Riding

[Kev L]

Afternoon all,
How are you enjoying the weather? Has it been as bright and sunny as it has in the south east for the past week in the rest of the country?
I had a buckle repaired on my Baglux tank cover, so I’ve been able to use the bike to get to work and carry the computer and other crap with me. It’s amazing how quickly your battery gets recharged with a couple of days of good weather.

On the subject of the tank cover, the plastic buckle broke a few months ago, end of last season. I bought a replacement with a length of strap attached and took it to my local, good old fashioned, shoe repairers (cobblers I hear you shout, but no, it’s true!). He wrote me a little green ticket, quoting 2 days for the repair to be completed and with the number 3 written on it. Now I took that to mean I was the third customer of that day, however when I picked the cover up he asked me for £3. The guy had opened up the seams, cut the strap to length, sewed through all four layers of material and made a very nice job of it. I gave him a tenner and thanked him. Blinding service. If anyone is local to Ware it’s the cobbler in Amwell End.

Over the winter I have fitted a nice Ohlins shock to the rear of my old beast, having had a weight rated spring fitted, and thus far it feels very nice indeed. I also stripped the front forks and replaced the seals, bushings, stanchions, oil and repaired the compression rebound screw. Front feels much nicer (this may be in my head, but it pleases me!)

The bikes running lovely and I can’t imagine ever letting her go

[MacV2]

Been for a few spins latley, mainly just local. On The Murvinator.

I'm stil not fully into this flat bar malarkey, just don't feel right. Spose I need a few longer rides to really gel with it...

However Nue Red will be back on the road come April, post winter hibernation & off SORN, so swapping between the two will probaley sort me head out one way or the other...

[tony.mon]

Lucky buggers!
Four weeks ago I had the bright idea of doing the first major service on the Tuono v4. I needed to buy several special tools, but figured that instead of spending 7 to 800 pounds paying someone to service it, if I spent the same amount on parts and special tools, next time, I'd only have to buy the parts.
So I pulled it apart and worked out how it went together, it's a fair bit more complicated than a storm or SP2, but hey, every day's a school day.
I took my time, all four cams needed to come out for valve clearance re shimming, but I got that done and started to button it up.

There's a fairly active forum, not as good as this, but better than most, and one of the guys posted a long "how-to", which I followed. He explained carefully how to remove the throttle bodies, which are held on with oetiker clamps you can barely see, let alone reach. A few pages later, he explained that you don't really need to take the throttle bodies off...bugger.

The oetiker clips are called "impossible clips" in the forum.
And so it proved.

A few weekends later I'm still trying to get them back on, but I now have a plan ( and have bought some parts and more special tools), so hopefully this weekend it'll be back on the road.
Weather is taking a turn for the worse, after this weekend it's back to the seasonal norm, they say.
So how was the spring for riding?

[Kev L]

Spring! I think that’s the summer mate!!!!

[sirch345]

Afternoon all,
How are you enjoying the weather? Has it been as bright and sunny as it has in the south east for the past week in the rest of the country?
I had a buckle repaired on my Baglux tank cover, so I’ve been able to use the bike to get to work and carry the computer and other crap with me. It’s amazing how quickly your battery gets recharged with a couple of days of good weather.

On the subject of the tank cover, the plastic buckle broke a few months ago, end of last season. I bought a replacement with a length of strap attached and took it to my local, good old fashioned, shoe repairers (cobblers I hear you shout, but no, it’s true!). He wrote me a little green ticket, quoting 2 days for the repair to be completed and with the number 3 written on it. Now I took that to mean I was the third customer of that day, however when I picked the cover up he asked me for £3. The guy had opened up the seams, cut the strap to length, sewed through all four layers of material and made a very nice job of it. I gave him a tenner and thanked him. Blinding service. If anyone is local to Ware it’s the cobbler in Amwell End.

Over the winter I have fitted a nice Ohlins shock to the rear of my old beast, having had a weight rated spring fitted, and thus far it feels very nice indeed. I also stripped the front forks and replaced the seals, bushings, stanchions, oil and repaired the compression rebound screw. Front feels much nicer (this may be in my head, but it pleases me!)

The bikes running lovely and I can’t imagine ever letting her go

The weather has been amazing here also, although we have had an Easterly wind which has spoiled it on some days. Yesterday and today were the best so far

Always good to hear of a good service Kev. It's a job to find genuine and conscientious people now when you need some work carried out. They seem to be few and far between. Your guy sounds like old school, good on him

Chris.

