Post 4 - Such a far away dream (or is it?)

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts detailing my preparation for a trip to France on my VFR. This one is 
less personal than post 3 but I think it contains some interesting observations on the idea of an adventure, or a dream, and the control of that. And some comments on a soft rear shock.

I messaged a fellow VFR rider who I count as a friend a few hours ago to let him know that I would be having something to eat in Rosslare before catching the ferry after that on Sunday. Hitting 'send' and thinking of what I had just typed out seemed to bring the trip all the closer and remind me of the things I should do before I can say that I am fully ready. I know I could just forget that and not worry but then I did say in the first post of this series that I would do my best to over-complicate things! Still, today wasn't a bad day by any means in that my new tyre has been dispatched and I bought a 10mm hose joiner as well. This might seem like a strange acquisition but the fuel pumps on mid-nineties Japanese bikes are often a little unreliable. While I changed the points on mine in September I am ever wary of it jamming up and when it does jam up it jams up in such a way that the pump is closed so fuel cannot even flow by force of gravity. My worst nightmare would be to have to post up a story of how my fuel pump failed causing me to miss the ferry so a 10mm hose joiner was a must to carry under the seat. If the worst was to happen all I would have to do is use the joiner to bypass the fuel pump and, as long as the tank was kept over halfway full, I could ride on. The thing is though, at this point in time, I have no tool kit with which to dismantle bits and pieces at the roadside. Well I do but it would be much too large to fit to the back of the bike! Or under the seat! Like the tyre and hose joiner though it is something I am working on and I even managed to type out a short list on my phone last night of what documents would need to be photocopied before Sunday. The organisation then, is slowly taking shape.

Shiny in the sun after washing, polishing, and waxing the day before. 17 years old and 67000 miles.

Some people will never have to organise and prepare this much for a holiday in their lives and while this is not really a holiday as such (as work will be coming with me) it still applies. When we think of a holiday we think of a plane taking us to a sunny beach, all we need is a beach towel, passport and bank card and maybe some sun cream. You don't become intimately involved in preparing the aircraft yourself, you don't decide on the route (just the destinations on offer), you don't tend to consult with locals to ask for their opinions (although sites such as Tripadvisor are changing this to a certain extent I suppose). With the preparation for this trip I have become involved on all of these levels and use this blog to express my thoughts on it all. I have, and still am, preparing the bike, planning my route and consulting with various people, including readers of the blog, on what I do when in France etc. It's a gratifying experience really because it empowers me and shows me that, in a world where control is increasingly taken away from the end-user, that I still have a good deal of control over my own little dream trip. Yes, as I have said before, this is not a round-the-world adventure, I probably will not have to hike across tundra to find water (!), but it is a big adventure for me. 

The reasons these thoughts came to mind today was because I happened to talk to a couple of people briefly and mentioned I was taking the bike to France. They seemed amazed and it coupled nicely with my theory that there are many many people out there who dream of having a bike, and the freedom that supposedly comes with one, someday but, for whatever reasons, have put it off and may never get one. The overburdened fathers in the B&Q carpark on a Sunday morning who crane their necks at the sound of an approaching motorbike are the type of people I am talking about in this instance. Many would love a bike and the freedom it can bring but many will never make the time for it, busy as they are. That's not to say I am not busy, I am, but I have no kids to worry about! Instead a lot of these people will go to the travel agent and sign up for a package holiday which will allow them to relax but which, in the process, takes away a lot of the control they would otherwise have over their break. One is not better than the other but there are virtues to taking control of your own little break and one of those virtues is in the preparation such as the ordering of a new tyre, the cleaning of the machine, the ordering of a fuel hose joiner "just in case". In a sense it also stretches out the break because it forces you to think a little more about it and, for me anyway, I envision things ahead and that just makes the anticipation all the better. Overall though it proves that you can be independent and that you can make your own pathway.

To wrap all of this up I think it might be wise to note that to do this properly a list will soon be needed and so, tomorrow's post might just include a list of things I need to do as of yet. We'll see what comes into my mind...

 By the way, today's post was actually going to be about the suspension set-up of the bike in preparation for the trip but that might just have to wait for another day. As I was riding home from university through the city I was noticing, and have been noticing a lot lately, the back end of the bike is getting pretty soft. It's become worse since putting 10wt fork oil in the front and installing Progressive Suspension springs in place of the OEM ones. Now the front does not dive as much and is very controlled and I think it might be showing up a tired rear shock. With the weight of some luggage going to France it might be time to play around with preload and damping settings. I can add it to the list!

