raesewell

With the weather so good I thought I might have a ride to Cleethorpes tomorrow Sunday 18th June. If anyone want to meet up and ride or just meet up for a coffee let me know. I'll be heading for the Hawaiian Eye. Google Map Click Here

I went to Filey on Tuesday and parked by the Tea and fish and chip stalls, I always leave my bike in gear which acts as a brake.

Funny name to call the missus That's only her middle names

The secret to enjoying ride outs is finding people that you can ride with to enjoy the ride. You need people of similar ability. If you ride with faster riders it can be intimidating if you ride with slower riders it can be frustrating, getting the balance right is the key. I find that looking at the chicken strips helps to give you an idea to the riding style.

We always go on the bike, unless the weather is really foul and then my wife gets the 'ump coz we're not on the bike. Not the 'ump with me obviously just the situation.

Myself and my good lady wife Melanie are off to France again on the 24th June for a week. Our stops are Boulogne, Trouville sur Mer, Vitre, Vernon and St. Omer. A long way to go for moules and frites but she deserves it I will do my best to remember to take my David Bailey hat with me and take some photos.

Camping? arrrrrgh or I might be tempted

If you have an older bike the pressures may have been different on older tyres, but with newer tyres 36/42, check the tyre manufacturers website just to be sure.

Halfords professional range are good quality and not too bad a price.

This is what the experts say about tyre pressure. It's important to be pumped Tyre pressures are a crucial factor in determining how your bike handles and how quickly you wear out your (not exactly cheap) tyres. There are lots of myths and misconceptions about what pressures you should run in the wet, on track days or when you're loaded with luggage. Usually you'll find someone propping up the bar who knows better than the manufacturers' recommendations. To find out how close they are to being right we talked to a genuine expert - a man who should know tyres if anyone does. Leo Smith spent years as chief development tester at Avon tyres. He is now motorcycle product manager. He said: "We probably get asked more about tyre pressures than about any other aspect of a tyre”. There's so much bad information kicking about that people can't separate the truth from fiction." Smith says that is largely the fault of tyre companies themselves. Several years ago, different tyre companies recommended different pressures for different tyres and different bikes. But around 10 years ago, a decision was reached between the companies to standardise pressures so that most bikes can run on the same no matter what tyres they're on. That standard is 36psi at the front and 42psi at the rear. There are some exceptions, like some 400cc grey imports which run 29psi at the front and 36psi at the rear. Another notable exception is the Kawasaki ZX-12R - which is meant to run 42 front and rear. But if you've got a modern, mainstream bike, chances are you should be running the 36/42 standard. That 42 figure in particular will have a lot of the gentlemen at the bar shaking their heads. But it is not a figure chosen at random. Pressures determine how your tyres deflect. The lower the pressure, the more the tyre will flex. That may make for a comfortable ride when you're cruising in a straight line, but the tyre will flex too fast at speed and make your bike unstable. The bike will feel vague going into turns and feel like it's going to tip into the corner suddenly. This is because the tyre isn't "strong" enough and it's literally buckling under you. The bike will also feel wallowy through turns and it'll weave under acceleration. Conversely, if you over-inflate a tyre, the flex will be slower but that will make your bike more stable at high speeds. The ride comfort and the tyre's ability to absorb shocks will be lost and your wrists and backside will take the brunt of it. The bike will feel so harsh that many people will think they have a suspension problem. Cornering won't feel as bad as when pressure is too low, but you will again lose feel and feedback from the tyres. For example, if you ride over a stone, an over-inflated tyre cannot absorb it and the tyre breaks contact with the road. Smith says the classic myth about tyre pressures is that you deflate them for wet-weather riding. He says most grip comes from the tyre's compound and the contact patch - and the shape of the tyre where it contacts the road is everything. Tread patterns stop water from building up under the tyres - which could cause a bike to aquaplane. Smith says: "A good front tyre chucks enough water out of the way to enable the rear to get the power down. If you reduce the tyre pressure, the tread becomes compressed so it can't clear as much water." If anything, Smith recommends you increase the rear tyre by 2-3psi in the wet but leave the front as it is. Another widely held misconception is that the psi recommendations are the maximum the tyre can take. They're not. The figure only tells at what pressures the tyres were tested at for all-round use. You could actually safely inflate a tyre up to around 50psi if you really wanted to, although it wouldn't do you much good. But the biggest area for debate has to be track days. If you've ever been to one it's almost certain someone has told you you'll be best off reducing your tyre pressures. You get more grip that way, they tell you. Smith has radically different advice. You should leave them alone, he says. "Racing tyres are of a totally different construction and stiffness to road tyres so they need less pressure to maintain the carcass shape. That's where the rumours and bad advice comes from. "If you drop the psi in road tyres you will get more movement in the tread pattern. They will heat up too much and that will eat into tyre wear. You'll almost certainly ruin a set in a day without gaining any advantage in grip." Smith says he's known people to drop their rear tyre to just 22psi when heading for the track. His advice is to leave your tyres alone, saying a good tyre at standard pressures will give more grip than you need on a track day because you almost certainly won't be going as fast or for as long as racers. Track surfaces offer much better grip than the road, too - another reason for leaving your tyre pressures the same for the ride to the track as for the ride around it. Many people also ask the experts at Avon if they should increase psi to take pillion passengers. Again there's no need. The manufacturers' agreed pressures of 36/42 were arrived at after testing with pillions, luggage, cold tyres and every other combination you could think of. One of the few cases when Smith does recommend you change your pressures is when your tyres wear. A worn tyre has lost a lot of its strength as the shape and flexibility levels have changed. That means it will handle differently to a new tyre. Try increasing the tyres by 2psi when you're down to around 40 per cent tread depth. It will only make a marginal difference, but it should improve your bike's handling a bit. You may not have to keep changing your tyre pressures, but you do have to maintain them. Smith recommends that you check them once a week as an absolute minimum but to be extra safe, you should really check them every day because a tyre can change by as much as 3psi on its own just because of changes in the weather. You should always measure your tyre pressures when they are cold. A few bikes are now coming with tyre pressure gauges in their under-saddle tool kits. If you haven't got one it's worth buying one. They only cost a few quid and take up about as much room as a pen. Forecourt gauges are notoriously inaccurate. Hope that wasn't too boring

