Matt Strange

Hmmm, I'd say 100% yes but........ The date coincides with the possible purchase of a new bike, which I wouldn't mind taking to the 'ring' with regards to the reliability, however not with the possibility of crashing it! . If I'm going to the ring, I want to ride fast & I don't think that's 100% sensible on a bike that you're not used to or confident riding. I'd much rather take my current Fireblade, as it currently owes me about a grand £££ (it was taken in kind for some work that I did instead of the money). I think she's worth about £1500 so no real worries about killing it! . I've done quite a few round trips of several hundred miles & had zero issues, I'm currently replacing the fuel/cooling hoses & a few other small bits like the clutch cable. It's fully serviced, good tyres etc, so no real worries about taking it to Germany, plus I've done over 3,000 miles on it. Arrghhh, dunno if I should keep the blade as a track bike? (i was going to use it as a deposit).

I've always used extra hold hairspray. First to lubricate them & then to hold once set, you do have to push them on quickly!!. A trial to see just how tight they are dry is recommended, just try to see how the first 10mm or so fits. You'd think that when the grips get warm they'd slip, but 3 fittings later using this method has yielded no slippage!

The only feature i know of is if they are supplied less than 11.5V then will will shut off completely. They use far less power than the lights on your bike, if your bike is capable of running with the headlights on with no trouble then it will run with the grips on for definite. Grips & lights together, however....may not. You'd need to check the battery condition & the stator/alternator to be 100% sure.

road bike, no, motor-x yes.........lots of times!

Clean atm, has been for several years.

A fitting tribute. Nice to see a celebration of a life & of a career rather than OTT waterworks

The only way to properly improve your brakes is to uprate the calliper or use physically bigger pads/discs. You can use 'uprated' pads in a standard setup but that will only have a tiny effect on stopping distance, unless your oem pads were totally sh*gged beforehand.

Easy way to load test is if you pull the fuel pump fuse & crank the bike for 10 secs with the multimeter attached to the battery, it shouldn't go below 9.5V. Wiring must be good though because bad connection will have an effect on the test!!. A resistance as little as 1 ohm will take around 1v of cranking voltage away from the battery.

Well, the reg/rec might be in the process of going wrong, but it's the stator that's causing the actual problem with it. Then the reg/rec, in the process of going wrong due to the stator, is doing the battery over!. You need to work back to the start of the chain... You need to: Check connections Check battery (leak/load tests) Check stator/alternator Check reg/rec (in that order)

Nope, it can compensate for a dodgy stator, the clue is in the name of the component . You can check the output voltage of the stator but I'm not 100% certain how to do that on you bike without looking at it first, plus it can be quite dangerous as the voltages can go pretty high!. It should be a matter of performing the same kind of test as the resistance test, but with the bike running & the multimeter set to volts, my bike is around 20-70v. P.S. Have you checked your battery or the connections?. An easy way to check basic battery connections is to put the multimeter probes first directly on the battery posts, read battery voltage e.g. 12.8V. then put the probes on the respective +/- battery lead connectors, you should get +12.6V. Any lower & your terminals need cleaning. Alternative & the best way is to measure voltage loss (not drop) when the ignition is on. Electricity flows the path of least resistance, right?. If it's flowing correctly your multimeter should not show a reading when carrying out this test, if it does then you have a problem!. This is one of the best & most helpful tests to find high resistances, it 's brilliant because it shows you exactly how much voltage you are losing to resistance. Put positive probe on battery post, negative probe on the positive lead connector (yes... that is right!). The result should be 0-0.2V. Negative is negative probe on negative post, positive probe on negative lead connector. Again 0-0.2V max. To check your wiring: Positive lead Ignition on, place positive probe on battery post (not the lead connection) & the negative probe on the first 'break' in the wire, usually the 'in' side of the main fuse. Reading should be 0-0.2V, any more and you have either crusty connection or high resistance in the + wire Negative lead Again, ignition on but this time negative probe on negative post, positive probe on the nut (not the ring terminal) that bolts the lead to the frame/engine/gearbox/whatever it's actually attached to - usually one of those . Again 0-0.2V or less ****further to the above**** You might have to 'scratch' your multimeter probes on the connectors, battery posts etc to get a good reading

Or the stator is over volting & killing the rectifier which then kills the battery. Replace the rectifier & a few hundred miles down the road the same thing happens...... You need to check the resistance of the stator first, usually three wires & three pins on the plug. Put the voltmeter into ohms (lowest setting on mine), check between any two of the three wires (you will need to check all of them obviously, outer two then middle + left, middle + right). I don't know the figures for this model unfortunately, i don't have a manual!. The old F3 bike was 0.1-1.0 ohm @ 20c. Absolutely no continuity between the pins & ground. If there is, then the windings are shorting on the casing somewhere, which is bad!

