4 years worth in 6 months…

Hello all,

Hope you are all well and enjoying the current weather. It’s great! I think this will be the first of a long list of updates, product reviews and other stuff, so hold on to your hats.

Sunday was the 2nd day out of 14 that I had off, so I took full advantage of it. I had a good lie in and was heading over to the garage with Blair to get his bar end weight looked at. He said that he was riding along, and Kirsty suddenly went “I think a bird just hit me!” So they stopped and couldn’t see anything, and continued on home.

Then B realised that he had a mega numb right hand, and finally noticed the lack of bar end weight on his grip. Hmm.

Very odd. Although B does sit with his hand over the bar end weight…

So he wanted to head out to the garage to get a new one under warranty. It was a really nice day and whilst I was waiting for blair to arrive I sat on the front grass and listened to the birds and trees… Blair arrived and grabbed a quick cig before we headed out. It was a cracking day!

Once we arrived we checked out the metal sitting out the front, including the GSX1400 which was nice, and the boat, also known as a B-King.

May not look like much, but sounds amazing and goes like stink…

So after looking at the nice bikes we headed inside and B started his story up, which resulted in the guy saying (without surprise I may add) that B would have to come back in tomorrow to see the guy that deals with that particular type of request….

It’s really annoying that when someone asks if their bar end weight that fell off can be replaced under warranty, that they all can’t go, “yes” or “no.”

Whilst there, and remembering that my 7500 mile service was on Thursday, I asked if I could have a rear tyre changed at the same time as…well….look at it:

This was a week ago so it’s even more bald than this.

He said “Aye no problem” and I thought I’d better ask how much it will be.

“Well it’s £220 for the service and another £140 for the tyre”

“………well forget the tyre then.”

Bloody hell!!! Upon me asking why it was so expensive, he said “Well you get the spark plugs changed, and they cost £31, and then there’s the added labour of lifting the tank and removing the airbox.”

“Ok.”

I have lifted my tank 5-6 times now and I can now go from bike fully assembled to tank up and airbox off in 15 minutes. Now if you go on the price of the 4k service, which included the oil & filter change etc etc, that was £140. So it’s costing £31 for the spark plugs, leaving £50 for lifting the tank and removing the airbox.

My garage thus charges £200 p/hour labour. Brilliant.

So after I stopped crying, we went out to the bikes and Blair had a smoke and we talked about their complete lack of help…but that you already know about.
We then thought, whilst its such a nice day, that we would go for a quick blast up to East Lomond and then home again, which we did and it was ace.

There was a few police bikers out, but they were on one of those police training day things, where the police man takes you out and teaches you how to ride fast and safe. Both Blair and I went past them at a brisk pace, then thought, “I just went past a police man at more than the speed limit and he didn’t chase me.”

The thing with these courses is though (bearing in mind I haven’t been on one, I have just read about it) is that they don’t worry about you speeding. They actually encourage you to so that they can show you how to safely do it. It must be weird for you to be followed by a police man, doing more than the speed limit but he’s not pulling you over.

Anyway, after we got to the top of East Lomond, we stopped and had a chat about bikes and stuff. We then started talking about the service again and how I have actually done just under 9000 miles (and I’m just getting my 7500 mile service…oops. But I had my 4k late anyway) and wondered how many miles B had done.

He said that if we take off the Scotland Trip, he has done 2500 miles in nearly a year. I said that he was the UK national average biker and when we sat there thinking about it, we worked out that I have actually done 4 years worth of riding (on my GSR, which I got at the end of January, 08 ) in 6 months. All in all, I have done around 12 years of UK national average biking in a year and a half. That’s pretty scary.

He then quipped, “at least it’s cheaper. I’ve not even had my 4k service yet.”

Great.

East Lomond. Where brain’s get fried.

We then headed home and as we approached the road to my house, a Kawasaki naked old thing pulled in in front of us and it sounded amazing! We all then stormed along the road and it was a great finish to a nice ride out.
I fancy a 1 piece textile suit. For the reasons that: there’s no 360 zip to let water in, there’s only 1 entry zip that is super re-inforced, there’s more insulation thus warmer winter riding and finally, it’s smart.

I guess I’ll have to see what happens after we move in to our new house in August.
More updates soon!

Thanks for looking all,

Cheers

Gordon