Instead of heading out on two wheels, today was a day for doing a few little jobs that have been pending for a while. The first only needed doing after I managed to knock off the top vent from my Arai and the second was something I'd been meaning to do on the Ducati for a few weeks, but I'd just been too lazy.
Checking on the Arai website, I found that Crescent Suzuki in Verwood were the nearest 5 Star Arai dealer so I ordered the vent through them. Crescent has long been associated with racing Suzukis and remains a Suzuki dealer, even though they currently race Yamahas in World Superbikes. I'm sure the £15 I paid for the vent will go a long way to their success on the world stage.
The replacement was nice and easy and the vent came with a stencil so you knew exactly where to place it. Pretty handy it has to be said. Oh and don't worry, I did clean all that road crime off before I fitted it.
Checking on the Arai website, I found that Crescent Suzuki in Verwood were the nearest 5 Star Arai dealer so I ordered the vent through them. Crescent has long been associated with racing Suzukis and remains a Suzuki dealer, even though they currently race Yamahas in World Superbikes. I'm sure the £15 I paid for the vent will go a long way to their success on the world stage.
The replacement was nice and easy and the vent came with a stencil so you knew exactly where to place it. Pretty handy it has to be said. Oh and don't worry, I did clean all that road crime off before I fitted it.
The second job was to fit my Kriega tailpack converter to the 1098s. I'm really not a fan of riding with a rucksack and when it's unavoidable and riding the FireBlade, I've tried to make sure all hard objects are in the tailpack instead.
Riding the Ducati, I've avoided using the tailpack for a few silly reasons. After my Italy trip, the tailpack I used scratched the tail and I've been keen to avoid a repeat of that; secondly, I have a fear the underseat pipes would melt the straps and my stuff would end up under the cars following me. I know silly really.
Having fitted this before onto the FireBlade when I was going to and from Surrey three days a week, I was familiar with the installation, but for peace of mind, I checked out the Kriega website where they have great instruction videos. Happily enough, the demo bike was a stealth 848, which you can check out here.
All said and done, including the air scoop covers, it was 25 minutes. Time well spent in my opinion.
Riding the Ducati, I've avoided using the tailpack for a few silly reasons. After my Italy trip, the tailpack I used scratched the tail and I've been keen to avoid a repeat of that; secondly, I have a fear the underseat pipes would melt the straps and my stuff would end up under the cars following me. I know silly really.
Having fitted this before onto the FireBlade when I was going to and from Surrey three days a week, I was familiar with the installation, but for peace of mind, I checked out the Kriega website where they have great instruction videos. Happily enough, the demo bike was a stealth 848, which you can check out here.
All said and done, including the air scoop covers, it was 25 minutes. Time well spent in my opinion.
Finally today, I'd like to thank Phil Harrison of the Youtube channel Phil O's Garage who joined me last week for a ride. He's put up a little video blog from our day out. By all accounts he couldn't use too much of the footage as we were, erm, how shall I put it, making progress, which is why there's mainly town riding. You can also see for most of the day I was pretending to be Ben Spies.
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