Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.
It was a busy year for me in 2019 with numerous biking trips and adventures around the globe. Below is a short video of the key highlights from the past year, do enjoy!
Have you had similar interesting adventures in the past? Do you have any exciting plans for the coming year? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.
It’s well-documented that riding a motorbike can bring a huge sense of freedom and when you tour solo for longer distances over many days this feeling is even greater. For a beginner, that first big solo motorcycle trip can be quite daunting, raising many what-if questions – what if I break down? what if I get lost? Some people are just more naturally confident, whilst others are less so, worry more and find the idea of riding out into the unknown uneasy.
If you’ve not travelled long distances by bike solo before and are somewhat nervous about the proposition, but do what to overcome this fear and explore, then read on. This article will hopefully give you some solo motorcycle tour tips to beat those fears and plan for a trouble-free motorcycle adventure.
Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.
James Dean
On my old Fazer, I had installed a Stebel Nautilus air horn, a super loud horn that saved my bacon on a number of occasions on my daily commute into London. As such, I was keen to install similar on my new FZ6, but with the Stebel horns less readily available in the UK I came across the Denali SoundBomb. On first glance, it appears to be a spitting image of the Stebel horn and is priced similarly at £40.
With the horn being such a large lump, mounting needed some thought as the FZ6 stock horn is mounted between the forks and there are no handy mounting points on the sides under the fairing. Denali sells a number of specific bike and generic crash bar mounting brackets, but unfortunately nowt suitable for the FZ6. That’s when I found the Denali SoundBomb Split version which separates the two halves of the air horn, thus allowing the compressor and horn elements to be mounted individually. A supplied thick heat-resistant hose then connects the two halves. As with other large horns, the compressor should be wired to the stock horn via a relay due to its 20A power draw. i.e. the stock horn wire triggers the compressor via a relay, to power it directly from the battery on its own fused line.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We’ve had many biking adventures over the past year, trail riding, track day, trips to Australia, California and the French Ardennes; plenty to takes one’s mind off the current political climate… One of the years last jolly’s was the annual Ace Cafe Toy Run, a charity event to deliver toys and gifts to sick children in London hospitals. A fun day with dressed up and decked out bikes.
I hope your 2019 has been filled with adventure and fun riding. What has been your biking highlights this year?
“put out the lights on the Age of Reason.”
– Here Comes the War, New Model Army
When we first picked up Mary’s Honda CBF500 it was clear it hadn’t always stayed rubber side down. It had various bits of cosmetic damage, which I have progressively fixed up as parts popped up cheap. One of the last items to address was the speedo tachometer case which had a few cracks and was taped up. Genuine Honda CBF clocks are expensive (£300+), second-hand Honda instrument clusters aren’t cheap (£100-150 odd) and are often missing mounting lugs. So, when I spotted a cheap Chinese replica speedo clocks casing for £25, I was of course intrigued and figured it had to be worth a punt.
My planned visit to California to rent a Yamaha Super Ténéré from Eagle Rider and head inland to take a motorcycle trip to Yosemite National Park all went to plan without hitch. The weather was perfect, the snow stayed away and the Tiago Pass stayed open. Experiencing Yosemite off season at the end of October and riding the Tiago Pass on a weekday was probably a shrewd move to avoid the crowds and ride the roads at their quietest to enjoy the stunning scenery at it’s best. Below are some video highlights from my trip through Yosemite.
Read about my trip planning shenanigans that went into this mini adventure here. The second half of my mini tour took in Lake Tahoe and a return to San Francisco via Sacramento. Watch this space for highlights on this second leg.
You can download the full route and other top San Francisco motorcycle roads here.
We purchased this Lomo 60 litre dry bag a year ago for the very modest sum of £28 and have since put it through its paces on a number of trips and tours. It’s been filled with all kinds of gubbins, strapped it to numerous bikes and carted it to many far-flung places. So, if you’re thinking of buying one of these Lomo dry bags yourself, do read on to see how it stood up and what our verdict was.
In case you’re not familiar, Lomo are a Scottish firm that specialises in many water sports products, for kayaking, surfing etc (not the other kind of waters sports!) They also sell a number of waterproof luggage options aimed at motorcyclists and cyclists, plus universal items – like this dry bag.
Not my usual bike, but I took out this Harley Davidson Heritage Soft Tail 114 for a test ride at the weekend, from the super helpful guys at the Maidstone Harley Davidson dealership. We’re checking out options for a long distance tourer, and today this possibly left field choice.
With so much power, this bike definitely brings on the big grins. Each twist of the right hand unleashed tonnes of torque, and a roar from the exhausts. It was very comfortable for both myself and pillion, and with the hard lockable luggage could definitely be a winner on some longer tours. Evie appreciated the sissy bar backrest, especially when I opened the thing up and the torque shoved us right back. I did however find the high ape hanger bars a bit fatiguing when man handling it through the bend, so I would probably opt for a lower more practical option.
Other niggles was the kick stand was bit awkward to kick out from under foot board. Neutral was impossible to find without killing the engine – though this bike had a lot of play at clutch lever, so maybe just needed adjustment. As with many big Hogs, you’ve got to be mindful of lean angle, it was very easy to scrape the boards on a bend.