Very cold this morning so as the Monster has practically no actual weather protection outside the hand guards and heated grips, I used my rain suit as an additional layer in the cold. It may look a bit silly, but who really cares about that, I was warm.
In nicer news, I've finished editing my video clips and uploaded them to Youtube. So for your viewing pleasure (please excuse the rather loud wind noise in places) here they are.
First up is footage of my riding and then crashing at Brands Hatch. 

and second is me riding my old ZX7R at Silverstone, which turned out to be the last time the bike and I would be on track together. Enjoy.

Not much riding over the weekend, but I have been doing a bit of work behind the scenes. I've popped a review up of my fab S-MX boots in the My Kit section and I've added a quick review of the 2011 BSB Championship review on Blu Ray in Motorcycle Media. However, most of my time has been taken up with playing around with a new video editor. I'm just trying to work out whether I need to upgrade my trail version to export the video and if so, which is highly likely, which one of the three versions do I want to get. They range from £17 (yes please) to £80 (err no thanks). Quite happy with what I've done, but at the moment its only really visible on my home PC, which is less than ideal. I'll keep you updated.

Earlier this week, during one of the drier afternoons, I headed off to a Kawasaki dealer in West London, mainly to have a look around and possible ask about a bike. The ride out of London was nice and quick with no real issues and I easily found the dealership, but I have to say that I was a little disappointed with what I found. I walked in and I was the only customer. The dealership appeared to be a double shop front, but one of those was being refurbished, which considering the time of year, was expected I guess. I did however, find a few things that were very disappointing. The main issue I had that every single bike, even those on the far side of the opposite shop front were covering in dust and crap. Every single one. These included brand new bikes at £10,000. Ten grand. Some clearly had more of a covering than others, but it really looked like thought to either a) move them or b) cover them up. On the pavement outside, a nice collection of second hand bikes including a first gen ZX6R and a red GSXR 600 were parked up, sensibly locked together. None of these had price tags on. None. The final thing that annoyed me, its that I was ignored. Not a hello, nor are you okay, not one single acknowledgement. That is a poor show by anybodies standards. Now I don't want to be pestered by staff, but what I do what, especially when we are potentially talking about a pretty big purchase, the cheapest bike would still be £1000, is a simple hello.
Now the place clearly isn't my business, but if it were mine and I was having building work down of this magnitude, I would close up shop for however long it took and cover the bikes properly. I will say that this particular customer won't be going back. If they care so little about their bikes, then I doubt they'd care much for the customers either.

Fog. Its one the most peaceful but also one of the most malignant weather conditions we encounter on a regular basis. Yes, its true that there isn't actually anything 'evil' about fog, but fog can lead to most horrendous of accidents. So you can imagine the joy I felt in my heart this morning when I left the house and couldn't see the end of the garden, which was only 20ft away. 
The resulting ride to work was intentionally slow, cold and a little bit scary. Fog always leaves a very thin layer of droplets on my visor as well which meant having to take a hand off the bars to wipe it every few minutes. Less than ideal, but there really isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
Thankfully the journey was incident free. I hope everyone out there managed to get home safe too.

A real winter chill returned on the way into work this morning, but I was wrapped up nicely and the heated grips were helping my hands. Speaking of my hands, the little adjustment I made to the handlebars yesterday has really made a noticeable difference with the bars being a fraction nearer and lower. This has also resulted in both levers being higher, which although being the desired result, they didn't take very long to get used to.
The engine still seems to be misbehaving though and continues to be exceedingly lumpy at low revs. Maybe that's just the twin nature, but it doesn't happen with the big bike.  It could be time to check the valve clearance, but that is a big job. The quest for a replacement bike continues.

The weather today was reasonably warm (for late January) and sunny so having a spare Sunday, I took full advantage and played around with my bikes. Not the head out and ride kind of advantage, but the tinker and try and fix things kind. On the recent visit to see Mike and Artur, a very slack chain was highlighted to me, so I went about tightening it up. In typical fashion I didn't have the 30mm socket I required, so a quick visit to Halfords saw me leave with not just the socket, but some latex and workman gloves too.
What should have been a five minute job lasted about half an hour. I had a bit of trouble getting the right about of slack on the chain, whilst ensuring that the rear wheel stayed straight. It probably didn't help that the chain appears a bit knackered and is very tight in one place in particular. Once I was happy that it was all lined up and about as good as I was going to get it, I tightened up the rear axle to the right torque settings and set the spacers. 

The next job that I had to do wasn't needed to fix a problem, it was more a case of limiting some annoyance. Riding in The City, the rear brake is essential. Well at least I think it is anyway. The rear brake on the Monster has been squeaking like you would not believe, so I stripped down the rear calliper and cleaned it up a bit. This included removing the pads and wearing down the surface of the pads with a wire brush. I made sure there was nothing on the brush to contaminate the pads, but as this was just the rear, I'm sure I'll be fine. A bit more cleaning, some copper slip and the pads were back in and the calliper was back on.
The next job was to try and rotate the handlebars backwards a fraction in order to move my handguards higher up. I had to be careful as doing this would limit the steering lock as the switchgears on both sides would now be closer to the tank.

