Author: Arthur

Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.

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Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 6

In today’s video you can see me attempted to filter carefully between some traffic that has just pulled up to a halt. However can you guess what little surprise lies in wait?

The more eagle eyed bikers out there would have noticed the island in the middle of the road to my right and thus anticipate what can happen at these points in the road. In this instance it’s quite obscured, but as you gain familiarity with your daily route you soon learn these features of the road and know exactly what to look out for. It is precisely for this reason it is not a good idea to filter like crazy on unfamiliar roads, it’s so easy to get caught out by stuff you miss or is hidden by the traffic.

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Uncategorized

New Year Update

Not really had a great deal to update on the site lately. With the Xmas break, it was time to park up and relax with family. The weather has been pretty naff, wet, windy and not particularly enticing for a ride out.

I have enjoyed the quieter roads on my commute into work in the days prior to Xmas and last week. However I suspect tomorrow they will be back to their usual busy and congested state tomorrow. The end of December was also tax time, however the Fazer wasn’t too bad at just £58 for 12 months. Interestingly, this will be my last paper tax disc, as the Government plans to rely just on their electronic database from August this year.

In other news, I have tickets booked for the MCN Show down at Excel in February. Happened to coincide with a teacher training day at my kids school, so we’ll be making a family day out of it on the 14th. What better way to spend Valentines? 🙂

I’ve also blagged myself a place on a Biker Down course. Run by fire crew in Marlow (and down in Kent), they give training and advice on how to handle a downed biker incident, covering basic first aid and incident management. Definitely looking forward to this, have heard many good things about it and should be very useful stuff to know.

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Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 5

Another instalment in my series of biker videos aimed at training you in the art of anticipating the unexpected. Here I am filtering (again), but decide to hold back from the little black Beemer, but why?

Watch the video and and see how things could have turned rather different if I had continued filtering.

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Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 4

Riding round the back streets of South London, negotiating the one way system on my journey to work, the streets are narrow and busy with surprises around every corner. As a good biker you need to be able to spot hazards far ahead, predict those that are about to happen and adjust your speed as needed to react whatever you face. See if you can guess what is about to happen in this short clip.

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Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 3

Here we have another instalment in my Sixth Sense Skills series of videos to help highlight the unexpected hazards that crop up on the road that all good bikers need to be able to predict well in advance. In this video I am filtering (again) with a view to turn right, whilst there’s a gap in the oncoming traffic thanks to the pedestrian crossing on red. What could possibly happen next?

Categories
Riding

In print in MCM

imageRecently Motorcycle Monthly asked readers to give tips on staying safe and visible on the roads in the winter. I posted off my contribution and they chose it for print in this December’s edition and here it is.

Excuse the cheesy mugshot! Nonetheless, the kids are proud to see me in print. 🙂

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Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 2

Continuing my series of Sixth Sense Skills, here comes tip 2:-

Highlighted is a very common scenario when filtering through slow moving traffic and a gap opens up. Think to yourself ‘who might want to fill that gap?’ Also notice the position of truck, close to the edge of the lane, the driver is likely gauging the progress of the traffic up ahead and contemplating a lane swap.

Categories
Videos

Sixth Sense Skills – Tip 1

Kicking off a new video feature on this blog, welcome to the Sixth Sense Skills! I’m going to show simply scenarios with the hope you can spot the tell tail signs hinting at how they may unfold, so you can ride safely. Too often bikers miss these signs and suddenly find themselves in tight spots with too much speed and no time to brake or evade. Please watch the video below and see if you can guess what is about to happen.

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Maintenance

New Fairing For Fazer Arrived

New-Fazer-Fairing-PaintingThe new fairing for my Fazer 600 arrived the other day. I have opted for a pattern part, GRP version from CWC (Cars Wants Change) in Poland. As you can see the fairing arrived unpainted with just the white gel coat finish. So my daughter offered to paint it for me. Not 100% it’ll be a good colour match mind… It was far more cost-effective than a genuine Yamaha part and first impressions are good, nice smooth finish in the main. Just a couple of edges that will need a bit of sanding prior to spraying.

Over the next week or so, I’ll get it painted up properly at a local spray shop and then fitted. I don’t think I’ll be able to do a particularly good job with rattle cans at home. Finally, once I’ve stuck on some decals and the Yamaha badge, it should look indistinguishable from a genuine Yamaha fairing. Of course, at a fraction of the price; £125 compared to £500. At that price, it won’t be such a tragedy if I drop the bike again!

CWC make all kinds of pattern fairing, rear huggers and other body parts for all manner of bikes (and cars). Do check them out

New-Fazer-FairingUpdate: Since writing this it seems CWC are longer trading on eBay. Also, Yamaha reduced the price of their genuine fairings, with a fully painted and colour-matched cowling coming in at around £200. Order directly from your local Yamaha dealer, or Fowlers Parts.

Categories
Maintenance

Motorcycle Winter Preparation – ACF-50 Application

acf 50 motorcycle treatmentWith the weather rapidly turning colder, winter will soon be on us and out comes a bike’s worst enemy. Salt.

Spread on the roads to tackle ice, it literally eats our bikes, accelerating the oxidisation of ironwork causing your downpipes, frame and anything else exposed to rust and disintegrate before your eyes. Now is the time for some motorcycle winter preparation to prevent this problem.

ACF-50 motorcycle treatment is an amazing product you can just spray onto your bike, totally covering it (just stay away from brakes), whence it will leave a protective film that halts any existing rust and prevents further rust. And so, at the weekend I gave the bike a good clean, removing a lot of the grime and dirt, then completely doused it in ACF-50.

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