Author: Arthur

Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.

Categories
Riding

Winter Salt Eating My Motorbike

Salt covered motorbikeThe roads are covered in salt at this time of year. Essential to ensure they remain ice free, but a nightmare for your bike. The salt aids waters ability to corrode metal, which is very bad news for your motorcycle. As you can see, my poor Fazer is covered. 🙁

The solution is regular cleaning to rinse off the salt. Use cold water (heat increases the rusting action too). A cold hose pipe is best, don’t use a pressure washer, this will force water into places where it wouldn’t normally get to and won’t dry, causing more rust… A job for the weekend for sure.

I doused the bike in ACF50 back in November, which I’m very glad off. This should have covered everything in a protective film preventing rust and halting any existing corrosion. Ideally, reapply more ACF50 after each wash.

Categories
Clothing/Protection

New Heated Gloves Controller Arrived

New Heated Glove ControllerAt last, my new Gerbings Junior Controller has arrived. After freezing my fingers off last week, this couldn’t come sooner. After plugging it all in, everything was working again, definitely confirming it was the old controller/wiring that was at fault.

I’ll be sending the old one back for replacement (as it has a 3-year warranty), but this will keep me warm in the meantime. A spare will be useful if I have problems again in the future.

Categories
Riding

Going Snow Where

Going-Snow-WhereWith several inches of snow on the ground, and our road totally covered in ice. I’m going snow where today. Just not worth the risk, both to myself or damaging the bike. Much easier to just stay in the warm and work from home.

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Uncategorized

Sods Law – Coldest Day and Heated Gloves Broke

It’s -4°C here in London this morning. Not that bad, but unheard of in London. And this morning my Gerbings heated gloves go on the blink. Right hand stopped working. Left hand fine, but my right hand fingers went numb after just a couple of miles. 🙁

Must be a loose connection in wiring, as it started working again for half the journey home. Have swapped gloves over and it does appear to be the controller and/or wiring rather than the gloves themselves. Thankfully this part has a 3 year warranty. Must sort out a replacement prompt. Numb fingers are bad, painful, distracting and affect my riding. In the city where up most concentration is required at all time, this is a dangerous combo.

Categories
Riding

Work Blast Out of Town

This last couple of days I’ve been commuting out of London, up to GSK in Stevenage. So good to get into some open roads and open the Fazer up a bit. 🙂 My normal commute never gets above 50mph and often just filtering in thick traffic, so this has been quite a novelty. And with paying travel costs, double bonus.
The weather has been seriously cold and a little icy in places, so some smooth and careful riding was in order. Stevenage was a good few degrees colder than central London. On setting off home, I had real trouble with the key in the ignition. A right struggle to disable the steering lock. 🙁

Categories
Hardware

Flat Battery

battery-chargerAfter a thoroughly relaxing Christmas break and taking a couple of weeks off work, I had planned a little ride out with my wife. The weather was cold, but nice and sunny, so I unwrapped my bike ready to go, only to find it wouldn’t start. Totally flat battery. 🙁

Not too surprising considering I hadn’t used the bike in about 2 weeks and left the battery out in the cold. A trip to Halfords to purchase a battery charger was in order. They only had one model that was suitable for motorcycle batteries, the Ring SmartCharge 100 and cost me £57. Back home, I took the battery out and left it charging indoors for several hours. The charger was simple to use, it auto diagnoses the battery and displayed its charge level. Once fully charged, the bike started fine, but now it was too late for our ride out.

So, get yourself a decent charger before you actually need one. You’ll be able to source one online much cheaper than the Halfords store. If you do plan on leaving your bike unused for more than a week or two, it’s well worth leaving it on a trickle charge. Either bring the battery inside, or setup a lead off the battery which you can plug it in with.

Categories
Clothing/Protection Gear Reviews

Pinlock Visor

Pinklock VisorIn the cold and wet weather, a steamed up visor is a serious problem. Reduced visibility is just plain dangerous. I find myself having to ride around with my visor open slightly and often totally open when I stop at junctions, to get enough airflow. it’s a constant battle, alternating between cold/wet face and steamed up visor. The problem is twice as bad as a glasses wearer. Once your glasses are wet, even when not steamed up, visibility is poor.

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Categories
Riding

Westminster Motorcycle Parking

Westminster Motorcycle ParkingI had to head over to my old haunt in Soho tonight to catch up with some old work colleagues. However unlike the the rest of London, Westminster council charge for motorcycle parking in the solo bike bays – the cheek!

You have to register first, then phone or txt through, with details of your bike reg and the parking bay location id. Full details can be found on the Westminster Council website here. The charge is £1 a day. Not going to break the bank, but a right faff when parking up. it is however free after 7pm, until 7am. I can definitely recommend signing up and sticking the number on your phone handy for when you may wonder into the West End.

To find out where there are convenient parking bays, I can recommend this site: ParkingForBikes.com. It has a decent search engine and interactive map, highlighting which bays are free and which aren’t.

Categories
Hardware

Givi Monokey Rack & Top Box

Givi Monokey RackI recently decided to get myself a decent top box for the bike. I have been using some Oxford cloth panniers, which have been fine but proved less than ideal for carrying my heavy chain and lock. Often sagging down on one side, unbalancing the bike slightly and precariously pressing down on the rear indicator stalk.

When it comes to top boxes and hard luggage in general, Givi is the brand to have. Givi has two levels of products the basic Monolock range and the better Monokey range. The latter is higher spec’d to carry more weight, for higher speeds and more weatherproof. To fit a top box, I first have to fit some a rack to the bike, which consists of some motorcycle model specific arms and a universal mounting plate. For the Fazer FZS600 this is the Givi 340F rack and the M3 plate (for Monokey boxes). This pair normally sets you back about £95-100 in the UK, however, I was able to find a shop on eBay that could post the pair (brand new) from Italy for about £60 – bargain. You may be able to source one secondhand, but finding one in good nick with all the bolts and fastenings is not easy. And note, slightly different bolts are required for the early ’98-99 Fazer to the later ’00-03 FZS600.

Continue reading “Givi Monokey Rack & Top Box”

Categories
Riding

Ace’s Cafe with London Bikers Forum

Ace CafeI popped along to Ace’s Cafe for the first time last night. Famously frequented by the cafe racers who bombed it around the North Circular. Opening in 1938, it is still a veritable hot bed of motorbike enthusiasts and great place to meet up with fellow bikers and have a good cuppa’.

The occasion last night was Newbie Night for the London Bikers forum, which occurs on the first Monday of the month. I initially met up with a handful of bikers in the centre, then we all set off to Ace’s together and had a good chin wag. It was a great night, lots of comradery and good to hear from other newbie’s and their experiences learning. And discovering I’m not alone in dropping the bike in daft manners! It was a chilly ride home, I was glad of my new heated gloves.