As you can see, it was hardly worth it. The amount I could move the bars hasn't raised the hand guards enough. Oh well, at least I tried.
The final jobs of the day was to give the bike a good old wash and check the tyre pressures in preparation for another week in the City.

Thankfully I didn't have to be anywhere specific after work today, which gave me a lot of freedom. I had been thinking of riding over to Ruislip (West London) to have look at the Kawasaki dealer over there, but in all honesty, I couldn't be bothered. It would have meant riding across London and onto the A40, with a return journey via the North Circular Road. So instead I filled the bike up and headed over to Mike and the gang...again...to say hi and ask about my upcoming service.
Artur had popped out for a bit, but kn the meantime I did get to meet the Ducati UK sales rep for the South. He was a nice guy, very smiley and polite. I liked him straight away.
When I wanted to leave, my bike wouldn't start. The starter motor kept firing, but the engine wouldn't turn over. I was looking a bit puzzled when, from the back of the shop, both Artur and Mike came out laughing their heads off. Turns out they had unplugged both my sparkplugs, which even I thought was quite funny. Life is a lot easier when your friends are there to help you out, but also show you the lighter side of things.

Okay, so I've had the Ducati Monster 695 for around two mouths now, so this is what I think...in a slightly condensed form:
What I like - The name on the tank, the riding position, the noise from the exhausts (especially on the overrun), the colour and how easy it is to ride.
What I don't like - Its terrible at low revs and partially throttle, so much so that it's really doing my bloody head in. Despite really trying, I can't easily attach any of the luggage I have. Yes I could just about use my tailpack, but this encroaches on the riding position and the tank isn't magnetic so my tankbag is out of the question too. It's just not fast enough. Now I know this is a daft one, but when I took it out onto some nice open sweeping roads and it just ran out of puff when things started to get interesting. I like riding knowing there is more there if I need it.
As you may have guessed I haven't bonded with this bike at all. Yes the bike is just supposed to be transport, but I firmly believe that 'transport' doesn't have to be boring or be a compromise. Now I'm not saying the Monster is boring and there are certainly those who love their Ducati Monsters and that's great, really great. Loving your bike is really important, even if its just an ER5 Kawasaki. I really loved my Ninja, just as much as I love the 1098s and well maybe that's the problem. I'm trying to make the Monster fill a space that it had hardly any chance of filling, which although is probably unfair, it's the way I'm starting to feel. Using the bike everyday its quirks haven't made me fall for its 'character' instead they are really starting to annoy me.
Deep down I think I've known this since the end of last year, possibly earlier, so this is why I'm now back on the hunt. It makes sense to me that the only way to fill a hole left by a Ninja, is to buy another Ninja.

Its still all very quiet on the bike front really. Just poodling to and from work with the minimum of fuss. The only real drama of any kind was a problem with one of my bike magazines. I know, not exactly cardiac arrest type stuff.
I am still loosing interest in the Monster, which is a shame as its fundamentally a great little bike. Today I was searching the web for Kawasaki ZX6R B1s. Basically it's the re-launched ZX6 that came out the same time as the new Z1000 and the nutty ZX10R. Prices look pretty reasonably too.
Over the last few weeks, I've been taking advantage of the 'buyers market' on Ebay and have been picking up a few bike season review DVDs and Blu Rays. I'll get around (like so many other things) to writing something up, for suffice it to say, you don't need to buy the 2011 BSB review on Blu Ray, DVD will be fine.
Finally just wanted to make a little note about my Alpinestars SMX Gore Tex boots. They are bloody brilliant. Warm, comfy, waterproof and they look good too. They do however, squeak like I'm standing on Daffy Duck. Oh well, can't have everything.

Well as most of the UK will attest to, the unusual weather continues. When its not chucking it down, its actually still really mild. Yesterday London saw light winds, no rain and more double figure temperatures so I took the opportunity to take the big bike out again. The riding position is so different to the Monster that I questioned how I managed to commute on it for five months. For me, this has really highlighted the 'problem' with having two bikes that are so different. It didn't take long to get used to the riding position thou and I'm very aware that my body isn't necessarily 'bike fit', but that can be easily sorted. Since the New Year, I've intentionally started concentrating my gym work on my upper body and core. Running has been taking care of my legs for ages now, so I'm not too worried about that, but what I really want to do is be strong in the right places in time for the Italy trip I have planned for the summer. That will entail long days riding a sportsbike over some fairly large distances. The last thing I need to be at that point is unfit. That could be seriously uncomfortable, but more importantly, dangerous too.