YamYam Biker

YY is BACK!

Gordon — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:37:48 +0000

Hello!

YamYam has returned after a while. A very big apology to all, I was moving in to my new house! Two and a half weeks of summer holidays were spent painting, sanding, straining, hurting and stressing. We got the keys Friday and had moved in Tuesday, and that includes decorating the whole place, assembling the 100 pieces of IKEA furniture and becoming a partner in both IKEA and B&Q. We overspent by 300%. That’s not good!

So yeah we had a quick move in and the rest of the holiday was ironing out the creases and getting things how we wanted it. The only downside now though is that my GSR is out of the warm walls of a garage and in to the cold, damp, dark atmosphere.

After 2 weeks then what is new?

Well you will notice the new mileage bar. I decided to steer away from the GSR dash replication to give clearer indication and also save some space. I liked the square one but this one is simpler and better. If you noticed the new bar, you will notice that I have now crested the 10k hill and am currently sitting just over the biggie. It’s weird how quickly it all racks up. 10,000 miles. What’s even more amazing is that after 3 rear tyres, I still have the original front one! It’s really squared and is down to 1.5mm but it’s still going strong! Ha.

Speaking of tyres, my bike went back in after it’s belated 7k service.

The 7k service was £320, and this was due to a new rear being put on. I had mentioned the knocking sound in 6th and the indicators were flashing too fast. I handed my bike in at 11:30am for my 1:15pm time slot and when I returned at 4:30pm, they hadn’t finished some of the jobs like air filter. This was because “it took so long to sort out the indicator problem. Also we couldn’t find a fault with 6th gear.”

Frustrating. So I had to book another time for my bike to come in so they could have a longer test ride and eventually they came back saying that it was possibly the front sprocket. Fair enough. They then added that although a sprocket is around £10, it would probably cost over £130 for a kit and I would probably need the kit…aye ok.

I headed out to my bike to find that YET AGAIN the fecking mechanic had put my indicator pods on wrong. I mean, is he blind? The indicator pods sit in a small dent in the tank which makes the pods sit flush with the tank. When this guy puts them back on, they are either so far off the tank you can see the ground through them or they are all bent under the ignition panel. It’s really annoying and shows how much time they take to give your bike back in the same condition you gave it to them. It also means removing the pods, un-bolting the tank and re-aligning them to fit right, which takes 30-50 minutes and requires ratchets and other bits I don’t have at my house now.

So that’s really annoying and I am getting really fed up with their story telling.

My next service is at 12k, so another 2 months and that means November! OOO.

On another note, after I dropped Em off at work on Sat I went to see the Honda CB1000R. I think it’s my next bike. It is GORGEOUS. It’s really stubby, quite thin, quite tall and looks beefcake. I love it and I love the green colour too. for £7200 it’s a good looking next bike.

Now that my bike is out in the open I fancied an alarm, so I went down to Scott Murray and spoke to my mate Billy. He said fitting an alarm would cost around £80 for say 2 hours labour and I found a DataTool System 2 alarm on fleaBay for £120, so it’s around £200 for an alarm…that’ll have to wait then.

In the meantime I have ordered a bike cover and I have my Motrax Vishas disk lock back from B.

Since the bike has been out in the open I have noticed how much colder it’s getting already. I don’t like it. It’s only bloody September, and we didn’t really have anything resembling summer now did we. I guess I’ll just have to accept that Winter is arriving.

I am quite keen on some handlebar muffs. They may look shit, but I dont care. I also found my wiring loom for my heated gloves, so if I get my muffs and my gloves rockin’, that’ll be ace. It’s really only hands that are a real issue for me in winter and I’ve been through two so I know what to expect.

What else….I bought a “Foggy” anti-fog mask and fitted it the other day…but I’ll post a review about that because it’s suddenly really disappointing…

I got my new Puma Desmo 800 Gore-Tex boots, so I shall also post about that too.

