Dear Diary,
Having teased the winter for not really showing up and slacking on the job, it decided to bite back. January had several frigid days, with warnings for ice and even a smattering of snow.
When it comes to winter riding, if it is damp and the temperature has been below zero overnight, I’m suspicious of the road conditions, especially when the day starts with a ride in the dark.
Ice has to be as bad as it gets. One minute, you are upright, and the next, the wheels aren’t going where I’m pointing them. No warning, just the hope you can control it.
I wimped out on a couple of such mornings and took the box, where an encounter with black ice would mean a quick slide, and then it would be back to business as usual.
Yet the riders of the Triumph Scrambler, the Kawasaki ZXR400 complete with vacuum cleaner hoses (c. 1996), and the Tracer 900GT put me to shame. Perhaps it was circumstances that had you riding, or maybe they are just made of sterner stuff than I am. Either way, the wimp in the box salutes you.
Bath Time
The gritting lorries have been out on a couple of occasions. Getting pelted by road salt as they spread it over the road remains as unpleasant an experience as I remember it from last winter. Listening to the rock salt pellets ping off the bike isn’t a sound I want to hear, and it fuels my desire to park the bike in a bath of FS365 at the end of each day.
So far, liberal use of FS365 appears to have kept the corrosion goblin at bay, along with a regular wash and polish when the temperature has drifted north of three degrees. The one good thing about winter is that I get to hone my bike-washing skills.
I have the mid-week wash and wipe down to 20 minutes. The weekend clean, though, still takes a little over an hour. Some broken tyre warmers would help. I’m sure they would be better for covering the Dunlop Mutants when applying FS365 than the old bedsheets I use.
There is always a dispute over which winter corrosion protection is best, but they all work if you use them correctly. With FS365, the bike needs to be slathered in a fresh coating after its bath, but at least I know that none of the rock salt is stuck to the bike, as it is washed away with the old FS365.
Ten days later, winter had once again disappeared, leaving us with a long succession of grey days to wade through, hoping to see some sunshine.
Where Can I Find …
- Puig Visor 2.0 – Available from Pyramid Plastics
- SW-Motech Lights – Our Test Report
- FS365 – Available from Scotoiler Direct or SportsBikeShop
- Dunlop Mutants – More Information
- Suzuki V-Strom 800RE – Road Test
Biker’s Calendar
I have a theory that each day in January counts as three for a motorcyclist. Therefore, the 26th of January is, according to the biker’s calendar – actually the 78th of January.
Days in February count two for one, giving that month a total of 56 days, and March … well, March can go either way; one and a half or even two days per day have been known while also teasing us that normal time will soon return.
Given the relatively mild weather, I’ve taken the backroads home several times, highlighting the need for spotlights on the V-Strom 800RE. The standard headlight is good, but when there are no street lights, and I’m riding across the Lincolnshire Fens, “dark” gets redefined. It is black, especially when there is no moon light.
I don’t need to spend a small fortune on Denali lights; I just need something to widen the beams, light up the road edges, and give the headlight a bit of a boost. The SW-Motech lights I fitted to the Tracer 9GT are somewhere in the garage. They were good.
Other News
In other news … well, there hasn’t been much. The Dunlop Mutants are proving themselves the tyres to be on. When testing the Puig Visor (the Flip), I had much more confidence in the tyres than the Editor riding on OEM Metzlers.
The V-Strom is a delight to ride in traffic and easy to filter on. I’ve returned to the standard screen with the Puig Flip Visor fitted. I still prefer the aesthetics of the Puig Touring screen, but the V-Strom goes back to Suzuki in a few weeks, and I need to put it back to factory standard before then.
The forecast for next week isn’t the best, but at least the temperature will stay a couple of degrees above zero, even at night.
Summer is coming, and with luck, there will be at least two Euro tours and a loop of Scotland in early May.
To be continued …
