Hi Tom,
How is the motor biking going? You may have already put article up on thread about it(thought i have seen one recently somewhere) , but have you looked into 'counter balancing' much , a strange thing for a lot of people to get their heads around, some good clips on you tube etc to explain it tho.
Hi Ade, the motorbike is going great, touch wood.
On Sunday, I did a little repair job that I'm quite proud.
On my bike, the clamp part of the throttle assembly (See below) would rotate as I turned the throttle. I asked a bloke in a bike shop what the cause was and he said it was because a plastic retaining pin that fits into a hole in the handlebar had sheared off. He said the best fix was to cut a piece of old inner tube and trap it between the two halves of the clamp.
That didn't seem like a very elegant solution to me so I drilled the half of the clamp where the pis should be and screwed a self tapping screw so that it made threads in the plastic, then I removed the screw cut the head off, and ground away the threads that would protrude once it was screwed back in, and then I hack sawed a slot in the end so that I could turn it with a screwdriver now that the head was gone.
I screwed it back in to the now threaded hole and ta daa... the sheared off plastic pin was now replaced by a nice new metal one.
On Monday I had to go to Darley Dale nr Matlock. The weather forecast said it would be cold with a chance of rain. Well I've been wanting to do a test ride in less than ideal weather so I decided to go on the bike.
I planed a route that avoided motorways altogether and most main roads where I could. I went there via Nottingham, Ripley etc and came home via Swarkstone, Coalville etc. It was about 130 miles round trip, including a short sight-seeing detour around Wirksworth.
I wrapped up really well. Jeans, boiler suit, waterproof over trousers, teeshirt, fleece & waterproof coat. I was as snug as a bug in a rug.
I haven't intentionally tried counter-balancing, but I have noticed that I instinctively counter-steer when leaning into bends.
I found something else out on my way home from Darley Dale. I was asked if I could take a box full of pamphlets home with me so that I can drop them off in London when I go (By train) on Friday. They weighed about 15kg. I put them in my top box and I really knew they were there. The bike was fine to ride, but I had to compensate for the weight all the time, especially when maneuvering slowly or braking.
Also, I wouldn't recommend taking both hands off the bars if you have a lot of weight in your top box.
Off to google counter-balancing.