Following the trip its clear that my kit has started to suffer a bit. The leathers themselves are covered in the remains of all the unfortunate little bugs who just so happened to be flying around and found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could spend a bit of time and clean my leathers down, but I know, with some level of certainty, that I WILL get caught in one of the monster storms that are popping up from time to time. This attitude, although less than ideal, sadly doesn't really work for the inside of my helmet. 
A few years back I bought myself some S-Doc 100 helmet cleaner and have used it in the past, but the lining of my HJC was just crying out for a proper clean, so this weekend I removed the linings and stuck them in the washing machine. The side cheek panels came off easily, but the top wasn't going to budge without a fair bit of encouragement. Taking it out I felt I was going to break it, which is never a nice feeling, but eventually it came out and was intact. Thankfully the return installation process was a lot easier and today the helmet had a better fit and, not wanting to be too grim here, it smelt a lot better too.
This weekend also gave me the opportunity to give the 1098s a very quick clean. For a full on clean, I've got to take bits off, but this just gave me the chance to clean up a lot of the road grime that I'd be accumulating.

Today I got to use the FireBlade for the first time in over two weeks and following the sheer amount of miles I'd done on the Ducati, the Honda felt completely alien to me. It felt wide, with really high bars and if truth be told, a little heavy. I'm sure that in the next day or two, the feeling will return and I won't give it a second thought.

Well after a long 10hr ride from Colmar in France (its just South of Strasbourg) yesterday, I finally returned home yesterday just before 17:00. Wow, what an adventure. One blown fork seal, one seized clutch and even running out of fuel made sure that the holiday was memorable. I'll write up a proper review of the whole event in due time, but in the mean time, here are a few pics of my time riding across Europe on utterly the wrong kind of motorbike.

World Ducati Week - Day minus 1. Well there is good news and possibly bad. The good: My luggage options seem to work really well, with no obvious clashes between the three bags. I've had to strap my rain suit to the front of the tank bag, which then sits on the steering damper and key, but doesn't effect the handling of the bike in anyway. Now the bad: I fear that neither of my radiator fans are actually working. On my little test ride, the temp got to 107, but they still didn't kick in and I'm sure they're supposed to start when the temperature reaches 105. To be honest I can only see one, and now, a day before the trip, I don't have the time, or in fact the knowledge to investigate it. Not good and I'm not happy and there is nothing I can actually do. Not exactly the mind set I want to be in.

The last few days have been used to finalise everything before next week. Christ, its only next week. It only seems like a few days have passed since they announced the dates for World Ducati Week and as of Monday, I'm going to be bloody riding there. As it stands the route is supposed to be something along the lines of Calais, Rheims, Lyon, Grenoble, Nice, Monaco, Savona, Genoa, Florence and Rimini, doing my best to avoid the Tour de France along the way. I'll do a bit of 'motorway' riding on the first day, but only to get the journey under way and from there, it should be a fairly relaxed four day ride on some of the lesser, non toll roads.
I've pretty much sorted my packing, which I've done my best to keep light. With the except of my shoes, I'll be keeping just my clothes in my rucksack as I don't want anything heavy and hard attached to me for the journey. It will also allow the bike to take most of the heavy things to. I've got all my documents, a note book, a few phrase books and a fold out map of France, but I've also left myself a little space as well.  The plan is to update the blog when and where I can, but also to Tweet a few things as well. Hopefully it will be a trip to remember, all for the right reasons.

I took the opportunity this afternoon to top up the coolant following yesterdays heat issues and put the open clutch cover back in to aid the air flow to the clutch and I put my satin Conquest Carbon mudguard back on whilst I was there and it was also time to attach my luggage to the bike. Now all I really need to to is do a dry pack and a test run.

Well a few days after actually getting the bike back, yesterday I was finally able to give the bike a good wash and inspect all the 'minor' damage left by 'The massive off of 2014'.

As you can see there is some nasty gravel rash on the rear fairing and on the once lovely swingarm, it looks like the sidestand mount is bent ( i know the pivot point was as well, but thats already been replaced), one of the side fairing mounts is missing and there are some nasty marks on both the rear sprocket carrier and the front axle nut. All reasonabley minor, but possibly costly to return to mint condition.
So today I had the opportunity to take the bike out for a ride to a) make sure the bike was okay and b) play with the sat-nav. Sarah was with me this weekend and the plan was for her to follow me to a car dealership which she didn't know the way to, so she followed me. Unbeknownst to me, this would have some unpleasant ramifications which involved the bike overheating badly.
The first sign happened right at the car dealership when, as I hadn't been getting enough air running past the engine, the coolant was overheating and then actually boiled, spewing it out of the overflow pipe, where is them steamed away on the pavement. Thankfully I was able to let it all cool, but then, after getting some fuel about an hour later, the bike totally lost drive as the clutch started slipping. I ended up semi-stranded on the M25 J21a roundabout. Every single car passed without stopping or even slowing to see if I was okay and I was past by a few bikes too, but there were two riders who did stop, about ten minutes apart. Both, were Harley riders and although I gently I waved them away as I knew I just needed to wait for the bike to cool and although I have to idea who they were, they both have my utmost thanks. Maybe I'm in the wrong bike sub culture afterall.

Today was hot, hot and windy....but mostly hot. 

Well the 1098s is back in the garage and the two mile ride home felt pretty good. I haven't taken any photos to show you yet, simply as the thing is bloody filthy. Its covered in a mix of tree sap and Silverstone dust and is thoroughly unsightly. I'll get it cleaned up and update the site. In more 'need to buy more bits' news, today I had to head out and get a new side stand pivot bolt as the one on there at the moment is badly bent meaning the sidestand wont go back properly. It works fine, but it will annoy the hell out of me, so it needs to be fixed.
The other thing that is now outstanding and which was only noticed when the tyres were changed for some Pirelli GT Angels, is that my front wheel now appears has a very slight wobble. Artur sent me this film last night and the section in question is the area which has a nice covering of dust on the rim. The brake disc appears to be totally stable, but the wheel does look a MM or so out. I have to admit I'm a little worried and my main concern is that its safe. The second is that I can fix it.

Well on Monday afternoon I took a box of bits and a selection of fairing panels up the road in order to have the crash damage to my 1098 fixed. All being well, I should get it back later today and in a much better state then when I dropped it off a few weeks back. I know its been a long time since I crashed but the team at Metropolis have been very busy and I've been playing the fool on my FireBlade so all in all, not the end of the world. Most of the work is just getting it back to being ridable without spending a fortune replacing any trick parts, so the original footpegs are going back on and I've got a new clip on and some old matching grips that came off my Zx7R. When I get it back home, there will be a few things I'll want to do. Firstly I think its going to need a damn good clean and the second thing is, once all the dirt and grud is off, is to give the bike a good once over making note of all the minor bits of damage that will need to be looked at when I get back from Italy.