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Post 3 - Clean machine, clean mind???

This is the third in a series of blog posts detailing my preparation for a trip to France on my VFR. This one is a little personal, perhaps too much so, but I hope it gives you an idea of the depth of thought I get into when washing the bike.

"You missed a spot". "There's a little bit of dirt still there". These are mainstays of those who poke fun at someone who spends hours cleaning something. I've used them myself many times and, indeed, have had them used at me too. I've always considered myself to be a very neat person because tidiness allows me to get on with whatever I have at hand, whether that be work, thinking, reading, looking. A tidy space allows, for me, a tidy mind. This all feeds into the stereotype of the predictable person who has everything in order, is punctual, doesn't defy authority and fits into neat stereotypical boxes. The thing is, although I love having things neat and tidy, I have never been known as being punctual (I've become better but I see myself as adhering to a more Italian way of timing rather than, say Germanic). I probably am a little predictable but then if I think of some of my former classmates in school I doubt any of them predicted, based on my behaviour in school, that I would love motorbikes. Perhaps some of them predicted that I would go on to do a PhD in university, and specifically, in history based on my love of that subject in school. I may have predicted that I would go on and do this as well (I originally wanted to be a history teacher) but I am not sure if I would ever have predicted some of the mindsets that I have entertained and considered throughout my two and  half years in the PhD. Where am I going with all of this?

Setting up the powerhose (I know, I know, never use one on a bike...I think you can as long as you are very careful and never spray too close, otherwise bearings and electrical components and seals become unhappy), bringing the car shampoo, polish, and wax out to the front of the house, I began to think about all of this. Not far across the road was a guy, same age as I am, who now has a kid and is married but who had kinda bullied me back in my primary school days. I never had a huge circle of friends in school but he was a constant bugbear until one day I finally decided to take him on. He ran away. I didn't get the satisfaction of really hitting him but still... Anyway as I saw him I wondered did he have any idea where I am now in my life and would he ever have thought that a softy like me would have a motorbike. As I wondered I set the powerhose up and began to shower the bike with water to loosen any dirt particles before applying a sponge to it. I used Farecla's G3 range of paint detox, paint renovator and resin wax which I can heartily recommend even if the wax is hard work (smells nice though). Having thoroughly wet the bike I applied my clean sponge and, one panel at a time, worked in the paint detox shampoo. This stuff is supposed to take off prior layers of wax to leave a bare surface for a polish and wax afterwards and you can almost feel that when you run a finger on the paint afterward. Also the water dries off in a different way than it would if you used a wax shampoo like Turtle Wax Car Shampoo. 

The Honda logo from the fuel tanks reflects on a polished panel.

The RC36 model of VFR has many little vents and sections in the plastic which require attention when cleaning and as I got further into the details I began to think of where I was right now in my life. The bike then, while its paintwork was being reconditioned by me, was, in a sense, also reconditioning my mind and forcing what had previously been ingrained and unthought to come out and be examined like the bits of dirt that stick to paintwork over time. The bike wasn't dirty by any means, most would have said it did not need washing but as for my mind, well it's not been as neat and tidy as I would like for quite some time. On the surface everything looks fine but underneath there are torrents of thought which scatter whatever order I have managed to find. The PhD is the central part of this and while I love history and love studying it, the PhD has changed me and I find myself more irritable, much less relaxed and stressed out. Cleaning the bike allows you to think about these deep inner thoughts, or so I think, because you concentrate on the action of cleaning. You are not distracted and therefore have space to think. And space to clean out the mind and try and bring order to the disorder inside. These were deep thoughts for me but the act of cleaning the bike allowed them to come to the surface, it may actually have brought them right up to the surface. Here I was doing something I really love, paying close attention to a motorbike, while thinking about something else I love but am having real difficulty with. 

