Shadowfax-ST Blog

It's Arrived! Shadowfax's new licence plate was half-hanging through the letterbox when I got home; so much, Postie, for the "Signed-For" stickie on it! But, hey! It's only a couple of days since I ordered it. The plate (letters obscured by "X"s by me) It looks pretty snatty though, eh? The photo doesn't quite catch the colours but it's not far from the brief. It's only missing the solid blue stripe on the left, but they've aligned the top of the St George's flag against the "L" exactly as asked, and I'm chuffed to see the personalisation in having Shadowfax's name across the bottom of it. It makes it subtley unique. You can see how close to the brief it is - and the brief was written by me so no fault on CraftyPlates at all. My mock-up from which I wrote my brief All round, thumbs up CraftyPlates . I got the plate through their Ebay shop but the link goes directly to their web site. Have a look-see; they do car pl...

Mixed Bag The ride home was late; not leaving work before 8.15pm. It was damp and it was cold and I was extremely aware the tyre pressures were low. There was a tell-tale feeling from the front; one which I usually answer by inflating the tyres back up to 42psi and all feels right again. Earlier, I had pulled in to see Nige at Taylors Garage in Droxford where he'd promised during Shadowfax's servicing to check my front disk pads when I reckoned them to be near worn. He didn't disappoint and while there I was introduced to an interesting chap who had taken a BMW Transalp from the UK over to Tibet through the various-stahns, Ukraine, and Russia; a regular Long Way Round. Indeed, Charlie had helped brief the trio of adventurers during their preparations. "Don't do it", he said. Nothing could have been more motivating, it seems! The bloke also has a Honda Hornet on loan from Honda of Portsmouth. Apparently, I can waltz in to the shop with my two licences and a uti...

Keeping it in the family The lad on the bike is ours. He was trying out for the Tigers Motorcycle Display Team last week. It's not a done deal but he seems keen and I'm pretty sold on the idea of him having a go too. The Tigers perform at events all over the local counties during the Summer and spend much of the rest of the year training. The kids we watched performing at the Southwick Police Training College open day the other week and again at the Tigers' selection presentation day all seem to thoroughly enjoy their time riding around in circles, doing cross overs, and by the look of it, jumping - anything; even nothing as long as it was high and it was far. Mind you, it could be said I've lost some money on bikes already this year - this'll all but clean my 4-wheeled budget out! Getting a second-hand 65cc bike is near impossible in the usual on-line markets and a reasonable-looking new Honda 80cc is coming in around £1000 (ouch!) I must have money to burn or some...

Salting There's something about having a white bike in the countryside in the salty throws of Winter: it don't half show the shit splatter. Brown Snow! (Or salt, badger, and other assorted road kill and farmyard animal excriment

White Out Snow Virgin Snow More. Look. It had snowed around Farnham and Frimley. I have ridden in times of snow (evidenced in the photo - look closely). My, it’s grim up North!

Heat-seeker This morning was pretty cold; perhaps the first morning not only to be cold, or cold and damp but Winter cold. There was frost threatened and soon found. Every damp patch (outside of my bed or pants) was treated as either black ice or a diesel spill: it seemed a sensible assumption to keep speeds down on corners and junctions. The Sun was out though, so psychologically the spirit was lifted by the stunning colours displayed by the late Autumn leaves and bright, crisp blue sky (more the reason to imaging slides and pain at every deviation from long and straight). By the end of the A32 I saw my first snowy car; by the look of it I guessed it couldn’t have done more than 5-miles as its bonnet was still powdered and the engine’s heat had not yet had effect but I knew there was snow reported some 20-miles North in Basingstoke. On the A31 more snowy cars tipped up; some dropping their ice indiscriminately in their wake and in my face. My Richa gloves managed surprisingly we...

Storm over nothing "So what?" I wrote my last bloggette with an error. The Buffalo leather gloves I've parted from Ka are the "Tempest" model, not the "Tornado" as claimed. Now, if this were an argument over aircraft we could get all spotty and hairy-arsed over whether the Hawker Mk. V Tempest could lick it with any of the Tornado aircraft from the B-45 (USA's first jet bomber) to Panavia's GR Mk1+ / F3 Tornado of Great British fame. There's probably a valid point of overwhelming evidence that one could turn another to matchwood in a dog fight (there's a hint) but each is an aircraft, each is a miracle of Human-Kind's achievements, and each was brilliant at the time of their conception and construction but there's better available now. The "Tempest" Buffalo gloves are every bit as leather, black, and Harley-esque as the "Tornado"; I just get the idea neither can match their name-sakes in nature... ...either w...

