Well hello there. Apologies for being away from the blog for several weeks, but as is often the case, life gets in the way and other things have to take priority.
With this in mind, the amount of riding I've been doing these last few weeks has really been limited to little short runs into town and back. Nothing special sadly.
Poole bike night has returned, which to those who aren't local, is one of the biggest regular bike meets in Europe. Annoyingly though, so far the weather on each day has been less than desirable, which dramatically effects the attendance to the event.
In personal bike news, I finished the work Dean and I started on the Ducati in readiness for its MOT in a few weeks. The main bulk of this was upgrading the battery to a Yuasa YT14B-BS which I got online from Sportsbikeshop making use of a voucher I had.
With this in mind, the amount of riding I've been doing these last few weeks has really been limited to little short runs into town and back. Nothing special sadly.
Poole bike night has returned, which to those who aren't local, is one of the biggest regular bike meets in Europe. Annoyingly though, so far the weather on each day has been less than desirable, which dramatically effects the attendance to the event.
In personal bike news, I finished the work Dean and I started on the Ducati in readiness for its MOT in a few weeks. The main bulk of this was upgrading the battery to a Yuasa YT14B-BS which I got online from Sportsbikeshop making use of a voucher I had.
With more power, the battery is a little taller than its predecessor which means I had to take out the little branded battery tray. Knowing the Italian factory's love of inflated parts pricing, I could probably sell the tray for the cost of the battery.
Arriving dry, filling the battery with the acid was a really easy, albeit, slightly smelly experience. After leaving it to settle for a while, I hooked it all back up and tried to remember where all the wires had to be routed. I'll say it here now, if I had the funds, I'd rewire this whole bike to make it much neater and easier to work on.
The difference the new battery has made is plain to see, with a much healthier start up procedure. It still doesn't fire at the first push of the button, so I think there is something else going on, which I'll investigate as the year progresses. In the meantime, I keep it hooked up to my CTEC charger to keep everything topped up.
The other minor jobs on the bike have consisted of checking lights etc. and I'm finding the 1098s has a tendency to eat the little bulbs in the front headlight. I replaced one and it then blew within two days. Hopefully its just a run of crappy fragile bulbs that suffer quickly. In reality though, they do nothing in terms of visibility or light projection. They are frankly annoying and more likely a tick box exercise in the same way the original rear light cluster clearly was.
I was able to take advantage of some of the warmer mid April weather and was taking the Ducati to work. It always makes me smile when I experience the difference between the 1098s and the FireBlade. With the new gearing, the Ducati is much more aggressive under acceleration. Nothing like an 1198 or Panigale, but it's certainly noticeable. How anybody could need more power for the road I don't know, but saying that, I'd happily have a 1299s in my garage. You know, just to look at.
Arriving dry, filling the battery with the acid was a really easy, albeit, slightly smelly experience. After leaving it to settle for a while, I hooked it all back up and tried to remember where all the wires had to be routed. I'll say it here now, if I had the funds, I'd rewire this whole bike to make it much neater and easier to work on.
The difference the new battery has made is plain to see, with a much healthier start up procedure. It still doesn't fire at the first push of the button, so I think there is something else going on, which I'll investigate as the year progresses. In the meantime, I keep it hooked up to my CTEC charger to keep everything topped up.
The other minor jobs on the bike have consisted of checking lights etc. and I'm finding the 1098s has a tendency to eat the little bulbs in the front headlight. I replaced one and it then blew within two days. Hopefully its just a run of crappy fragile bulbs that suffer quickly. In reality though, they do nothing in terms of visibility or light projection. They are frankly annoying and more likely a tick box exercise in the same way the original rear light cluster clearly was.
I was able to take advantage of some of the warmer mid April weather and was taking the Ducati to work. It always makes me smile when I experience the difference between the 1098s and the FireBlade. With the new gearing, the Ducati is much more aggressive under acceleration. Nothing like an 1198 or Panigale, but it's certainly noticeable. How anybody could need more power for the road I don't know, but saying that, I'd happily have a 1299s in my garage. You know, just to look at.
Regular readers will know that I'm an XCP Ambassador. Bennetts, the insurance company, ran a extremely detailed and in depth test on their Bike Social site during this past winter to find out just how good the current range of anti corrosion sprays were. Included in this test was the XCP Rust Blocker spray. Well after several months of work the results came in and the XCP product led the pack, out performing the well respected ACF-50 by some way.
You can read their full review here: Bike Social XCP Rust Blocker which includes the detailed film John Millbank put together.
You can read their full review here: Bike Social XCP Rust Blocker which includes the detailed film John Millbank put together.
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