I think that’s me for now. Sorry it’s been a while but once I get the internet in my new house (Virgin is taking ages) it’ll all be back up and running smoothly soon.
Thanks for visiting all!

Gordon

Suzuki GSR600 Stock Exhaust Sound

Gordon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:02:39 +0000

You wanna hear the stock exhaust pipes on my Suzuki GSR600 K7? Well do you?

Boom:

Enjoy!

Review: Shark RSI “Eden” Helmet

Gordon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:58:39 +0000

Hello all,

Well after the fantastic weekend we had it was back to work for us. But thankfully only 2 days of work for me because I am not off to move in to the new house! Hooray!

As I mentioned in the Saturday BSB post, we had headed to Scott Murrays for Em’s new helmet. We went out the other day so that Em could try it, and thus, a review was needed.

Em's new Shark RSI "Eden" helmet

The RSI has achieved a well earned 4 star SHARP rating. This is excellent and Em immediately felt a difference over her first helmet, the AGV K-Series.

“It feels a lot snugger than my other one.” Just by looking at Em wearing it showed how well it fitted her.

So we headed out to test what it was actually like.

You would think they could get the sticker straight...

We took a quick blast up to Tesco to get some money out (we live in a village where there is no ATM) and I went quick to let Em get a good feel of the helmet.

Once we arrived Em shouted “It’s a lot quieter than my other one”

So far so good. The comfort level seemed really good for Em and I could tell she was loving it.

So when we got home I took some photos of the daisy fresh.

Ren and Stumpy, no wonder the Shark's don't fit my head.

This helmet has a great shape to it, with all the fin's moulded in to the shell.

The paint on this helmet is superb. Briliant detail.

The white areas on this helmet are actually pearlescent paint, giving a really nice pink shimmer to it under certain light. It’s really hard to get a picture of it, but here is my best attempt:

The pearlescent paint is a very nice touch to this helmet.

The standard Shark breath guard. The padding is excellent and so is the ventillation.

Lots of vents for airflow around the head. Note the visor opening cavity at the right.

Another paint detail.

The exhaust vents. I never really understood these.

A close up of the paint/decals. Very nicely finished.

Ian would have something to say about this.

The Shark quick release visor system. Brillaint! AGV should take note.

Showing the rear paint/decals and the extremely squint gold square racing badge thing.

And a final pic of the big logo on the back of the helmet.

So all in all I think this was a great step up in helmets for Em, and a lot safer too. Her K-Series AGV reached 3 stars in the SHARP ratings, so that extra star gives her a bit of extra piece of mind.

A few of her comments on the helmet were that it was very quiet, extremely comfortable, well ventillated, lighter than her K-Series (even though the RSI is 5g heavier) and that the visor is solid.The paint on this thing is superb, a massive amount of detail is around this helmet and most of all, it has a double D chin strap, which is the only way to secure a helmet in my eyes. None of this seatbelt crap.

The shape of this helmet is very nice, with all the aerodynamics and fins moulded in to the shell. It has a similar profile to my Shoei XR-1000 albeit a little dumpier. It is really nice to see a helmet with so many design flairs.

The helmet is as it says in the last picture there, “Fiberglass structure, Carbon/Aramid reinforced” which gives the shell the hardness yet lightness that you need.

Em’s experience with helmets as a pillion are different to those riding as she is protected from a lot of the windblast/rain/bugs that riders are, which may sway the performance of this helmet slightly. However for £188 it is excellent value for money and well worth the extra moolah.

As is with everything in the motorcycle gear world, you get what you pay for.

Thanks for looking all.

Gordon

Bennetts British Superbikes @ Knockhill: Race Day

Gordon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:08:42 +0000

Motorcycle racing is brilliant. It’s everything we want to be able to do, but can’t. Knockhill BSB was upon us and oh what a day it was.

You saw the Saturday Practice photos in my last post, so here’s the weekend’s worth of story for y’all.

Saturday was an early start, we got to Knockhill for 8:30am and already it was bustling with activity. The weather was pretty miserable but that didn’t deter either of us from trekking throughthe muddy fields to get a good place to stand.