There are two frames of view for both aspects both the cleaning and the thinking. Today as I cleaned every nook and cranny of the VFR I was up close to it, examining each and every bit, with every small thing contributing to the bigger picture. There are many who wash their bikes with a garden hose and some shampoo from the shower and as long as it looks decent from ten or twenty feet away they are happy and the VFR could be looked at similarly, I could stand back and admire it but in doing so overlook the smaller things which annoy me up close like scratches or a rusty fastener or two. My thinking today, about my life right now, went in a similar but opposite way. The closer, short-term, image looks decent. Doing a PhD is something many have said to me that they'd also love to do (not sure if I would recommend however), I have gotten to research in the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and see Atlanta, give a conference paper in Newcastle in the UK, can pick my own hours and I even get to teach (which is my real passion I think). However if you step back and look at the longer-term, twenty feet, image, things seem different. There is no end date for my PhD, I have research plans which never seem to stick, I feel lost in space at times, by the time I have my foot on a career ladder I will be nearing 30, there is no serious funding readily available for my research so I can never treat it as a full-time job as such and money must always be watched carefully. Not to mention points where I have felt mentally and emotionally drained to the point where I feel sick. These are right dichotomies. 

Researching in a Presidential Library. Nice in the short-term image...sorry there is no bike here!

As I put the powerhose away and began to rub the paint restorer (which is basically a polish) onto the paintwork (starting with the tank), I had no idea of what to make of what was going on in my head. The paint restorer gently abrades dirt from the surface and smooths out the surface for the wax. It, essentially, prepares the freshly washed and freshly bared surface for a protectant coating and I wondered if it were possible to use some of this on my brain to smooth things out inside. I'm not bald so it would be considerably more difficult to rub in though. Neither is my skin metallic, this particular stuff is for metallic paints. Hmm. While there was no more order to the thoughts in my head at this point, I did feel that, since taking the cleaning stuff out to start, that there was more substance to the thoughts jumbled up inside. I had more to say about them, if not what order to say that in. The bike itself was beginning to look rather dapper again, the metallic flakes in the green paintwork were really to the fore now, the rare sun making them dazzle. For a 17 year old bike with almost 67,000 miles on the clock the paint really does look well, to the point where there were moments when some of the metal flakes seemed to be floating within a pool of thick paint. The resin wax added to the shine and smoothed out the surface but was difficult to put on what with it being quite thick. All that was left from here was the black plastics which I use WD40 on in order to restore there proper colour. And then a quick spray of it into the control switches to get rid of excess water which may have crept in. The devil is in the details in these little jobs, overlook them and see your electrics eventually turn to dust. At least that is what I think. 

Done, the photographer's reflection is to the left of the visible front indicator!

Standing back at this point and admiring the bike from ten feet back the little scratches that are evidence of 17 years of use on the road were much harder to see. The little bits of dirt in tiny nooks that I simply could not reach were invisible now, the overall sheen of the bike capturing my eye and preventing any deviations. Being honest, I was happy with that day's work, I could be proud of the VFR again. As for my own mind the overall sheen of the clean VFR made me focus a little more on the nicer short-term, closer image, of my own life. Such things as cleaning the VFR are part of that more short-term picture (cleaning a VFR is hardly up there with mortgages and careers in terms of life events is it? Maybe it is...) and it had brought me a lot of satisfaction today so perhaps by concentrating on these more short-term bits then I could bring myself that little bit more satisfaction. As I tidied the cleaning products away and parked up the VFR the thoughts in my head were no more in order but they were certainly "cleaner", they were a little more defined. It might seem a little mad but in cleaning my bike I often think I am cleaning my own mind, or at least allowing it some space to shake off some of the deposits that rest and stick over time. 



As an aside, if an important one, I bought a new rear tyre for the VFR today. A Metzeler Z8 which I will have to fit during the week. I also have a mini compass on the way which I will stick to the cockpit of the VFR for navigation (I will be using maps I think as I cannot afford mobile data roaming for navigation through Google Maps on my phone) and I even took out my set of freebie panniers and hosed them free of dust so they will be ready for the trip too. Also, thank you for reading this far, I know this has been a long one and a very personal one too, I just hope that I managed to convey the connection between cleaning the bike and time for personal thoughts that I recognise!

Post 2 - Fixing, finally, that bloody back brake

This is the second in a series of blog posts detailing my preparation for a trip to France on my VFR.

Back brakes and Nevin have rarely gotten on well thinking about it now. On the Honda Innova that I first rode the drum rear brake would consistently squeak and, in wet weather, it would want to lock up. Being a drum brake it never gave much in the way of feedback anyway, you could never tell what it was doing. It's use then was extremely limited. This continued on to my next bike, a Suzuki Bandit 600. The rear Tokico opposed piston caliper is a mainstay of many Japanese bikes, the same set up being used in any other bikes of that era. Mine worked for a while but then I could start to see a dust seal worming its way out and I could never manage to open the caliper to actually rebuild it. Buying a used caliper did help but I never think back to the Bandit with thoughts of a great rear brake. The VFR, for the last months, has gone down a similar path. When used the rear would simply want to lock itself in place. You can imagine it is fairly disconcerting when filtering through traffic. I had put new seals in the caliper last summer and had even cleaned out the master cylinder thoroughly only a week or so ago. And still the rear brake was binding. That means, when used, the brake would not retract and would still be, well, braking. The engine thus has to work harder, the rear brake heats up a lot more than normal etc etc.

