Broken Bike, Broken Heart

So after last time my bike broke you would think that things would start to get better. Well that’ll be a no then.

Having had the big trouble with the wiring loom, I removed the HID kit after I got my bike back from the garage. Everything seemed to be fine, the bike was running just normal and started no problem. Then a small knocking started appearing when I was in 6th gear. I felt it mainly through the pegs but it started to transmit through the frame as well.

Thursday last week I got up for work, running early which was a bonus and headed out to my bike to head to work. Key in, turn, clutch in, started button and engine didn’t start. A couple of more attempts and nothing. There was the odd backfire and “brrrvv” but no engine. Then suddenly it fired in to life. Strange! So I tried it again, turning off the bike and back on. No start. Again I tried 4-5 times and it started again. So I thought I should head off to work and go via the petrol station. Filled up, got back out to bike, “please start” and amazingly after a long blast of the starter button it did start. Great!

Got to work on time, turned off bike and I thought I’ll try it and see if it starts first time. Nope. So I left it at that and went in to work. Day’s end arrived and I headed out to bike, half expecting to have to get the bus, but that thankfully wasn’t the case and it started as if there was no problems at all!

So today I thought, it must be ok! I gave the bike a good clean, tidied it all up and went to start it…nothing.

Deary me!

I called the garage after 30 minutes of unsuccessful trying and they asked me to call back tomorrow and we could arrange for it to go back in to the garage.

How. Disappointing.

Every time this happens I am left without my primary mode of transport, and it is so frustrating. A bike like this is meant to be reliable, a workhorse. However having said that, unlike my previous bike, I just want it back. I haven’t lost my faith in it (yet) and look forward to having it back in full working order.

In other news, last week was a disgusting week weather wise, so I ended up having to use a black bin bag as a waterproof vest for my RST Paragon jacket. It worked a treat! You know what they say; necessity is the mother of all invention.

The Germany vs Spain final is on, and I’m off to watch it.

Thanks for reading all,

Gordon

Update: RST GP-Pilot Race Gloves

Hello again.

Next up is the RST GP-Pilot gloves. Initial review of them is here.

I didn’t really speak about them that much in the review, only that they are really comfy! Well here is an “extended” review then…

The RST GP-Pilot is the 2nd from top end glove that they offer.

The GP-Pilot is a very good glove. And when I say very, I mean very. When you first try on a brand new one, it may feel a bit tight, but after short while of bedding in, the GP’s start to feel really snug. The leather moulds around my hand in a way that as soon as I put it on, it’s instantly like home. The leather that is used around the glove depends on it’s location. For the fingers and middle palm a beautiful soft leather is used. Blair’s first comment when he tried on my GP’s are “Wow, how soft are these!?” He has a set of Alpinstars Sledges, like mine only he has actually worn his and he seemed really impressed with the GP’s.

As you move around the glove you have a harder leather on the outer edge of the hand…I don’t know what you call it, but it’s the bit of hand between your pinky and your wrist. This tougher leather continues across the bottom of your hand with a funny “pillow” of material right over the ball of your thumb.

Across the palm you have some grippy stuff and in the major finger joint is some stretchy panelling. The finger sides are ventilated with holes and on the index and middle finger are funny “fencing masks.”

The vents on the leading edge of the index and middle fingers.

These vents actually work, supplying a small amount of air in to the finger cavities and offering some relief from heat, however I don’t really know how much use they are when it’s not that hot here in Scotland.

There is a lot of nice design touches on this glove, and one such design touch is the stitched 3rd and pinky finger.

Webbed 3rd and pinky finger.

It is a bit annoying if you are a 3-finger braker or clutcher, but for me being a 2-finger and 4-finger for brakes and clutch, it was no problem. The concept behind this webbing is because in a fall, the pinky is the one thing that is guaranteed to break, so if you attach it to the 3rd finger, it doesn’t. Now I have no evidence of this being true, but you’ll find a lot of gloves these days are webbing the final 2 fingers together.

