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News

Spring Update

ST55 LFNThese last few weeks have been busy, but unfortunately rather mundane. A running theme of work, juggling kids, gloomy weather and being skint haven’t made for much excitement. Commuting through the winter is not a fun ride, but at least we’re starting to gain more light in the evenings now. Glad I went for the super bright Fluro helmet now. I am however getting more and more pissed off at idiots using mobiles whilst driving. See the shot from my helmet cam, this idiot was even stupid enough to opt for a super bright blue mobile that can be seen miles away! With the Met Police currently running their RoadSafe website to pass on the info, it’d be rude not to do something with all the juicy film footage I collect daily.

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Categories
Motorcycles

Spotted: Custom Chop Commuter

CustomChopOnLondonCommute
Spotting this shiny chop on my journey through London. Not your usual commuter hack.

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Motorcycles News

London MCN Show 2015

Back home after tiring day walking around the London MCN Show down at the Excel centre. Pretty local, so seemed a good plan, however in hindsight it’s debatable if taking the two kids was also a good plan. Much moaning, whining, squabbling and numerous toilet stops later, we’re feeling pretty damned drained!

Kawasaki H2
Kawasaki H2

The MCN show is not huge, certainly not a patch on the Brum show at the NEC, but still visited by all the main manufacturers; Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, KTM, BMW, Ducati, Harley, Victory, Moto Guzzi. There was also an Ariel stand, some Lexmoto and Peugeot scoots on show too. No Royal Enfield’s this year though. No brand spanking new releases unveiled, but it did give me chance to check out first hand the new Yamaha R1 and Tracer, the Kwak H2 (No H2R on display though).

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Categories
Maintenance

Down at OMC Sorting Chain, Sprocket and Shock

OMC-ChainSprocketShock-Replacement-1What a productive day, down at OMC (Oval Motorcycle Centre). Booked myself a bench and with the expert help of OMC’s Matt,  I replaced the Fazer’s chain, sprocket and rear shock. Sure, I could have just dropped the bike off at a regular garage to do the work in a couple of hours, but down at OMC I not only got the work done well, but learnt how do it myself for the future.

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News

A Brief History of the Motorcycle Helmet

helmet_history_infographic

Categories
Gear Reviews

Raleri Visor Inserts Review – FogStop and Photochromatic PCShade

RaleriFogStopVisorInserts-1
RaleriFogStopVisorInserts-CloseUp
The Raleri PCShade FogStop

If you’ve ridden in the cold or wet you will know full well how big an issue a steamed up visor is. A whole cottage industry has grown up around this issue, with the Raleri FogStop being one such solution. Raleri kindly sent some of their products in for review, but I shall endeavour to keep this review honest. The FogStop works in a similar fashion to the popular Pinlock, in that it’s a secondary internal visor providing a double glazed setup to prevent your breath condensing on the cold exterior visor. I’m going to compare against the Pinlock a lot, as it does cover a huge chunk of market and is more commonly available and known. The FogStop inserts fundamentally differs in that no specialist visor with specific pins is required, it simply has adhesive edging to stick straight onto the visor. Great if your visor isn’t Pinlock ready or isn’t available for your lid (e.g. my Bell M3R). Oh and the FogStop is cheaper too.

RaleriFogStopVisorInserts-1
Not really a yellow tint, just the protective film!
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Categories
Gear Reviews

Schuberth S2 Helmet Review

Schuberth-S2-Helmet-1I commute into London every day all year round, so when it comes to helmets I need something that didn’t just look good but also practical. Spurred by previous helmets being noisy, leaking rain, lacking Pinlock and other annoying niggles, I decided to splurge out on a premium lid. I was drawn to Schuberth due to their rep for being good quality and really quiet as being big into my music, hi-fi and home cinema I was keen to keep my hearing in good shape. I also wanted a design that would stand out and help me be seen on the road. Helmet City had a number of Schuberth lids heavily reduced last Autumn (~£200 off!), so I just had to check them out.

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Categories
Courses/Tuition

IAM Skills For Life – Machine Control Day

For my birthday my lovely wife signed me up for the IAM Skills For Life course, something I’ve wanted to do for a while which should really help improve my riding. On Sunday I attended the first day of the course – the machine control day. Out on North Weald airfield I was practising some key riding skills; low speed riding, balance, emergency stop, counter steering and so forth.

The riding was not easy, but really useful to practice in a safe environment off the road and quickly highlighting some bad habits I’ve fallen into (in particular how I cover my front brake). There were loads of IAM observers on hand to help, give encouragement and ask the right questions to aid us pinpointing our own mistakes.

IAM-MachineControlDay

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Categories
Videos

Sixth Sense Skills 16

A full review of that Nautilus Stebel horn can be found here.

Categories
News

Ushering in 2015

And there we have it, another new year and a year older, possibly a little wiser too. The tail end of 2014 was insanely hectic for me with my day job sending me out to Gothenburg  and Boston, followed by a mad Christmas break visiting all our family in Shropshire and North Wales. It has been good to be back in London and back on the bike. It’s funny how some time away from two wheels leaves you hankering and longing, but once riding again at first you feel awkward, slightly nervous  and rusty. It’s taken a couple of days to relax and get reacclimatised, but it’s good to be back.

I suppose I should have some New Year resolutions and plans, so here we go:

  1. Do my IAM. My lovely wife treated me to their Skills For Life course (starting Sunday), which I’m looking forward to and hope to complete this year.
  2. Update my YouTube channel. Life has been so busy lately, I’ve done little video editing, however I have some plans for a new video series in the pipeline.
  3. Bike maintenance wise, I hope to give the Fazer’s forks a good service and swap on some braided brake lines. I also have some yellow wrap for the headlights which I’d like to try out for the dark nights.
  4. Fingers crossed, I’d like to resolve my incident from September 2013, which is due to go to court at some point.
  5. Lastly, it would be great to get my wife another bike. Hopefully she’ll complete her PhD and get a job, so finances can resolve this.

Happy New Year to you all – ride safe!