BMW F800 Test Ride

Today I had a test ride on a BMW F800 ST from Balderston's in Peterborough.

It's a great bike, small and light which makes it fun to ride. Powerful and comfortable which should make it good for touring and it's meant to be very economical which will make it good for commuting. It's the best all rounder I ridden so far.

The core of the bike was very good. The engine was very smooth and the belt drive was really impressive. The engine was also very quite which I liked.

Handling was pretty good, I'm quicker through corners on my Deauville but thats just because I know how that bike handles where as the F800 was a new bike, I would get quicker as I became more experienced with it.

The riding position was very comfortable at first but after an hour I found my palms were starting to hurt.

The bike feels small and it made filtering through traffic very easy.

Overall I liked it but that's not to say there weren't faults but all the faults I found were things which can be fixed with after market parts.

The biggest issue were the Mirrors, I could not find a positions for them or for me that gave me a good view of the road behind me, the stalks that the mirrors are mounted on need to be about 2 inches longer but on the plus side there was no buzz from the mirrors regardless of the speed.

The second issue was the fairing, it protected me upto about 70mph but beyond I had to duck down to remain comfortable. It's good enough for single carriageway roads but a long Motorway journey might prove uncomfortable. I think a screen with a flip-up edge should sort that problems.

There is also one unknown factor with this bike, it was only released last year and the engine was designed for it so both the bike and engine have not yet had real world long distance usage yet. The highest mileage F800 the salesman had seen was 6,000 in a little over a year. I'm doing that distance in 3 months and he's not heard of one with the 25,000 miles I expect to put on it in 1 year. Servicing is every 6000 miles which means I would need to get the bike back to Peterborough every 3-4 months.

Dispite the faults I found, there are all minor and the bike is definitely on my list of possible replacements for my current bikes when I decide to get rid of Big Red.

Super Snitch

Today I start my life as a Police Informant, riding into work this morning I came across a car which overshot a red light by a cars lenght.

OK I thought, everyones allowed a mistake, but following him down the road he then went right over a mini roundabout and then went straight through a second red light.

Stuff that I thought, so when I got to work I gave the thin blue line a ring and shopped him. He wasn't driving aggressively, it was just lack of concentration and I did tell the lady on the phone that.

So now I'm an nationally famous snitch, will I have to be put into protective custody in the top floor of a fancy hotel paid for by the tax pay only to be found and face assination attempts by a scantily clad supersexy female assassin ? Only time will tell.

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for
your free account today http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.html

Scaredy Cat???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/5067912.stm

Cambourne Monopoly Championships

Me, Matt and Martina had a game of monopoly at Martina's house last night. Martina provided the house, Matt the food and I brought the Monopoly board.

The game came about because there was a question about Monopoly at the pub
Quiz last week and no one believed me when I said that there was a Trafalgar Square on the board.

There was much drinking going on during the night, even I was bullied by Martina into tasting some wine but it tasted exactly like I thought it would - a bit like old grape juice strained through a dirty sock.

The game was long as all games of Monopoly tend to be, and quite annoying because within about 30 minutes I could tell who was going to win but it took over 4 hours to finally confirm the result.

Despite the predictability of the end result it was still a good night.

There was worrying talk of me having to cook next time, I offered them one of my favourite dishes, Bacon & Liver with Fennel sauce but they turned their noses up at it - the ungrateful bunch. I suppose I could do a roast or stirfry instead, I'm good at those.

Splish Splash, I was paddling a round

This morning, I went swimming at Impington Swimming Pool. I am so out of shape :(

I could only do about 35 minutes in the slow lane, however the pool is easy to reach before work so I might be able to make swimming a regular thing which will help now that I'm not cycling on a regular basis.

A busy weekend

I have finally got the bike back from the garage so I am mobile again.
I immediately rode down to Henlow to buy some Pet Food where I noticed that my head light isn't working so I then ride back to the garage to get it fixed.
When I explained the problem they said that they had seen the issue but couldn't find the cause and the light just started working again so didn't explore it any further - idiots.
St Neots Motorcycles are reasonably good mechanic's. The bike always runs great after they have seen it but their quality control sucks, I've had tyres fitted but only half inflated, heated grips fitted but only one side works when I pick the bike up because of a short circuit and now a headlight that doesn't work hours after a MOT certificate issued.
In the evening, I went to the Ramblers bbq at Hill Farm which was nice, the location was fantastic rounded off by a brilliant sunset.
Sunday I went for a rideout with some people from http://www.gbbikers.co.uk/, I met up with Tishy at a petrol station first then we rode out to her home in Warboys to wait for the rest of the riders to arrive.
The rest of the riders were running late so we had a cup of tea and tightent the clamp on her wing mirror and just as we were about to go out and look for the rest of the riders they showed up.
The ride went from Warboys, out Hunstanton, then out to Cromer and then followed the coast road around to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds before we all split up and headed home. The ride was about 250 miles and with the exception of a brief but heavy rain while having lunch at Great Yarmouth the weather was perfect.

