenge.
To be fair to the others I didnt include any fuel after my breakdown, otherwise the only good thing to come out of this was my R1 doing over 500 miles on less than a gallon!(be it in the back of a Berlingo and a van)

1st Phill Yamaha R1 19pts - 54.8 MPG £97
2nd Rich Kawaski 636 20pts - 58.3 MPG £91
3rd Jon Suzuki GSXR 1000 31pts - 50.8 MPG £105
4th Col Honda Fireblade 38pts - 49.9MPG £107

If you are planning to have European Breakdown, I suggest you ask the question will you repatriate me and my bike back to the UK? I did take out the fully comprehensive breakdown cover at the extra cost. Also after the breakdown I was told be RAC France, as my bike is over 9 years old its value is not worth the cost of transporting it to Calais. I went with RAC as it was a name I thought I could trust, but really if the worst happens in my experience your best off to sort it out on your own. To be fair to RAC they have returned me my European costs but only after I complained.

Summary

Date:- 30th June - 6th July 2013
Weather:- 6 dry days, 1 raining
Hotels:- Ashford Travellodge, Pension Williams, Sliders Guest House
Miles:- 1563.
Fuel cost per litre:- 1.36p to 1.46p a ltr (17 petrol stations)

EDSBK Riders:- Phill,Col,Jon & Rich
Aim:- Ride around the Black Forest area especially along the legendary B500, then travel north to do laps of the Nordschleife.

2013 Road Trip

We decided as 2012 had been a washout to go abroard, and explore somewhere new. As Col had had a new bike and Rich had not been there before Col wanted to tag the Nurburgring onto the trip, unfortunately, not all went to plan during that part.