As 2015 draws to a close, it would appear that nobody took the time to tell the weather. Today is bright, calm and mild, feeling much more like April rather than the end of December. 
Despite these lovely conditions, heavy rain overnight and a marked decrease in the usual traffic meant that the roads remained soaked, which arn't really the best conditions for riding, but that wasn't going to stop me.
After picking up the Kriega tank adapter at Motorcycle Live, I took the opportunity to head over to Smart Riders, a great little bike shop in Christchurch, that was recommended to me by my friends Martin and Charlotte. I'd checked the Kriega website and that confirmed they were a stockist and wanted to pick up a US-10 tailback, to use as my new tank bag.
My original magnetic tank bag gave up a few months back and as I mentioned in a previous post, I actually prefer using a tank bag to a tail pack. Its just that small part of my brain asking me 'has your bag, with all your things in, fallen off and been crushed by a Vauxhall Meriva?'. 
The US-20 that I've had for a few years now, felt a fraction big for the tank, so with a few quid from the folks at Christmas, I've put that towards something practical rather than the next season of the Walking Dead.

Wanting a coffee, I headed back to Lymington again, which was busy with people, all except the harbour, which was peaceful. There were a few couples sat on the benches drinking coffee, which made me smile. I've very good memories of doing the very same.
The forecast for the rest of the week looks.....damp to say the least, so the bike is probably going to stay locked up until the New Year.
2015 has been interesting for all manner of reasons, but I end the year with the same bikes I started it with, both of which are in working order. 
Will they both be part of the fleet at the end of 2016? Not sure really. I do fancy a 2008 ZX10r or even a RC8R, but we shall have to see what the biking gods have in store for me.
Safe riding and if I don't speak to you beforehand, Happy New Year one and indeed all.

It would only be right to start this post off, by wishing everybody out there a Merry Christmas. Thank you for popping over to my little corner of the world wide web. I know its not much, but I love it just the same.
My plan for this morning had been to get out early and enjoy the deserted roads down by the South Coast. The weather forecast wasn't too favourable, with heavy rain predicted from early light. Despite this, I wanted, in fact, I needed to get out on the bike, so I didn't set an alarm (don't really have to these days) and naturally woke up around 06:30. By 07:00 the bike was out of the garage and I was heading out just as the skies started to brighten.
Brighten is probably going a bit far, because by the time I got to Lulworth Cove it was still fairly murky.
I parked up down by the water and just stood there watching the waves crash up against the shore, listening to the wind and emptying my mind of all my troubles and problems. 
It was beautiful.

As the rain hadn't started to fall, I headed over to Sandbanks between Poole and Bournemouth. There was the odd car on the road and even a tractor and a fuel tanker, but that was about it. At times it felt like the movie The Quiet Earth, with me being one of the few people left on the planet.
I was running through a series of bends and as I leant the bike over to the right as the corner crested a hill, the front tucked. Not full on, but enough to make the heart miss a beat. I found myself say 'jesus' inside my helmet, the irony of which, wasn't lost on me in the slightest.
At Sandbanks, the skies were brighter, but the wind was throwing the waves up onto the shore. There were a few people out; running, walking their dogs and for me, being a Londoner, seeing the sea is still a magical experience. Its so vast, but yet so fragile. Incredibly hard, but also strangely forgiving. If there is one thing I change in 2016, it will be the time that I sit down, take a moment and just let the waves falling on the shore be my therapy and antidote to life's troubles.

I hope 2015 was a good year for you all and I wish you nothing but the best for the festive period and all of 2016. Stay safe and I hope to see you out there on the road. 

Imagine the scene if you will. Its a dark, reasonably mild December morning, its around 05:30 and a tall manchild is standing is a semi well lit room, smiling like the Cheshire cat.
As you can imagine, that was me and I was about to ride my FireBlade for the first time in a few weeks. 
The UK is enjoying a unseasonably mild December at the moment and local councils have only put road salt down once. Its still very much biking weather and I'm making any excuse to ride now.
This was also the first real, long ride since taking the brakes apart and giving it a good clean. I was taking it very easy, making sure that I bed the pads in correctly and was just out there enjoying the bike. It was dry, with little to no moisture on the roads to be kicked up by the cars and vans around me. It wasn't bad at all.
I got to work in a good time, parked up, but caught myself post ride, standing back and just looking at the bike for a few minutes. Does that kind of thing happen to anybody else out there? I know what it looks like, hell, I've just been sat on the thing for two hours, but still I felt the need to just look at it.
Anyway, annoyingly the roads got very wet about twenty miles from home, so now the FireBlade is sat filthy again, back in the garage. I'm not going to give it a decent clean until the Spring, which may sound a bit harsh. If the roads get really salty, as I expect they will do, I'll give it a quick wash down with the hose after a ride and I'll keep all the lights and mirrors clear from crap.
I'm theorising that a layer of grease and grime on the bike won't do it any harm and will in fact act as a barrier between the elements and the bike.
What's the worst that can happen?

