Motorbikes

Another ride out on the motorcycle

Alistair Laing — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:53:00 GMT

Out again for a short ride yesterday, so I took part of the route we travelled on my Qualified Observers test the other week. A nice wee bimble, so I connected up the curly Autocom lead and plugged in the MP3 player to listen to some tunes on the way.

Setting out from home I got some petrol at Shell Lizzie Bryce, just near the house, only needed about half a tank or so but wanted to make sure I was well fueled up for the wee run to the borders. Then off along the A71 to join the Edinburgh bypass, then along to Fairmilehead to take the road South to the Borders.

I left the A720 and turned South to join the A702, this is a gently undulating road with a few villages and 3d stuff going on i.e. it goes left and right and goes up and down, with some bits where both happen. I travelled on this south until you come across the A721 turning left off the A702. On a map it doesn't look much, but because it is a major intersection the junction is well painted, laid out and has good visibility leading up to it. On the way down the A702 there are a couple of 40 and 30 limits to take account of. On my run yesterday there were a couple of interesting vehicles - both with accelleration belying their size. One was a camper van which could shift once out of the lower gears, and another was a middle size coach. It made planning an overtake interesting as once they were up to 45 ish they would pull quite strongly to 60, making an overtake a bit difficult.

Once at the A702 I cut across the wee twisty road to the A72, which is a fairly well used route north to Edinburgh. On this route it gives a hint at what is to follow. The Scottish Borders are covered with a network of rivers cutting their way to either the East or West Coasts to join the major rivers of the Clyde and Forth, so most roads will find you either following a river valley or cutting up and across a river valley. This means lots of twisting with ascents and descents, which means you have to keep your wits about you. At this point I stayed on the A72, which rather than continuing North cuts West. Turning the corner faces you with a sobering sign - on this road they post temporary warning signs for bikers during the summer months, showing the number killed or seriously injured on the road. Taking this into account I took my time.

The A72 in this direction starts by following a river valley along the side of "Tarth Water" as it heads to join a larger river "Lyne Water" as you can guess the smaller river valley twists and turns as does the road that has been built along the side of it. These twists are also known as the Castle Craig Corners and have unfortunately seen a few accidents. I took it easy along there, having come the other direction to find gravel on my line in the past. As the valley joins the larger river it opens out to be less twisty, but with that comes more speed. This showed itself with a van and car having a race coming the other direction, no problem though as you can see them across the valley to the left under Hog Hill. Then we cross the river further on so the slope is now on our left instead of the right. Coming down to Peebles introduces more sweeping curves with the odd strange corner due to the landscape. Nearer the Western Approach to Peebles we also have more trees - these are conifer based forests so they are there all year round, rather than the hedgerows at the moment which are thicker during the summer months. Along there was a left hander with flowers attached to the fence - a memorial to someone who didn't do so well on the road.

I had a wee stop at the carpark on the left as you go in to Peebles, and had a wee go at slow maneuvering - still a big weak point for me but practice will help. Then I got off and tucked my gloves into my sleeves while it wasn't raining. Thankfully it didn't rain at all that day, but it meant some more flies.

Then I headed North on the A703 Edinburgh road, with a couple of overtakes. I was taking it easy again and perhaps missed one or two safe opportunities because I was dawdling, no massive problem there. Then through Penecuik and joined the A720 at the same place. It was beginning to get into rush hour so I did some filtering up the middle of the two lanes, taking my time. Lots of drivers move out of the way (both trucks and cars) to assist even though there was plenty of room. Thanks to them for that. I take it really steadily and only filter really when the traffic is stationary, moving back in to lane when it gets moving again.

Then off at the Calder junction with a reminder of the white van man syndrome you see there a lot. Two things happen a lot at this junction with the A71 - Sighthill has a lot of delivery company depots so at teatime they all rush home to base. This means a lot of vans making last minute swerves off the bypass onto the slip road - so if you see a red or yellow van in the outside lane at Baberton, watch out for them. The other vans take the right lane for a left turn onto the A71, to try and beat the queue. Such is, but most drivers of that ilk will also race you to the roundabout at the park and ride to get ahead of you. I had a white van undertake me last night, which then meant I had to follow him all the way to the turn off for Kirknewton. An object lesson in patience for me - whatever lane you take on approach to the roundabout at the Hermiston Park and Ride, such a driver will dive to the other lane and try to beat you to the A71. Note to self - spot them at the slip road and let them sit on the tail of someone else.

