Random Bloggy Goodness
Well I’ve gone and done it: I’ve just bought a secondhand 2006 Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade in red and black from Robspeed in Grimsby.
I won’t be collecting it until June 11th as they are going to be fitting some new Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa tyres, some crash bungs, braided hoses, a tail tidy and some bespoke graphics to hide a big stone chip in the fairing.
In the meantime, here are some photos of the bike as it is at the dealers:
One of the few issues I have with the Kawaskai ZRX1200R is its seat: when you first climb on it seems very plush and comfortable, but after 80 miles or so it does start getting uncomfortable. So I ordered a Sargent Solo replacement seat from the States.
Whereas before I’d be shuffling around uncomfortably after a relatively short while, the Sargent cossets your bum in comfort and even has space and a tube for you to stow something in the seat itself (in my case a ZRXOA rubber torch).
The seat is slightly slippery when you wear leathers but I find that quite useful when shifting my bum from side to side on trackdays.
Recommended.
I was in the market for a new pushbike as mine was being skipped – 1988 vintage and starting to show its age – and as my partner and her daughters like to get out and about on bikes.
We ended up at Halfords and after looking at a few bikes, I settled on the Carrera Kraken 09 20″. Carrera pushbikes are – as far as I know – only sold through Halfords who use their purchasing clout to bring a relatively high specification bike to market at a lower price point than you would otherwise expect. Its specification is as follows:
Carrera Kraken 09 20"
Not at all bad.
Pricing was (I thought) good: on offer in-store at Grimsby at £400 which was £50 off their previously advertised prices. Ordered and paid for and collected yesterday but not tested yet: that test will follow, especially in view of what happened next…
Having already decided to get a pushbike for London – my base during the week – I started looking at Decathlon’s stock of similar spec’d bikes and found them to be more expensive: price matching produced a heavier bike with cable-operated brakes, for instance.
So I looked at Halfords’ website and was horrified to see that the Carrera Kraken was being advertised at 20% off for web sales even though you could collect in store! Another order placed and I went to collect it at £320 (boxed) from Halfords’ Old Kent Road store. The assistant failed to locate a boxed one as it seems that their stock was assembled and on show. The bikes hadn’t been fully built or safety checked so I have arranged to pick it up this evening.
Thule 970 Xpress
Thule 970 Xpress Folded
As the bike will be fully assembled, shoving it inside my Mazda RX-8 R3 isn’t now going to be an option. I had ordered a Thule 970 Express from Wiggle (at £54 delivered) but they hadn’t processed the order after a day, so thinking this might happen, I had cancelled the order before going to Halfords. They had some in stock (at £60) so I bought one. It fits to the demountable towbar in just a minute or so and folds flat when not needed but I do find the fact that the whole shebang is effectively hanging off one support only a little disconcerting.
Well it seems that all is not well with the R3, so it was back to the dealers today for fettling.
The rear foglight has not been working since I got the car: it turns out that the wiring loom to the towbar fitted by the dealers, Nunns, has a relay that should switch between the foglight on the trailer and the foglight on the car. Whilst the foglight on the trailer works fine, the one on the car doesn’t. Sadly this wasn’t picked up in the PDI when I bought the car. Parts are now on order.
Of equal concern is the (very expensive) iPod integration module that doesn’t seem to actually want to integrate any iPod with the Bose stereo system. Mazda list a whole load of Apple devices that aren’t compatible with the module – which, by the way, cuts off the auxiliary input circuit so you’re completely screwed if it doesn’t integrate – and I found that none of our iPods of varying age worked at all with it. They all connect fine and some can seemingly draw power. All display the Mazda logo. All have their functionality removed from the devices whilst connected. None actually work with the stereo system.
Including the brand spanking new iPod nano I got for my birthday specifically for the car. Ah…
So Nunns will be talking to Mazda over the next few days to try to find out what’s wrong. If they can’t fix it, I’ve already told them I want the auxiliary socket reconnecting and my money back for the horrendously expensive integration module.
Damn!
I took a Sony DCRSR57E Handycam Camcorder With Built-in 80GB Hard Disc Drive (61hrs) – Silver
Sadly there was no footage and the camcorder was reporting a hard disk drive error. The vibrations had been too much for it and although it did sort itself out, it seems like I need to go to flash memory on the bike.
I’ve successfully used a Sportbikecam camera mount for my Kawasaki ZRX1200R for some years now, using a large Sony DV camcorder. I’d recently bought a much smaller Sony DCRSR57E Handycam Camcorder With Built-in 80GB Hard Disc Drive (61hrs) – Silver
So with another trackday looming at Rockingham next month, through the Motorcycle Folly as usual, and a three day special at Jerez in September with Tracksense (not sure whether to use Wilf or the ZRX for this one), I thought I’d better get myself sorted with another mount.
I’ve therefore ordered an SBC24 through Camera-Mount.com who are the UK distributors. I’ll post how it goes in terms of fitting, etc. when it arrives.
Another gesture that Roger made when he sold me Wilf as the alarm was fecked was that he’d send me the rear hugger and throw in a carbon end can. These arrived at the office yesterday and I brought them home today, along with the replacement Meta alarm I’d bought.
Turns out it’s a Micron carbon can which looks like it’ll be fairly loud, but also is smaller and much lighter than the OEM can. I fitted it in minutes and fired up Wilf to be greeted with a much deeper exhaust note which wasn’t that much louder after all. We’ll see what it’s like on the road in due course.
Second accessory was a satnav mount that fits into the stem, the “Telferizer”. Using this, the TomTom Rider v2
Well that was annoying.
This evening, I drilled four big holes in the garage wall and screwed on the Abus WBA 100 Granit Wall Anchor
Still, it’s sturdy and will be excellent to chain Wilf to when the trailer and ZRX are back in Norfolk or elsewhere.
So after a bit of a nightmare journey to get to Birmingham, I did the deal and Wilf was wheeled out of Roger’s workshop. At which point it began raining…
We’d fixed the TomTom Rider’s RAM mount to the clutch lever bolt and I plugged in the address in Grimsby and off I went. A couple of coffees later and I set the TomTom to my home address. One annoying thing was that when riding, I was not allowed to change my destination to a previously stored one, no doubt due to some idiotic ’safety’ feature. No doubt they’d want me to pull onto the hard shoulder to do this … where a number of accidents happen!
Anyway, on arrival home, I checked the trip statistics and discovered that my moving average speed for the 380 mile journey had been xxmph. Oops! Best not put the number.
OK, my back ached a little but having spent five hours in the saddle, it had turned out to be a remarkably good high speed tourer. Maybe I need to rethink my choice of bike for the RBLR1000, a 1,000 mile ride in 24 hours I’m doing for charity.
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