I took advantage of today’s sunshine to ride over to Sproughton in Suffolk to see Andrew Vass and Alex Pearl’s exhibition. My GPS took me straight there for once and let me keep a track afterwards of my speed and height above sea level in Ascent thanks to Geoff for this application. As you slide a yellow dot through the graph of your speed, another friendly dot moves through the route on a map. You’ll see that I didn’t make 122 mph made by unfortunate jailed biker Mr Bennett.
Here’s a graph of my speed
and here’s the map of the A14
biking
Xena bike disk lock/alarm: first impressions
Having rather more disposable income than usual at the moment because of the plummeting interest rates and my friendly tracker mortgage I am susceptible to ‘recommendations’ in bike mags for gizmos of various kinds. This time I have bought a Xena bike lock, a chumky bit of shatter proof steel that just looks good and feels so nice in the hand that it could really have no other purpose and still be good to have around.
It locks through a hole in your break disk and automatically sets itself and will screech at 110db if tampered with. I tried it and its loud. In fact I went into an oblique panic trying to unlock the thing to stop that noise. In the meantime neighbours burst out of their front doors to see what the racket was about. I appologised. Verdict: too embarrassing to use (at least at my street).
Motowhere
Finally I think I have found a useful site for trip planning at motowhere which is aimed at bikers (just with the descriptors you can add to your routes – like’low-enforcement’). Draw a line from Hook of Holland to Marienbad in the Czech Republic and it automatically snaps to a route and gives you an idea of the mileage. Here’s my proposed route for the first days of my proposed trip across eastern Europe. I wonder how sensible it is. You are meant to be able to load the routes into a GPS. I wonder if that will work.
MCN Motorcycle show Excel January 2009
The main attraction of this show held annually in London’s docklands is the chance to swing a leg over bikes you could never (baring lottery wins, inheritances or pension lump sum payments – see later comment on the hair colour of most punters on the BMW stand) afford to buy which I did unashamedly – well actually I was rather self conscious on the BMW stand. I discovered that unlike some fellow bikers, my feet did touch the ground when astride the highly coveted 1200GS Adventure (it was so big). Apart from motorcycles, of course, there are miles of jackets, boots, gloves and helmets supposedly at knock down prices. Sadly I wasn’t in the market for any of this kit though I was tempted by shiny new versions of slightly tired items I had at home under the bed, such are the delights of consumerism. All I did buy was a tub of beeswax for a tenner which I must remember not to search out on the net and find that I was fleeced. I did actually want some. My main foci were the BMW and Triumph stands and I felt entirely at home at the latter as of course I own one. Climbing onto the Tiger it was reassuring that I could reach the ground on this high machine and the new (shiny black) Sprint ST was rather comfortable. Maybe I could be persuaded to replace my year 2000 model with a nice new black one some day. It was beautiful and comes with hard panniers installed….. It was so shiny… I think I can hold my head up being a Triumph owner.
Going back to BMW, I was rather excited to see Charley Boreman on the stand and managed to snatch a blurred pic of him as he was about the only person nearby without white hair.
What I found very cute were the men (often not spring chickens) who persuaded their (presumably) wives to climb on the back of these touring machines and the small children who sprawled over immensely large, powerful and expensive machines.
Worth a comment finally were the numbers of people visiting on crutches and the MCN ‘babes’ who were impossibly thin (some looked like they had had their bottoms amputated) who were posing for photographs.
Tented Up
I now have nearly everything I need for my camping expedition to Eastern and central Europe in the summer, now that my Vango Spirit 200+ tent has arrived.
As my friend Geoff says with the way the pound is moving against the Euro, camping will be all I can afford.
It weighs 2.5kg is for two people and has bags of porch room – which is why I got it.
Heine Gericke in the cold
I recently splahsed out £280 on yet another motorcycle jacket. The first two have been ebay bargains that I never saw or tried on before they came to the front door. They either looked terrible (the first one) or looked good but were cheap and little more than a fashion item with some snazzy stiching around the elbows with pockets whose lining tore after a week. This time I wanted something that would actually be protective, with armour built in, and good in a variety of weathers. Last year’s Cruise jacket in Gore-text fits the bill. Today we had that beautiful winter sun but icy winds. What better weather to try it, So with a few thin layers underneath, and the quilted lining still in place I tried it. Not a leak of cold air – apart from around the neck which I need to sort out. I was warm as toast on an hour long ride. I just noticed one reviewer on http://www.advrider.com/forums/ says:
“One of the things that I did not like about the Cruise was that there appears to be a design issue.
The top most popper on the right side is missing a like popper to connect to (left collar bone area). This would leave the neck flap only connected by velcro at the top and the second popper, therby leaving a gap. There is velcro where the popper should be but oddly no popper.
When asked about it, the Hein Gericke man just shrugged in acknowledgement but all the Cruise jackets there (5 of various sizes) were the same. It really put me off considering the price. Obviously if you always use the supplied (removeable) neck cuff that covers the Adam’s Apple area then it’s not an issue.”
OH NO! here’s some bad news. HG is now selling this jacket for £100 less than I paid. But I certainly prefer it to their new model.