So a nice wee short ride followed by a quick chat on the phone with Nigel Bowers who is a really nice chap from Staffordshire who earns a few pennies for his retirement helping people to ride their motorcycles better. He has an interesting technical setup on his bike involving three cameras, sony recording kit, Autocom audio wiring and bike to bike comms. He has also posted a large number of videos on Youtube, which can now be viewed in high quality too!

A wee ride out on the Motorbike

Alistair Laing — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:58:00 GMT

I thought I would do the equivalent of obtaining Dumbo's feather and now have a new set of Bridgestone BT-021s on my R1100RS, so there is nothing apart from my head to fix on the bike.

There was a minor mixup from the supplier to the garage and they gave me a call on Friday to apologise that they had been sent BT-020s and had ordered the proper tyres for a Saturday delivery, so they kept the bike overnight for me so they could fit the tyres when they arrived.

As it was I had planned a day out on Saturday so I was through in Glasgow and arranged to pick up the bike on Sunday at C&J Wilsons in Uphall. After lunch at the Burrell Collection, we popped over to Hein Gericke on Great Western Road. Strangely enough hardly anything fit apart from their discount range so I now have a new textile jacket and pants at about half the price of my original HG kit. I've also got new boots on order, Alpinestars GPS-3 WPs (shiny shiny).

Roll on to today to run the tyres in, I picked the bike up in Uphall - checking the pattern on the front tyre which is much cooler than the BT-020, then up the M9 past Stirling and up to the little chef for a late breakfast. All was good and working on turning corners without too much panic setting in, and learning how to travel in a straight line with a rear tyre with a proper profile on it!

Then headed further up the M9 towards Perth and the Broxden roundabout where I fueled up, still a bit slow on slow (and particularly slow left handers - see my previous posts) stuff but getting there. Then the rain started. Had a few circuits around the streets of Perth - down past the Tay, past Dunkeld Road, past the bus station. All to practice slow speed lefts and rights. I need to keep practising to get rid of the feeling I am going to drop the bike, and although at first I was running a bit wide I started getting it tighter.

Then out of town and the rain was picking up, came off the M90 and decided whether or not to go through Newburgh to Cupar, but decided to head Glenfarg way - haven't been there for years. I thought it was twistier than that - or perhaps I'm getting better. Up through there and a right turn and through Milnathort. What a surprise it was to see all of the house building work in the area. Then on through Kinross and Cowdenbeath, old stomping grounds and I worked there in my summer holidays from Fife College. Rain was getting heavier and heavier, so I chose to head back to the M90 through Crossgates and joined at Halbeath. Then a pretty nondescript ride back via the M8 to Livingston.

A reminder for wet riding though - a small tip is to remember to tuck your gloves under your waterproof kit. All of my stuff has the membranes and keeps me dry, but today all of the water was running off my jacket into the cuffs of my gloves. I swear water ran out when I lifted my arms at the end of my journey. I should have tucked them in at the petrol stop at Broxden rather than leave them, and I would have had dry gloves. All my stuff is dripping round the house now

Motorbike Tyres

Alistair Laing — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:41:00 GMT

The bike is in getting a new pair of tyres, the front is getting a bit near the wear indicators for comfort and the rear is quite squared off. What happens over time is that the round profile of a rear motorcycle tyre gets worn off as you ride upright most of the time. After a while this makes it harder to steer as you go over the new square edge.

I've decided to go for the new Bridgestone Battlax sport touring tyres the BT-021s front and back. The bike got a pair of their predecessors over 2 years ago and they have been fine for me. The bike was booked in to get the wheels changed with the new tyres but apparently the garage supplier sent BT-020s, so they have a Saturday order in to try and get the bike back to me tomorrow.

There is blurb etc about what they've done to develop the tyres, but the main change I can see is that the tread pattern on the front looks more funky.

