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Hardware Maintenance

Yamaha FZ6 Suspension Upgrade: Nitron Shock/Race Tech Gold Valve Emulators

As with many budget bikes, the stock suspension on my Yamaha FZ6 S2 was pretty basic. Sure, it did the job on an average ride, but it didn’t inspire confidence when pushing on or when you hit a particular bumpy bit of road. With over 20k miles on the bike, it was also beginning to show its age too.

Nitron motorcycle shock in trademark Nitron blue
Nitron motorcycle shock in trademark Nitron blue

When evaluating FZ6 suspension upgrade options, it quickly becomes apparent one can easily spend a lot of money. When you have an old bike that’s only worth a couple of grand, it’s difficult to justify a big outlay upgrading it. After discussing suggestions from friends and other Fazer riders on various owner’s forums, two suggestions kept coming up:

So who was I to argue such tried and tested wisdom?

Race Tech Emulators and fork springs
Race Tech Emulators and fork springs

Nitron is a British firm, who has been designing and manufacturing quality suspension for various motorsports for the last 20 years. They have a solid reputation for producing great shocks for many budgets. Similarly, Race Tech is a Californian firm that has specialised in quality suspension upgrades and parts for all kinds of vehicles for the last 36 years.

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Hardware

My Video Blogging Computer Setup

With not a lot of riding occurring at the moment, I thought I’d give you a glimpse behind the scenes here, to peek at the kind of computer kit I use to run this blog and produce my videos. It may not be the best video editing rig you can buy, but it will hopefully give you an insight into something that can produce good results without breaking the bank. Be warned, this gets a bit geeky!

MacBook Pro

I have a preference for Macs, simply because they’re generally well-designed, last well and have good migration and recovery features. I’m currently running a Mid-2014 15″ MacBook Pro Retina, with 16GB RAM, 250GB SSD drive and 2.2Ghz Intel Quad-Core i7 processor. Now before you cry ‘But boy they’re super expensive!’, I picked MacBook up refurbished from Music Magpie in November 2019 for £650 (but did have to buy a power supply at £80 on top). At the time of writing a similar spec brand, a new Windows laptop will set you back over a grand.

I’d recommend the Retina display, as its high resolution is perfect for inspecting video in a small preview pane. But note, RAM is not upgradeable on recent Retina Macs, so do get one with 16GB already in it. I also went for the fast Intel Core i7 chip, to help blitz through video rendering and processing. Overall, it’s plenty fast enough to work on a long 1080p video, and possibly 4k video at a push.

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Hardware Maintenance

Fitting a Chinese Replica Instrument Speedo Clock Case – Honda CBF500/CB900F

Honda CBF500 replacement motorcycle clocksWhen we first picked up Mary’s Honda CBF500 it was clear it hadn’t always stayed rubber side down. It had various bits of cosmetic damage, which I have progressively fixed up as parts popped up cheap. One of the last items to address was the speedo tachometer case which had a few cracks and was taped up. Genuine Honda CBF clocks are expensive (£300+), second-hand Honda instrument clusters aren’t cheap (£100-150 odd) and are often missing mounting lugs. So, when I spotted a cheap Chinese replica speedo clocks casing for £25, I was of course intrigued and figured it had to be worth a punt.

Cheap eBay replica speedo clocks casing

Categories
Gear Reviews Hardware

Cree U2 Spot Lights Review

You know what parents are like strong opinions as to what is best for you, mildly tolerant of your motorcycle ‘hobby’, but secretly scared to death you’re gonna kill yourself on your bike. So my old man keeps seeing lots of big adventure bikes adorned with bright spotlights, and declares I must install said distinctive pattern of lights on my bike to ensure I stand out. My Dad has a few odd opinions, but more often than not he’s right.