Freezing Assets My Wife's a good egg, you know. She bought a pair of Buffalo Tornado winter gloves from Paragon Rider Training's shop a month, or so back (with some needlessly expensive boots, I might gripe). Today I was lent the pair to try out in the latest Arctic conditions to hit Southern Hampshire. My own gloves let me down at 7-degrees; nipping the ends of my fingers sufficiently to cause some pain on re-warming despite the heated grips doing their thing. The wind strikes the gloves leading edge right across the outer tips of the gloves' fingers and, moreover, the thumb. The Tornado's talk a good fight; a waterproof "tex" liner with Thermolite. Worth a try. This morning was a pretty chill one. I set out at about 6-degrees and temperatures fell to 2-degrees for a short spell up the Meon valley. The gloves seemed to be doing really well for about 25 miles to the A31 but after this the cold seemed to get through like some insipid leach sucking the warmth an...

10,000 Okay,something I wrote to Ian recently made me think. Phut-Phut: approx 1000 miles (May to June 24) CBT 30 miles and DAS 3 x av. 70-miles; = 240 miles Dilbert: 66,800 to 69,900; = 3,100 miles (June 24 to July 24) Shadowfax: 45,600 to 50,700; = 5,100 miles (July 24 to Oct 24) TOTAL : 9,440miles I'm due to notch up my first 10,000 miles riding time this week! The Arctic Tern flies 24,000 miles a year. (From Bird Year:10,000 miles; see image below). I'm just about on schedule, then... "Have you farted? Or, was it me again?" Seriously, 10,000 is a great number. Even Wikipedia has a section on it at Wikipedia 10,000 . Amazingly, a circle with a radius of 10,000m has an area of 314,159m; Pie is 3.14159! Cool. Well, I'll leave you to read it and make note of this momentous occaision when it happens.

Register This! Browsing ebay, as one does, I came across this masterpiece of marketing: Available from Crafty Plates Ltd Shadowfax's plate is a little shabby; there's some de-lamination and general tattyness. I can't recall the garage signifier but couldn't give a toss for it anyway. I like the personalisation available with this one. In fact, I like it a lot. (Remember the luggage bags I bought were my favourite's as I could have " Shadowfax " emblazoned across them? Well, here's an opportunity from up the same street. Artist's impression... And, at only £11 all in, it's not much different to a Halfords plate only it benefits from not having, "Halfords" on it and a GB (although I know these are not accepted Euro-wide in place of a proper white sticker with "GB" obscuring your much-loved paintwork). Shame about the Euro-i-ness of it then, isn't it? (I'd still rather the Euro-stars than "Halfords" any day,...

An Account of Time I bought Dilbert (the white Honda Deauville NT650V) at the close of April, and Phut-Phut (the Sanya 125-11b)around 25th May some 3-weeks later when I recognised getting the licence wasn't going to be quick a deal as I'd hoped. The Phut-Phut went 24th July (job done with 800-miles) while riding Dilbert from passing my test on 24th June. At some point around the 14th July I was beginning to recognise that Dilbert and I weren't in the long-term relationship I was looking for. I began looking at others and fantasisng my legs astride them. First came the Hyabusa (in white) and then the Pan European (in white). I met Mark and Mike at MGM in Farnborough; they introduced me to Shadowfax. By 24th July Dilbert was retired from general duties with only 3,000 miles and later became engaged to John from Brighton. So, it's just over 6-months since buying Dilbert, 6-months since buying Phut-Phut who lasted only 4-weeks of commuting before I made my test and co...

Where We Are Today Shadowfax and I celebrated his 50,000th mile last week just exiting Fareham on a crisp morning through choked arteries from Gosport. He's now just past the 50,500th mile. That's 5,000 miles that WE have shared together. How they pass; so quickly ! I can't grumble. Shadowfax is a sprightly beast and is looking after me well, which is something I wish to reciprocate over time. "Bomb-proof to 200,000 miles". I hope so, even if they're not all under my seat. What would I change? What of servicing schedules? Most motorcycles only have 4,000 miles between lugs of oil or changes of filter. Some tyres, we know, are only worth 3,500 miles: what's that all about? That's only 2-months commuting! Meanwhile I'm picking up on other issues of cost that should be accounted such as wheel balancing. Taking a wheal off, I grant, is far more complicated from an ST1300 than an Alpha, so I guess additional cost is expected, but when you add by the ho...

