This week I've been getting used to the short ride to work. Having done pretty decent miles to get to work all my life, the short little trip is unusual for me. Just as I'm really relaxing into the ride, I'm at work. Look, I'm not complaining, far from it. It's just a bit unusual at the moment.
With that in mind, I went out to meet my friend Ben, who was down from London, just outside Yeovil, for what was my first social ride in a very long time and it was brilliant.
Ben was heading back to North London after spending a few days down on the Somerset coast, and asked me if I fancied catching up, taking advantage of some of the nice roads in the area as he headed home. Seemed a good excuse to me.
So meeting in the Diners Delight on the A303 (Diner..yes...delight? not sure) the plan was the head back to Yeovil, pick up the A30 and ride it all the way to Winchester taking in Shaftsbury and Salisbury. From there, the plan was to take in a quick stop at Loomies where we could part after a drink and a sarnie. The A30 is a great road for riding; not too busy and it flows really nicely, so it really was the only choice for our needs. 
With a Bank Holiday weekend upon us and with clear blue sky and beautiful sunshine, bikes were everywhere and when we got to Loomies, it was packed.

Loomies is a funny little place. Much nicer than the Ace Cafe in North London and very much a different beast when it comes to it, but biker cafes are all the same. Riders, all very proud of their machines bring them down and strut around like they're the man, especially the guys with the latest high-tec bikes. It's almost like willy waving and its all very amusing. I'm exactly the same, I loved riding my Ducati up to the Ace Cafe where it really stood out when I first got it, but riding the 954, it doesn't matter as nobody gives it a second glance, so I just have a look around and get a cup of tea. Good tea at Loomies too.
We all take pride in our machines and so we should. It doesn't matter if you're riding a damaged 954 like me, the dirtiest Blade I've ever seen, like Bens, a cruiser or the R1r that pulled in when we were there, bikes are bikes and bikers are bikers. Its the best way to travel.

Well, that's it all done. I of course am referring to the monster commute I've been doing since August, which as of this afternoon, is all done. A round trip of well over 200 miles was never really sustainable, especially after my car exited stage right a few months ago.
So what was good and what was bad? Well lets start with the good, the parts that I will miss. Riding some great roads in glorious sunshine has certainly been a highlight. I found several different routes, all of which I enjoyed to the extent that I would be happy to head out and ride just to ride them. The A285, A272 and parts of the A29 were fantastic when clear and still reasonably enjoyable when traffic levels were a little higher. 
So what was the bad? The distance was really the biggest issue. Being on the bike for four and a half to five hours a day, three days a week may sound like heaven, but in reality its extremely draining. I was only really home for about 90mins in the evening before I needed to get to bed in order to get enough sleep, just to wake up and do it all again. Stick an eight hour working day in there as well and it can grind if the conditions are less than perfect. This distance also meant that I was filling the bike up twice a day. Once on the way there and once on the way back. Great for my Nectar points, but bad for my bank balance and the wear and tear on the bikes.
I certainly won't miss the dirty diesels I encountered, which could be anything from a lorry, to a van to a poorly maintained saloon. Even wearing a Buff neck tube I felt like I was being gassed at times and just had to get past them into some cleaner air, even when deep in the Sussex countryside. Not to mention, the smoke that is coming out of the back of those things, is still partially liquid and leaves clothes and bikes filthy.
I won't miss the drivers who never seem to understand the phrase 'Keep left'. They quickly became a bane in my life. I'm not for one second sitting here saying that I have the sole right to use the middle on right lanes, but when there is enough space on the left and you're not making any progress compared with people already in that lane, get over there dude. Really, just pay attention to what is going on around you.
With an extended time on the bike, I found myself, and I'm being totally honest here, riding very antisocially. There were times, many of them in fact, where I just wanted to get home and utilised the size and speed on the bike to make some serious progress on those around me on the motorways and fast A road sections of my route. Clever? No. Dangerous? Most certainly. I took a few drivers clearly by surprise and for that I can only apologise.
So, as of later this week, my commute becomes a 15min casual ride down the road and I can't wait. After working over a decade in Central London I was extremely glad to see the back of the commute as I was sure I would suffer another serious accident. Been there, done that, really don't want to do it again thank you very much.
I could really see that doing such a long commute over a prolonged period of time would have resulted in something very bad happening and that would probably have been my fault. My final words could so easily have been 'Ahh, fuck it, why not!'
When it comes down to it. I survived and that, in the shadow of everything else, is all that really matters.