Now on to the finger tips. These areas have started to lose their white colour and have no adopted the raw leather colour. It’s so far away from being an issue that it seems silly bringing it up, but some people may find this annoying/disappointing.

Left hand index finger.

It is mainly happening on the left hand as this hand is doing more, but it has started now on the right as well. It’s not really that bad because the bare leather now gives a better feel and better grip with the levers and bar grip. Fastenings are all excellent, with a wrist velcro closure and the main double whammy velcro enclosure (you fasten one from right to left and then the main one from left to right, over that first velcro…) and offer whatever kind of fastening you want, whether it’s over leather race look or under jacket street look.

Comfy as you like.

You can see the thumb is wearing quite a bit as well as the index and middle fingers.

So to conclude:

This glove, which I got for £5, but retail for £69.99 is the best glove I own. In my glove arsenal past and present I have had some RST Vortex’s, RST SRT6-7’s and Alpinestars Sledge’s and these gloves are the daddies. Perfectly fitting glove, with beautiful materials, great stitching (Hooray RST) which is Kevlar if I am correct in thinking, and great ventilation and feel. I have absolute confidence that in a spill these gloves would do the business. They even have Carbon Fibre knuckle and finger protection.

There isn’t really a bad point with these gloves. Perhaps the £70 price may put some people off, but for a glove that gives you brilliant value for money, it’s a no-brainer. The next best I imagine is probably an Alpinestars Race glove, and they start at £150…

For a glove that is made by a company that I haven’t really had a good time with, these gloves have restored some of my faith in RST and make me more confident that the stuff they bring out in the future will be of the same quality.

Thanks for looking!

Gordon

Update: Furygan Orona Jacket Review

Hello and welcome to the first of the mega updates.

After watching a pretty crap covered semi-final, Germany have won and I am in the mood to be critical.

A while back I wrote about the Furygan Orona textile jacket that I had finally found after over a year of searching. I wrote about all the little details of the jacket that set it apart from the rest. Well a detail that I never even thought about has become the main let down of this jacket, and that is the lining.

If you can imagine a basic, old school waterproof jacket. The ones that are like plastic. Well imagine that type of material inside a motorcycle jacket. Now imaging said jacket, apparently a “summer” jacket, in 24°c and what do you get? A big sweaty betty.

I wore this jacket for 7 days non-stop (with exception to sleeping.) I wore it through a variety of conditions, from raining to cold to scorching to really windy. And in most it performed really well. It remained completely dry within when I wore it in extreme downpours. It remained warm inside when it was both windy and cold.The thermal lining, which has space age tin foil stuff in it, was excellent and did the job perfectly.

However when it was sunny the jacket quickly became too hot inside resulting in very sweaty bodies. It was like wearing cling film in a sauna. This then threw up a few more problems like the uncomfortable inner elbow and wrist lining. The wrist closure is weird. It zips up to the edge of the cuff and also has a velcro closure as well, but I find that the zip makes the cuff very rigid, which makes putting gloves over the cuff quite sore. And it’s the only way you can wear gloves because there is no room to put them under the cuff. It was however quite nice, when it was really hot, to keep the zips open and have the gloves inside the wide cuff.

The thermal lining, whcih is meant to keep one warm when it’s a bit chilly, was pretty handy to remove this discomfort. I even started using it even when it was sunny because it removed the crap lining from my skin. It may just be me, but I think the tin foil thing actually acted as a thermostat, keeping me cool in the blazing sun….great.

This is a pretty bad issue considering that this is meant to be a summer jacket. You would think that a mesh or light fabric would be used inside a summer jacket, and not a plastic like non-breathable liner.

A few more points of interest are the rigidness of the jacket. The outer has a lot of small padded areas stitched in to it, which looks really smart, but makes the jacket quite rigid. This means that when you get on the bike and sit, the whole jacket seems to ride up, making shoulder checks and other movements quite forced. It’s not a very natural fit.

