Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.
Had a good blast out to the Ace Cafe last night. Another newbie night for the London Bikers forum. This time however we sorted a babysitter and I took Mary along. Bit of a round trip, but not too bad on the North Circular.
First time at the Ace for Mary and out with the LB lot. Great night, meeting people, some new, some not. Mary had a sit on Ally’s Kwak ER-6n, now convinced it’s the bike for her and even more determined to get her own wheels. Fair enough really.
Managed to find a replacement Yamaha belly pan for my Fazer. As you may recall, my current one got bust in a recent prang. However I have the the original Yamaha belly pan, which is nigh on impossible to find these days. Plenty of after market ones, but few look anywhere near as good and all would need declaring as a mod on insurance, cue premium increase. Recently this one turned up on ebay, listing is a bit vague, but it does appear to be the one I need. Obviously, it’ll need a good sand and respray, but still, it should be a good match.
Regarding the prang, insurance claim is still under way. My insurance underwriters and accident claim firm both agree the other party is 100% to blame. The other parties insurance are however fighting this. 🙁 Now my insurance are taking the matter to court… Can’t see myself getting a result for quite sometime.
I’ve recently found my wrist aching slightly whilst riding. Namely around town, where I’ve noticed my riding posture is all tense and rigid straight arms. Not good. I need to relax my elbows more, use my legs to grip the tank to support myself, and ultimately take my weight off the bars and my wrists.
On the open road I have no problems, but around town, when filtering and doing lots of low speed manoeuvres I keep unconsciously tensing up. Such that periodically I have to mentally remind myself to relax. I guess, with practice I’ll get better.
Some suggestions I’ve read about include gel filled grips and raised bars. What tip do you have do to avoid this?
So many of the things we do in life carry unique benefits and dangers and motorcycle riding is certainly no exception. While we savor the freedom that comes with our motorcycles, we must be mindful of the risks we take every time we strap on our helmet. Consider these risks and then please consider the ways that are suggested to make the riding experience safer.
Watch out, it seems these cameras are the new favourite toy of cash strapped councils. Bolted to lamp posts and enforcing bus lanes, councils can move them about at ease. This one recently popped up on a bus lane along my daily commute, on Lodge Avenue, Dagenham. A spot that used to be covered on occasion by a Smart car with a roof camera. It’s an awkward bottleneck, often in gridlock, with unbroken white lines down the centre, so no filtering at all. Yet the bus lane is invariably empty.
Quite why some bus lanes allow motorcyclists and others don’t had no rhyme or reason. But we can be certain the motivation is purely for revenue generation.
So a fellow biker pulls up at work with these spankingly shiny red wheels on his bike. Seriously funky and big improvement to his bike, much better than the old grey wheels. However the wheels are not new, he’s just had the bike professionally cleaned!
The top chaps who cleaned this were Over The Rainbow, next door to Ace Cafe, who also do bikes. Done a very good job, cleaned all the grime, chain lube and other detritus and got whole bike sparkly clean. All for a tenner and in 1.5 hrs. After spending ages the other weekend trying to remove the chain lube off my bike, it’s a tempting offer.
It was back to school this week for the kids, after a half term break away. Their blue uniforms match the bike perfectly. If only I had a pair of mini helmets, the school run would be so much easier.
Another Wednesday night, another London Biker meet up at Borough Market. Traditionally home to some of the best food produce, organic fruit, veggies, quality meat, game, hand-cooked meals and deserts. So, of course not to be outdone, Thamer arrives with a home-baked apple crumble strapped to the back of his Street Triple. And why not?!
A little quiet on attendance (bah! you other fair-weather bikers!), but we all had a good chin wag and tucked into some tasty pudding. But what culinary delights can others bring next week?
During my recent visit to Shrewsbury I had chance to catch up with two of my sister’s buddies who are also avid bikers. We had a nice leisurely Saturday afternoon ride out, with excellent sunny weather, quiet ish roads (compared to London anyway!) and a decent pub at our destination. I was joined by Blake, riding a heavily customised Harley 883 Sportster that sat barely a hairs breath off the road and Pete on a Honda Transalp adventure style bike. With me on the sports-tourer Fazer, we couldn’t have as far apart from one another in our styles of bike and riding posture.
I had a half day at work, motorcycle loaded up, 170 miles to cover, time away from kids, lovely dry weather and a pub dinner booked with family in 6 hours time. It doesn’t really get much better than this. It turned out to be great ride up to Shropshire, cross country through the Cotswolds, Worcester and South Shropshire. Here is how I got on.
I left work after lunch and immediately cut straight up across the city via Islington, Highbury etc along the A1, before hitting the North circular and then out of London on the A41. This first leg was a little slow going due to traffic, but later on the A41 was almost empty. A fast dual carriageway with big sweeping bends leading to Aylesbury, a nice easy ride through green countryside, but not the fun country bends I was looking for.
Aylesbury is a nice small town, but straight through I went continuing on the A41 to Bicester. The road was mostly single carriageway, but with occasionally stretches of dual carriageway. The scenery was pleasant, highlighted by passing the majestic Waddesdon Manor, but nothing compared to beyond Bicester as I entered the Cotswolds.