One of the biggest plus points of dating my last ladyfriend, free saddlesoap! . Brilliant stuff.

I hope they race as normal & keep all the sympathies for the actual funeral. Given his character, would someone like Simoncelli want the race to be disrupted & the possible outcome swayed by mucking about with things like grid positions? I doubt it, I certainly wouldn't. This 'Princess Diana Syndrome' with all the over the top displays of public grief by people who are just out to let everyone know just how 'kind & caring' they are is getting to be a bit tiring. Yes, it was a sad day & a nasty way to go, but what the **** has it got to do with them, us (or me) really?

Good to see you enjoyed it, i got sidetracked but things ended rather well

I might pop by & get my bike tested to see just how noisy it is (it seems really quiet to me, quieter than pretty much any other bike I've had with a full stainless system on it). I''ll be on a (old ) black MkII Fireblade & all black leathers if I'm there, I won't be riding as the session is full.

It looks like rather a decent circuit & it's not that far from me either!! - will keep an eye out for updates, have fun!

I have a 2 foot 1/2 inch drive breaker bar = no such thing as a nut I can't undo on the bike http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165469 ^^^^a brilliant piece of kit ^^^^

Usually they will have a minimal thickness, often referred to as a 'service limit' in workshop manuals. ideally you'd measure this with a vernier caliper. They don't look that bad, just surface rust that'll soon wear off with a bit of use. As long as they don't have really deep scores in them, warped or gone oval they should be fine (as long as they are thick enough of course!). Make sure the calipers aren't seized though!.

I'm sure you'll be faster than me! I'm blitzing Gran Turismo on the playstation trying to learn the circuit!

If you haven't already done so, I would check the ignition system out first. My last bike had a split in one of the the HT caps & was shorting out to the plug hole, causing a misfire on one cylinder & the revs to hunt slightly.

+1......Keeps your speed down though! I have this exact helmet, HJC CL-X4e. It has the gold sticker on the back certifying trrack use & it is road legal too. A comfy lid (for a MX one ) & goes well with scott googles. http://www.moplant.hu/userfiles/image/hjc/cl-x4e%20flat.jpg

A little bit of a trek for you, Castle Combe is a very 'novice friendly' circuit. This is both in terms of layout & the staff attitude plus they have a very lenient 105db noise limit too. http://www.castlecombecircuit.co.uk/tra ... mation.asp

I'm absolutely gagging to go but (sort of) unfortunately it's my mate's stag weekend, no way I'm missing that as I've know him 28 years! . Most of my mates are married/kids etc now, even if they have a bike there's no way they'd be allowed to go on a trip like this

I have the exact ones in the link, you just loop them through the plastic loops on the tailpack instead of poking bungee hooks through them. The bike would be this one, a MK2 fireblade: http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6039/blade1o.jpg

Yep, bought one a few days ago before my trip to Weymouth. It is the absolute dogs wobblers, kept my kit dry & it actually isn't as big or wide as it looks. This is despite swallowing two pairs of shoes, several changes of clothes, fishing rod & my emergency tools etc. Well, it didn't get left behind me, hanging off some poor sod's wing mirror when filtering though the A34/M27/M3 traffic . Put it this way, it's narrower than how far your bike mirrors will stick out. The roll top is a nice, simple (rather oldschool!) way of doing up the pack and keeping the water out, plus It comes with a detachable inner that velcros inside the outer shell so it's easy to keep clean. It's guaranteed for life too, always a bonus. Re: the velcro strap, yes you will need bungees, the strap is mega strong once stuck together & it would hold it to the bike by itself if you loop it under your seat. Get some bungees to be on the safe side though!!. I recommend Rok Straps if you can find some: http://www.rokstraps.com/moto.html