Earlier this week I got my photos back from California Superbike School and they're are a really nice quality. I look at them and they're a really good way for me to visualise my feelings on the bike. I enjoyed the day so much, that I've booked myself in for Level 2 in about a months time. Cross fingers my mate Theo can get a place too as it's always good to share the experience with a friend.
Anyway, back to the rest of my biking life. Following the 'Blade's little tumble in the back of the van, she wouldn't start. The combined knowledge of the Facebook FireBlade owners club pretty much indicated that it was just the tilt switch, which meant I needed to take off the front fairing, detach the switch, shake it a bit and put it all back together. Sounds simple.
Despite owning the bike now for coming up to two years (blimey) this was actually the first time I've needed, or indeed wanted to take the nose off. It was also the first time I got so see some of the wiring bodgery inflicted on the bike by a previous owner. It's a mess and needs a good old fashioned tidy up if I'm being honest and it looks like it could be the first job during some winter maintenance. I did pick up a replacement set of mirrors to off ebay to replace the broken one. They're clearly cheap, but will do until I could source and OEM left.
This starting issue meant I had to delay getting my weeping fork seal sorted. The amount of fluid was so nominal that I felt it safe to ride to work this week and today I dropped it off at Conquest in Three Legged Cross to have the seal replaced. As a result, my ride home was on this. A Yamaha TDM900. 

Now I've read good things and I've read bad things about the TDM. TDM by name, tedium by nature being a prime example of the negative comments. Now, as we know, I don't really have a huge amount of experience when it comes to tall rounders, preferring either Super Nakeds or Sportsbikes and this 2002 bike is actually the second such bike I've ridden. I've briefly ridden a Multistrada too, which was actually quite nice.
I don't know if it was the bikes age, tyres or even the screen, but this has to be the worst bike I've ever ridden, replacing the previous owner of that award, the FZ6. It was just horrid. The engine was gutless, the brakes not very sharp, the screen meant I was being buffeted around and the wind noise was terrible. It's clearly the ugliest bike I've ever seen and the riding position, although comfy, was like being on the throne. The mirrors felt so close that I felt a bit cramped, despite having what felt like five feet of space between me the the dials. This could be because I'm used to mirrors being way forward on the fairings though. All in all, I cannot really recommend the TDM as anything but winter transport. I didn't gel with it and couldn't wait to get my FireBlade back, which felt like a scalpel in comparison. Yes I know these are two different style of bikes, but they are the same age and despite this, the Blade felt six years younger that the TDM.
The surprises weren't limited to the TDM though. When I picked up the Blade, I saw this quite tidy RD500 parked outside. Never seen one in the metal before. Certainly an interesting piece of history.

As an avid motorcyclist, these last few days have been, how shall we say, interesting? Really big highs, horrible lows and something in the middle.
So, lets get the ball rolling and start on Saturday. As I'm still commuting a frankly stupid distance, I don't try and get the bike out for a long ride at the weekend, so instead I taxed the Ducati and picked it up from Conquest Motorcycles after having a few jobs done, mainly the lack of an electronic neutral and rode it back home the dull straight way. Well I should say I tried to ride it home. I managed to get it about 20yards down the road before it cut out and wouldn't start. Turns out the tank was totally dry and the guys helped me out by siphoning a few litres of unleaded out of one of their own bikes. After a quick trundle around the industrial estate to make sure all was okay and then I rode it home.
After spending the last few months on the FireBlade, the Ducati took a bit of getting used to. I was pleased with the new Ducabike slave cylinder that I had installed, mainly as the clutch action was still fairly stiff and it may sound strange, but I was actually a little worried about the clutch being as easy as the FireBlade. This wasn't the case as there is still clearly a nice level of resistance at the lever.
With the Ducati back home I took the opportunity to clean the Honda in preparation for my visit to the California Superbike School on Monday. I'll be writing up a proper review once I get the photos of the event. When cleaning the bike I noticed some fork fluid around the fork bottom, which I wiped away, bounced the bike up and down a bit and checked again. Nothing. Cool.
The next day, and after exploring causes as to why my front brakes were squeaking just as I was coming to a halt, I decided that I should try and free up the bobbins in the brake discs before the track day. I searched online and found some great video footage of how to do it easily.
So all ready to go, I sprayed the bobbins and started to try and free them, but they weren't budging. I certainly wasn't going to try and force it, so decided to stop. It was at this point I realised that I'd inadvertently sprayed chain cleaner on my discs....the day before I was due to go on track. Idiot! Not good...not good at all. What followed was a mixture of bike cleaner, brake cleaner, water and riding it up and down my cul-du-sac to clear all the rubbish from the pads. Thankfully, it worked as about an hour later, I was back in business.
On Sunday afternoon, I loaded the bike into the back of the U-Drive rental van, strapped it down and headed off to London. Instead of trying to do the nearly three hour drive to Silverstone in Monday morning traffic, I decided that it would be a lot easier to start from North London instead. It was a good idea.
Getting to the circuit just before 07:00 I unloaded the bike only to find more fluid leaking from the from fork leg. Speaking with the CSS guys, we agreed that it was only weeping and that I should keep an eye on the forks and if it got any worse, I would probably need to stop the track sessions.
What followed was a magnificent day of coaching and riding, which really took it's toll on my legs. My on track instructor was Sam and he was fantastic. He gave good clear instructions and guidance about my riding, backing up and reaffirming what Glenn was teaching me in the classroom. The Pirelli Rosso Corsa 3 tyres were utterly flawless, with some truly fantastic side grip. Good news is the leak didn't get any worse and I was able to get five full sessions in. I can't wait to do level 2 as this was the best money I've ever spent when biking.
On the way home and I was intentionally taking it easy, but a few miles from the M40, I heard a loud thump from the back of the van and knew exactly what had happened. Like an idiot, I didn't tie the bike down properly and she had fallen on her left side, breaking the mirror, denting the tank and cracking the rear tail fairing. Gutted doesn't even come close. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way, but I would have preferred it if the bike hadn't toppled on it's side.