Illegal Speeding I own a bike reputed to top out at around 140mph; which wobbles in a head wind at 80mph, and which is known to have a proper wobble above 80mph if you leave the screen up. So, what's it like? I don't know. The kind of speeds I see many riders bellow along at frighten me - even if I do sometimes scoff at how they're trying to hide from being blown off the bike by the rush of the air past them. What's the point in a quick bike if you have to lie down on it and can't sit back to enjoy the ride, anyway? So, having not achieved 100mph I can only guess what it would be like to blat out of Droxford, say, along the straight there at 3-figures and up. Well, I guess the acceleration would please me as it always does, but rather than topping out at 80mph I'd keep the throttle back a short part of a second longer. The hedgerows would retract into a cartoon of blurred speed - tunnel vision taking over where all's a smudge except the far horizon. The wind...

Too cold for comfort Ka told me it was chilly when taking the little bin out to put in the big bin (wasn't it grammatically easier when we had dustbins?) that it was f-for freezing. I undressed Shadowfax from his pyjamas and switched on the ignition to view the "actual" temperature. 6-degrees C. I'm no woose*, but 5-degrees is below ZERO in my book; just turn the thermometer over and you'll get my drift. What's the difference? It's bloomin' freezing either way you look at it! Now, we all know 7-degrees is where I get cold and my nose explodes like a geyser of snot; that 10-degrees is cold enough, and that 15-degrees is okay for walking around the car in a T-shirt, but getting chilly on the bike. So, 6-degrees should have felt threatening but I'd checked the iPhone weather gadget (Portsmouth 9-degrees minimum, 13-degrees maximum) and reckoned that, with the Sun coming up, things might be al ittle too warm filtering through the traffic to justify fi...

Sorted It's a little known fact that I found out how to raise the headlamps from the CD-ROM manual I picked up from Ebay. The manual was sourced from a mong with no idea on Copyright Law and absolutely no sense when it comes to the presentation of an electronic document set. Seriously, I paid £5 to have a selection of junk that some ponce downloaded from the Internet and, as this was all, "in the Public Domain", he thought it was his right to sell it! What really pissed me off was the poor quality of his scanning from the official Workshop Manual and his creating of a PDF without bookmarks. Pratt. I did offer to help him out with my on-line eLearning skills, but for some reason, because I gave his shite product a Negative feedback comment on Ebay, breaking his un-broken record of 100% feedback (how'd he get that selling shit?) he took great offense! I don't often lie, and I was not about to admit that my being ripped off was a great experience or that the product ...

Hit or miss? The adverts look good. I bought one from Honda in Portsmouth. Fenda-extenda from Twisted Throttle I was very brave to drill into the front mud-guard to fit the Fenda-Extenda. The instructions were clear but gave a 3 1/16" drill bit size, which I had to buy a 3mm bit for. This was subsequently too big for the provided self-tapping screws, which probably needed just 2.5mm pilots. Luckily, rather than drill all 4-holes I discovered the "error" on the first hole. The screw bit but didn't tighten. There was also the matter of drilling around the side and back of the mudguard as opted for in the image above from Twisted Throttle. I couldn't get sufficient lock on the steering to give enough clearance for the drill to anything except attack from the side. I have two screws each side. It seems fast, but I wonder if vibration couldn't result? Anyway, without a 2.5mm drill bit I continued by part-drilling the mud-guard with the 3mm bit and then using th...

Ponce I'm sorry. I let the fraternity down. I was seen boogying to music at the Farnham intersection while waiting for the lights to change. I don't know what came over me; sure, I'd tried out the iPod a little more successfully today but to actually bounce around in time to Led Zep's Celebration Day remains poor form. If truth be known, I even - well - a little and in a low effort kind of way - sang inside my helmet. I'll be growing a Gringo 'stache, looking at Harleys, and checking out seatless leather pants next! (Shudder). A Disco Biker (has a Harley, for sure)

The police station "Um", my mind was Friday-morning numb, "a Policeman from your 0845 number told me I need to report a traffic incident". It sounded lame. The lady desk rozzer was all a-fluster at first - I had asked if I would remain anonymous to Dogtits if I made an official complaint (or reported the crime, as I put it). She couldn't confirm or deny that I could be left with an angry dick-weed in my letterbox but consulted a friend who guessed I should be okay outside of Court. I was handed a standard form that was designed for reporting an accident. She said to use my imagination. This grated a bit because I wanted to give an honest account and the form did ask for a signature with fear of penalty for any untruth so imagination was far from what I needed to demonstrate on it. Then again, she probably does more of this kind of paperwork in the Police and is used to being creative to get a result. There wasn't much room to write my story - even in the bri...