After borking at the price of offerings from Givi etc, I decided to take a punt on some cheap Chinese lights off eBay. Very cheap at under £20 for a pair including wiring. I didn’t have high expectations, but they can’t be that bad, can they? Read on…

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Hardware

Fitting Relay & Fusebox for Accessories

After Mary had flattened her battery twice this week, I promised to wire the heated grips up properly with a relay…

When we first bought Mary’s CBF500 it came with heated grips fitted, but they were installed with no relay, so all too easy to leave on when parking up. After Mary had flattened her battery twice in this manner this week, I promised to wire them up properly with a relay to cut the power when the bike’s ignition is off. However, the heated grips aren’t the only accessory wired in, we have a satnav, USB sockets and probably more gadgets in the future. So, to help simplify stuff, I opted for a secondary fuse/distribution box.

Tapping the rear number plate live is a good choice in case the new circuit causes a short, loosing the number plate light won’t prevent us riding.

A mate happened to have a basic Mictuning 6-way fuse box going spare – perfect for the job. My plan was to tap a switched live feed from the rear number plate light circuit, which would trigger a relay, to feed this fuse box and in turn all of the bike’s gadgets. Tapping the rear number plate live is a good choice in case the new circuit causes a short for any reason, losing the number plate light is no big loss and won’t prevent us from riding. On the CBF500 this light is connected by some bullet connectors behind the rear right-hand fairing panel. I opted to strip back the insulation and solder on a feed, rather than using a Scotch lock which has a reputation for failing. The final join was covered in heat shrink wrap and waterproofed with amalgamating tape.

Tapping Number Plate Light Live
Tapping Number Plate Light Live
Categories
Gear Reviews Hardware

Maplin USB Power Socket Review

USB-Motorcycle-SocketThere’s nothing more annoying than being far away from home with no battery life left in your camera or phone. It’s sods law that at this point you’ll really want to capture some video footage from an incident, need to phone for recovery or just witness the perfect shenanigans to go viral on YouTube next. All of which are easily resolved with the addition of a USB power socket on your bike.

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Hardware

CBF500 Rear Hugger

CBF500-Rear Hugger - 2
Rear hugger, painted & fitted

Following the absolute nightmare I previously had removing the rear shock from Mary’s CBF500, I was adamant not to let the newly refurbished shock also get ruined by the elements. By default Honda, in their infinite wisdom leave the shock completely unprotected from the rear tyre and all the curd and wet it flings up into the wheel arch – yeah, nice one. A rear hugger is a perfect solution to help keep the swingarm, shock and most of the wheel arch protected.

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Hardware Maintenance

Fitting a Honda CBF500 Givi Rack

When it comes to hard luggage and top boxes, the name Givi is synonymous, with this leading Italian brand make some of the most popular luggage on the market. As a London commuter hard luggage is incredible useful for carrying stuff; the essential security chain, work clothes to change into, packed lunch, laptop, books etc. A top box will carry the lot with ease, whilst keeping it all dry and secure. In the event of a spill, you really don’t want to carrying all that stuff on your person.

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Hardware

Ebay Fail – Givi Rack Wrap

I recently ordered this Givi rack off ebay for my Fazer (after bending the old one slightly in my last off). I thought the postage quote was a little high, but I wasn’t expecting a parcel like this…

EbayFail-GiviRackWrap
Ebay Fail – Givi Rack Wrap

Quite why the seller didn’t consider undoing the two bolts to separate the two arms from the plate, I will never know. Postman takes the mick every time I see him now!

Categories
Hardware

Wiring RoadHawk Ride Camera to Bike

HardWireRoadHawkRide04For the last few months, I have been using the rather good RoadHawk Ride bullet action camera (read my review here). It’s a fairly cheap and cheerful camera, that works well and is great for capturing footage for insurance claims. However, one of the biggest issues I’ve had is the battery life, I only get about an hour of use before it’s flat. Although plenty long enough for my regular commute to work and back (I charge it at my desk during the day), it is frustratingly short when heading on a longer ride out.

The Ride is supplied with an assortment of cables and adaptors, including wires to run from a USB socket and directly from a 12V power feed. Better still, the Ride will automatically start recording on receiving power and automatically stop recording when power is cut. Along with its auto-looping feature, it’s perfectly feasible to hard wire it to the bike and literally just forget about it, which is exactly what I recently did.