The end of a riddle and some new shoes

Winter here is finally coming to an end (Woo Hoo!) with only one month of winter left one can't wish hard enough that the spring will come early. I haven't really had much chance to get out on the bike at all, partly due to the crap weather coupled with the fact I needed new tyres which is now rectified also I have been away the last couple of weekends visiting my mum who was in hospital due to a hip replacement.

I finally got the bike in to the shop for new hoops this week. We can't all be as lucky as Eric and have our own tyre changing machine. While the bike was at the shop I also asked them to check the steering head bearings. When I had washed the bike a couple of weeks ago I went up to get some fuel. I wasn't wearing ear plugs for such a short journey like I do if I'm on a long trip and when I applied the front brake I could hear a clunking sound coming from the front end. The end result was that, as I had suspected the steering head bearing were shot.I took the bike for a short run down some hills nearby and lent back and took my hands off the bars. No tank slapping occurring now. Great now the handling is sorted its time for a ride next weekend.

Incidentally I was going to put on another set of Michelin Pilot Power Pure's but when I spoke to the guy at the shop he said they didn't have any and that a lot of riders were reporting that they were wearing funny on the front causing handling problems. I just had a set of those on my R1 and had no sort of drama's as he described. Tarsnakes recently told me he had a similar issue with them on his VFR. I wonder if these so called wear/handling issues come about due to heavy bikes. The VFR is 34Kg heavier than my R1. This could cause excessive wear on the front tyre possibly. It could be that the lighter the bike the better those tyres perform.

Anyway I decided I would try Michelins new Pilot Power 3. Hopefully I will get roughly the same amount of Km's  out of these as I did with the power pure although I don't think I will. I had 58804 km on the bike when I got them put on.

Pilot Power 3

There's very little tread on the sides of these tyres so it doesn't look like they will be great wet weather tyres but they do look like they will be great tyres for spirited riding in the twisties. Time will tell.

Once I'd got the bike home on Sunday I also did an oil and filter change on the bike. Now all is in readiness for next weeks ride, as long as it not 6°C and raining.

Bring on the summer!

Contemplating a new bike

I have had my current bike a 2000 model Yamaha YZF R1 for 13 years now, which is an eternity from a biking technology point of view. From new it's pretty much ticked all the boxes for me. It's got plenty of power although I always seem to want more. Is that just a guy thing? It has great handling for a bike of its age and it has held up remarkably well in the styling stakes. It was built with an aggressive look which it still has in this day and age of ultra sleek styled bikes. It just goes to show how far ahead of it's time it was when it was released.

I have been contemplating updating my bike for some time now. There have been several reasons that I haven't actually gone out and bought something newer, lack of funds has been the major factor in that. Throw in the fact that we have had our second daughter in the last 5 years and that really tends to put a dent in anything motorcycling related as well as sucking the bank account dry, faster than an R1 goes 0-60.

Well anyway I've been wondering what sort of bike I should get when the time does finally come that I have enough funds to make the upgrade. Should I get another sports bike or should I go down the sports tourer path for a bit more comfort as I'm not getting any younger, or do I take a bit of a different angle and get a hooligan bike like a naked 1000cc. Mmmm decisions decisions. All of the bikes these days are so good there doesn't seem to be much real difference in performance in the real world. The following list of bikes are on my wish list at the moment for when I finally make the upgrade hopefully soon...

Naked Bikes
The first naked bike that grabbed my attention is the Triumph Speed Triple 1050. I was spying one of these out last time I was at the bike shop. Nice looking bike. I reckon I could have a lot of fun on this thing.....

Pro's: ABS, Single sided swing arm, light weight
Con's: Lack of weather protection

The second naked bike that I like is Kawasaki's Z1000. Now this bike doesn't look as good as the Speed triple but there is still something about this bike I can't put my finger on, maybe its the Kawasaki build quality or the fact kwaka engines have a charismatic growl.