Well today I went into the workshop and decided it was time to take the caliper off, take the seals out and scrape the bores clean. If you don't know how a brake caliper works, here's a quick run down - when you press the pedal, or pull the lever, you are pushing brake fluid along a hose/line into a caliper. In here we have a piston, or two, or three, or four, or six. The fluid pushes against the piston which moves outward pushing a brake pad against the brake disc and thus slowing your machine down. Rubber seals stop the fluid from escaping past the piston but allow the piston to move freely. In theory. On mine corrosion and dirt had built up behind the seals, causing the piston to "jam" up and keep the brake on. This was especially so if the brake was hot as the piston would expand ever so slightly. We are talking tenths of millimetres here but it all counts. Here's a picture of the dust seal bore with the dirt all gunked up inside:

It looks like a black ring but that is dirt and corrosion.

I didn't have new seals to hand for this job so I had to be extremely careful in taking the seals out and then cleaning the bores. I used a bunch of small seal pullers which look like needles and just scraped everything away until I was left with bare alloy again. Such work reminds you of the age of the machine. I had been pretty angry about this rear brake for some time but when you actually go and look at this closely, and the work and the machining that was involved when the part was made, you can see a real complexity going on. Obviously it is nothing compared to a brand new Brembo monobloc but there is a lot going on nonetheless. In appreciating that complexity you can find yourself forgiving the machine for many faults. Just so I can get to work or college or go have a bit of fun on a nice road an awful lot of parts have to work perfectly and in tandem. While working on a delicate part of the bike and using tools that look like they came from a kids Fisher Price set you sometimes can better step back to see the widescreen technicolour picture, the full view. By the time I was finished with these thoughts the bores had come to look like this:

Spick and span on the left and on the right one piston in and the other out with red rubber grease smeared lightly on the bores to help prevent future corrosion.

Now that they were all clean the red rubber grease could be smeared on, seals reinserted after a clean and an inspection and then the pistons could be slid back in .One was almost impossible to remove at first so, from the get-go, I knew I was on to a winner in looking at this stuff. As I had the Dremel out, well it's a fake one, a Bremel (not really, but it is crap), I decided to do this. It's a little naff but I think it fits the VFR style and gives Nissin some credit for producing decent brakes after my devolution on complexity earlier on. 

Bleeding the whole system was, as usual, a pain in the arse but once it was done I was able to ride home and use the back brake properly with no fear of it locking or binding. It acted just as a back brake should, stabilising, progressive in nature etc etc. It will surely be useful in France. As an aside I also gave my front calipers a quick bleed. New fluid had been put into that system last week but another bleed tonight after a week of use made them firmer again. I prefer to have more "feel" at the lever so I backed off the adjuster which makes you feel like you have to pull the lever for a longer distance but with the benefit of you gaining more of a feel for what the front brake is doing. Perfect.

Coming home brought my feet firmly back to the ground and reminded me of the niche nature of this blog and of working on the bike in general. I had commented with a good friend of mine who pilots an SV650 that fiddling about with bikes in our club workshop is very much a niche thing. He was amazed at how we all became excited at me bringing in a tub of red rubber grease and how we talked about o-rings. It's not bus stop or elevator talk. Or water fountain talk. Neither is it hallway talk. I was informed upon coming in to the house that some areas were just painted so I should be careful. Then I was given a rundown of the day and while I packaged my day ("Well I did this, that, and the other thing, and fixed my back brake") I listened and waited. I never got to unpack that packaged summary of my day which was frustrating because I felt like I had conquered a little bit of the world in fixing this problem. I wonder does Putin feel like that over Crimea, it being a small part of the world? His issues end up on global news however, mine haven't. Yes, it's niche alright but I am sure those reading this appreciate this as much as I do.