This is roughly the route I took based on what I remember although bear in mind that I have never ridden that area so all the roads where new to me.

http://tinyurl.com/3ax3oz

damn damn damn

Just spoken to the garage, the bike work might carry over to tomorrow, I've got to ring them at 17:00 today to get the final work of when I can pick the bike up.

Tomorrow is the Ramblers BBQ in Peterborough which I was hoping to go to but it's looking like I might not make it, at least not get there as early as I had hoped :(

I have also got an offer for a ride out on Sunday with people from the biker forum that I belong to, it looked like a good route so if I can't collect it on Saturday I might not make that either.

damn damn damn

Am I weird?

That's a question I'm seriously asking myself!

I've always thought of myself as odd I guess but I never realised how odd until the last few weeks.

As my readers will know, I've been bikeless for the last few weeks so I've been taking the bus which has meant a long wait at the bus stop some mornings. While waiting there a normally a couple of girls waiting for a bus at the same time, now these girls are pretty good looking (I use girls here to mean members of the female sex, not jail bait before anyone starts calling the cops).

While waiting for the bus I spend a long time watching the traffic and I have noticed nearly every single White Van man is turning about 110 degrees in their seats as they drive past to get maximum ogling time at the girls. I've noticed that the blokes driving BMW's do it as well but the remaining drivers either have girlfriends in the passenger seat or don't seem to notice at all and keep their eyes fixed straight ahead.

Now between WV man and BMW man, that accounts for about 80% of the blokes going past and it amazed me that they went to such lengths just to look at someone with all their clothes on.

It's a concept that is almost completely foreign to me. Sure I'll check girls out but lets face it, they are just girls standing on a pavement waiting for a bus. There needs to be something unusual to make me look for more than a second or two - like the promotion girls at the Bike Shows (bikers tell their significant other that they are going to look at bikes but it's really about the very attractive girls wearing very skimpy Lycra body suits)

Am I weird not to be doing everything I can to take a peek at anything which wears a bra? (um, that condition may need refinement)

I've always been aware that blokes tend to get a bit "look at the baps on that one" when in groups but I figured that was always group psychology and everyone trying fit in with everyone else (something else I've never really understood to be honest) which means that conversations tend to be a race to the bottom so that everyone can feel like they are part of the group but most of these blokes are in their cars/vans by themselves which suggests that it's something more important to most blokes than I realised.

I've never been a very blokey sort of bloke (I'm making this language up as I go). I don't have any interest in sports, drinking, cars, partying etc. Men Behaving Badly was just a 90's sitcom, not a guide to how blokes actually behave.

Now I understand a bit more why women don't like to walk home late at night by themselves (I always figured women were being wimps and blowing the risks way out of proportion to reality but if the drivers in St Neots are the standard - maybe they are right to be wary)

So the question is, am I in the minority on this issue? maybe I'm not sexually aware enough? or maybe I'm not socially aware enough, or maybe the 2 are intricately linked and a limitation in one is automatically a limitation in the other. Or maybe the blokes who drive past the bus stop at 7am are not representative of blokes in general.

Maybe it's cultural, are all the WV men Sun readers; trained via Page3 to always look at a women and wonder and since I don't read newspapers I've not picked up that trait?

I guess bus journeys bring out my philosophical side.

I don't normally write these messages for comments but I would be interested in what people think either as a comment or privately.

Shopping

07 July 2007 10:57

Today I did something that is extremely rare for me. Shopping!

It's not been a good start, the bus which runs every 30 minutes arrived 28 minutes late and then the driver turned out to be a very bad driver, hitting curbs and breaking really hard at every junction - the sort of journey that makes you give thanks to God when you get off even if you don't believe that he exists.

My shopping list for the day is:
1. New shoes
2. An A1 clip frame to mount a picture in my bedroom
3. Nikwax to rewaterproof biking jacket and my walking raincoat.

In the end I got shoes, Nikwax, some Bluetac instead of a clip frame and a Brita Water Filter (damn inpluse buys).

At least the driver on the way home had some understanding of how big a bus is.

Bike sent to the Garage

01 July 2007 09:04

Yesterday I dropped the bike off at the garage for the accident repairs and it's 8000 mile service.

The garage don't yet have all the parts needed for the repair work but the not expired yesterday so I can no longer use the bike so decided that if it was getting in the mechanic's way it may encourage them to sort the bike out quicker.

Also, since I must now revert to the bus which has tripled my commute time I no longer have time to drop the bike off or pick it up before or after work so I have to use the weekends.

Get well soon Big Red.

Biking is dangerous

I got to work this morning, took my helmet off and tried to put my sunglasses back on but I was still holding my keys in my hand and managed to stab myself in the eye with them :(

Ouch ouch ouch ouch

Crikey, that was a wet one

This weekend was the Ramblers camping and walking weekend in the Peak District.

I decided to go to the camping bit despite it meaning that I had to hire a car because I don't trust my bike not to break down on long journeys at the moment. I ended up with a Peugeot 1007 (the one with the sliding doors).

I tried to book into the Edale Kinder Scout Camping site but they couldn't take any more cars so after some umming and arring I decided to go to a different campsite from all the other campers (grr). Later in the evening we were all going to meet in Castleton but I couldn't find anyone and I couldn't get hold of Gordon to find out which pub they were all at so after 30 minutes or so I gave up and went back to the campsite (grr grr).