 

Pro's: Cheaper than the Striple, ABS, light weight
Con's: Bit on the fugly side

The next naked bike I like is a brutal looking bit of gear. Its MV Augusta 1090 Brutale. I like the look of these but I'm not sure whether or not I would actually get one or not being a cash strapped dad and all..

Pro's: Traction Control, Single sided swing arm, light weight
Con's: Lack of weather protection, No ABS, price(its around 8k dear than the Z1000)

Sports Tourer
The next bike is in the sports tourers category. I could quite easily see myself slipping into a sports tourer, just for the fact that I could ride longer distances and not be as tired at the end of the day.

It's no secret that I don't mind Kawasaki's, having previously owned 2. The next one is the biggest mother of them all. The Kawasaki's ZX-14. I have had a look at them close up in the bike shop and they look very good, I could do some 2 up touring with the missus with one of these bad boys. Although that's probably not that likely to happen with the little ones for the next couple of years.

Pro's: ABS, Comfortable, as a certain Sith lord once said "Unlimited Power", 2 up touring ability
Con's: 268kg porker, those hideous cans

Sports Bikes
The next bike on my wish list would have to be the ultimate sports bike in its class. With leading edge technology dripping from this thing is it any wonder it has won about every award there is except most comfortable tourer. The BMW S1000RR.

Pro's: Everything, ABS, traction control, quick shifter, power & handling
Con's: Price, touring could be very uncomfortable

The next bike on the wish list is another Kawasaki, gee there certainly seems to be a few in my list. The ZX-10 is kwaka's litre sized weapon. This could be fun.

Pro's: ABS, traction control, power & handling, steering damper
Con's: Cheaper than BMW, LED tacho looks like a cheap gimmick

The last bike on my wish list would have to be Yamaha's new YZF R1. I mean why wouldn't I look at updating to a newer one. I have loved my old R1, I love the sound of the new cross plane crank. The only draw back I see is that it doesn't have any ABS which most of the competitors do. Also the rear taillight area is pretty hideous as well. Whoever at Yamaha designed that needs to be taken out the back and flogged.

Pro's: Traction control, Cross plane crank, slipper clutch
Con's: No ABS, Bike is a porker at 218kg wet, my old R1 is 201kg wet.

I have taken quite a while to piece this blog post together for one reason or another, but after putting some thought into it I was thinking "Do I even need any of this new technology". I mean my current bike doesn't have any of this it still has carburetters for gods sake. Really what is all this stuff for?

The only conclusion that I can come up with is that all of this stuff is for rider safety. The big one here for me would have to be ABS. My next bike I'd like to have ABS on it just in case. I mean I'm only human and all it takes is one little mistake under brakes and everything can come unstuck. At least ABS may stop that from happening.

I noticed that 3 of the bikes here were in the seven days seven bikes blog challenge from 2 years ago. Once I have the funds available I'll be test riding these beauties to see which one I like to make my final decision. Till then I'm still just dreaming.....

1 Litre Farkle

There really hasn't been much riding happening around chiller HQ since our ride to Wee Jasper last month, I have been so busy with life in general I haven't even washed the bike since the trip either. I still need to put some new tyres on the bike and it pretty much hasn't moved from its spot in the garage.Lucky its winter and the enthusiasm has been a bit low for riding anyway. If it was summer and no riding then I might go nuts.

Well anyways just an update to show my new purchase, a farkle of a different type if you will...... a 1 litre farkle. It keeps me sane in an insane world.

Sydney Tower

On the weekend I decided to take the family to one of Sydney's other famous icons. The Sydney Tower Eye or as most aussie's know it as centre point tower in the middle of the city. My wife had won some free passes so I thought it would be a great experience for the kids to enjoy the day out. And to be honest I wanted to go and have a look at the tower since I haven't been up there since I was about 11 years old. I don't know who was more excited me or my 5 year old princess.

 The tower is Sydney's tallest building standing at 309m, which in world terms is pretty small. Auckland's Skytower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere at 328m, although the observation deck of sydney tower is 50m higher than the Skytower in NZ. These are very small next to the worlds tallest building Burj Dubai at a whopping 828m which is nearly 3 times the height.

