Once Round The Block…..

A little promotional advertising here…..

www.mekey-icetag.co.uk

A new product is about to come onto the market - MEkey - ‘Your key to who you are’

Remember the old bits of card with emergency phone numbers scribbled on them - well the MEkey brings the medic alert card bang up to date with use of the latest usb technology.

A usb tag that you wear in case of emergency - ICE.  If you become unable to speak for yourself the tag includes everything at a glance for the emergency services - from your name to which allergies you have to what medication you are taking and emergency contacts.

Its ideal for bikers, cyclists, walkers, climbers, anyone who does adventure sports and for people who just want piece of mind

www.mekey-icetag.co.uk

As you can see i kinda like this idea and feel more people who undertake adventure sports should wear one of these cracking devices.

Rob is out of hospital now and has a cracking ‘well ard’ looking 6″ scar that any bro in the hood would be showing off with pride!

Its been decided that France might be pushing things, soooooo to give him some milestones to help get to fitness again (which aint that fit really) the trip has been changed to a tour of Scotland.

So its a tartan tastic trip prob kicking off sometime June/July.  A new trip outline will be posted asap, but the first stop will be Dumfries.

For those of you who are not from the UK every year your bike/car has to pass an MOT test to say it is road worthy (or is that to get more money for the government??)

My bike went in for its test on Saturday and passed with flying colours.  So for the rest of the day I had the pleasure of riding round the Peak District (a national park close to where I live) in nice warm sunshine.  Very nice.

Rob has his bike MOT next Sat so fingers X’d that his passes ok

I have to admit, this morning was a tad surreal - Walking round Lidl with Rob at 8.15am!!!!!! It kinda goes like this…….

This week Lidl is the only supermarket in the UK to be selling motorbike kit! I know what you are all thinking, but last week it was fishing tackle! According to Rob you have to get in there on the Monday morning as its a first come and its yours, there is no ‘Have you got this in a blue’ or ‘Mmmmm have you got it in a medium’ - basically if its there you can have it.

Below are a couple of pics of whats on offer…….

I have to admit I didnt believe him  - but truly the only people in there were at the motorbike kit section, and were they buying……. Oh yes, like people who were bonkers

I was going to get a new rain suit for 12 quid, but decided against it and in the end got a bike lock for 9 quid and a ’spare’ bike to bike radio for 24 notes (bargain)

Here is a quick run down of some of the bargains….

• Bike jacket - £58.71
• Fliptop Helmet - £39.99
• Tank Bag - £18.58
• Bike to Bike Comms - £24.45 (you will both need one!)
• Rider to Pillion Comms - £7.82
• Plus loads of other stuff

Ok so its not Buffalo, Arai, Alpinestar etc, but when you think about it, if the label is on the outside there is summat wrong

So if you want to bag a bargain (next to the fluffy slippers and the paper cups, and across from the broccoli) this week and this week only (or maybe only tomorrow)….. tiptoe down to Lidl.

Oh and I got some garden bags and Penguin cake bars just to round things off

The weather has picked up loads from the last post so we decided to go out for a blast and wake the bikes up after the winter break.

Everything was good - nice ride through town to meet up with Rob, bike feeling ok, me feelin great to be back on the bike.  Stopped and had a quick chat with Rob and then it happened - a box full of 1st gears

After a few choice words and a scratch of the head,  out came the emergency screwdriver to find about 2mm of clutch fluid in the reservoir.  Mmmmm now that cant be good

A quick trip to the local motor shop and £5 later im the proud owner of half litre of dot4 break and clutch fluid.  Anyway filled it up without looking at the cover - ooops! big rubber bung pushes into the liquid, so now have far too much of the stuff

Rob had a bit of a moment and produced some tubing to suck some of it out… (As it was his idea he did the sucking (o’er!!!)).  Once all the sucking was done we had only added about a couple of teaspoons.  (cos oddly thats all it would take) and then let the bike tick over for a few min.