[sirch345]

Been for a few spins latley, mainly just local. On The Murvinator.

I'm stil not fully into this flat bar malarkey, just don't feel right. Spose I need a few longer rides to really gel with it...

However Nue Red will be back on the road come April, post winter hibernation & off SORN, so swapping between the two will probaley sort me head out one way or the other...

It will be interesting to see Mac what your opinion is when you have Nue Red back on the road with the clip-on bars

Chris.

[sirch345]

Lucky buggers!
Four weeks ago I had the bright idea of doing the first major service on the Tuono v4. I needed to buy several special tools, but figured that instead of spending 7 to 800 pounds paying someone to service it, if I spent the same amount on parts and special tools, next time, I'd only have to buy the parts.
So I pulled it apart and worked out how it went together, it's a fair bit more complicated than a storm or SP2, but hey, every day's a school day.
I took my time, all four cams needed to come out for valve clearance re shimming, but I got that done and started to button it up.

There's a fairly active forum, not as good as this, but better than most, and one of the guys posted a long "how-to", which I followed. He explained carefully how to remove the throttle bodies, which are held on with oetiker clamps you can barely see, let alone reach. A few pages later, he explained that you don't really need to take the throttle bodies off...bugger.

The oetiker clips are called "impossible clips" in the forum.
And so it proved.

A few weekends later I'm still trying to get them back on, but I now have a plan ( and have bought some parts and more special tools), so hopefully this weekend it'll be back on the road.
Weather is taking a turn for the worse, after this weekend it's back to the seasonal norm, they say.
So how was the spring for riding?

Always the way Tony, bike off the road and the sun comes out. The good thing is at least you will know the job has been done properly

[fabiostar]

The weather here has been great... so tore into the bikes

dori..oil filter and oil...done

LC...airfilter, gearbox oil...done

sofauki....oil and filter...done...

easiest winter iv had in years

its 7.15 atm ,its saturday and im off to do the west coast of Ireland...have a nice day lads

[MacV2]

''A few pages later, he explained that you don't really need to take the throttle bodies off...bugger.''

Which is why you should have read it all the way through before starting...

Still bit late for that now, good luck with getting it sorted...

[AMCQ46]

Although I had treated the big KTM to an anti rust treatment in the anticipation of taking it out on any dry days in Jan / Feb like last year, But this year it never happened. So last night was the first time out on the roads after getting a few trials competitions in as my biking fix...... Feck that KTM is a big old girl, especially compared to a trials bike

Only out for an hour and had to contend with the low sun, the rush hour traffic and then it getting colder when the sun started to disappear, but like Kev said, it was very refreshing and cleared my head

Had one big backend slide when giving it a handful of gas when lent over to go round the outside of a car on the exit from a traffic island Was so bad I thought I either had a flat or oil on the side of the tyre, but it wasn't either of those, so the road must have been really dirty out there on that outer edge.
Was a good reminder to get the hours in to build up the skills again after hibernation



Have fun on the coast road rob.

[KermitLeFrog]

Tony, I had my second valve check on the V4 done a little early over the Winter as the extended warantee ran out in March this year. Dealer charged £400 all in which considering the aggro involved seemed a good price. All the valves (@20,000 miles) were the same (and in spec) as the first check. Happy with that. I had the Ohlins forks and shock rebuilt as well (£250) which made a difference. I just do the brake pads, tyres and oil and filters (every 3500 miles) myself as I'm getting old and lazy. Getting a few rides in so far this year and that "oh my God" feeling hasn't gone away yet.

[tony.mon]

Tony, I had my second valve check on the V4 done a little early over the Winter as the extended warantee ran out in March this year. Dealer charged £400 all in which considering the aggro involved seemed a good price. All the valves (@20,000 miles) were the same (and in spec) as the first check. Happy with that. I had the Ohlins forks and shock rebuilt as well (£250) which made a difference. I just do the brake pads, tyres and oil and filters (every 3500 miles) myself as I'm getting old and lazy. Getting a few rides in so far this year and that "oh my God" feeling hasn't gone away yet.

Given the work involved and the special tools needed that's not too bad. I just can't bring myself to trust anyone else putting spanners on my bike as yet.