So onto today. With the FireBlade out of action until Friday, I had to take the Ducati to work this morning in the pissing rain. Five miles down the road and on the dual carriageway, I was looking at changing up into fifth when the gear shift went limp. Prodding around with my foot, I then couldn't find it at all. Glancing down, the lever was dangling down and was no longer attached to the gear link. This wasn't good. 
What followed was careful navigation of the roundabouts and traffic lights back home, stuck in fourth gear on a big V Twin. At lower speeds, I decided to rev the engine up to 8000rpm and slip the clutch in order to maintain drive. I knew that if I stopped, I'd be pushing it home. 
Somehow I made it back and already wet from the rain, I went about finding out the problem. Simply put, the bolt that held the lever to the linkage had made a break for freedom on the A31 this morning and replacing the bolt fixed the problem. I made a point to put two nuts on the end of the bolt, locking them in place with some Loctite. Once I was up and running I headed back out into rush hour proper, joining all the people on the A31, M27 and M3.
What followed was the worst rain I'd ridden the Ducati in since riding through Switzerland back in 2014 coming back from World Ducati Week. That journey left the Ducati looking like this.....

and today, she doesn't look my better, but give her her dues, she performed well in terrible conditions and as almost as a thank you, the whole journey home was on dry tarmac in warm sunshine. England...strange place.
So after two long journeys I finally remembered just how much hard work riding this bike is. Would I have it any other way? Probably not. Still love her, even if she does drive me mad every now and again.

For the last day or so, I've been breaking in a set of Pirelli Rosso Corsa III tyres on the FireBlade. Introduced at the end of last year, these tyres are set to replace the fantastic Corsa IIs, which personally, I really like and currently have fitted to the 1098s. 
For the last year or so, and with a monster commute, I've been riding around on a set of Angel GT tyres, designed as a touring/long life tyre and have been really pleased with their performance, so was really interested to get some softer rubber on and see how they felt.
With a few hundred miles under their belt, I was able to test the tyres across a myriad of different conditions at a variety of speeds, on a selection of different road types and I'm really pleased with them. At one point I was riding along freshly soaked tarmac and the tyres performed brilliantly, with no serious performance issues. Yes, in the wet you can't really ride like in the dry, but I felt confident through the twists, turns and trees on the A272 between Billingshurst and Petworth to not really worry about the conditions and just think about where to put the front wheel.
As you can see, the tread pattern is similar to that of the Supercorsa, the sportiest tyre in the Pirelli range, but has additional treads to help disperse water from the edge of the tyre. As you would expect grip is very good across the whole tyre in the dry and I was able to run fairly quickly through some smooth sweeping corners. Feedback also seems good...now I'm not going to sit here and proclaim that its like being hard wired into the road surface, feeling every single nuance of the tarmac, but you do get a feeling of grip levels when pushing on. Without the ability of a back to back test like in Performance Bikes, this is very hard to quantify, but needless to say, they feel as nice as the Corsa IIs.
My biggest concern at this point is longevity, which is something that didn't really concern me about the Angel GTs. The Rosso Corsa II's seem to struggle a little bit, but that's the sacrifice for exceptional levels of grip when warm. For the next three weeks of so, I'm still having to do a fair amount of motorway/fast truck road mileage, which is concerning me a little. With a round trip of around 220 miles three times a week and no car, I'm worried that I'm going to destroy the centre of the tyre before really finding out what they can do. Yes, I can always buy another set, but it will annoy me if I have to replace them in 3000 miles time because they're down to the wear markers.
All in all, I like these tyres. They don't make riding any harder than it has to be and I'm looking forward to seeing what they are like on track when I head up to Silverstone to attend the California Superbike School in a few weeks.