It may not be one of the tallest buildings in the world but the views from the observation deck are pretty spectacular. The day we were there was on a Sunday with clear blue sky's and only a little haze in the sky. You could see for 80km from this height.

North to Harbour

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Queen Victoria Building

St Marys Cathedral

Little miss 5 year old was much impressed with the views and was running about looking at everything. Things were going to plan as I knew that she would be well and truly buggered by the end of the day leaving me and the missus with a quiet evening. It was funny when little miss 5 called Sydney tower the Eiffel tower. We all had a good laugh as well as another lady nearby.

Darling Harbour and west to the Blue Mountains

South to Botany Bay

Sydney Cricket Ground(SCG) and Football stadium

ANZAC Memorial

East to Sydney Harbour

My 3 girls loving their day out

Michelin Pilot Power Pure - Review

This review is my personal thoughts on the Michelin Pilot Power Pure(PPP) tyre from a complete novice(I'm no racer) although I'm no beginer either. Following on from Geoff James excellent post on the Michelin Road 3 tyres and his great advice on them I thought I'd give you a run down on my thoughts on these tyres.

Firstly what am I looking for in a tyre? There are a couple of things that I am looking for in a set of tyres. In order of importance for me.

1. Performance - Most of my riding is on the weekends which involves riding some of the local twisties or as the yanks say canyons. Its mostly fast sports riding, throw in a bit of city riding and some touring to get to the twisties, its been a long time since I've done some tracks days but I used to use Pilot Powers for track days and never had any problems what so ever. I've been known to put a super soft race spec front tyre in with a standard rear. My theory is that you can never have enough grip on the front, the rear is not as important. Most of the time the front tyre is only half worn out by the time the rear is gone so with the super soft front I'm getting more confidence inspiring tyre to do the same amount of work. I always replace front and rear at the same time, I think its false economy to put in a new rear with an old worn front. The front is now out of shape so handling is not quite as good as it should be.

2. Lifespan - Life cycle of the tyre is also an important consideration. My expectation out of a sports tyre is anywhere from 4-5000kms. My first rear tyre on my R1 only lasted 2500kms before becoming completely bald on both the centre and the edges. That to me is far to short on the road. I read on Geoff's blog he's getting 13,000kms out of a set of tyres. I was quite amazed really to read that, I'd never heard of that many km on a motorcycle tyre before. But for me I want to know that I have the grip available to ride the way I do. I'm not sure the PR3 will have the levels of grip that the PPP will have. but who knows they will probably still be better than me.

3. Cost - Obviously cost is a big factor as well. I don't want to pay huge prices for the tyres either. This one kind of goes hand in hand with the life cycle of the tyre

The tyres that I was using previous to these were the Michelin Pilot Power 2 (PP2) which I was very happy with. These were sports tyres that I got very good wear out of and they had good levels of grip. Before that I was using Dunlop D208 sports tyres and there were quite a few big differences in the 2 different tyre brands. Some of which were tyre life and the levels of grip from cold to hot. The dunlops heated up much faster giving higher levels of grip earlier, where as the Michelin took a lot longer to heat up to give the same amount of grip. The dunlop also couldn't match the Michelin in the wet for feel.

A few years ago Colin Edwards, world superbike champ and motogp legend tested the PP2 on his motogp machine at Sepang as seen here in this you tube video. Check out 1:51 where he is smoking em up out of the bends. Wicked stuff. Love his initial comments on riding on street tyres.




If Colin can push these street based tyres to the limits like this to be within 8 seconds of his motogp time then there is no way that someone of my skill level will reach the limits of this tyre. I'll hit my limits before the tyres do.

So most of my riding on these have been sports riding or sports touring, 95% of the time in the dry. I try and not ride in the rain anymore if I can help it. When they first went on I had my full touring rack+bag on the back high over the back wheel and coming down some gentle slopes I'd relaxed and removed my hands from the bars the bike started into a small slap of the bars that if I didn't grab it soon enough it would soon develop into a fairly large slap. I'd check the alignment with only the marks on the bike itself which looked good but as Geoff says this could be a mile out. So that may be a problem. It hasn't really been a problem after I'd put some K's on the tyres. Could it be loose steering head bearings? I'm not sure.

