loveless

June 27, 2011

so, after a lazy sunday morning walking the dog's, drinking tea and hanging out in the garden with jess it was time to get the seat bolted back on, mad john had returned it still muttering about the finish, apparently there are major flaws with it, [i reckon he's the 6 million dollar man and he's got x-ray vision or something] and he wants to take it away and do it again, no way, we are past the longest day already and i haven't ridden a road bike yet, [apart from the couple of illegal blasts up the road to try out the sporty], i put the remains of the 97 octane petrol in the tank that i had left over from the recent trackday, grab some tools and hit the button, first stop is for petrol, i pull out onto the a6, a group of lad's on various sportsbikes are soon two inches off my numberplate, the a6 is notorious for the old bill so i don't get drawn, as i'm changing down approaching an island the motor cough's and dies, the lad's on the japper's find this highly amusing, revving their engines, pipping horn's and giving me the 'wanker' sign, i just turn the pingle onto reserve, hit the button and follow them into the petrol station, full tank and i'm away, turn off the a6 towards ashbourne and start to get a feel for the bike, it feel's a lot lighter, turning easily on the 17's and the dunlop qualifiers offering loads of grip, the single brembo scrubbing off speed with just a touch of the lever, i try the rear, no drama and the cagiva mito brembo caliper braking well, keeping the plot on the straight and narrow and no grabbing, the njb shocks are firm but handle the bumpy, frost damaged surfaces really well, they really are a bargain and much better performance than the expensive 'progressive' shocks that i have replaced, the speedo is going to take some setting up and is fluctuating wildly, not too bothered about that today though, this is just a shakedown ride, the exhaust is still popping, not as badly as before but i need to experiment with the supertrapp diffuser cones to richen up the mixture [and probably muck about with the jetting] the ride is comfortable, the renthal bar's wide enough to lever the bike through the bends, the renthal grips are better than the chunky things on a standard sporty, dropping down to 7/8th's bars over the harley 1" bar's allows you to have your pick of japanese/italian levers, master cylinders and clutch perch's, i'm running a yamaha thundercat clutch perch, the beauty of this is that it straightens the cable run into the lever and the clutch feels a lot lighter, especially combined with the dog-leg lever, the master cylinder is a nissin item off a kawasaki, i junked the massive o.e.m. fluid reservoir and used a brembo race item out of the mz racing spares box in it's place, the throttle is a daytona 1/4 turn item, i use one of these on the racer and like the action, i don't like a 'sticky' throttle and these snap back like a mousetrap when you let go, i pull up above carsington reservoir and let the bike cool a little before going around it checking fasteners and for any leaking fluids, there's a slight weep from the primary cover, nothing really, one of the seat mounting screws has backed off and i nip it up with an allen key and that's it, i sit on the gate on the opposite side of the lane and just take it in, there's always something of an anti-climax when you have nearly finished a project but i'm not feeling that today, i'm sitting in the sunshine listening to the bikes gunning it along the top of carsington reservoir and life feel's good, i get my kit back on and as i flick up the sidestand i notice the boot in the grass, luckily there's no one's foot in it, unluckily i can't find the other one, [i would have swapped them for mine, mine are about shagged], i clock another fifty or so miles, my confidence in the bike growing, no nasty noises and the new tyres scrubbing in nicely, i roll into darley moor, there's a meeting on today, i park up, lock on, grab a brew and have a stroll around the pit's, there's very few pukka race machinery, the odd rs 125 and 250 and tz250's the rest is all road based in-line jap four's, the sidecars are very interesting especially when you see them without their clothes on and all that glorious engineering is exposed, i catch a couple of races and can honestly say that in all my years of spectating at darley, this is the first time i can remember it being warm up here, i snake home down the lanes but can't resist a couple of miles giving it a blast down one of my favourite pieces of tarmac, i know this road like the back of my hand, it is thankfully free of 'safety partnership' van's and helicopters[they prefer the richer pickings of the a6 and the 515], great fun and it feel's good to be back on the road, i'm soon home, got to get those boy's walked, i sit on the floor with my back against the garage wall, i'm quaffing a cold cobra and i'm listening to the bike 'tick' as it cool's, there's a mass of dead flies plastered to the numberboard and forklegs and the new chain is slacker than jordan's thong, i'm well chuffed me....