I did not take any photos of this but I also cleaned some areas of the swingarm as I was in that general vicinity. That swingarm has a history all of its own which you can read a little of here. The Elf endurance racers, and Honda's relationship with them, basically ended up with Honda gaining some patent rights to a very nice piece of kit. It's heavier than a conventional swingarm but it looks cooler, allows for quicker tyre changes (important for endurance racing back in the day), makes chain adjusting easier and, again, looks cool.

Anyway, there's another job off of the list of things to do before France. I still haven't worked on a list of things I need to bring with me but I did do a few minutes thinking over what documents I will need to photocopy. Still, I reckon fixing this rear brake was that bit more important. Next up is to decide whether or not I'll be needing a rear tyre... In the meantime however I think it is time to begin listening to the next Motopod (if you haven't listened to Motopod and are interested in bike racing, get yourself over to motopodcast.com. Until next time!

Thanks to the kind members of the VFR club on bikersoracle.com, the VFR 750 RC36 group on Facebook and World Motorcycle Community on Google+ who suggested the bore corrosion issue to me. All are fantastic support networks with great members who like to suggest that a certain colour can make a certain bike go faster!

Post 1 - A Trip to France by VFR

Almost a week ago I finally bit the bullet and booked a ferry ride from Ireland to France. The Irish Ferries vessel, the Oscar Wilde, will be delivering me and my VFR 750 from Rosslare in the south-east of the country over to Cherbourg in the north of France. From here I have three to four journey ahead of me until I reach La Ferte Bernard where my girlfriend is currently working. Le Mans, a yes the fabled Le Mans, is only a short hop from here. Once paid for it sounds really easy but with this blog I am going to try and ensure that what seems easy is far from ever being so in reality. There is a saying in the university I study at, "whatever is simple, we will do our best to complicate". It's a joke but there is some truth to it. Simple things aren't always that much fun, even if keeping things simple is sometimes very clever. This series of blog posts should give you an insight into my own thoughts on the planning of the trip, showing that I rarely am successful in keeping things in any way simple. If I hear any noise that seems out of place on the VFR it simply has to be investigated. I spent days agonising over how best to record the service history (I use a Notepad file, Excel is overly complicated ironically enough in this instance!). No doubt as the preparation for this trip continues, and the trip actually happens, I will agonise over silly little things that, in the big scheme, matter very little. Still, it'll be fun and I hope you enjoy hanging on to hear them.

It's just after midnight at this point and I am wondering about what to do in the morning. The bike is due to be on the ferry in just over a week and my rear brake caliper is binding. For those of you who do not know that means that the rear brake is constantly on, not fully, but enough to stop you from spinning the wheel when the bike is on the centrestand. The brakes simply are not releasing fully. This could be because of any number of reasons...
1 - Master cylinder is dirty and needs a rebuild.
2 - Caliper pistons are corroded and are sticking to the caliper seals as they are pushed out (so they can't sink back in)
3 - Caliper seal bores are corroded so the seals are being forced out microscopically which is preventing the pistons from moving freely.
4 - Too much grease on the sliding pins that allow the caliper to move.
5 - Many other reasons but you might be bored now.
This all makes me extremely annoyed. It's not because there is a problem with the bike, that is all understandable as a high-performance machine is always going to demand more maintenance than an average runabout car (in the same way a jet fighter requires more maintenance and more fuel than a Boeing 737...both are good machines, both fly but both do different specific jobs). My annoyance stems from the fact that I have already cleaned out the master cylinder, I have already cleaned the caliper and replaced the seals and I have installed new brake pads and all. I've spent hours on the bloody thing.

The thing is, your back brake is very important. It allows for stable stopping conditions in slow traffic or in wet weather and allows for much greater control over u-turns and slow speed maneuvering. Not to mention that the VFR is a heavy bike and the twin two-piston calipers on the front wheel, while they do a fine job, can use some assistance from the two-piston caliper at the rear for quicker stops. I've become used to operating without a back brake but it is less than ideal and I will want everything working perfectly while in France.  My task for tomorrow then is to spend some time on the rear brake again. I could do it blindfolded at this point in time. I'll take the caliper off, pop the pistons out and check for corrosion and rebuild it. Again. If there is no improvement then I am chucking it in the bin and buying a decent used one. It's just not worth the stress anymore. And besides, there is more preparation to be done apart from brakes...