Road Rage I was nearly unseated by a tail-gating TWAT in a white Astra Van - in a roadworks - TWICE!!! It was a good day. The Sun was shining and the M3 had flowed well. I'd maintained a nice near-legal cruise into a light head wind and allowed the main flow of 90mph+ vehicles past on my right. Everyone was well-behaved and courtesy was alive and well on the roads. I pulled off onto the A311 at Junction 4 and entered the roundabout to turn right. Traffic was jammed. There's an ill-thought-out set of cones limiting 4-lanes of in-coming traffic to just one and I'm sitting between them. I patiently wait for left and right before joining centre but I'm aware a white car nose is edging uncomfortably at me from the right (out of turn with the zipping the rest of us seemed to have worked out amicably enough to that moment). I looked over my shoulder and gazed the little balding fella in a white T-shirt into letting me in safely. We mossied along at only near-wobble spe...

More Reflective Stuff I was asked by Ka to get onto Ebay to buy a new steam-pressured iron and bought a set of reflective stickers for my wheels instead. Trouble? Nah. Not really. They arrived within only a couple of days! The stickies have come as a set of 4 curved quadrants per side of each wheel. They're black in mixed light and golden when reflective. I'm not sure how effective they'll be as, like the Fenda-Extenda I've not had a chance to fit them. Maybe tomorrow morning after I've been down to the Police station with my documents? (More on that later). I got the stickies from Magnum Graphics on an Ebay shop thingy. They do other colours and sound convincing for £6. Have a peep-see. Sticker colour and reflective property options

The snotty helmet Do you remember when, as a young kid, all you needed to worry about when you had a snotty nose was whether to clear it with a sleeve, or your digits, or just to let it run so you could lick it up with your tongue and blow proper snot-bubbles? I mean, the eventual choice didn't really matter as your parents (or better, Auntie) would freak out anyway; perhaps while driving drunken arcs down the main road while multi-tasking the steering, hand grabbing for the Kleenex, and hard-staring your mucus-trail into telepathically stopping the dribble splodging on the upholstery of that nice third-hand Vauxhall Viva? What makes you snotty now you're all grown up? Curry, or other chillied derivative; a cold, the cold? Perhaps a little free congestion around the time the trees make like the birds and bees? What makes me snotty? Well, all of the above to some extent. It's nature's KY; why worry? Well, rather like KY there are times you don't want people seeing i...

Full (Main) Service I rode away from Nige at Taylors Garage some £275-lighter and stopped at the Alpha I had to abandon at the Village Hall car park to cross-load the panniers from its boot. It was only 100m away but already I felt something new in Shadowfax. Leaving the village - and now not wearing ear-defence for the 16-miles home - I immediately recognised the new matching front tyre had been fitted to match Shadowfax's recent fitting of the Michelin Road Pilot 2. (Nige wasn't going to fit it yet as there was still service life reckoned of the old BT020 front but on a more thorough inspection we'd met the wear indicator. Given the miles we do, Nige made the executive decision to swap now rather than later after it'd turned itself and possibly me bald.) The bike rolls as quickly as a Typhoon jet; there's bags of confidence in the new tyres and without the squaring off of the old tyres switching left bank to right is noticably smooth. The engine always sounded a l...

How to utilise heated grips I've already outlined my tolerances; at 15-degrees I get, "chilly" and at On Phut-Phut, the naked-bike effect of even a balmy day could upset this rough guide but could be well-countered by the full Behring suit system fitted (outer, wet, and fleece liners). With Dilbert, we enjoyed mainly balmy warm weather and I recall only needing my fleece liner a couple of times through the Meon Valley. With Shadowfax, his protection is far superior but at 10-degrees my faithful old Ron-Hill tracsters loose their benefit beneath the Behring trouser outers and the fleece exposes its design floor of not covering the front 10% of the body. At 10-degrees and below, the gloves struggle. At 7-degrees it's not wind chill that chills the digits low air temperature. It's not enough to freeze the flesh but sufficient to get a little uncomfortable. So, with night-riding on headlamps and some concern over power-seepage it was with reservation I turned the heat...