Latest on the broken Motorbike

Alistair Laing — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:27:00 GMT

Latest update on the broken Motorcycle is that it is progressively getting unbroken. I patched it up with gaffer tape last week and took it out for a run on Friday night, but got to the petrol station at Dreghorn to find my left foot and lower leg covered in oil. Not the best in any situation, but it was pouring with rain and made things really slippery.

The bike was running fine though, but this had me thinking all sorts of crazy things about cracked cylinder head or other terrible things. So I laid a trail of oil on the way home and put the bike away in a rather dejected state. Then I did a bit of comedy trying to get my oily stuff off without getting oil on the carpet. Thank goodness it was dark when I got home ;)

I phoned up George the mechanic and arranged to see him on Tuesday evening, and let the folks know that I wouldn't make the charity run I'd hoped to be on on Sunday. Tuesday night and George spent 10 minutes discovering that I had failed to mount the inner seal properly on the LHS valve cover I had fitted. It was effectively blowing oil out round the spark plug and making a right mess. So went back home and fitted the new seal I still had in its bag at home.

In the middle of the week I got a second hand fairing so I'm making contact with a chap who's details were given to me and get him to spray the red fairing to blue to match the bike. So tonight I took 90 minutes to remove the existing front fairing in preparation for handing that over for the paint match and the new one to get sprayed.

Things are coming together, next thing once the bike is back together is to get my confidence back up on the bike.

Gaffer tape

Alistair Laing — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:59:00 GMT

I'm going to have a bit of fun over the weekend and tape the small broken bit of my bike together with some blue Gaffer tape I bought over the web. Roadies and the like no doubt know all about the wonderful qualities of the stuff but I have only just found the wonderful gaffertape.com and the multitude of tack levels and colours available. So I've got a couple of rolls in blue, the colour of my motorbike. I'm going to do a temporary tape up job to stop the indicator blowing away.

Fell off my bike today :(

Alistair Laing — Sun, 04 May 2008 21:40:00 GMT

I was out for my Observer practical test and fell off my bike. I was getting along fine and I was down to Peebles and Galashiels and all of the way back up the A7, came up to the on-slip at Lasswade Junction on A720 for some reason a survival reaction kicked in as I made the turn and I put both brakes on and the bike went down on its left side with me.

Couple of holes in the bike - beside the LHS indicator, left hand valve cover. A few other scrapes on the bike too.

Scrapes to me are to my left boot, left arm, shoulder and knee got it too. Nothing really hurts on me apart from my right thumb, goodness knows what I was doing with that. So my kit looks a bit used - it took a while to spot the complete damage - there is a big black patch on my exhaust from where it melted through my left trouser leg.

As per usual the recovery was complicated, so I ended up with another RAC membership but thankfully the bike is now home and I can get some bits bought to fix it.

It wasn't much fun and I'm taking a pause and reconsidering training to be an Observer with the group - if I can't follow an Associate and stay on my bike then it is a bit pointless. I'm supposed to ride my own ride.

Tested out my radios last weekend

Alistair Laing — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:37:00 GMT

It has been a bit of a busy week, hence I am a bit slow in posting this. My writing efforts have also been devoted to drafting up a magazine article, only a short news report but hopefully it will end up in print - more to follow.

The article was about a training event held by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) for their Senior Observers in Scotland. I managed to blag my way in to helping out on the day. I originally offered to make the tea but got a minor promotion to signing folks in and talking photographs. As it turned out, due to numbers I actually ended out on the road with a couple of the other attendees, both Senior Observers - one was also one of the Organisers of the day. If you haven't read my earlier posts, an Observer is an unpaid volunteer who helps people along to their IAM Advanced test, Senior Observers are a step along from a so-called Qualified Observer and they have to go through extra testing outwith their local Groups.