The other night I watched a small video on MotoGP.com about how Dorna, the company that run the whole series and organise it, manage to move all of the equipment from race to race. Essentially they construct, deconstruct, and move, a small town every two weeks. Each team's flight cases are handled perfectly, nothing is delayed, everything moves in sync, lists are checked and rechecked, but it's all second nature to those who have been doing it for some time. So it was that I took my cue from this. I'm not moving a small town every two weeks and by no means am I racing in the MotoGP (sigh) but I can be just as organised as this lot. I'm going to go and pack everything right now, I'll be the most efficient packer ever. I'll put everything on to a timetable and I'll pay someone to recheck lists that I made and checked already.

In case you didn't realise, I'm just being sarcastic! What Dorna do, as regards logistics, is the complete opposite of what I am likely to do. I know I need to pack clothes and make sure I have some overnight stuff for the ferry. That stuff will go in my tankbag as that will be easy to carry to my ferry cabin. I will need to work on my PhD over in France so I will need to take some folders and books. I wonder where they will go for the trip? And how many to bring? Do I need my panniers? They're fabric but were given to me for free by a guy on a BMW whom I have since not seen. If you're reading this nice-BMW-guy, then thank you, rest assured your stuff is being put to good use. I even waterproofed them a year or so back but it didn't really work all that well (plastic bags inside are the best bet I think). I still do not know if I need panniers. I have no sat-nav (although I do have GPS on my phone but don't want to pay data charges abroad so that might scupper that plan) so tankbag will be needed for holding a map at least. Decisions, decisions.

While I agonise over these questions I also have a few other things to think about. I could do with a new rear tyre. I have been using Metzeler Z8s for about a year now and have covered about 6000-7000 miles on a pair of them. The front is still fine but the rear is beginning to hiit the wear mark, although the edge thread looks decent. While I could probably get by with the tyre I think I would rather a new one. My front brake pads are also fairly worn but they will be fine for the duration of the trip. They'll need changing once summer comes. I'll have to think about spare light bulbs, a first aid kit and all of that stuff too. Apparently all of this stuff is the law in France. Oh, and a pair of glasses or spare contact lenses. And photocopies of licence, registration etc.

It looks to me like I have a bit of a shopping list right here! I told you I would manage to complicate things somehow. You can forgive me though - yes this is not a round-the-world trip by any means but it is my first time abroad with my bike and that is a big step. It's also my first time on a proper ferry too. This a proper adventure for me, and my adventures can never be too simple! Stay tuned for updates.

More stuff at: http://vfourfiles.blogspot.ie/

VFR 750 Exploration

I bought a Honda VFR 750 in November of this year (2011). For some time I had been wondering about the VFR. A practical bike, a sporty bike, a comfortable bike, a technically advanced bike, a bike you could work on, a bike to get to know. It seemed to have it all. After travelling the motorway to Dublin to see Cork City beat Shelbourne to win the Airtricity League First Divison title and thus promotion I decided it was time to stop dreaming and start getting. My Bandit 600, as much as I love it, has no fairing and nowhere to hide from fast air and the rain that often makes an appearance on this island of ours. A VFR was needed.

And a VFR was found. A 1997 model in green in Tipperary with almost 55,000 miles on the clock. For a VFR that means the engine is barely broken in. With the scheduled maintenance adhered to it'll continue to run forever. I've read of one in London running to 200,000 miles or so before the engine was swapped out for a newer secondhand one. A friend of mine has a CBR 1000 with 150,000 miles on it (or more) and it's insides are perfect. In fact if you look at the odometer you'll see that it won't reset to zero until it hits one million miles. Upon seeing that on the ride home I knew I'd bought the right bike.

So what is the plan for it and what has been done so far?

Due to their being no service history for it I have put it out the back yard and have taken all of the plastics off of it to see what is underneath. And the news is relatively good! Everything is in order and everything is pretty clean. Autosol has taken some of the tarnishing from the stainless exhaust downpipes. The rear subframe and the frame itself are perfect and clean with next to no rust on the steel subframe (main frame is aluminium of course). The engine is clean but could do with a wipe of a cloth...I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times.

Seeing as I don't know the service history I want to change the engine oil, change the brake fluid, clutch fluid, spark plugs and coolant and go through all other service items like carb balancing, valve clearances etc. As well as this all bearings need to be checked too. As far as is possible I want to ensure that the bike is almost like new before it hits the road once again.

The first task on this road was to take all of the fairing off of the bike and give it a thorough clean because if that is not done now then it may never be done. Once fairing is on it rarely comes off unnecessarily.