Once that bit of fun was over had a crackin 40 odd mile run to start checking the bike comms ready for the trip - So todays hot tip…….. If you have a box of 1st gears, swear a bit then add a couple spoons of dot4 and then leave to simmer for 5 mins All verrrrry odd if you ask me.

But the bike to bike comms works well managed to hold a conversation of sorts about 1/2 mile apart.  Hoping to test on motorway tomorrow if the weather is ok (and i have 6 gears to play with!!!)

Yesterday we did some work on Robs bike, so I would imagine some pics and a post might apear soon.  Re-fitted a 12v take off to the dash of his bike.

totally off the blog topic - but click here for some snowy pics of Italy

February and the UK has had some proper snow The problem with this country is the authorities really dont know what to do with it!  All they do is put some grit down and then cant understand why people cant get about.  How about doing things like clearing the stuff first!!!!  Simple concept I know.

Ive just got back from the Dolomites where we had about half metre in a few hours overnight.  What they do is simple…… Clear the roads with snow ploughs and amazingly the road is clear.

As you can see it kinda bugs me when authorities blame it on the things like ‘the wrong kind of snow’ or ‘it all happened so quick’ or ‘we have no grit’ - its winter - plan for it!!!!

Well thats my rant out of the way now

Rob is obsessed with having clean wheels - me on the otherhand, well lets just say im not that bothered as I would expect a bike like mine to be a bit grubby

Anyway the otherday when he was sorting his chain out he managed to get oil and crap on the rear wheel - after a quick trip to SMC in sheffield he was the owner of some motorbike de-greaser and in a few mins the proud owner of a nice sparkley wheel again.

Well I spose it couldnt hurt so knicked his Auto-Glym and had a go on mine…..  Below are a couple of ‘before’ and ‘after’ pics.  Anyway Ive done it now so thats prob the last time they get a clean for a couple of years

a few years of muck i think there

now thats a wheel Rob would be proud of!

Picked up a copy of Lois On The Loose over the weekend as the cover notes sounded quite good.

Pinching the text from the book notes here………

Lois Pryce has one big passion in life: Motorcycles.  This is the story of how she threw in the day job and followed her dream of escaping.  But she didnt escape a little bit.  She rode her motorcycle from the northernmost corner of Alaska to the southernmost tip of South America - Alone.

lois on the loose

Ive just started it and its a pleasing read.  The section in Alaska makes me wanna go even more than I did before.  Looking forward to the Canadian and USA sections in the next couple of days.

Not sure if Ive missed it, but Id love to know how she funded such a trip (own money!, sponsorship etc)

Turns out she is married to Autin Vince of Mondo Enduro fame (another cracking read!)  Some of the stuff they got upto just made me smile and smile and wonder how they didnt get into bigger scrapes than they did.  If you come across a copy then get it and be amazed at their antics.

Travelling by car is like watching a movie, but riding a motorcycle is like being in one!

Things are starting to happen now.  The blog is about ready for lots of updates and photos to be posted.  I finally got an updated road atlas of France as the one Id been using was about 9 years old!

During 2008 I went round Europe on the bike and one of the things I could have really done with was a 12v take off point on the dash of the bike.  On the Caponord there is a factory fitted one down by your left leg, but thats not so good for powering a GPS etc.  So at the back end of the summer out came the tools and off came the dash.  Below are a couple of pics showing the finished product…..

showing the 12v plug

closer view of 12v

Im hoping this is going to make my life a tad easier - If you own a Coponord and you fancy having a go at adding a 12v point on the dash then Ive done a step by step guide as I had to make it up as I went along (its always better knowing someone has done it before you).

This is a blog site for a bike trip to Northen France towards the end of May 2009.  Dont know why I set blogs up for bike trips and not  any other time, probably because I think people will be more interested in them than a blog about a long weekend in Skeggy!