The postman brought me a
belated Xmas pressie – well actually something I ordered only a couple
of days ago, namely a Leatt neck Brace. I have been watching the Dakar
rally on the TV and every rider is wearing a neck brace. It gave me
pause for thought and I ran through memories of times I have been
pitched off riding off-road. There were certainly a few when my neck
was jarred and I decided that a neck brace was probably a good thing. I
haven’t use it yet and am still in the process of fitting the thing. I
expect it will feel constaining and uncomfortable at first – I just
hope it’s like seat belts in cars. When they first became mandatory, I
hated the feel of them but nowadays feel quite naked without one. It
was expensive at £260 but I got a £215 discount (down from £475 ) from Dirtbikebitz
so I feel that it is probably good value – it certainly wll be if it
saves me from serious injury although I surely hope it won’t need to!

Doble’s unfortunately don’t operate on quite that principle – a service for free -  and as the 12,000 mile service is a major one for the Wing, I can expect a big bill However, I see from a recent flyer that they are offering 25% discount on everything apart from bikes over the coming weekend. The trouble is I don’t really need anything from them at present and a 25% discount isn’t enough to persuade me to buy stuff that I don’t need. Although, having said that, there is quite a decent range of Honda branded clothing (Joe Rocket stuff in actuality) that includes a Goldwing jacket that would look better on the bike than the BMW Rallye 2 Pro jacket I often wear..

If you have stumbled across this for the first time, then I’ll just say that this blog is about my experiences on two-wheels – a BMW F800GS and a Honda Goldwing 1800. These are very different bikes and designed to do different things but I enjoy both more or less equally.

One thing bugs me somewhat and that is a problem that has started to occur with my BMW System 5 helmet. All too frequently, the visor pops right off! It seems to happen when the flip up part is opened fully which in some way seems to force the visor free from its moorings. I’ll try taking it into South London Motorrad and see if they can do anything in the way of a fix. As it stands it’s making the helmet rather a pain to use as I have to keep stopping to fix the visor back in place.

It`s also in the blogroll at right. I am pretty happy with the site as it stands at the moment although it`s brand new and untested at the moment and could provide plenty of fun and games before I can feel confident it is actually robust against hackers and spammers etc.

As always, it`s content that is king but since it is a new site there is not a lot there at present. I really hope the members use it and that it also becomes attractive to visitors. The amount of effort I shall spend on it is not unnaturally related to this sort of statistic although I do appreciate that an investment of effort up front is needed.

Getting the site to it`s present state took more time than I envisaged. First I tried to select forum software. My first thought was to use phpbb which is so ubiquitous but then a search of comparison matrices led me to SMF via expensive stuff like VB and Expression Engine (EE). There seemed no clear advantage to using software one had to buy, a view confirmed when I spent a whole day trying to get to grips with EE and in the end only succeeding in duplicating what took about 30 seconds with some of the freeware forum stuff. SMF looked like a winner until I added the complication of wanting a portal for the forum, so that extra pages of stuff and a front door could be added. Finding a portal/front door combination that suits suddenly turns out to be the Holy Grail, Google kept saying as much so it must be true, right?

After flirtations with Tiny Portal and a couple of others I tried MKportal. This, it turned out, was now packaging forum software with it (AEF, some new Indian start-up). At first this looked ideal; set up was easy and it looked pretty and it had great skins/themes. Unfortunately, functionality was not great and things like a calendar turned out to be mere stubs waiting for some future development.

So, after a long couple of days, I finally settled on MKPortal and SMF as the best combo. I think both are really good, fairly mature pieces of work that provide both ease of set-up and power in use.

Let me know what you think!

I wanted it because I had strained my back during one of my off-road exploits and I just could not find a non-painful way of lifting the Goldwing onto the centre stand, plus I figured that as I am not getting any younger, it would become increasingly attractive as old age wreaked its havoc on my muscles.

It does take a little practise to get comfortable with using it but I have to say it`s very nice in use and getting the bike on the stand is now a doddle – plus it`s a ride-on/ride-off stand and that is nice too.

The only drawback is when wanting to turn the wheels, front or back, for e.g. cleaning. As both are in solid contact with the ground, you need to insert a couple of bits of one inch thick wood under each leg of the centre stand – accomplished by rocking the bike from side to side and kicking the wood as you do. The first rock is the easiest but with one leg on a piece of wood, the second is a lot harder and the bike needs a really good shove. I think a couple of suitably tapered wedges might make this job a lot easier

Ian quickly diagnosed the fuse problem with his continuity tester (note to self, must get one of those..) and having fixed the fog lights in short order, turned his attention to the centre stand. It`s an easy enough thing to do in principle but in practice it is quite difficult owng to the restricted access to the holding bolts – I am frankly glad I didn’t try it myself.

With that installed, the fork springs were next. Once I saw how these were done, I realised I could easily have done this job myself but as usual, it`s the old adage of knowing “where to hit it.”

One thing I had wanted Ian to fix was my cruise control that had stopped working a while back. The main light, indicating it was active would come on but I simply couldn’t set it. Apparently there are four microswitches (front brake, clutch, rear brake and gear shift) that can be the culprit for this problem. Ian reckons it’s the rear brake that is mostly the one to blame. However, in all the Irish rain, mine had started working again, so I can only conclude that perhaps some dirt had been washed away from a switch and that allowed it to operate again. I am glad to say that it is still working after my return home.

Ian finished up at about midday and after refusing his kind offer of lunch, I set off home. I noticed the difference the fork springs made in the first hundred yards – they are truly a fantastic improvement over the originals. No longer is a minor roughness in the road surface a cause of irritation – the Progressives simply iron it out. Equally I can ride harder into the corners than I ever felt comfortable doing before, the front seems so planted. I shall definitely go for the Progressive rear spring (and probably shock) if Honda don`t introduce a Japanese `09 model of the Wing – in which case, I could be tempted to go for that..

Fortunately we had an answer – the mighty mop demonstrated here by Theresa

Luckily, we did get a little sun and that saw us over at Giant`s Causeway

The weather had an undoubted effect on attendance but I think most people had a good time despite the rain. Ireland, or at least the parts I saw is very beautiful with large areas of unspoilt countryside and very friendly people. The roads are not especially good and I would love to go back with the F800GS under me as it would cope much better with the potholes I encountered.

This is Doe castle – I think the tide is out!

This is somewhere along “Atlantic Drive”, on Ros Guill adjacent to Mulroy Bay

It was a hell of a long ride to Donegal where the Treffen was held. We rode to Holyhead, ferried across to Dublin and carried on to Stranorlar where the event was held – 500 miles in total and the ferry was a 3 and a half hour trip. We arrived on site at about 9pm, having left the house at 04:30 that morning. Needless to say, putting the tent up in the rain after such along day was not an experience I would like to repeat!

Packing the trailer, it”s clear that Parkinson is alive and well. The thing is already full and I still have a few clothes to fit in somewhere. I know I shall only use half the stuff – only thing is, I don”t know which half.

The GPS is loaded with MP3s, and various touristy sites to see (it”s a bit disconcerting to find that both Mapsource and my 2820 are not that clever when it comes to Irish place names – they seem to have trouble finding many of them) so I hope not to get lost and to have some amusement on the way. I must remember to get my Ipod wired into the bike”s supply at present I rely on its battery and when that is flat, I am out of music.