The front is confidence inspiring with great feel and feedback. The tyre doesn't flop or fall into a curve it just turns in nice and steadily, exactly proportional to the rate that I'm counter steering. I'm usually running pressure at about 34 psi front and 36-38 at back. If I want to do some really hard riding I might want to drop them a bit, to say 31-32F/33-34R but I don't usually do that much anymore. This tends to wear the tyre a lot faster, nice if you like to get balls of rubber across your tyre. If I know that I'll be doing a lot of straight road riding which I normally don't do then I'll put the pressures up to 36 F/41R just so they don't wear as fast.

These pictures are after 4600 km's on these tyre in sports riding mode.

Front shape still nice and round

Rear shape still nice and round

Still plenty of tread on the sides

The last trip that I went on to Wee Jasper was the end of these tyres as you can see from these pictures below, the tyre is now on the wear marker in the centre and almost on the side. Time for a new set. The speedo reading was 58,792km which means I got 6360km's out of this set of tyres. Not too bad for a sports tyre.

Tyres with 6360 Km's on them at the end of their lifespan.

I'd noticed on the way home that they were starting to get hard to turn into a bend as they seem to have developed a flat spot in the middle making initial turn in a bit harder than usual. Now they are on the wear markers in the centre its time for new rubber. I don't mess around and try and get another 500kms out of them. I think that it gambling too much and also false economy. I'd rather fork out for some new tyres which will also transform the handling again to super quick turn in.

All in all I quite like these tyres as they seeming have plenty of grip during spirited riding are also very confidence inspiring in the rain and with almost 6500kms out of them are excellent value for money.


EDIT: A few riders have mentioned that on some of their bikes that they have had the front tyre square off on these tyres. It seems if you own a heavy bike 230kg+ that this happens with. I had no dramas like this with my R1 but it only weights 201kgs.

Licence Renewal

I had to renew my licence last week which I'd nearly forgotten. Here in NSW you can get 1 year, 3 year or a 5 year license. I had previously a Gold 5 year licence. When I went down to the Roads and traffic authority(RTA) to renew my licence I handed it over to the nice lady behind the counter. She looked at it and then looked at me. Then she proceeded to proclaim that I am such a good driver that I qualify for a 50% discount on my renewal.

WTF?

 

 

Are you F#&kin serious was my first thought! then woo hoo Half price licence was my second. Heh I just had to laugh, I thought that they should be tearing up my licence not telling me I'm a fantastic driver and giving me a discount. I mean seriously. How do they figure that one out. If you haven't had a speeding ticket in the last 5 years your considered a good driver??? By that standard I could have run 40 people off the road and killed all of them but since I haven't had a ticket I'm considered a good driver.

 

 

I'm not knocking a cheap licence but they seriously have no idea about anything. Another great example of a clueless government department right there. I'll let you decide.

What's this then?

A parcel arrived at my front door today. I thought what the heck could this be I haven't ordered anything lately.

As it turned out flyboy has given me an early birthday present. Thanks mate. Looks like you want me to do all the planning.

Great suggestion Geoff, now I'm gonna have my reading and planning cut out for me.

3 Amigos in Wee Jasper

A ride opportunity had come up with Wayne and Geoff on Sunday/Monday. With no one having any idea of where they wanted to go, I quickly reeled off the Oxley Hwy as we hadn't done that in a long time. But unfortunately for us, all the accommodation at Gingers Creek had been booked out. I had been thinking of the Ride down to Wee Jasper as I had read about it in the Australian HEMA motorcycle atlas as one of this country's top 100 Rides. So it was decided that we would do that, as none of us had done that one before.

We picked up Wayne in the Blue Mountains on our way out to Oberon on Sunday morning. It had turned a bit chilly but not enough to use my neck warmer, although I had mine with me. But it soon warmed up to 20°C(68F) and we were having a great time out on the bikes. We had taken the road down into Jenolan Caves, but did not stop in today rather pushing on into Oberon for a late morning tea/early lunch.