First up were the KTM Superduke/R6’s practicing. It must have been 5 minutes in to the session and the red flag was waved as some one had fallen off. It must have been pretty bad as an ambulance was called out as well.

After that was cleaned up the racing started again and it began to dry up, but not for long because in the same session it started chucking it down.

We headed for the stands and took some refuge from the increasingly bad weather. Blair got chatting to a camera geek who prattled on about how “he waited and waited for the 10 but then realised that the 20 was coming out soon so saved himself for that.” Then he gave us some “advice:”

“I started off taking photos of these boys and then started thinking “I can go faster than that.” So I started racing..and then I went back to photographing.”

…….we waited for the advice to come along but I guess what he was saying was that he thought he could go faster, then couldn’t so had to go back to taking photos of the fast boys. Cheers mate.

The superbikes came out to practice and it was mega rain. A lot of falling off was witnessed and I guess that’s what the rest of the session was like for everyone.

We decided to head home because we had got some decent photos and were pretty wet. We stopped off at Scott Murrays to get Em a helmet that she saw ages ago but we couldn’t afford it. So I surprised her with that.

I had some good chat with the boys and then headed home to get the pics on to the computer and see how good the actually were.

Then we fell asleep because I tell you, watching racing doesn’t half weather beat you.

Race day came and another early start. Earlier in fact and we got to Knockhill for 8:20am and it was chocker. We learned from our bad advertisement of our season pass parking permit yesterday and had it blazing in the front window. We got parked in the special bit where no-body was and it was relatively flat unlike the 4×4 adventure we had yesterday.

The weather was damp but not raining. The KTM’s were out practicing so we got immediately to it.

KTM Superduke R

Blair was loving it again. These things sounded sweet. I was taking more videos than pictures on my cam because Blair has a better zoom. I’ll post them up soon.

After the KTM’s the big boys came out to play and by that point we had walked around to the home straight.

Superbikes

Superbikes - Rizla

We were getting a bit fed up of watching them flying past at silly speeds so decided to relocate to the hairpin. Me and Em headed round to scout a good place out and then called B and K. We didn’t want to get round and find no places only to lose our decent one where Blair was.

So we found a decent new place and called Blair. I then noticed some guy with his helmet crown down on the dirty ground. Mong.

Some nonce

Then a massive helicopter started a demonstration which was good!

Royal Marine Rescue

Supersports

After all the warmups and the KTM’s race, the biggies came out. And oh boy what a spectacle it was. The noise was tremendous, with the high roar of the IL4’s and the ground pounding raw ripper of the Ducati V-Twins. These things were FAST! 188mph Leon Haslam did on the front straight. Unbelievable.

Rizla

Airwaves Duc. My Favourite.

We were standing right at the pits for these photos.

This is the new style of riding shown at Knockhill

So yeah. It was a fantastic day out for all 4 of us and we all really enjoyed it. But oh boy was I tired when I got home.

Em went to bed and I settled in to watch the second BSB race as we left early to beat the traffic (which we did and it was a great decision)

But halfway through the race I fell asleep, and I mean instant, drooling knockout sleep. I then woke up when I heard the commentators shouting about how the leader had fell of in to Duffers Dip and was down hard.

I was cream crackered, but started to edit the photos for YamYam after I had a cup of strong coffee.

I will get the rest of the photos in to the gallery so head over there to see them.
Thanks for reading all,

Gordon

Bennetts British Superbikes @ Knockhill

Gordon — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:41:42 +0000

Just a quick picture post of YamYam @ the BSB practice session today. It was miserable weather and it was ace.

A bigger post tomorrow after the big event. Enjoy.

09-08-08 Knockhill Free Practice/Qualifying

It was brilliant seeing the BSB and the KTM SuperDuke cup. Blair was in his element watching the KTM’s and his next bike purchase has been officially secured.
More pics and story tomorrow.

Thanks

Gordon