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| | October's Competition Winners | | | |
| Congratulations go to Bells, freedom and ellisd82 for winning bike of the month
| 1st Place- Bells with 17 votes (14.17%)
 | 2nd Place- freedom with 7 votes (5.83%)
 | 3rd Place- ellisd82 with 6 votes (5%)
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1st place - receives 10,000G.
2nd Place - receives 7,000G
3rd Place - receives 5,000G
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| Well Just incase you haven’t noticed, autumn is now up on us. Not that we’ve had much of a summer this year. So I figured I’d try and share some advice for winter riding and bike maintenance. First off on top of the usual hazards like drivers in hair dressers cars and bus drivers pulling out. Autumn and winter pose a few more hazards to us bike riders. - Heavy rain and more than usual wet roads
- Leaves, mud and wet cow shit, grit and gravel on the roads
- Side winds
- Ice and the cold
Ok I hear you say. Rain is just rain but there are things you can do to stay safer and more comfortable when it’s pissing down. Apart from the mandatory all in one rain suit and over boots, there’s your visor. If you know it’s probably going to rain don’t go out with a dark visor fitted, or at the very least take a clear one with you. A wet dark visor is harder to see through when it’s raining, it also hides the road definition and makes it harder to place your bike in heavy rain. Not to mention most of the time when it’s raining, the sky is darker, adding to the tint in your dark visor. If you want to go the whole hog you can get orange or yellow tinted visors that have been developed for rain riding and riding at dusk. The inherent problem with rain is it makes the air more moist. This is a problem for full face helmets. Its hard enough stopping your visor from steaming up on a normal day let alone on a rainy day. With the air being moister and you breathing it in, it has to come back out again but it’s now warm. We all know that warm breath likes to condense on a cold surface. Your visor is a cold surface. Not only is the air passing it cooling it down, but so is the water on the outside of it.There are a few things on the market that can help. Some visors come with a pinlock system that’s designed to take an insert to help keep your breath off the inner outer layer of your visor. Or you can buy a sticky back version. You can use anti mist spray which is a chemical defogger, but it only lasts a short time, then your off the bike and spraying it all over again. Or, and this is the best one I’ve used, you can fit a Foggy.  It’s an elasticated face mask that velcro’s into any full face helmet.
Another thing to look out for is the fit of your visor. Some after market visors get around the copyrights by being slightly different in dimension. They look just the same BUT don’t fit as snugly as they should, normally around the upper seal when the visor is shut. A way around this is to use some sticky back draft excluder. Take off the visor and stick some to the helmet just above the upper seal, taking it right round to the side of the visor opening, then refit the visor. There’s nothing worse than turning your head in the wind to clear the rain off your visor and finding out the runs are on the inside of your visor.
Road surface hazards
Most of them are there all year round but this time of year they get worse. Leaves, mud, wet cow shit, grit and gravel. You’ll find grit n gravel along with bits of car and truck parts in the centre and side of the road, mostly coming up to traffic islands and chevron lines. They all add up to the same thing though - loss of traction / grip.  The only thing you can do when confronted with these hazards is to take it easy and try to avoid them whenever it’s safe to do so. Keep you mirrors clean and positioned correctly so you can check them in a hurry if you need to change road position quickly. Check them more regularly than you normally would. Remember cars don’t need to slow down for a few leaves or cow pats and soon shoot up your arse. Try and teach yourself to cover the back brake on slippery or hazardous road surfaces. The easiest way to bin your pride and joy is to lose the front on a patch of rock salt or a few dead leaves. Try and use engine braking and this will keep the bike more stable when you’re slowing for a corner but don’t chuck it down 3 gears and expect to stay on board. Steady and smooth is the best policy. Some people say to drop a few PSI in your tyres for winter riding. Well that’s up to you. By doing this your increasing the size of your contact patch, but this wont help if the road is very wet, the wider the contact patch the more water your tyre has to displace to get to the road surface.The best thing you could do is check your tyre tread depth is good, soften your suspension settings a click or 2 and make sure your throttle and chain are adjusted properly, that should help to take away some of the snatchings bikes do when coming out of corners.
Side winds
There isn’t much you can say about side winds. Look for clues, the most common place is in built up areas that funnel the wind in to open spaces. Look out for rubbish blowing across the road, people walking with a side lean, or puddles running up hill.Always be ready but don’t fight against the wind. If you do, not only will it push you out wide but when you get past it you will dive back into the kerb. I find the best way is to relax and just let the bike go with the wind lean into it and try and make sure you’re not going to hit anything coming up the other way.