Going back to last week, I ended out on the road on an Instructional run, and the examiner out with us had his radios along to connect us up for comms. This was an opportunity to give my bike to bike kit a test. I got my Autocom Kit 200 fitted recently at C&J Wilson in Uphall and this was great for my run down to Wetherby for providing tunes to listen to from my MP3 player. I've also got a bit of a setup working with TomTom Navigator 6 on my Orange SPV M600 phone. The Autocom kit comes with a hands-free lead to the standard 2.5mm (I think that is the size) socket on the phone. There is a wee bit of an issue with the bluetooth gps - all the stuff is chucked into the tail section of my R1100RS, and if the gps doesn't hear anything on the bluetooth for a while it shuts down to save battery. Together with my MP3 players habit of stopping now and again, it can mean for silent running at stages. On the other hand, when it all works the GPS kicks in with directions from time to time, fading out the music temporarily, then the music fades back in. The lead to the MP3 and the lead to the phone both connect directly into the Autocom unit in the tail of the bike, using pretty standard small black leads with 3.5 and 2.5 mm connectors at each end. To help my wee MP3 player I also have a boostaroo inline amplifier to help me hear the music.

There are three other connectors on the Autocom, two go to the headsets for rider and pillion and are 7 pin DIN connectors - big beefy waterproofed things, coloured black and finally there is a grey 5 pin connector which can be used for bike to bike communications. Going in to that is a wee straight and coiled lead - one end has the grey five pin connector to fit into the wire in the tailpiece, then a coiled bit then finally a right angled single connector that fits into the side of one of my Motorola T5622 radios. I tried these a few weeks ago on an Observed run but my Senior Observer couldn't hear anything so I gave up. In the meantime I ordered up a radio holder that will attach a radio to your arm or belt. They came with various bits of velcro so I attached these to the frame at the back of my bike which the top box fits in to and locks on.

I had the cabling, mounting and stuff for the radios and had the opportunity to try them out on the run. I quick change to channel and code on them - quite easy to do on the Motorola. Switch to scan, listen for the Examiners test signal and then set the channel and code to what was detected. First time I've done it and it worked fine. And the rest of the run was excellent from the comms perspective - the radio holder worked, I got good reception and could hear really well through the headset fitted for my Autocom in my BMW System 5 helmet. It wasn't as easy for the other two guys - they had to wear the standard receive kit that folks doing their DSA tests will be familiar with - a wee bag with a strap to take the helmet and earpieces in the helmet. Unfortunately for them I believe they already had other radio kit fitted, which meant rather painful pressure on their ears. The two of them were a lot more experienced on the bikes than me, so I'm sure they coped. It was a brisk progressive ride which meant safe riding all the way but up at the applicable speed limit wherever safe - the weather was really good so the roads were dry and warm and we were really getting a move on. I think the briefing given to the examiners on the day mentioned applying police standards to riding, and those guys can shift along on their big ST1300s.

Radio reception was really good on our run up through Crieff and Lochearnhead, the only time the signal broke up was further South when the examiner was round headlands where the road disappeared round a hill. Trees and things didn't create a problem with the signal - just the hard stuff like rocks etc. It was an excellent test of my radio, I don't know how much was down to the Icoms that the examiner was using but reception and clarity was excellent. All I need to do now is contrive some way to check with me on transmit.

i2imca Cone Effect 1

Alistair Laing — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Another rambling on my weekend with i2imca, this time a bit harder for me to explain. A big part of motorcycle stability is down to the gyroscopic effect of the two wheels - at even lowish speeds their spin helps keep the bike upright. There is also stuff that goes on because there are two wheels acting as seperate gyroscopes.

Anyway, as biker types know the way you turn is to use something called countersteering, which is a counter-intuitive thing that involves moving the bars the wrong way and making the bike tip the way you want. Otherwise providing the bike is going along fast enough (20mph ish) it will go in a straight line. Once you start leaning a thing called the cone effect comes in to play. Motorcycle tyres are not square in profile like car tyres, which never move from the vertical. Bike tyres have quite a round profile that helps the bike lean. And because of this the tyre walls (the bit between the rim of the wheel and the edge of a tyre) are only part of the rolling circumference of a tyre on a motorbike (doesn't quite sound right that bit). Anyway, because the radius of the tyre shortens off towards the rim, the more you lean over the smaller the radius - sound familiar? Half the cross section of a tyre looks like part of a cone. One thing cones do when you roll them is go round in circles, and providing you can lean far enough over you can get a bike to turn - albeit very very slowly, not enough to turn most corners.