Richa Sky Jacket (and trousers) Review

The Richa Sky jacket is a three-quarter length touring jacket which retails in the above-€200 bracket (generally on sale for between €220 and 250) and is touted as being one of Richas top of the line jackets. I bought one six weeks ago (October 2012) as a replacement for a Duchinni item I had bought in a sale for €80 about 3 or 4 years earlier and which had served me well. However with a couple of rips from a spill I had over a year ago I reckoned now was a good time to go and replace it as the winter set in.

It was strange buying the Sky because I had actually went into the shop convinced that it was not the jacket I wanted. Riding a VFR I wanted something that was a little more of the sports-style cut so it would not bunch against the tank as the Duchinni had. However what the Sky had on offer for the price (it was on sale for €120 or 130...can't remember!) could not be beaten and there was no way I could leave it behind especially seeing as it fitted me so well.

The jacket seemed to fit like a glove with a slight tightness that made me feel safe within it and which I knew would "give" ever so slightly as time went on as much like leather fabric gear also tends to loosen, although to a lesser extent that leather. Even if it did become that bit looser there was a waist strap and buttons to narrow the sleeves too. The shoulder and elbow armour all fitted into place perfectly and the back armour was reassuring too with the tight(ish) fit ensuring that it all stayed in place. Thwt being said I do find that the elbow armour sticks out when you are hunched over on the bike and leaves the elbow itself a little exposed. It may be that the sleeve needs a twist when I go to zip the end of the sleeve and pull across the velcro tab at the wrist so as to move the armour to keep it on my elbow.

It is a 3-in-1 jacket which is one reason I didn't want it initially as I didn't want to fiddle around with so many liners but actually I haven't had to. I find that I don't sweat much in it despite it being a warm jacket while the Reissa waterproof liner is something I had much hope for it keeping me dry in downpours as I have had the trousers version of this jacket for some time and it has never let me down.

In light rain the outside of the jacket just shrugs it off but in today's extremely heavy rain I found that the jacket may have let some rain in....through the gloves and the neck. Not exactly the jackets fault then! I was dry everywhere bar around my neck and the wrists as water gathered there (I wear my gloves OVER the jacket so water must have seeped down). In the safety of home I put the Reissa lining in the shower and it kept my hand dry underneath so the stuff does work (now bear in mind I did 75 miles in heavy rain with an average speed of 65mph so eve if it did leak you can't blame it much!). A good test after the long ride was to check the thermal liner in the jacket and this was all dry so the waterproofing did it's job as far as I am concerned and the task goes on to find what can keep the water away from seeping down my neck and gloves.

Apart from rain storms the jacket is actually quite comfortable to walk around in as it's perfect fit allows you to move easily and it keeps the wearer warm in cold weather too. However there are some fiddly points that a potential buyer should be aware of...

There are not many pockets in the jacket - 3 if you discount the phone holder pocket in the thermal liner when I had been used to 4 large ones on the Duchinni. However the Duchinni pockets were never waterproof while one of the Richa ones most certainly is (tested in that rain storm!) while the other two ain't bad either. The thing is however that the "other two", they're waist pockets, close by velcro and can be tricky to close properly when you've gloves on as there is an overcut on the pocket to ensure the contents stay dry and this can stop the velcro from sticking.

There are two zips to close the jacket - one for the Reissa waterproof liner and one for the jacket itself. You don't need to close both unless you want to in the rain and the storm flap does a good job at sealing the zips anyway. The neck could tighten up a bit more but it closes by means of a button rather than the conventional velcro that many jackets use. I also find the jacket can show up rain stains as I have the lighter coloured of the options (grey as the predominant colour). Still these are but small complaints for the price I paid for it in the sale!

Overall I would not hesitate to recommend the jacket to anyone whether they use it for commuting or for long tours. It keeps the cold at bay, seems to be very waterproof and fits me like a glove. Of course reviews of motorbike gear need to be considered with the bike they are used on...in my case a VFR 750. Perhaps comfort and dryness levels would be different on, say, a Bandit as so much more is exposed to the air on a naked bike. From what I have seen in a month of almost every-day wear though, I would bet it would take it all in it's stride. Keep it on your list if you need a jacket that can serve all purposes equally well, be useful in all seasons (it has vents and the thermal liner can zip out) and be protective.

Oh and you may as well pick up the trousers as you're at it...they're just about perfect with my only complaint being that the pockets are not waterproof (but they kept dry through the rain storm today...may be because the jacket covered them or the fairing of the VFR diverting the rain). They can also tend to make your legs very sweaty if you are walking around in hot weather but the same can be said of any heavy clothing I suppose.

