No biking for me today, can’t remember the last time Hammersmith looked like this! I really need a trailie.

Hats off to those who got out there today!

I spent 2 hours each way on the  train

We had a bit of a run in with a forum moderator today. I posted a message asking members to sign the D/Spills petition and they deleted it, how rude I thought.

So I posted it again this morning, I was just getting into an interesting banter with a few of them and the “MOD” deleted again. As you can imagine, we got a bit upset. It got a bit out of hand,  bad things were said

Apologies for the bad words, but the “MOD” was rude, life goes on…………

Delete that.

Evidently, bikers aren’t showing much support via the TFL site for the Bus Lane Trial, so please click below and fill in the short form, it only takes 2mins.

TfL Feedback Form.

Thanks.

Please sign the “Stop Diesel Spills” Petition on Number 10′s web site…

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/StopDieselSpills/

Many Thanks.

Steve McQueen's Metisse Desert Racer

Check this out, Métisse Motorcycles have produced a limited number of Steve McQueen’s Competition Desert Racer. Before you get your cheque book out you might want to consider other bikes in its price range like may be a Ducati 1098 or a BMW R1200GS Adventure. Yes, this trailie will set you back over £15,000, but what a stunning bike, damn I’d love to take one for a blast…..dream.

Official Website:http://www.metisse-motorcycles.com

I just came across this petition, it has got to be worth signing. Even if you don’t go to London much, it’s a right pain parking your bike now. It’s the principle you know :-/

Not only have you got to deal with the gazillion scooters crammed into every inch of bike park, but now you have to text your number plate to the parking authorities and have your mobile billed £1.50 for the pleasure.

How many more ways can they find to wring us dry of any hard earned we might have left!

Go on sign it You never know, it might work!

Sign here…http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/bikeparkingfees/
Related Site: http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com

Damn its cold! -8 degs, it gets chilly on an hours commute.

So here’s my setup….

Top

Jacket: Revit with waterproof and thermal layer.

Additional Wind Proofing: Local Paper

Heated Vest: Maplin £20 (Keeps your core warm on the motorway)

Fleece: Patagonia R1 (Very Expensive and very good but suspect M&S Thermal isn’t far behind and less that £20)

Thermal Top: Marks and Spencer’s Thermal Long Sleeved Top (Very very good I think Ride gave them top marks in a recent test and less than £20)

Office Shirt: Whatever’s cleanish

T-Shirt: Whatever’s clean

Bottom

Layer 1: Marks and Spencer’s Thermal Long pants with Merino Wool (They have a few different ones).

Layer 2: AlpineStar Touring Leathers

Boots: Daytona Gore-Tex (Covered 60k miles in all weathers, these boots are exceptionally warm)

The outer layer survived a 50mph slide down a dual carriageway leaving the occupant without a mark

Also a good set of handle bar muffs work wonders, cheap ones do nothing they let in too much cold air.

This setup works well for me. I would love to here about anything better or other recommendations for winter kit.

2007 Yamaha FZ6 Fazer

… So the 600 Fazer S2 is working as planned, sort of, it doesn’t shred rear tyres, although it is nowhere near as torquey as the thousand, it is still too capable of speed limit bashing. Also, on the back (being a fair bit taller than Bro) I get a fair bit of lift over 100mph, which makes for interesting times NOT! (I have no problems at all on the back of the FZ1 Fazer it’s little fairing seems to do a great job).

I think the daily two-up pounding the Fazer 600 got, was a little too much. After six months it developed a whine, plus we were bored. So it was off to our friendly Yamaha Dealer again. This time we decided the speed was still an issue, well more our lack of any self control.

We were looking down the rows of bikes, still under the deluded impression that a 600 was the way to go. The answer to all of our problems was there staring us straight in the face, how can we have been so stupid, a super-moto! Yeah! They are fun, can’t do much over the license loosing 100mph, especially two-up and they are fun.

2007 Yamaha XT660X

The new shiny KTM sorry I mean Yamaha XT660X. Now that looked like fun, we took it for a test drive. It was really bizarre, I hadn’t been on a dirt bike since I was a kid. It was like riding a 100mph mountain bike. Just riding around Shepherds Bush roundabout was awesome. The speed off the line is unreal, it fitted all the criteria, fun, curtails top speed on the motorway and has a back seat oh yeah and has to be fun.

So the paper whizzed around and it was ours, the poor whiny Fazer was gone, woohoo. The XT was surprising good at commuting and was amazing fun, the only problem in London was the bars, it took a few days of mirror bashing to get the hang of filtering with wide bars, even then it is a pain in the arse, it is made up for though by the fun you are having when not filtering. Even on the motorway it was fine, comfortable two-up and cruising around 90mph (if legal) would have been fine.

But the friendship soon turned sour, after six months the gearbox imploded it was repaired under warranty but a month later the gearbox blew again. We decided that it was not up for the job and we needed a thousand again. The Ace had survived for years. So a deal was done and we where back on a thousand. The story is continued in previous posts… see below.

I can’t think of anything that has enraged me in my life so far, as much as my first motorcycle accident of my long and illustrious 25 year biking career. For the last 5 years I have been riding 80 miles per day commuting into Hammersmith from North Herts.

So diesel spills are nothing new, I’ve been dodging them pretty much every day for 5 years. By the way, what the hell goes on, on the A40/A3220 roundabout at White City.

It’s like a rainbow pattern skating rink in the wet, an everyday diesel fest. Anyway, it was a dry sunny morning, I had picked up my Brother and we were off, heading for work. I came off a clear dual carriageway roundabout on to the dual carriageway banked over a bit, nothing too rash. Then smack I was on my arse sliding towards the centre barrier and faster than I would like, the three month old FZ-1 sliding along ahead of me and my Bro somewhere behind.