For a proper techie explanation go look at Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design by Tony Foale over on google.

The cone effect is important to understanding how much you need to countersteer when leant over.

i2imca stories 1

Alistair Laing — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:50:00 GMT

I'm not sure that a huge blog post about my visit to i2imca is appropriate, so I think I'll post things as they come to mind. One of those is the concept they have of stories. I'm not sure if it is NLP based, but the idea is that we all have a perspective on the world and i2imca calls these stories. For example, "You will crash if you brake in a bend", "You will crash if you lock a wheel", "You steer a bike by hanging off", "Bikes crash in the wet", "Sports bikes are bad for tank slappers". These stories are based on what we know or understand, for instance watching MotoGP on the telly, by talking to your biking mates in the pub or based on what you understand of what has happened to you in the past.

The point is, some of these are wrong, miss an aspect of a situation or aren't quite the complete picture. For instance, bikes are naturally stable above a certain speed because of the two large spinning objects attached to the frame at each end, and that they behave the same way as any other gyroscope.

EDAM Run to Wanlochhead

Alistair Laing — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:15:00 GMT

At least I think that is how it is spelled. Went out on a Non Group Organised Run with EDAM yesterday, the clue in the title is that Group Organised Runs have to be run to a set of rules, and as a result get insurance cover whereas Non Group Organised Runs do not have cover, albeit that group members and friends may be out there.

It was my first run with EDAM and as my Senior Observer was organising it, I got the task of being at the Tail End. The idea was to run a drop off marker system, i.e. the Leader always stays at the front, the tail end rider is always at the back. The second rider at any point in time stops at any marked deviation from route (i.e. a junction when a turn is not simply straight ahead). Once the tail end rider appears (i.e. me) the marker heads off and I follow the route.

Things went generally well, but disintegrated a bit at the first stop. Two folks stuck to the marker and marked the route to Wanlochhead, the highest village in Scotland. I was at the tail following a rider at their own pace, which is fine by me - though I need to watch my old habit of following too closely. Unfortunately nobody had marked the turn off to the cafe at Wanlochhead (that said, it is a very small place and there is only one cafe) so the rider ahead kept going, I followed and we ended up about 15 miles later at a junction with no marker. At the back of my mind when I had been scanning I had been sure that I saw a group of bikes in a carpark below us on the right, but wasn't sure.

Anyways, I fired up the bluetooth gps, fired up TomTom on the phone and plotted a route to Moffat which had been mentioned. The Satnav reckoned the shortest / quickest route was back the way we had come and over to Elvanfoot. So I fired off a couple of SMS Text messages to two of the folks on the ride whos numbers I had then we turned and headed back. I led because the other chap wasn't sure of his bearings, so several miles later I cut off at a junction and there were the rest of the ride getting ready to leave.

So we rejoined and then there was a bit of confusion. I had checked the route and the plan had been to return via Elvanfoot (or whatever it is called) as the shortest route to Moffat, but most of the riders turned in the opposite direction. I couldn't see our Leader that direction, so looked around and right enough he was following the route the GPS had suggested. So I did a U-Turn (narrowly missing a red vfr popping out of a give way - such is) and joined. We waited for a short while but the rest of the group disappeared off the other way. Such is, the three of us headed off at a brisk but safe and legal pace. Off to Moffat and we didn't see anyone again (apart from one!).

Being as I missed my roll at Wanlochhead, I got a nice pie at the place we stopped at in Moffat that was called The Hammerlands Centre. For those of you that like such things, they have waittress service - I nice tradition and they even served us rufty tufty biker types. Then up the road past St Mary's Loch, over Tweedsmuir and another stop in Broughton at the team room there - very friendly, suprisingly busy and excellent.

I had good fun, and my i2imca skills are really helping my cornering. What happened with the rest of the group gave rise to some concerns, but I think it was a case of being a bit of a victim of its own success with a bigger turnout and wider level of experience in the riders than anticipated. I'm sure procedures will get tweaked and everyone will have fun.