He shouldn't be let out without his carer

Makes you wonder why they would break the steering lock with other locks in place.

Just out of interest, did you have any other locks or security devices on the bike?

I had a large sheet of black acetate in the garage, I cut a piece off on the table saw, bandsawed it to the rough shape and then routed it with a flush trim bit on the router table.

As some of you may know I recently bought a really good value and nifty little tail bag from Sportsbikeshop. The only bugbear was attaching and hiding the straps, so I wanted a solution to attach it to the Givi rack without the straps. This is what I came up with. The yellow dot you can see is the hole I drilled where the knock through is for the Givi electrics with the nuberplate making it look yellow http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092242_zpsg2hklple.jpg I made a hardboard template http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092357_zps1kctsyen.jpg From that hardboard template I created an Acetate plate to accept the bag base. http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092437_zpsspgtcxcx.jpg Here are the components http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092555_zpsaxnc8z8y.jpg I just happened to have an M6 knob in my goody drawer http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092617_zpst4kslmds.jpg After a bit of drilling and counterboring http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_092651_zpsan2hkjrb.jpg The knob fits discretely under the rack. I made a spacer so that I could use a longer bolt so the knob didn’t go too far into the rack and make it awkward to do up. http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_093153_zpsd04vmbeb.jpg Bag base bolted to the Acetate base. http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_093206_zpshjzqmgl3.jpg A couple of pictures of the finished job. http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_093423_zpsag7glwdj.jpg http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a540/raesewell1/FJR/20170603_093433_zpsexh3jjwa.jpg

You are tensing up without knowing it, just keep relaxing your shoulders and ride as often as you can, it will get better.

If you like coastal towns I can recommend a few, Le Touquet is lovely, Le Treportis good, Etretat is great, Honfluer is beautiful. If you are hoteling it then Ibis (Red) or Ibis Styles are a decent standard. If there is no Ibis then Booking .com is your friend

I think if anyone is talking a load of rubbish and you are sure of your facts, they need telling.

I am leading a group of riders on a little tour. We start from Lowestoft on Monday 5th June taking a meandering route to Hinckley. On Tuesday we carry on to Llanelli. Most of us will be staying at the Premier Inn Lowestoft on the Monday evening, it's another Premier Inn in Hinckley for the Tuesday night too. Llanelli sees us staying in a Travelodge. I normally draw my accommodation line just above Travelodge but made an exception in this case for a few reasons, a) it's fairly new b) it's across the road from a Hungry Horse so we have somewhere to eat. I will try to remember to take photos and post them up. Still time to book if anyone is interested

The secret to all intercoms is to get the speakers in EXACTLY the right place, just 5 to 10 millimetres away from the ear can make a huge difference, also microphone placement is important as well. Don't rely on the recess for speakers if your helmet has them.

Connect the phone to the GPS and then connect the GPS to the headset, the intercom feature should not be affected. The GPS should override the intercom when making announcements. You may have to reset the headset to delete previous bluetooth pairings.

The weather is set to be scorching tomorrow and I'm meeting my mate Jim at The Olive at Barnby Dun at 12 noon. Come along for a chat and a coffee if you fancy a ride out, you'll be very welcome. Google Map Click Here

Raesewell as it turns out No need to be so formal Rae will do nicely

I have the Gold membership for MyRouteApp and they assure us that Tyre will still be supported for the foreseeable future. Tyre and MyRouteApp were both developed by the same software house.

If all else fails do a Google search for My Phone Explorer, it works.