With the vast majority of Saturday all to myself, I took the opportunity to complete the finishing touches to my winter prep. The R&G cases I ordered at Motorcycle Live arrived to the office on Friday and I'll like to publicly thank the Customer Service team at R&G who were really helpful and dealt with a problem, that wasn't their doing, quickly and efficiently. Happy customer right here.
It took me all of about ten minutes to pop the cases on and that was with me taking my sweet time. Hopefully I'll never need them for their intended purpose, but should the worse happen, they could save me a fortune. They look smart too which is a bonus.
The rest of the bike went back together really quickly and I finally had my bike back in road worthy condition.

With not much left to do but lube the chain and give the bike a final rub down, I took the opportunity to fit the Kreiga Tank tail pack converter to the bike. I picked this up at Motorcycle Live and as a big fan of the Kreiga products (I have a R25 rucksack and a US-20 tailpack already) I knew the quality will be first rate. I'll be picking up a US-10 soon to replace my previous tank bag soon.

With quick release latches, the converter can be moved out of the way when its time to fill up, but winter gloves make this a bit tricky, which I found out today. I prefer to have my bag infront of me, mainly as there is always a small part of me that worried that I've lost my tailpack when riding along. It's a great solution and I can also easily use it on the Ducati too.
Writing this up has made me realise that I haven't covered the luggage that I use, so I'll see if I can get something up onto the blog at some point.
Anyway, back to today. The bike felt good on today's little ride out, but then it pretty much should do. I'm taking it easy on the brakes as there are new pads in freshly rebuilt calipers.
​The weather forecast looks a tad wet for tomorrow afternoon, but I still may take the bike on the commute. I've hardly ridden it, or anything for that matter, and just want to get out there on two wheels.

So with no sign of the R&G case protectors that I ordered this time last week, I gave them a call today for a quick update. They were dispatched the next day (which is very impressive from my point of view), but the couriers they used, clearly couldn't read. 
According to R&G's system, the package had been refused twice, naming two people who don't live at my house. This was despite the address and my actual phone number being on the order.
So with two attempts clearly two too many, I'm getting it delivered to work, a four storey office building right by the main road, with the name of the business in a logo bigger than the van they will be driving. If they miss that one, they're in the wrong job.
In other news, I finalised the brake bleed that was frustrating me over the weekend. I reverted back to the manual method, topping up the fluid and then just tied the lever back over night.
My vacuum bleeder did help, but, and I don't know how, as it drew brake fluid into the piston, it just sprayed a thin film all over the handle, my hand and the bloody floor. A minor annoyance made worse by my own ineptitude.
So, now that the brakes are back up to scratch and with the case protectors scheduled to arrive on Friday, I feel like a ride is due this weekend. Anybody fancy meeting up?

Well, hello there. Where have I been? I'll tell you. I've been stuck in the bloody car that's where. With either freezing weather, very strong winds, or massive downpours peppering the countryside, the car has been the only logical choice for the monster commute. Well, thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it. 
With a week off work (ironically two months before they make me redundant), earlier this week I took a trip up to Motorcycle Live at the NEC. It was another excellent show with a strong showing from all the major manufactures and most, if not all, of the smaller ones. I plan on getting a little write up onto the site shortly, but in the meantime, here are just a few little snaps from the day.

After spending money at the show on parts that will need to be delivered, my main bike job this week was to strip and rebuild the front calipers and treat the Fireblade with a healthy dose of ACF-50 and get the bike ready for winter. The FireBlade is no summer toy and will be ridden during the winter, although maybe not to work. We shall see.
As you would expect, it was fairly simple taking everything apart and the front calipers, fairings and wheels all came off nice and quickly. With the calipers out, I was able to get two pistons from each one out, but I couldn't get enough grip to release the other two, which meant they needed to be split. Quick call to Stu at Conquest and we had four bits of calipers ready for cleaning and new seals.

With all the pistons and new seals all put in, it was time to give the bike the decent clean and then treat it with the ACF-50. I thought it best to do this with both wheels out as I could then be as liberal as I wanted.
With the wheels back in (eventually) and the calipers back together and hoses hooked up, it was time to populate the system.
What was supposed to be an hour job, took much longer and if I'm being honest, the job isn't even finished. 
It took ages to get the fluid to the calipers and then when I did, when bleeding the system, my pressure vacum pump proceeded on spraying brake fluid all over my garage floor, so I had to revert back to the old fashioned way. 
On both calipers I'm not getting any bubbles coming through and the brakes still feel far too soft and spongy. It was getting late and I was getting frustrated and as we know, technology and violence don't mix. I'm so utterly pissed off with this job now that when I have time, I'm going to ride it (slowly) to Conquest, give them some money and ask them to do it.
What was supposed to be a fun, feel good job has soured the day totally. I'm sure there's a simple reason why I can't bleed them up (I've bleed several systems before and they were fine) but I've reached the end of my tether with this one. 
So, the FireBlade sits in the garage, panels off with her wheels and calipers back on, but won't be used for work purposes. Hopefully once the brakes are back up to scratch, the R&G engine cases I've ordered will have turned off. Cross fingers.