It’s funny, the whole thing probably only lasted a few seconds but I felt like it was happening in slow motion, I remember thinking, I need to slow down or I’m going to be meeting up with the barrier (it didn’t look too inviting), so I lied flat on my back, which thank f$ck did the trick, I jumped up looking for Broski. Thankfully, he was up and heading for the central reservation. The realisation that had previously crossed my mind, that any number of bone crushing vehicles could be flying up behind, ready to send me into oblivion, so in a brisk manner similar, I would imagine, to those nutters in Spain with a raging bull fast approaching, I too was off to the relative safety of the central reservation.

Within seconds the boys in blue arrived. “What happened here then?” looking very disapproving. “I slipped on that flipping diesel” I retort, getting the impression they thought I lost it on the corner. So off they go to investigate. “You’re right we’ve called out the Highway Agency to clean it up” as the other one puts cones around the spill. The proceedings from then go on pleasantly, the policeman tells me he has just brought a bike after many years driving cars and this is putting him off! Good Luck!

The computer in the cop car was an eye opener, the whole time I was giving my statement the screen was scanning and reporting the status of every car that passed. One came up stolen when my brother was in the car, the guy got all agitated as they can only transmit when the channel is clear and another colleague had the line, stopping him reporting it. What a ridiculous radio system.

By this time the adrenaline was wearing off and was starting to get really pissed off about the whole situation.

So, from what I understand (please correct me) some truck drivers overfill their fuel tanks with the deluded impression that they won’t have to fill up again as soon. But of course what they are actually doing is a total waste of time, fuel, money, bikes, bikers lives, police, ambulances, nurses and doctors time and the associated cost, as they spill the diesel on every corner they go round.

So, the recovery guy turns up and winches our once beautiful ex-£7,000+ bike from under the barrier up on to the truck and gives us a lift to the nearest town. We discuss the spill, which carries on to the next roundabout, he tells us its probably the Highway Agency lorries as their depot is off of that roundabout. How infuriatingly ironic is that.

By this time the apathetic, matter of fact manner of everyone is really getting to me, no one cares that due to some idiot, not only have I trashed a perfectly good, brand new, shiny bike but I could have easily have killed my brother. I can’t come to terms with how this can go on.

Surely, fuel tanks can / should be sealed. The whole time we were waiting for the recovery guy the bike was on its side with a full tank, I mean 5 miles from filling it up and not a drop was spilled.

And the culprits aren’t just old privately owned skip lorries, its the Highways Agency, major bus companies. I know the Guys at Kill Spills have been doing a fantastic job of shoving this problem in the Governments face for years, talking to everyone involved, and things are improving but is keeping fuel in a tank so difficult. We can send a space ship to the moon, blah blah blah. Presumably new trucks have this problem sorted (?)

I don’t know much about commercial vehicles, but I know if my car or bike doesn’t come up to the Governments safety standards every year I can’t use it on the roads.

Doesn’t the Government just have to say to manufactures to sort it out and tell all truck owners to retro fit a sealed fuel tank cap.

Tiss Ltd do a device for less than £200 that stops fuel spills as well as fuel theft and skimming.

I hope its not that easy otherwise someone Ministry of Transport needs … (bad thoughts)

PS. Battling the insurance company will be in a subsequent post

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

Government Petition to Stop Diesel Spills PLEASE SIGN.

REMEMBER If you are having problems with an insurance company just PHONE THE FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN insurance companies are terrified of them.

Look out for Kill Spills Campaign Events.

Kill Spills Web Site

Diesel spills at Warwick University seriously injure motorcyclists

We loved the Ace, Bro bought it new in ’97 and loved it like a first born. Spoiling it, garnished with Vance & Hines, K&N and brazed pipes, used regularly and to its limits, for two wheeled, well, mostly one wheeled, lunacy.

Yamaha ThunderAce

Sometime later… I had moved back from the States and was dying commuting on the train, Bro had other commitments and wasn’t getting much Ace time, and it was mine

Some years later… Bro got a contract working with me in Hammersmith, two-up time.

The Thunderace was falling to bits, every service was costing a fortune. The speedo hadn’t worked for miles, the rear break pedal was snapped off, the front discs where so badly warped the bike would shake at anything other than the mildest slowing. It was hosed.

The path to the current bike was obscured by the wish to save money and reduce the temptation and capacity to excessive speeding. After running the now aging Ace for years, although the Thunderace is now regarded as a weighty tourer (By some mean R1 fans, its funny how many R1′s vanish in its rear view mirror on the ride home :-> ) Anyway, the thought process goes something like this… 1000′s are awesome, however they have little regard for those pesky speed limits and they do shred rear tires (4000 miles max) also, while sports bikes (Yes a Thunderace is a sports bike, feekers) are viable commuters, two-up is not so good, so in an attempt to be sensible, the choice, as gut wrenching as it was, was to go 600. It gets worse, lets face it if you want a sporty commuter 600, “you can’t go far wrong with a Faser”.

So, with our sensible hats firmly pulled down, it was off to the Yamaha dealer. A Short walk up Sheperds Bush Road and there it was, a Black Faser 600 S2, hum, as with any dealer the path to the commuter is packed with awesomeness designed to loosen the hold of the sensible hat, mine had fallen off, the sight of the 180bhp on the R1′s info tags had me thinking! but Bro was being strong, after a brief raised eyebrow when passing the 1000 Fazer, we arrived at the planned choice, the gleaming S2 Faser 600. Paper whizzed around and the Thunderace was reduced to the pages of eBay (R.I.P.).

Details of the ensuing carnage will follow soon…..