As these sorts of things vanish from manufacturers’ websites and YouTube from time to time, I thought I’d convert and upload the official Johnny Herbert road/track test video:
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Author: Richard
RBLR1000
[Continued from my ZRX1200R Blog]
Friday
As the ZRX1200R wasn’t running properly after its full service at Robspeed, I made the decision to use the Fireblade for the RBLR1000: 1,000 miles in 24 hours with proceeds going to the Poppy Appeal.
A last minute check of the Blade showed that another fairing bolt had gone missing and also that the satnav wiring I’d put in for the TomTom Rider was hard-wired into the ZRX rather than separately attached to the battery. So I also needed to get some electrical connectors and cut the wiring on the ZRX.
After those small wrinkles, I fitted the TomTom and loaded myself up before heading off to Squires for log-in. Paperwork and briefing over, it was back to the hotel for a pint and to watch England’s dismal performance against Algeria in the World Cup and then off for an early night.
Sharing with The Invisible Man
Sunset at the Hotel
Saturday
The alarm went off at 4.30am so I got up, had a coffee and a shower and watched the TV weather forecast: showers, Northerly winds, gale force at times but clearing from the West. Bugger!
I grabbed the packed lunch I’d ordered from the hotel and headed over to Squires to get myself signed off for the 5.30am start.
1020 miles to go...
I had chosen the North Anti-Clockwise route: Squires to Berwick-upon-Tweed to Edinburgh to Wick (18 miles short of John O’Groats) to Fort William to Birch Services (Manchester) and then back to Squires.
My first fuel stop was at Gateshead at 6.44am. Quite cold but making good progress. The sky was very overcast…
On to Berwick by 7.41am. It was very windy and there had been a fair degree of drizzle, so I donned my race rainsuit (aka “the Gimp Suit”) and we set off again. I say “we” because by now, one of my friends from the ZRX Owners Club, Ralph, and I were riding together.
A coffee and the infamous Gimp Suit
It was at this stop that I noticed that there was brake fluid leaking from one of the front brake hoses supplied and fitted by Robspeed. Not particularly good news as I was facing another 800 miles through the Highlands on a 180mph sportsbike with potentially no brakes…
We pressed on to the Dreghorn Link, Edinburgh (“Foghorn Dreghorn”) by 8.53am for more coffee and for me to buy some brake fluid to top up the brake reservoir. Grim and Viper turned up too whilst we were taking a break.
Our next stop was a quick detour off the A9 in the Highlands for petrol, coffee and a hot pie at 10.33am in Dalwhinnie. The ride had been cold and wet at times, but it was now brightening up considerably:
Checking the SatNav
Knowing we had a long next leg up to Wick, our next fuel and coffee stop was at Dornoch, in Sutherland, north of the Glenmorangie Distillery at 12.16pm.
On then to Tesco at Wick for a sandwich and fuel at 1.31pm. This was our most northerly checkpoint and marked our halfway point, more or less. We bumped into Yid, Grim, Viper and John (the one-armed rider I know from my trackdays).
Chatting to Viper at Wick
Then we headed off back down to Inverness in bright sunshine but still very windy. A terrific road too with lots of fast, sweeping bends. It was at this point that I began to resent having a deadline to achieve as I’d have loved to stop for photos of the stunning scenery. Maybe next time…
It had warmed up too so at Inverness at 3.39pm Ralph grabbed a Cornetto. I made do with a Double Decker and a coffee! We were looking forward to the next section: the blast along the lochs including Loch Ness from Inverness down to Fort William.
Loads and loads of fun on the road saw us safely to a beautiful and warm Fort William at 5.09pm despite not being able to rely on working front brakes:
Bikes at Fort William
Blade and Ben Nevis
We knew that the next section of the journey – the road past Glencoe and Loch Lomond from Fort William down to Glasgow – was going to be breathtaking and it didn’t let us down. Lots of wide open roads, twists, turns, ascents and descents. It was on the motorways around Glasgow that Ralph and I were separated thanks to his Garmin and my TomTom suggesting different routes, but we met up again at Bothwell Services on the M74 at 7.28pm.
We then rode on with our bikes casting ever longer shadows down to Southwaite Services on the M6 between Carlisle and Penrith by 8.53pm. By now it was starting to hurt a bit so a couple of Ibuprofen with the coffees helped. A change too from black visors to clear ones as we knew dusk was approaching.
So on to our last checkpoint: Birch Services Eastbound on the M62 which we reached by 10.20pm. More fuel, coffee and visor cleaning to clear the midges away:
They were clear 100 miles ago
And then on for a quick blast from there to Squires and a warm welcome when we rolled in at 11.09pm, the fourth and fifth riders ‘home’. Just as well the welcome was warm, because temperatures had plummeted!
Well over 1,000 miles in 17.5 hours. I got my fuel log checked, filled in the paperwork to submit all my receipts and the like for the Iron Butt Association membership and then had a laugh and joke with the people who’d applauded our return.