Cork to Malin Head (1)

The Prelude

We’re in little boxes. Boxes of time and often of space. We have cubicles in our offices where we carry out various tasks to ensure that we can put food on the table and fuel in our bikes. We sit at desks, we operate machinery, we dig holes, we study. All of this is fairly obvious but what lies beyond the obvious is the fact that we are simply cogs in a much greater machine. In our boxes we have to produce something or justify our existence in some other way in order to survive unto the next day. Like cogs in a machine we are used to routines because this is how we know the world to operate. We work within our boxes according to our routines in order to survive but also to produce wealth, much of which doesn’t ever end up being our own but rather someone else’s. This is the enigma about adventure, perhaps it is even the enigma of motorbiking itself, that adventure (and perhaps motorbiking) is something without routine. It is out of character, it is something we are not used to because the box has been shed, present time and mindsets are all shed and we must live in the moment and adapt as we go. It is living in real time and something most of us crave but often don’t let ourselves do. The important thing about living in real time on a motorbike is that real time is going at 60mph while leaning through a bend and this is also what many crave.

One of the main reasons for my buying my Suzuki Bandit 600 was to engage in some long distance riding. Ever since I had began riding I had been taking my little Honda Innova 125 well outside of its comfort zone in and around the city, going out to the edges of the county where its little engine would huff and puff but always, and I mean always, bring me home. Often it did so on fumes, for it really did seem to have a distaste for petrol, bringing me home from Waterford city one late summer afternoon on just about 3 litres of petrol. Being a Honda it could probably do this forever but really I needed something bigger if I was going to carry on doing this sort of mileage. The plan for the Bandit then was to pack it up for a few days in the summer and to head away through the country for a few days to escape my thesis. Never one to blame myself, I’ll push it instead to my thesis and the concept of time itself to shoulder the blame for me not having the opportunity during our glorious summer to take to the roads in that much of a fashion. Still I did clock up about 4000 miles since June and that’s not half bad. With my thesis completed however I had no reason to not begin planning to take the bike on a bit of a tour and planning began. I mean planning in the sense that something was going on in my head and so did not necessarily involve me taking out a pen and paper although I do recall checking some distances on Google Maps before quickly forgetting them. I had always wanted to go and see the Burren though and then continue on through Galway and into Connemara strapping a tent to the back of the bike and doing the tour as a single overnighter. Logging on to Facebook one night and mentioning it to Gary changed all of that; he said he’d like to join me and I decided that company would be nice so it was now that real planning was going to begin for this was definitely going ahead.

Having completed my thesis I did feel I needed time to relax and take a break from reading and writing and to be honest even writing this is taking a little bit more of an effort than I thought as I read over things, adjust things, and generally give in to a seemingly never ending style twitch that forces me to go back over my last sentence. Oh, wait I must change that last bit. From the day we enter school life changes to become goal orientated - we need to finish that days homework, we need to do well in the Leaving Cert and then I needed to go on and complete my degree before finishing my MA thesis. No I didn’t have an office cubicle but I always had something to aim for, a new goal to achieve and with the ending of the thesis there was now no goal to aim for. This should be relaxing but ultimately you only end up searching for something else to occupy your mind for in my case I felt hamstrung, I felt lazy almost. Now that the bike tour was becoming a reality I had a new goal to aim for, something completely unrelated to what had gone before for this would take me out of my comfort zone, out of my box and into life in real time. This would be an adventure and one that had been some time coming.

Realising that Facebook was surely not the most effective way to plan a motorbike tour, Gary and I met up in the somewhat less than luxurious surroundings of the Main in UCC. Hayfield Manor it may not be but it did have free wifi which was essential for Gary’s meanderings through Google Maps. Initially my own mental plan had just been to travel to Connemara and then come home by, and I quote here, “go out and then come back East and then travel South”. The word vague does spring to mind doesn’t it? I had a desire to travel to one of Cork City’s away games on the bike and due to me mixing up some dates I was convinced that City were playing Finn Harps in Donegal on the weekend that we were thinking of using for this trip. Gary did seem enthusiastic about the roads in Donegal and that enthusiasm was convincing enough to make me want to travel that far which was great considering that I then found out that we (as in City) were playing Finn Harps here at home in Cork. Still, riding up to Donegal was still very much on and with a long weekend coming up a plan was gradually coming to fruition.