MooN

colder than I'd hoped today but I had an early lunch and ran away from home at around 11:30 determined to do the run I wanted to do last week. this basically, a little over 300km with a good mix of tiny back roads ( grass down the middle type stuff) and fast technical twisties. It remained cold in the shadows but the sun was out and temps up to around 10degC. Lots of hunters out in the woods with dogs bloody everywhere but nobody else about.

Great pics pedro, isn't it good to get out on a bike in the sun?!

'Ey up!

What do you mean no scenery... I'm sure Lincoln used to have a big pointy uppy building thing in the middle of it, very picturesque, some nice pics to be had down by the canal too I expect, Fiskerton, cherry willingham, you'll have me all teary eyed and nostalgic with a couple of pics from there...you're only an hour from the coast...tattershall castle, Boston stump, SKEGGY ! Louth... there's the asylum at Rampton, that'd be a shoe in here for top pic ?

it'll need that leak sorting and then a bloody good clean before any paint will stick to it

lets face it, if you crash it they'll write it of and give you about 140£ for it...

Not anymore

Interestingly, or not, I had another Busted bolt yesterday but at work and when I discovered it it was lucky thay my "Technician" is off sick ( skiving since 6th June 2020) or he would have a) got punched and b) got an official warning for " Faute professionel" (three af them and you're out). This is what I was working on. planned oil and gearbox oil change, oil filters, fuel filters, air filter and belts, then sort the oil leak which I have traced to the oil pressure guage senders on the side of the block then clean the whole thing properly which obviously hasn't been done for some time. Note the excellent designof the hydraulic pump on the front of the main pulley, you have to remove the bloody thing to change either belt...( that's why the bolts are half out) When I looked at changing the alternator belts, I found this set up on the lower alternator: The whole thing was waaay out of alignement and clearly not correctly fitted. A while back I found two green painted bolts and a bush on my desk, with no explanation of where they came from... now I know. This is clearly a large dose of taking the piss and "don't give a shit'ism and means that my "technicien" if he ever returns to work, clearly cannot be trusted and is therefore worthless to us. I retrieved the bolts from my box of " That looks specific, I wont throw it away" bits and spent an hour removing the sh!t, changeing the belts, refiting the correct bolts and spacer and realigning the whole. ( all torqued down to "two white knuckles" ?) this is what it should look like

2 tools only, WD40 and gaffer tape. If it moves and shouldn't, use the gaffer tape, if it doesn't move but should, use the WD40. ? I actually dont grease things with WD40 , I have a pot of marine grease.

Well I need to get some ride time in this weekend cos it looks like the balloon is abot to go up here again, they're talking Lockdown on the Telly now... I told you they'd wait untill the Parisien holiday was over and then shut us down again... wankers

It's no fun if I'm the only one playing...

You remind me of the marine architect who drew the plans for an RNLI boarding boat we built when I was training, He'd decreed that the "stations" ( temporary forms around which the hull planking is done before fitting the frames and floors) were to be at 85.71428 cm apart. The master shipwright's first comment was " shall we tell him that we wrok to 1/8th of an inch tolerance...?" the difference between theory and practice,

without test riding one, the only criticism is that Fugly front end,,, two other things spring to my mind though, why chain drive and not shaft? Is all the high tech engine widgitry not going to limit potential usage to places ahere high tech widgetry freindly service centres are available? I imagine that ( despite the rhetoric) the actual target market is the US rider who would like a GS but would also like US made and will mostly ride on road, but enjoys the possibility of trails ( and lets face it this is a majority of "adventure bike" riders) and won't ever actually need a bush machanic to fix it with hammer and a screwdriver. Is 5000miles a normal service interval? seems a bit short to me, with most vehicles service intervals increasing with technlogy. My bike is 10000km so 6200miles, my car is 20,000km and wifeys car is 30,000km ( to be fair, that's a diesel, but my point is that I thought the tendance was an increase in service intervals). It'll be interesting to watch and see how it fares, I have rarely seen a bike get so many people excited, either for or against.

Yesterday I took it all apart again. The bolt that I had available and used was a slot headed machine screw. The original bolt was a Hex head so There was on hex head bolt and one slot headed machine screw in there and though out of sight, it Irked me, so I got a couple of 8x70 A2 stainless bolts and a couple of 8x50 of the same, a couple of stainless washers and as I had some spare time wednesday afternoon I removed the offending bolt and tried the 8x50, which was too short, and the 8x 70 was too long. I cut down the 8x70 to make and 8x60 and fitted that, with it's washer. I then realised that my 8 mmbol has a 13mm hex head and the original one has a 12mm hex head. This being the sort of thing that drives me round the twist when I come across it at work, I cut down the 2nd 8x70 and fitted that as well so there are two identical stainless bolts now. @skyrider I work on boats, force of habit means all bolts were greased before being refitted ?

Far from it Bob, "La Betise Humaine" is alive and well and living in Paris. The rest of the country HATES them

number of cases is rising again here. They have put 20 Departements on the surveillance list. it's a fucking no brainer, the departments where it's significantly increased this week are ALL coastal areas and it just so happens that the Parisiens are on holiday.... no one is admitting that link cos that'd cause trouble.

Tym, if the admin were to remove everyting "innapropriate" from here, we'd all be looking at a blank page...

think that's old... my wife's boss refers to her as "Fangio" ! ?

At the moment we are still allowed to travel freely ( within the country) but hotels, restaurants, bars and all meeting venues are closed. Shoping malls of more than 20,000 sq metres are closed exept for food shops. There is a general curfew between 6pm and 6 am. Some parts of southern France are looking at a weekend curfew I believe, but not where I am. We are expecting a rework of the rules next week, once the Paris region is back from half term holiday ( God forbid that the parisiens should have to forgo their february skiing trip!)

I'm beach body ready. In much the same way as a beached whale !

I'm sure they do Pete but not having Yen's contacts or experience in the "underworld" of public sewerage, I don't have any other way to suggest entry to the delights of the Parisien poo park.

you can do guided tours of the parisien sewer network... https://www.pariszigzag.fr/balades-excursions/balade-paris/visite-des-egouts-de-paris

BMW's riding round France can be hears saying ti each other " My grandfazer vos here, durink ze vor. Ja, but he had no veels, only traks on both zides und a big gun in ze front... "

Only that it was one of the 5 designated beaches, right in the centre between Juno and Omaha... around Arromanches. The problem with visiting the beaches today is that they bear no resemblance to what they did 10 or 15 years ago, let alone 77 years ago, coastal erosion has completer remodelled the landscape, though I believe you can still see the remains of the Mulberry harbours, one of which would have been on Gold Beach, the Other on Omaha. As a kid I studied the naval engagements surrounding D-Day ( obsessed by boats even then. so I could probably tell you what ships bombarded and then supported Gold beach, but I'm sure that's all on the web somewhere.