Still, I did get read all the magazines I had brought with me.

On the sunday everyone met up in Hayfield to start the walk up to the top of Kinder Scout, and it chucked it down; we all decided that the rain was better than being boiled alive in rain coats while trying to climb the hill and so everyone stripped down to t-shirts to continue the climb - unfortunately no one was wearing a white cotton t-shirt and so there were no wet t-shirt competitions. It was while we were eating lunch in t-shirts and heavy rain that I hit upon the idea of an inflatble rainshelter which you could unpack, pull a cord and it would self inflate into a giant tent, position a ramble at each corner to stop it blowing away and hey presto a perfect shelter.

The walk was great, very picturesque and the rain just made the walk more enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

2 thumbs up for Diane who lead the walk.

I am a short arse :(

Yesterday I went over Pure Triumph again, this time I was going to try the Tiger on for size.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my feet down when I was on it which would have meant I would have to fling the bike over to one side everytime I stopped, I need to get leg extensions.

I may need to change my plans for my next bike, all the Big Trailie Bikes I have been looking at have similar seat heights.

In other news. Today is my last day at Plasmon. I'm going in this afternoon to hand in my door key and say goodbye to people.

Gardening Leave Is Hell

How am I suppose to enjoy myself if I don't have anything to do today?

I guess I could go for a walk but I'd much rather rather be at the office with poor air conditioning slaving over of clunking mechanical libraries, who wants to put up with noisy birds and bees humming and rivers chuggling away to themselves.












This message goes out to all those poor souls who have to work today :)

Good News & Slime Go Hand in Hand

This morning, I went down to St Neots Motorcycles to get some Tyre Weld to fix the puncture in my Rear Tyre and while I was down there I was told that the Garage had been authorised to carry out the insurance repair work.

The garage are ordering the bits and will then need to take an existing body panel away so that the colour can be matched at the spray shop.

Hopefully, the bike will be going in for the work towards the end of this week or maybe beginning of next week but at the moment the mechnical can't be more accurate than that the moment.

Also, the bike shop didn't have any Tyre Weld foam but did have the Green Slime stuff so I used that instead.

Hooray for Hastings Direct finally getting the claim sorted out.

T-Mobile Direct Debit Update

For those who were wondering about my whether my T-Mobile Direct Debit form ever turned up (I know you're all on the edge of your seats with anticipation).

It's not shown up yet which means that anyone who was betting on the first 2 possible arrival dates have lost.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates to this ongoing story.

Sussex

I'm back in Sussex this weekend since it's Fathers Day and because of the state of the motorbike at the moment I decided to come down by train instead of riding down.

Yesterday, we all went to a school fete with Anni where I eat a Roast Pork with Apple Sauce roll (yummy) and got a couple more tattoo (and I didn't even cry when they had to hold that cold wet rag against my arms to make the tattoo stick ;) )

Then we had a BBQ and watched Casino Royale; Isn't Bond a violent chap.#

I'm heading back to Cambridgeshire today, train leaves Horsham at about 16:00

Kellogg's Robbed Me

14 June 2007 07:50

I had Cocopops for breakfast this morning but one Cocopop didn't have any chocolate on it :(

It was a naked Cocopop, an Albino Cocopop; it was a Rice Crispy.

I shall buy a bar of Dairy Milk to melt over any other naked Cocopop's I find in order to keep Recommended Daily Amount of Chocolate.

Ocean's 13

13 June 2007 06:16

Last night Matt, Martina & I went to see Ocean's 13 at Cineworld in Huntingdon after our usual prefilm meal at Pizza Express.

I remember seeing Ocean's 11 and loving it but Ocean's 12 was so bad that I had actually blocked it's existence from my memory. It was only when I looked the film up on IMDB that I remembered any of the plot so I was nervous about whether seeing this film would be a better use of my time than spending an evening dropping food near an Ants Nest and timing how long it took the colony to recover all the food (actually I have done that in the past and it's very interesting to watch).

Luckily Ocean's 13 was much better than 12 and I really enjoyed it. The heist plot had lot's of twists but without losing the overal direction which seemed to be the problem with Ocean's 12.

Plus there were no pointless love interest side stories this time around.

T-Mobile Direct Debit

11 June 2007 14:45

The saga continues.

I got my usual monthly phone call from T-Mobile today reminding me that I haven't paid my bill again only this one was different because the lady asked why the payment was late.

So I told her about how I had repeatedly requested the direct debit mandate which T-Mobile had repeatedly failed to send out and the 1 time the mandate reached me, I filled it in and sent it back only for the direct debit to still not be setup and so now I deliberately wait until I get a phone call before paying the bill as a way of maximising T-Mobiles cost for collecting the payment.

The corvesation ended with her saying she would send me the mandate again.

So ladies and gents, l'm accepting bets on when the form arrives.

* Tomorrow mornings post
* Before the end of the week
* Before the next bill (due on 6th July)
* 1 week before the contract ends in September
* 1 week after the contract ends
* 1 month before society evolves beyond the use of money