So really what I am saying is, this jacket is more suited to colder summer days, the ones where you need that bit more heat retention rather than dissipation. It is perfect for Autum I would suggest and perhaps the odd warmer winter day, as the thermal lining is excellent. However due to uncomfortable lining and very uncomfortable wrists, this is certainly a jacket that is needing some improvement.

I still think it’s a superb looking jacket and if there was some attention on the negatives, it could be a brilliant jacket.

On the flip side, the relief came when I took the thermal lining out my RST Paragon jacket. It has a mesh liner and it a joy to wear when it’s hot. A good all rounder, if only it was waterproof.

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more gear updates.

Cheers

Gordon

Half Shut Knife

Hello all.

First off let me apologise for not posting lately, it’s been a bit hectic.

Me and Em have been looking for our first house and it’s proving difficult. We have looked at 4 places now and we’re still no further forward. I guess it’s trying to balance livability with compromisment. Yep, I have given up trying to find the write words. You know what I mean hopefully.

The GSR has developed a real funny thing. When I get to 6th gear and roll on I can feel a distinct knocking through the pegs. It’s like there is only 1 cylinder going but really slowly, a slow “thud…thud…thud” and it’s at constant intervals so it’s obviously something to do with the engine….I am nearly due for my 8k service so I’ll bring it up then.

Another thing that I need to bring up is the small matter of my bike failing to start. The other day I headed off to work and stopped at the petrol garage. I filled up, went in to the shop to pay, came back out and by the time I had done all that and tried to start my bike, it wouldn’t. I tried 5-6 times to start it and ended up wheeling it over to the car park. I tried a few more times and it fired up no problems. Extremely weird and worrying, considering that not long ago it did that and the whole wiring loom needed to be replaced. I wonder what the reason for it is. Was there an air pocket in the fuel line? Who knows….

Anyway, I am really tired, very very stressed and had a very sore head all day. So instead of continuing to moan my face off, I shall retire to my bed.

Keep checking back folks, I will be updating the site with these things over the coming week:

• Update of my RST GP-Pilot Race Gloves
• Review/Update of my HARDAS Kevlar Jeans
• Update of my beloved Alpinestars Effex Gore-tex boots
• Update of my Puma Desmo 800 boots
• Video post of our Bealach Na Ba ride up and down!
• More gear updates and reviews as and when I have the time.

So I look forward to that.

Thanks for looking everyone, I hope that you haven’t lost interest.

G

p.s. My freaking camera memory card has suddenly stopped working, so I can’t take any photos, which is really annoying….ARGH I AM MOANING AGAIN! Night all.

Quick Update

Just a quick update,

Been reading a lot of interesting motorcycle blogs over the past couple of days. It’s good to read other people’s perceptions of situations similar to your own. I’ll add a few in the links to the right…I might start a new section for it as well.

The GSR has now become an extension of myself. I find myself riding to work these days in complete harmony with my bike. I know the exact precise position that I need the clutch to be in to give me a slick shift, and I am able to instantly go there whenever I want. I know the inner workings of the stupid throttle snatch and can work around it on the fly…it’s almost as if I can see it coming and take measures to prevent it. There is a funny tapping that is going on in 6th. If I open the throttle I can hear a regular tapping. I have no idea what it is but I’ll bring it up at my next service…which is due pretty soon.

I read with interest on someone else’s blog about back brake and what it’s for…which got me thinking about how some people actually don’t use it. I know that Blair doesn’t use his back brake as much as I do but when you see how easy the bike is to control when you do use it…it’s a wee bit baffling why people dont use it.

After updating the logo of my website I looked at getting a new sticker for my helmet and so headed back to Diginate (www.diginate.com) the place I got my first set of stickers.

They had said on their website previously that they would soon be doing contour cut stickers…well that time has arrived. I created my artwork in Photoshop, got an instant quote online and then sent it all through. I got a confirmation email to say that my artwork was ok and that was that. 1 week later they arrived and I have to say, they are pretty good!

Pictures are below and with a deal of £20 for 100 of these full colour bad boys, it’s a win-win situation…now where can I stick 100 YamYam stickers….?