Jenolan Lookout

Leaving Oberon we had normally gone out through Black Springs but instead this time we took an alternate route out through shooters hill road. This was a fantastic little jaunt over the crest of hills in between the pine forests.This was a spirited ride both on this and the return trip. We didn't stop again until we got into Taralga where we had stopped for a quick break/drink at the pub. The full autumn colours were out on show for us here in the main street of Taralga.

Autumn in Taralga

After Goulburn there wasn't any alternative but going up the Hume Hwy, for 82km of excruciatingly painful straight Hwy miles to which we'd nearly got done by the local constabulary. I was doing an a little over the limit and enough to be given a ticket, it was a 110kmh zone when I saw him. He must have been asleep or something to get away with that one. This is where I though F*#k this, I don't ever want to ride the Hume again.

Not long after we'd gotten into Yass and turned off to our final destination for the day, Wee Jasper. The road into there has just about every sort of bend there is. It's a fantastic motorcycle road, which eventually comes out at Tumut. It's a bit unfortunate that the road from Wee Jasper to Tumut has about 20km of dirt otherwise this would be the best way up into the snowy mountains on the way to Philip Island.

Here is a short video of the road down to the bridge over the Murrumbidgee River on the way.




Here's another short video of me chasing Geoff up the hillside after the bridge over the Murrumbidgee River. Riding into the sun at the end of the day was quite challenging, going in and out of the shadows and blinding sun. It's also where Geoff encountered a caravan halfway round one of the bends, a bit surprised me thinks was he.





This was one seriously fun road, but there was a lot of Sunday afternoon traffic which included about 10 rescue vehicles and probably 5 or 6 police vehicles. Geeze and in the middle of nowhere too.
The ride out in the morning was a lot better than the ride in as the sun wasn't directly in our faces as it was late in the arvo. The scenery around this area was spectacular even in late autumn when it was brown and dead looking. It would be very pretty in spring time.

By the time we had reached the bottom of the hills and crossed the Wee Jasper bridge it was time to hit the only place in town that was open, the pub. The pub used to be an old horse stable back in the 1800's but has been turned into this rustic little pub. It looked quite nice. Everything about the area was fantastic. Then we met the publican who it turned out was an aged woman who could talk the ears off a rocking horse. I think the term that came up was very eccentric. Although she did a pretty mean pizza that was spicy just like I like them.

Wee Jasper Tavern

There are only 2 cabins at the pub, one has 2 beds and the other has one, so not that much accommodation for travellers but plenty of camping space if your camping your way to Philip Island. The cabins were adequate with a TV and DVD, but there was no TV channels so you only have a choice of DVD's. Geoff was disappointed they had no porn.

The other thing we noticed as we grabbed a beer and walk up to the bridge for a look around was that there was a blue fibre optic cable hanging through the tree's and tapped onto the bridge. It turns out that this is part of Gillards NBN roll out to which we found out later was put in to feed the local school for 10 kids at the cost of ½ million dollars. And wow the absolute quality or workmanship showed through for that ½ Mill. This is where our tax money is going on useless crap that isn't even installed correctly or to any wiring standard known in this country. The cable was hanging in the tree's and had some electrical tape holding it to the bridge. Whoever did this needs to be fired. I can't wait till we can get rid of Julia in September. You can see the cable just above Geoff's head in the photo below.

Monday morning started with the short but oh so much fun ride out of Wee Jasper the way we had come in. For some reason none of the images on the Gopro turned out today, they all were coloured orange and worthless. What a bummer as some of these would have been great in the early morning.

We stopped in at Yass for breakfast, and from here decided to take some new roads we haven't been on before. Anything to keep off the dreaded Hume Hwy. We tracked up through Crookwell and then across to Taralga, which there was 5kms of good dirt, but the ride through here was fantastic. It was a great way to avoid the hume hwy and was winding country side. We were all pretty chuffed about these new roads we'd found.

Here's the return journey map link.

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