Sadly Squires had shut up for the night, so no hot tea and hot dogs but fortunately one of the organising team made me a warm cup of tea on their stove which helped enormously. We saw Viper back in around midnight before I set off for one more fuel stop en route back to home near Cleethorpes by 12.45am.
Same again next year? In the meantime, my JustGiving page is still taking donations until 20 September 2010…
RBLR1000
I was signed up to do the RBLR1000 – 1,000 miles in 24 hours for charity with proceeds going to the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal.
So I had the bike serviced at Robspeed: a full service with shim check, etc. and a new chain and front sprocket which left me with a little change from £500.
But on the way home it started spluttering a bit. I assumed that some fresh petrol would help, so I topped it up and then took it out for a shakedown run on Thursday. Fine wide full open but running rough as a dog’s bottom at low revs or tickover.
I daren’t use the bike for 1,000 miles in the Highlands, so I had to quickly fettle the Fireblade to have the satnav working and the like. And so I abandoned Blue Rex for the Blade for Scotland. Read on…
Got It!
I picked the Fireblade up this morning from Robspeed in Grimsby. They’d done the changes: fitting braided hoses, Diablo Supercorsa tyres, a tailtidy, R&G crash mushrooms and some bespoke silver graphics with CBR and fireblade logos as cut-outs. The graphics look great: judge for yourself from the cameraphone shots.
The bike is indecently capable and indecently quick. The handling is impeccable so far as well. Oh and I look like a complete n00b thanks to huge chicken strips – new tyres front and rear – and new leathers and knee sliders!
Broadband Speeds
So much for “Digital Britain” and advertised speeds of “up to 20Mb”.
I live in London, so not exactly rural or out of the way, and my telephone line is a BT line. BT suggest – via their website – that I can get up to 2Mb download speeds but nothing greater than that. And of course the actual truth, as confirmed to me today by my present broadband providers, O2, is that:
“We’ve estimated that your maximum download speed is 0.5 meg. This is based on information BT gave us about your BT line. The reason why you can’t get better speed is because of the distance between your home and your local exchange which is about 5930 meters.
So, there’s nothing that we can do in this instance. At the best you can realistically hope for speed up to 1Mb download speed. Therefore, we’re unable to provide you with better speed.”
Great, eh?
Santander Again
Jeez! These people are really, really hard work.
I received a letter from Santander at the weekend telling me that my loan account is in arrears. That was news to me, given that as far as I am aware I only have two savings accounts with them (brought over from Bradford & Bingley).
So I rang them this morning as the letter suggests I should, quoting the account number on the letter and giving them details of my name, address and date of birth. So far so good.
I asked them about this alleged loan account and was told it was a Cahoot one. Now as far as I am aware, this was paid off a year or two ago and I even had a letter from them telling me they were taking my final payment by direct debit.
Now in order for Santander to continue the conversation – so I was told – they now needed me to tell them what my monthly payment was. I have no idea: this was a year or two ago and I only get online bank statements that go back six months or a year or whatever with limited details, so there’s no way I have that information. Fail.
They asked me when the loan was taken out. I have no idea! It was years ago and I moved out two years ago and binned most paperwork as I had nowhere to store the masses of papers I’d built up over the years. Fail.
In that case, they said, they wouldn’t continue the call. If I wanted to talk to them, I would need to write and ask them for the details. So let’s get this right: if I write them a letter with the same details I’d given them over the phone, they’d send me all the details I needed which they wouldn’t give me over the telephone! Shurely shome mishtake?
“No,” I said, “if you’re claiming there are some arrears, you need to send me the details of how and why they arose and how they’re calculated.”
Wunch of bankers!
The Trouble with the iPhone 4…
So Apple’s new iPhone 4 was announced yesterday and no doubt all the Apple fanbois will soon be getting their sweaty mitts on them. I mustard mitt that I watched the video late last night and started to give getting one some serious thought.
Looking at the tech specs, it’s lighter, thinner and shorter than my present Nokia N97 but wider. So a guarded thumbs up there. It’s heavier, taller and wider but thinner than my current choice for upgrade, BlackBerry’s Pearl 3G/9105, so the scales tip away again. And of course it’s a touchscreen with all that goes with that in terms of minor irritations.
The first couple of minutes of the promo video focus on the video calling capability of the iPhone 4, but then this does depend upon both the caller and the recipient having iPhone 4s and being set up and using WiFi. The guy in the hotel room is clearly luckier or wealthier than me, because I almost always find hotel WiFi hit and miss and hideously expensive. And of course this is nothing that an average laptop user can’t accomplish with a cellular, wired or wireless connection and Windows Live Messenger, Skype or whathaveyou. So the main feature is nice, but expensive.
Multi-tasking makes it to the iPhone 4, something that both the Nokia and the BlackBerry have been doing for yonks.
So it looks like the choice is probably still going to be the BlackBerry, but we’ll see.
How a Rotary Engine Works
Andrew Appleton Photoshoot
Here’s the second shot from the “Top Gear” themed element, me with my R3 and Janey with her 40th Anniversary:
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