Early morning or late evening
These are the usual times for severe ice on the roads and cold air. I’d leave the bike if it was icy but if you know the roads have been gritted and you’re not putting yourself in too much danger you’ll still need to keep warm. I have ridden long distance in the cold it’s not much fun but worse than that, it doesn’t matter how much of a hard bastard you are, once your cold you don’t function the same. Little tasks like braking or changing gear become laboured and unpleasant.Keep you self as warm as you can.  There’s plenty of under garments you can put on to help fight off the cold. These days there’s hi tech gear that acts as a thermal barrier from the cold but allows your body to breathe at the same time. The main parts to try and keep warm are your extremities, like your hands and feet. Once you start to get cold your body slows your blood flow to your extremities. This in turn makes them even colder and that’s what makes it harder to do the simplest of tasks. Keep your hands and feet moving, take breaks and move about during them. Invest in some good quality gloves, inner gloves, boots and boot liners. Wear a balaclava, the less heat you loose the better. If you can keep warm you’ll still be enjoying your riding. But don’t forget even though your warm the road isn’t. I know this has gone on a bit and I haven’t covered every thing but if it helps a bit I’ll be more than happy. Take Care Guys and Ride Safe.
Next week Bike preparation | |
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Well as we all know Yamaha tend to give us a re vamped Super sports bike every 2 years. For 2009 they are offering us this.
 Apart from its look being very different from the last 4 years offering, the bike has had a total revamp. It has had a big input from the M1 Moto GP bike of Rossi and Lorenzo. coupling this with all they have learned from the advancements in World super bikes, means it's a totally different machine.
I have to say I think they have gone a bit backward in the looks department but I'm hoping it will grow on me once I have seen the real thing. For more info and the specs
Click here
Or to add your view and tell us what you think Click here
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| Well we made it.We set off from Devils Bridge in glorious sunshine, after a brew a good natter and usual piss take of the Kawasaki’s. We all had our bikes photographed with a cheeky girl look alike (Lanice), By Brian from Stillshot photography. you can buy the pics from here -Click Here-
 Most of us loaded our gear in to the support van and before long we’d left Devils behind and were on our way to Hawes. A good job to, it turned out to be the only place we could find an open fuel stop in 140 miles. We carried on from there and headed for Scarborough, It was a smooth relaxing ride the sun was out and the roads were dry. Most of us were surprise we didn’t have to get off and help Ellis push his bike up Sutton bank. we waited at the top in amazement.
We hit Scarborough around 7:15 and once we’d got direction we headed for the sea front for some well earned Fish n Chips. While I was waiting for mine I bumped in to a guy we had met a few months ago at Hawes. We gave them directions to Devils Bridge from Hawes then 5 minuets late we were pulling him out of a ditch on the moors road, small world ay? We set off from Scarborough to Base camp1 (Hollin farm Whitby) at around 8:30 and had arranged to stop for fuel on route. We had a gallon in the support van but we didn’t want to use it. Non of the garages on route were open. With only a quick stop for a visor change we got to Base camp1 for 10 ish. The last 5 miles were awful the roads were just a farm track with tight turns and steep drops. I almost bin Rosie on some wet gravel coming down to a steep sharp bend. Just after disaster struck Rob G dropped his bike just as we made it to base1. The drive way down to the site had a tight bend and a steep drop, as Rob turned into the drive he lost the front forcing him to commando roll down the hill. Unfortunately his wife was not so lucky she got her leg trapped under one of the pannier brackets hurting her lag and her back. Taking no chances an ambulance was called and she and Rob were whisked off to hospital followed by Lisa in the support van.
Camp was set up and we all waited patiently for Coleys stove to boil the kettle. Finally it did and we all got a brew. Sleeping in a tent on a 3:1 slope was an art that I couldn’t master couple that with a mad farmer fooling us in to thinking there was a runaway trailer about to wipe us and the tents out on the hill. And Lisa and Rob coming back and sneaking there bikes out to take home. I didn’t get much sleep. But I did learn the mating calls of several walruses while listening to Big Pete and Tom snoring. Big Pete had no sooner got in his tent before the snoring started. I had to wonder to my self if he started to snore before he’d got into his tent, in an attempt to lull him self to sleep?Needless to say most of us were up early the next morning. After a quick shower and a brew we packed the tents away and piled them under cover for Ronnie to guard while he waited for the van to come and pick him up.
 We decided to make an early start and set off in search of fuel while on route to Southshields. We took it very easy as a few of us were running on fumes. And for now we had no support van to help out. My sta nav was working overtime trying to find us a garage but none were open. We ended up finding one in Middlesbrough. A big relief for Ellis, he had to switch to reserve miles back on the road of bones (A171, We named it that because of all the road kill that was on it) From there felling relived we headed up to Southshields. There’s some strange folk on those roads. We stopped off at a Mc Donald’s for our first food since the fish n chips in Scarborough. We weren’t desperate for food though but the choice of emergency rations was a bit off putting and overwhelming. Coley who has nominated himself the group Dietician had brought with him 15 boiled eggs, witch he offered us ever 5 minuets. I could tell he was worried that we’d all die of starvation. Witch given with what he was offering I think I’d of rather done.  We had the mandatory breakfast meal use the loo and then were on our way. That’s when the curse struck. It would seem that from now on every time we ate it would rain for 2 hours and I mean rain.Those who had there wet gear with them donned it and the proceeded to chuckle at those that didn’t. But at least we still had our street cred….. But I’d rather of been dry 
We headed from there through the Tyne tunnel were we met an angry toll attendant. He looked like he was disappointed to have to let us all through “Is that all of you!!” he shouted then opened the gate to allow us through. We road from there up to Dunbar stopping for fuel at Denwick. Then on to skim the outskirts of Dunbar and through to the Edinburgh ring road. By this time the guys with out wet gear on were sodden through, the dye from our leather was colouring our skin and over clothing, and the cold was finding its way through with the water. Eventually the rain stopped so we decided to drop into a village and get some food. It was an interesting meal, 2 tiny rashes of bacon in a hollow bun and a small mug of coffee. But it was good to sit down. I soon attracted one of the local birds. Who came over and sat with me at my table. She was very nice, casually dresses with her hair tied back I think she even had some of her own teeth. She was the sort of woman that you wouldn’t expect to find in a little T room in Scotland. In fact you have more luck finding her in the Russian ladies Olympic shot-put team. We drank up and after a photo shoot with the café owners and getting a donation we headed for base camp2. No sooner had we got our helmets on did the heavens open. What a surprise. Because the weather had been so bad and slowed us down we took the quick route??? To base camp2 down the M8. Big mistake their were long tail back which made the going slow, well until Eddie’s HONDA!! Started to over heat. Then we just blasted down the hard shoulder to try and get some air pasted his radiator. We knew we were ok to do that as we passed 2 different police cars and they didn’t give chase, Good thing traffic jams aint they.
To be honest the roads from Dunbar to Ayr were rubbish, full of speed cameras and average speed cameras. Not good for bikers. We finally made Base camp2 around 5:00 ish, the support van driven by Ronnie and co piloted by Lisa, arrived around an hour or so after we did. Ron had cut thought the centre of the country in an attempt to get the gear to us on our arrival.
 Now I’m not going to over exaggerate but this guy Jim The warden at The Walled Garden Camp Site was BRILLIENT!!!! He let us dry our gear in the site entertainment hall He couldn’t do enough for us He went and got us a few crates of beer and even brought us up a banquet from the local Chinese, I say local about 5 miles way. He even arranged food for us the next morning in the village. The site was beautiful and all the amenities were clean and well looked after. Even the electric wheel chair in the hall was fully charged, I think if we weren’t so tired and wet we may have had a stunt comp and set up a ramp. I’d recommend this site to any body. It made day to end with a real high. But boy did it rain in the night. Most of us woke around 6:30 ish with the exception of Inspector who woke around 7:30 ish only to find his tent had a nice moat around it. We got packed and ALMOST every body had a coffee. Inspector proved to us that he had a dead sheep lodged somewhere in his bowel whilst killing all the midges in the local area in one fowl sweep.After our bacon buttie Jim had arrange for us in Dailly yes you guessed it, it started to rain. We nipped into Grivan were we refuelled and headed along the A77 Even though it was wet and there were a few road works and average speed cameras. It was an awesome road. In the dry it would be well worth having a blat down. We stopped at Castel Douglas for fuel and then road on to Annan were we stop to find food. All we could find was a restaurant on the high street. The food was great but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the waiter, He must have wondered what was happening when one after one a biker in a yellow T shirt walked in. but once we’d all got undressed and sat down he was on us do you want this do you want that. He made a good few quid out of us I’m sure. The food was grate to. We finished up got dressed and paid. There’s something a bit embarrassing about putting on a wheelie bin gab in the middle of a posh restaurant, Eddies idea to help keep me dry, it didn’t the water just ran down that and into my groin area. But it was worth a try. Guess what….. We got on our bikes after eating, and the heavens opened again. Strange that? I didn’t expect it to do that.We made a final dash to Devils we refuelled at Carlisle, and then jumped down the M6 to Penrith then over to Keswick and through the lakes to Kirkby Lonsdale (Devils Bridge) The roads through the Lakes were to say the least deadly. This was mainly dew to the tourists ambling along in the camper vans and the fact that the rain was torrential by then and the road surface was crap. I had a few moments whilst trying to navigate the mobile houses on narrow roads. We all made Devils by 4:30 ish Most of us were reasonably dry by then. All but EddieThere had been a flood on the way to Kirkby Lonsdale we all got through by taking turns with the oncoming traffic to slowly drive through it. But not Edd. He was half way through when a car sped through it from the other direction and covered him in water and filling his open visor with dirty road water. He looked like a drowned rat when he pulled up  . It was a relief to get back and after a chat a brew and a photo shoot we all loaded up our bikes and made our ways back home.
That just leaves me to say Thank you to you all.
When I started this site I had no idea that it would lead to friendships and so much fun as it has. I cant thank you all enough for the support and commitment you have all put in. your all top people Thank you.
Now where’s the fecking money? | |
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27% RECEIVED!
Current: £ 10
Remaining: £ 27
Target: £ 37
Due Date: 18/11/08
A Big THANK YOU to
this months donators:
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